Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

The labs are in, and the numbers are fantastic. Really, I couldn't have hoped for better. While I do sometimes mope about all that I have given up, especially pizza, when I see the positive results from having done so, the clouds part, the sun shines brightly, and I dance around the house with the dogs (which gets Sunny all riled up and he ends up peeing on the couch).  It took several years, but all of the numbers are in the green. The last time I had blood work done, my liver enzymes were elevated, and my cholesterol total was nearly 300. I asked my then-doctor what I needed to do to get my cholesterol under control. Her answer was nothing, that the numbers were fine (they weren't). She said the same thing about the liver enzymes (they weren't). What she should have said was, "Let's look at your diet." She didn't. She didn't do anything except suggest medication if I was worried about the numbers. That was the moment I said I'm done with her. I n...

Winter is saying, "Hold up! Hold up! I'm not done here." The cold returned over the weekend, with a biting wind blowing, and it is still hanging around. We've reached that point of wintertime where it's close to the end but still far enough away from the end to bring about frustration. Temperatures of 14 degrees with real feel of -5 because of the wind have gotten long in the tooth. I am more than ready for winter to ease up its onslaught.  Because of the cold, the desire to go outside has waned. Having to pile on clothes multiple times a day is now annoying. Instead of getting out for walks, I'm simply opening the door and letting the boys out into the fenced yard, but even they don't want to be outside for any length of time. The four of us have decided to hole up, napping through the rest of winter (I wish). Recently I had my annual physical. This has become a requirement by my health insurance company to ensure my premium doesn't go up. So I jumped...

I left my marriage nine years ago. While I agreed to see if we could work things out a couple of years ago, it became clear, for me, the marriage was over. I asked my husband to leave me alone, but true to his nature he continued to try and be a part of my life. He would text several times a day, trying to carry on a conversation. No matter how many times I asked him to stop, he wouldn't. I finally blocked him completely. His calls went straight to voicemail so I could delete them without having to listen to them. Being free from his noise was absolute bliss. The last year we've had very little contact, and over the last two months there has been no contact at all. I'm ready to call this marriage done, so I retained a lawyer and had the first meeting to learn what I'm facing. It's not pretty, but I'm ready to cut ties completely. I told my lawyer I would talk to my husband and ask him to sign the papers without fussing and dragging this out, but deep down I knew...

Today I am 43 days refined sugar free. I've not had processed sweets and very little fruit through these last six weeks. A couple of days ago, it dawned on me how good I've been feeling physically the last ten days or so. More energy. Less fatigue in the afternoons. Sleeping through the night and waking up feeling ready to actually get up. I feel no pull to eat candy, cookies, or other sweets. It's very much like when I stopped eating meat -- a few months into being vegan, I felt no desire to eat another steak or hamburger, sausage or hot dog. With the sweets, a very strong need filled me every day to have something. Being free from that feeling is amazing. When I sit and think about the last seven years, I have to shake my head at what I've stopped consuming. The first to go was soda. For years I was drinking a 16 oz bottle of soda each day. Along with the soda was a candy bar. It's a wonder my teeth didn't rot out of my mouth. It's also a wonder I didn...