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Grandpa’s hairy ears and the priviledge of cutting his hair. July 12, 2009

Posted by irisia in musings.
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Vacation was incredible. GM n GP were in such good spirits and good health. They’re 87 and 89 and I couldn’t help but just watch them in awe throughout the entire week. But I must admit that while GM has always gotten all the attention, I paid a lot more attention to GP on this visit. Grandma’s and Grandpa’s relationship is very much like mine and Howard’s. GM is the effervescent, loving, hosting, hugging – basically the one who makes a lot of noise. GP is the silent leader. That’s the best way to describe it. He has just as much love, is equally as great a host, doesn’t offer hugs but loves to receive them, and just loves with a lot less noise, if you will. I guess the more I grow up, the more I appreciate the wisdom and beauty in silent leadership. Being one whose style is more like my GM’s, I do the inviting, the cooking, ask everyone 10 times if they’ve had enough food, plan the next party, etc. Howard is always there, always very present, and always very quiet.

A couple years ago, I started listening to my Dad talk about my grandfather’s silent wisdom. Dad said that if he had a problem, he would sit down to talk to GP. Grandpa’s style, though not using those questions that a counselor uses, would encourage you to just keep talking – basically until you answered your own question. The bottom line is that we’re only going to act on our problems or feel the contentment we’re seeking after we agree with whatever the solution or resolution is. In leading by listening, the best teacher helps us teach ourselves.

So this trip, I really sat back and watched Grandpa. He was attentive at literally every moment to Grandma. If she would go out in the garage and stay there for about 10 minutes, he would get up and walk toward the garage. I’d ask him where he was going and he would say to check on Grandma. If she was in the kitchen doing the dishes, he’d go in and pick up a towel. If she was cooking, he’d go in and set the table. He didn’t follow her around like a puppy dog. He just wanted to be with her and help her. They really were like two hearts beating as one. They work best as a unit.

One thing that was very interesting is I saw him dump out his entire cup of coffee. I noticed that he never orders coffee at a restaurant. He generally jumps up to take just a half a cup of coffee. When I saw him dump his entire cup of coffee out in the sink (sort of without gaining any attention), I wondered if he has really ever liked coffee at all. He knows that people generally will not make a cup of coffee just for themselves. And, grandma loves coffee. So, if he always joins her in coffee, then she won’t skip on coffee because she won’t want to make it just for her. It’s probably not true that he dislikes coffee but after watching closely for a few days, I wouldn’t be surprised.

So, he asked me to cut his hair around his ears. I was amazed because he’s not a touchy, touchy person. He never asks anyone to fix his tie or button his shirt or do anything where someone would touch him. This is really the first time I can ever remember. I was almost nervous. I didn’t want to mess this up. He wanted me to cut the hair just above his ears. But, when I started, I noticed that he had more hair growing out of his ears than around his ears. I felt such a strong urge to giggle. Then my next urge was to cut that hair. But, it was a priviledge to cut his hair so I just took care of the requested task at hand.

Michael Jackson Go Away. Little Children Want to Play July 11, 2009

Posted by irisia in lamentscha.
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ENOUGH! Mercy! Stop!

You know the song rain, rain go away… Well this morning I was so tired of all the Michael Jackson news that I started humming that song and I switched out rain with Michael Jackson. How fitting – the superstar – turned child molester, dies and turns back to hero. The last 100 times he was on the news before his death were because he was having young children in his bed. Just go away MJ.

Nuisance neighbors – I’m not sure if they’re over-protective or trying to stir it up June 19, 2009

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I have this neighbor. I’ll call her Lela. She and I used to be friends. We started this Thursday night girls thing together and had so much friend. We ended up having a steady group of great girls who would get together on Thursdays, watch Gray’s Anatomy, drink wine, talk about our kids and husbands, laugh and have a good time. Then, out of nowhere, Lela starts going weird on us and abruptly stops the Thursday night get-togethers which she had always wanted at her house. Then she starts doing this hot-cold thing where she was her normal self for a while and then she’d seemingly turn into her alternate personality which is angry, short and grudge-holding.

Over the past 2 years or so, my other friends and I have missed the old Lela and have been cautiously happy when she seemed to come back to the good Lela for a while. But we knew that history dictates she will turn back to her other self soon.

