You can probably see why I wanted to post this

You can probably see why I wanted to post this today, being the cat lover that I am. Sometimes, I do feel this way about Socks, though. ;-)

KEEPING IT COOLThank goodness for warmer weather,

KEEPING IT COOL

Thank goodness for warmer weather, comparatively speaking, as I have been able to keep the heat way down even during the day. This morning it was under 60 when I left to run my errands; when I got home and felt how cool it was, I turned it up to about 63. I hope my housekeeper Norma didn't freeze while she was here but I imagine she gets pretty warmed up, cleaning! I changed from my heavy cotton top to a sweatshirt after I had unloaded the groceries and I will put a throw over me while I nap in a little while. I am all about conserving fuel!

Speaking of that, I checked the propane tank and it's down to 40% full. I am going to attempt to use great care in not keeping the house too warm unless I should have company, as I don't want to use a lot of propane. (At my business, we aren't using the propane compaany's budget plan and my bookkeeper and nephew, Nick, said that the propane fill-up for the last two months was more than for all of last year combined!)

I truly feel helpless and in some despair when I see the oil company prices hiked up again and again. The other morning, early in the morning, I happened to be somewhat awake and I had the idea of a class action suit against the oil companies, who are raking in record profits. Of course, in the light of day, it didn't seem feasible but I liked the idea as long as I was able to entertain it in my fuzzy brain. LOL!

*****

I do have very good news this morning. My blood pressure was way down! It may have helped that my nurse sister Kathy suggested deep breathing for a minute before I had the blood pressure taken, and my nurse friend Sheila suggested thinking of something funny while on the way. I wasn't able to come up with the funny thought but I did breathe deeply while waiting for the nurse to switch on the blood pressure machine. I can't remember whether the higher number is the systolic or diastolic but it was much better at 112 this morning. (It was 175 last Wednesday.) I can't recall what the lower numbers were. This morning's nurse said, "That's more like it!" and asked me if I had been in a lot of pain the week before. I said I had been and also that my mail had been stolen the day before so I was stressed about that. I came home and threw the high blood pressure literature that Kaiser had sent to me yesterday into the recycling bag. LOL!

*****

Blogger/Google seems to be having some difficulties this morning and I don't know if this will load. I couldn't get the Ziggy to come up. I will try later or maybe post two tomorrow. I won't be posting quite as many for the next while and I will run out in a week or so, since my friend Lynne is on vacation.

*****

I have taken 1/2 a Vicodin and I'm still starting to get sleepy. I am going to be keeping that dosage for a couple of days -- as long as my arm is very sore at all. Last night my hand was very painful and I had to wonder what was going on with it. It seems okay today, though, so I am not going to turn into a hypochondriac as far as what could be wrong when it hurts. It's time to go let Silver know I'm ready for him to nap on my lap.

4 THINGS I LOVEI was just over at my niece, Mrs. Darling's

4 THINGS I LOVE

I was just over at my niece, Mrs. Darling's blog, and saw this meme. She didn't tag anyone in particular but said that anyone who wished to do so could consider themselves tagged by her. I have done something similar to this via e-mail, but I don't know if I have blogged it. Since my preferences seem to change over time, it's possible that my answers are different now, anyway, so I'm re-doing the exercise.

4 Jobs I've Had

President of custom cardboard box manufacturing company
Text processor for regional insurance company claims department
Product demonstrator and salesperson for food dehydrator manufacturing company
Secretary-receptionist at bank headquarters

4 Books I Love (Besides the Bible)

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and subsequent books by Alexander McCall Smith
Dreams From my Father by Barack Obama
The Shack by William P. Young
Understanding Your Grief book and journal by Alan D. Wolfelt

4 Favorite Foods

Roast turkey
Mashed potatoes
Pumpkin pie
Chocolate cake

4 Random Things

Body Shop Candied Citrus bath products
Pictures of my children and grandchildren
My cats
Remembrance figurine in memory of my mother for Mother's Day

I am also not going to tag anyone, but if you would like to do this meme, just let me know so I can come and see what y'all love!

AM I CRUNCHY?I have

AM I CRUNCHY?

I have good friends, Alison and Greg, who are from England but live part of the time in Virginia, near Colonial Williamsburg. (Greg has commented here quite often.) Each have their own blog, and when I checked in on Alison's yesterday, she had a picture of a green bumper sticker with white lettering on it. (She gets amazing pictures of interesting and funny license plates and bumper stickers to post on her blog.) The bumper sticker said:

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Maggie L. Walker Governor's School"

I would provide a link to Alison's blog so that you could see the bumper sticker for yourself but she has set it up to be viewable only by friends and family.

At any rate, she wondered what it meant, and so did I. I checked it out on Google and found the saying in a number of different contexts -- mostly on other blogs -- but no where did I see it explained. Do you know what it means? If so, let us know!