One of the sort of understandable but strange things is that she and her husband are so overprotective of their kids. No I can almost set the record on being over-protective but they put me to shame by a mile. I know that being over-protective can be a bad thing. I still tell Kate to look both ways before she crosses the street – and she’s 8. Periodically when Howard hears me do it, he will ask me if she remembers to wipe her butt if I don’t tell her.

But, a couple times Lela told us stories about things that happened to one of her kids like an argument with another 5-yr old and she would start crying! It was like she could feel their pain. While this empathy is a good quality, we have to put the pain that a 5-yr old feels when they are in an argument with another 5-yr old.

So, the other night, I was on the phone with my grandmother. I hear the cell phone ring but I don’t check it. Then my phone rings. I quickly look at the caller ID. It’s Lela. I realize that she’s the person that probably just called my cell phone a minute ago but I don’t think anything about it and keep talking to Grandma. Then she calls through again. I tell my grandmother I have to go because it must be an emergency. I answer the phone and she says “What HAPPENED”?!?!?!?! I know how dramatic she is so I say “huh”? She tells me that my son was swinging a rope and it hit her son. Now this does sound like it’s something that could happen. But, I’m not upset. I tell her I’ll go check it out and let her know. I go up the street. My son is there w/ 3 other boys. They don’t know I’m coming so they haven’t had time to check their stories or anything – as if this is such a BFD that Lela thinks it is. I ask them what happened. They say “Huh”? Either like mother like son and friends or this certainly isn’t such a BFD. I give them the context of her son, my son, rope… One of the boys says that my son was swinging a rope in the middle of the street. Her son was riding by on his bike on the sidewalk. He was watching my son, not paying attention, and brushed the pavers with his leg. Because Lela is making such a BFD, I ask the boys every which way if there is any chance that the rope could have come within even a foot of her son. They all say the rope was yards away and that her son was just watching and not paying attention.

So, I take my son and the other 3 boys down to tell Lela what happened. They tell her, of course she’s crying, she says that’s not what happened. I tell her all I can do is have the boys tell her what happened. She says her 2 boys say that’s not what happened. I say that’s all we can do and we leave.

Oh, BTW, while I was talking to my son and his friends, both of their parents – in sequence – came out of their houses asking “what happened”? Lela was on the warpath calling everyone down the street. So last night Lela’s husband calls one of the other parents and wants to have “a talk”. He’s on the way to take boy scouts to the store to prepare for a campout but generously goes down there for about 45 minutes to talk about this non-event. Don’t they realize that they’re hurting their relationships with their neighbors? After all, the bottom line was that there was no bruise, scrape, bump, mark or anything. Nothing really happened. I could pull my hair out. But perhaps that’s just what they want.

My favorite Twilight Book from a Mom’s point of view June 14, 2009

Posted by irisia in books, mom.
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I don’t know if me and my friends are typical of the mom generation getting to the Twilight series later than the teenagers. Perhaps the parents who had teens reading the books as they came out, read the books also at that time to make sure they were suitable. But now, all my friends are reading the books and of course loving them as much as the kids did. The love story is so timeless and so beautiful. It’s just very pure love. Edward’s family is so supportive which is another thing that really appeals to me as a married person. Howard’s family is great but I’m sure like most inlaws, I still stand on the other line of the “blood” fence. Everyone else in my home is a blood relative to his side of the family except for me. And some times, at the important times, this is painfully evident. It hurts. So in the Twilight series, the Cullens accept Bella into their family completely. There is only one reluctant family member but she is a sibling and not the parents. Their love for her is truly unconditional. They do everything for her that they would do for a real daughter. They move away, move back, risk their lives, change their lives, and more just for Bella.

So when I started reading the books, my friend who got me into the series went on and on and on about Eclipse saying it was her favorite. She was the one who encouraged me to keep reading New Moon even though Edward wasn’t in it most of the book. But Breaking Dawn is by miles my favorite book of the series. Perhaps it’s because they are married. Yea, I guess that’s what I like. Even though they are newlyweds, their love is so pure that it’s inspiring. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book a second time but I’m most of the way through reading this book again and it’s the longest one. Another thing I like is that often these stories get boring as the main characters get together or get married. Granted they are within the first couple months of marriage in this book. But, Stephenie Meyer starts to develop the other characters so well that the story just keeps getting better as we experience the love story not only between Bella and Edward but between Bella and her new Cullen family. This family relationship continues to grow in depth.

I do have to admit that the first time I read the book, I barely skimmed through the Jacob parts earlier in the book. Like, it was really interesting that Renesmee’s birth was from Jacob’s POV. But, I skimmed over everything werewolf. On the re-read, I read all the Jacob parts and they were good. I just couldn’t read them without already knowing the love story. They’re a good afterthought but during the process, they’re annoying. Perhaps when I watch the movie, they will make the Jacob character seem more lovable. I knew the author has to have a little yin and yang but nobody could come up against Edward and be a believable yang. But, this is another good part of Breaking Dawn. Because of the way the relationship dynamics change, Jacob is finally more part of the yin and his character inserted into the story is much less annoying.

Smarty Parents – The Zealous parents of smart kids – A chance meeting with a smarty mom extraordinaire. Hmmm. June 1, 2009

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This weekend did we ever meet a collection of smarty parents. Actually, I never really thought of these parents who are QUITE zealous about their kids education as smarty parents. But, this weekend I met the smarty mom extraordinaire. Help, I better spell check extraordinaire! Or, I could just have dinner at her house (tee hee). See below.

This weekend we went to for a middle school student tour. Kids are able to visit the school while still in middle school to see if they are interested in the school and to see what is required to get in so they can work on their “resume” over the next couple years to help with admission to the school. So, too funny that I ran into the smarty mom who shush’d me at the Battle of the Books (BOB) competition. At the competition, Matt had a bi on the round so he and I were watching the round for fun. I was telling Matt that even if the team couldn’t remember the passage in the book, they should listen to the context clues in the question. In that question, there was a question about characters eating plantains. There was only one book with Spanish characters in a Spanish setting – Cuba 15. So I whispered Cuba 15 out loud – apparently a little too loud. I was shush’d by the Mom in front of me. I noticed that on the Mom’s lap, there were multiple binders, chock full of schtuff. I also noticed that seemingly all the parents from that school’s team were at the competition. I also noticed that the parents from that school were fast and feverishly jotting down the questions. I guessed that they planned on being in the finals – or were just doing their job well.

Here is an interesting sociological observation: the number of parents attending seemed to decrease as the socioeconomic level of the school decreased.

So, anyway, smarty mom was quite a character. She noticed Matt from BOB. I knew her team did a great job in BOB. They did win, of course! Yes, I’m jealous. I mentioned that this past year, our team did not seem to have a plan for how to go about preparing for the competition. She said that her school was the same way before she got there. So she SINGLEHANDEDLY created a “methodology” for BOB competition preparation. All jealousy aside, I would like to help with that for Matt’s team next year if he joins. I mentioned that Matt was not planning on participating next year because all the good team members were in the 8th grade and they were graduating. I had told Matt that’s why he needed to step up – which is not in Matt’s shy style. But when SMARTy-mom said the same thing to Matt, he changed his tune. First point for smarty mom.

So then, the conversation weaved to how the grade scale for A’s, B’s, C’s, is different than when we were young. Ours used to be 90-100 was an A, 80 – 89 was a B, etc. So then she said “What is the range for a C? I wouldn’t know”. The kids were just about to answer and she repeated her smarty parent comment for emphasis. “We would not know the grade range for a C. What is it?”

She then went on to tell us about how she donated her PSAT books to her local library because HER son was SO over the PSAT’s. She was on to bigger and better things and she just had to get rid of those books.

So then, she (with great pride I might add) started talking about how she was reading the dictionary to her kids at the dinner table. I started to snicker internally until Howard looked at me with that look indicating that I should be the last person to comment. I often read the book of Greek and Latin roots to the kids at the table. But this is so different. I just have such great enthusiasm for Greek and Latin roots and seldom have a captive audience with all 3 kids like I do at the dinner table. So, the truth comes out. I’m not really annoyed by smarty mom. I’m jealous! I’m in competition with her. I started envisioning meeting her again at BOB and having so many binders that I need a hand-cart to carry them all. I would meet her again at the school for the discovery day with a Smarty-mom sweatshirt that I designed, had trademarked and had sold to Moms all over the world who wanted to be like me. I would not just read the Greek and Latin roots at the dinner table – I would make up study cards and hang them all over the dining room. I would even hang them from strings from the ceiling so as the fan blew, the kids would see endless possibilities of how these beautiful roots could come together to form amazing words. I would even create an audio tape of Greek and Latin roots and play it for them as they fell asleep.