*****

Today is a big day in U.S. politics, as the Indiana and North Carolina primaries are being held. I will definitely be watching the results tonight. Go Obama!

*****

Yesterday while I was on the computer in the afternoon, I suddenly heard the welcome sound of the lawn mower outside. I hadn't said anything to Jeff about the lawn needing mowing but he apparently knew that it was about time, and he spent a good while mowing it. When I wrote my e-mail to thank him, he said that he hadn't been able to do as much as he had wished to because the rain had made the grass quite wet and it hadn't dried out enough to cut well. That's not a problem as far as I'm concerned because it is great to have the grass short. (Which once again reminds me of my mother-in-law's saying that the two things she liked best were a haircut on a man and a freshly-mowed lawn.) I also enjoy the smell of fresh-cut grass.

*****

I just took a Vicodin so -- once again -- I expect to get drowsy in a little bit. I skipped mine this morning as I was driving to Costco and back. I am going to try to get by tomorrow morning without it again, as I will once again be driving, and then go for 1/2 of a Vicodin in the afternoon and probably keep it at 1/2 tabs for a couple of days. I don't want to get hooked on this pain killer, as has happened to other people.

I received information about high blood pressure this morning in the mail, from my HMO, Kaiser. I am hoping and praying that my blood pressure will be much lower tomorrow. One of the recommendations I noticed in the literature I received was to avoid salt, which I already knew was the case for someone with high blood pressure. Kind of weird about that, though, is the fact that I've had low sodium counts and they just have come up in this last batch of tests, according to my doctor last week.

*****

I watched most of the episodes of "Little People, Big World" that ran on the Learning Channel yesterday evening. For some reason, after I watched the part towards the end of the last one shown, where Amy suggests to Matt that maybe they should separate, I came upstairs and didn't watch the last of it, so I don't know what happened. I guess I'll have to catch the following episode next week to find out, unless some kind-hearted soul who watched it can fill me in. It does appear that Matt got himself in a fix in doing a huge remodel of their house. I have to wonder how he managed to extricate himself from that -- IF he did!

Then I watched "Jon and Kate Plus 8". It's a cute family but I certainly wouldn't be able to handle having 8 children! At least, Jon doesn't seem to be rolling his eyes over some of the things Kate says when they are being interviewed now. LOL!

VOTING

VOTING TIME IS HERE

Despite the fact that the May 5, 2008 Time Magazine, with its split picture of Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's face halves -- like a schizophrenic Democrat -- has been on my office desk and bugging me for the last week, I am as of today faced with a decision coming up shortly as to which Republicans to vote for in the Oregon Primary. This is because I received my Republican mail-in ballot today. (I could have changed my party affiliation to Democrat but I didn't know how to go about it so put it off until it was too late.)

I pulled out the ballot and looked at it briefly, shaking my head before putting it back in the envelope. For President, I have the choice between John McCain and Ron Paul. There is space to write in someone else's name. I wonder what would happen if I wrote in Barack Obama's? LOL!

As for the Senatorial candidate, I have the choice of Gordon Smith -- a Mormon, but one who I feel has done a good job in the Senate and who I voted for initially because I believed he was the best man for the job. Those who have read my blog regularly know my reservations when it comes to Mormons holding office due to some of their beliefs and primary allegiances. Most of these concerns for the most part surfaced in my mind after Mitt Romney ran for President. I see no reason why they should apply to Gordon Smith, however. It is a different situation and an entirely different person. Besides, his opponent is totally unknown to me.

Then there is the congressional race. The two men that I know anything about in that contest (there are three running) are Mike Erickson and Kevin Mannix, and I haven't been impressed with either one over the last years, when both have run for office and lost. From what I can see in Mike Erickson's ads, I don't believe he has a real positive presence. Kevin Mannix hasn't been running any ads yet. I suppose he will as May 20th draws hear.

I'm really too tired to deal with voting for anyone today. The Vicodin had me out like a light before lunch, and I will need to take another one in about 45 minutes. I will be glad when my arm stops hurting without the pain killer, as I don't want to get hooked on it. (I am due to run a few errands in the next couple of days and I most likely will have to do without the pain killer during that time.)

What's weird about my arm is that there is pain radiating from my upper arm -- the site of the injury -- to my previously broken right elbow to then tingle in my hand and fingers. I guess it's a very strange result of my injury.

*****

I love the cat cartoon above. I am getting lots of phone calls from the same numbers (one actually reads 0000000000) and I am sure that -- since no messages have been left -- they are political calls. To me, these are totally missable! ;-)

*****

I need to go on and make a pot of decaf and eat a piece of whole grain bread. My eating habits have jelled enough to basically become good ones so that they are producing better fasting blood sugars than before. I continue to be mostly in the 130-140 range.