I would even start SMA – smarty moms of America – and I would be the president. No, I would be the chairman of the board and would raise trillions of dollars and write books for preparation for all sorts of things like BOB methodology and preparing to get into the school. I would write a New York Times best seller about creating a road map for building your kids pre-college resume starting with the 7th grade. Smarty parents all over the world would clamor for my books. When I met her again, she would not just recognize my genius son, she would gasp at the good fortune to meet me in person. She would bow down in homage and try to butter me up so she could run for a place of my board of SMA.

I guess it takes one to know one. :)

It always amazes me what bad memories I provide for my kids May 27, 2009

Posted by irisia in mom, mom's lament, parenting concerns and frustrations.
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We will be hanging around, cleaning, playing games, talking about last summer – and all of the sudden the kids will bring up some seemingly terrible thing I did that apparently has haunted them. Matthew doesn’t ride his bike anymore. Apparently it is because I did something to cause him to fall on his bike and it was traumatizing. In truth, he’s just not a bike kind of kid, I think. So many times, they’ll say, “Mom do you remember when you made us…” or “Mom, do you remember when you wouldn’t let us…”. Obviously they remember so isn’t that enough?

When I was in college, our professor had a theory that the earliest, most traumatizing event of our lives was the formative experience that defines our issues as adults. Now, when he was telling us about this theory, he didn’t make this statement. He, instead, worked with us to think really hard to come up with the VERY first memory of our lives. If we mentioned one memory, he would ask how old we were when we had that memory. Then, he would say “you were 4 then, don’t you remember something from when you were 3?” He prodded and prodded. When we finally thought we had come up with our very earliest memory, he had us write it down so we didn’t forget or change it as he went through the earliest memories of the various people in the class. As he helped us evaluate those memories, he would say things like “you probably have a lot of arguments with your mother” or “you must have a lot of power struggles with your father”. He would base this on his earliest memory theory.

Well, I’m certain my earliest memory threw him for a loop. As a very young girl, I really wanted to pee standing up. So, I tried taking a used toilet paper roll and tried to make a chute out of it so I could then pee standing up. As you can imagine, the pee drizzled down my legs to the floor and I was very traumatized that for the rest of my life I would have to sit down to pee.

The professor was, um, ah, completely aghast, dumbfounded. I don’t think he was ready to break out studies about Freud yet.

I wish the kids would also tell me about all the great memories they have. Is it just human nature to pass over the good stuff and hold on to the negative stuff? Hmmm. I guess when I become thankful for having to sit down when peeing, my kids wills start sharing all of their positive memories. I guess it’s all about being thankful.

The outer limits of normal – this could be a great song title May 24, 2009

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So many times when we’re hanging out on weekends, the kids will say something and Howard and I will break out into a song that has that line as part of the lyrics. Good thing the kids don’t realize yet how much we are dating ourselves with the songs we sing. They just think we know more songs than they do.

But a few weeks ago, I had my blood sugar taken immediately upon waking and it was 78. The medical professional seemed very surprised that it was 78. I asked him why. He said it was low, “but on the outer limits of normal”. I thought that would make such a good title for a song. How many of us could be considered on the outer limits of normal either as an individual or in certain parts of our behavior? How many of our relationships could be considered on the outer limits of normal?

Here’s another cool one: “proclivity for darkness”. One time Howard and I were talking about somebody with a real dark streak to their personality. I don’t even remember who it was. I said the person had a “proclivity for darkness”. I just sort of made it up but it seemed like a fancy way to indicate their pull toward the dark side of things:). It’s still one of Howard’s favorite phrases. He brings it up all the time and it makes us giggle.

Here are some of his other favorites:
mindshare: I had a boss that used to use this phrase. For some reason the idea tickles him to death
“only those looking best deal” – one time when we sold our house, a visiting realtor left their b-card. It had a catchy tag line on it. We still bring it up when we’re bargain shopping.

I wish I could play by ear and read music. But I did write a requiem. May 15, 2009

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I’ve always enjoyed playing by ear. It’s such a great feeling to hear a simple melody and to sit down and play it. But, reading music would be great also. A loooong time ago, I took lessons as a kid. I learned this great, albeit small, repertoire of classical songs. That makes me feel like a real pianist. But my favorites have always been the version of Pachelbel Canon that I taught myself and some old church songs that I play by ear.

Over the last couple years, a couple songs have come along that I really want to play. I’ve bought a couple pieces of sheet music and searched the Internet to download a couple others. I think the song I’d like to play more than anything is Moonlight Sonata. I have that sheet music and just can’t read it. It’s so funny because I can print out lyrics to simple songs and play the song by reading the lyrics. Yet, I can’t read sheet music. It’s like it may as well be Greek.