I had a note from the Physician's Assistant who is taking over for my doctor for now. (She said my doctor has had knee surgery.) She wants me to come in for return bloodwork in 2 months. Hopefully, I will have continued to have good results by then. Plus there is the arrival of my diabetic cookbook, expected sometime in the next week or so. I am pinning a lot of high hopes on that, too.

ALL THE PRETTY HORSESI'm not sure what was

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

I'm not sure what was going through my mind when I put this movie in my Blockbuster Online queue, because I usually am not that crazy about Westerns. Perhaps the fact that it starred Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz had something to do with it. Also that it was directed by Billy Bob Thornton. By the time it got to the top of my queue and had arrived here for viewing, I had forgotten what had appealed to me in its description.

As I started watching it, however, I saw that it was based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. I little light bulb went on in my head -- an "aha" moment -- as I remembered that I had read some books longer ago by McCarthy. As to whether this was one of them, I wasn't sure, and I became even less sure as the movie progressed. If I did, it was long enough ago that the plot didn't seem overly familiar to me.

The movie also stars Henry Thomas as Matt Damon's character's buddy. It is set in 1949, beginning with the two main characters' riding on horseback into Mexico with a young man called Blevins who they reluctantly allow to accompany them for a while, even though they feel he could mean trouble due to the expensive horse he is riding and about which he mostly evades questioning.

The remainder of the movie mainly takes place in Mexico, and involves the adventures of Damon's and Thomas's characters, both in love (via Damon and Cruz) and in a brutal prison. The movie came out in 2000, so it is interesting to see a younger Matt Damon at work.

The movie was rated PG13 and it earned that rating. However, I enjoyed it and I would recommend it for most adults and older teens.

*****

Socks has gotten so that she seems to think my nap-time is her cue to romp through the house and wreak havoc in my bedroom. She may be about 2 years old, as far as I can tell, but she still acts like a kitten at times. Here is a picture of her that I caught a week or two ago, attacking one of the dining room chairs.



*****

My arm seems to be a lot better today. There are still long achy twinges radiating from the injured area, but that is mostly when I am relaxing, such as when I tried to nap earlier. I'm unclear as to whether I slept or not! I took another Vicodin a little bit ago so another nap may be in store. I should be able to cut down on the Vicodin soon -- I don't want to get hooked on it.

ENOUGH OATMEAL?At some point a number of

ENOUGH OATMEAL?

At some point a number of months ago (is that vague enough for you?) ;-), I began to get hungry for oatmeal made from old-fashioned rolled oats as an afternoon snack. I cooked it in the microwave and added Equal and 1% milk.



Not long after that, I noticed the above very large box of Quaker old-fashioned oats at Costco and I bought it. (No, this box wasn't what I messed up my deltoid lifting, although it was fairly heavy.) As you can see by the size of the bag I have been scooping the oats out of, I have made a good dent into the contents of the box.

I laughed at myself for buying such a large box, thinking that it surely must be a long-lasting supply of oatmeal. However, I am going down on it faster than I expected.

I feel good about eating it, as I believe that oatmeal is one of the most healthy foods a person can eat. There is some debate about the Equal, but I don't believe I eat enough of that to cause any damage to my body, and it makes the oatmeal edible for me, whereas otherwise I wouldn't be able to stomach it. The same with the 1% milk.

When I eat oatmeal, too, I am reminded of my late husband Steve, who while he was suffering from his chronic lymphocytic leukemia, ate large quantities of oatmeal. We would go into restaurants for breakfast or even for lunch (mostly during our days out at Astoria, Oregon) and he would order plain oatmeal with raisins. He would look at me reproachfully when I ate mine with brown sugar and milk, as he didn't think I was supporting him enough when I didn't eat what he thought was helpful to him to eat, but I couldn't stomach the oatmeal the way he ordered it. Still, he lost about 80 pounds eating that way, and probably prolonged his life. (His doctor told him, "Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it.")

I believe oatmeal is just as beneficial for a diabetic like myself. It may be partly responsible for the lowered blood sugars of the last couple of days. (Today's fasting level was 140 -- up a little from yesterday but still not anywhere near the 210 that it was running a few months ago.)

I will see if the diabetic cookbook I have on order has anything about oatmeal. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the dishes in it. I borrowed the idea from my friend Carly and it will be fun comparing notes and created meals with her once mine arrives! Lower numbers, here I come!

*****

I finally read in my instructions from Wednesday that I should be putting an ice pack on my sore upper arm. I did so last night and today, and it has helped.

I also have plenty of my dishes down on the counter top, as putting them away up high is impossible right now.

Those are all the completed thoughts that I have ready to blog about today. I suspect a Vicodin fog is approaching again. I'm glad I don't need to drive anywhere. (I have already brought in the mail here and at my business and then driven to town to mail personal bills that came today, plus a couple of Mother's Day cards.)