I did write a song once. I would like to write another one but the auspices for writing the song are not those I would like to repeat. I went almost 33 years of my life and nobody in my family had ever died. I had never attended a funeral. No close friends had ever died. I knew this was a blessing but I also knew it would be very painful when somebody that I loved died. Then my Grandma Sally passed away. I was not close to her at all and probably saw her once every other year or less. She was a good person but had dependency problems which often caused visits to be very difficult. On top of that, I surmised that she would not remember the unpleasant visit. But, I still loved her.

She passed in her early 70’s. I felt great sadness and could not get myself to recognize that she was truly gone. I sat down at the piano to play my favorite songs. The piano is always the place I go to drown out anger or lose my sadness in the melodies of my old friends – those songs I play by ear. But, when I sat down, a song just poured out onto the piano. It was very much of a requiem. It was relatively short. But, as I began to realize that people I loved really did go to other places – some sort of places that I didn’t understand – I suddenly got in touch with the deep dark places of my heart, my soul. I had always heard the word “raw” by movie actors but never really knew what it meant until I felt it. I felt like all the flesh and blood of my body was exposed and there was nothing protecting me. I felt the pain of bleeding, like hemorrhaging. I felt like I had no protection from myself – from my own worst enemies – my fears and repressed thoughts and sadnesses.

We all say our childhoods are painful. In truth, I suspect we could all say our childhoods were idyllic if we didn’t have such good lives now. If we lived now in a war-torn country, or if we lost our parents early in life, or if we suffered great abuse or poverty at these stretches of our lives where we blame our parents, we probably would remember our childhood in a home wrapped in a white picket fence with beds of thorn-free roses instead of grass.

But, at that point in my life (just after the birth of my second child), I was feeling great sadness, and great anger, for the way that I was badgered by my parents as a kid. Mix that with good old fashioned Catholic guilt treatments and the middle-child, overly-sensitive thing, and I was a mess that could never express my feelings, always felt like I did something wrong, always took the blame for everything, and let everyone walk all over me.

All of this anger and frustration and sadness had built up over the course of 32 years. That mixed with a very healthy dose of post-partum depression made for a nasty cocktail for incredible sadness and the associated anger.

So I continued to write the song.

The next part of the requiem became the story of my life. I had, what I believed was, a sad childhood. Dark spot. Then I met my wonderful husband. Bright spot. Then I started to really get in touch my my repressed anger. Funny thing, through his love, I felt more in touch with my repressed anger. I guess he was a safe place to be. Then I had my children. Very bright spots. But life seemed like this dance between sadness and joy. And that’s how the song goes.

I love movie scores and this song does remind me of a score. One of the songs I’m trying to play now is from Carter Burwell’s Twilight score. It’s so amazing how these composers imagine their Bella and their Edward and these songs come to life for them – that the songs so well depict those feelings and people and events.

I hope someday my hands will create for me, a new song. Life is all just a process. All the parts have meaning and come in due time. It’s a good journey and I’m very blessed.

The diet soda nightmares. I swear diet soda ruined my blood sugar. May 6, 2009

Posted by irisia in health, mom.
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I remember my first diet soda. It was back in the late 80’s and it was TAB. I remember thinking how utterly terrible it was. I was at cheerleading practice and one of the cheerleader’s moms brought it. I remember thinking it was sort of glamorous and grown up to be drinking diet soda. Luckily they quickly introduced Diet Coke – or I quickly became introduced to it. It was so awesome to have something that tasted sweet, filled me up, and didn’t have any calories. The love affair with diet soda went on for the next 20 years and I’m still feeling separation anxiety after giving it up (pretty much completely) in Oct. ‘08.

I tried to quit so many times. I generally drank better than a 6-pack/day which to some people sounds like not that much and to others it sounds crazy. Here were the worst effects of the soda. The diet soda caused short-term memory loss. I would have days where my brain felt so fried with caffeine that I would have trouble remembering words in my vocabulary. I could see that when I cut down, or on the many times that I quit, that my memory was better.

The worst and most lasting effect was the toll it has taken on my body’s ability to manage blood sugar. I’ve done a little research and can find some information that suggests that the body reacts to fake sugar (artificial sweeteners) the same way it reacts to sugar. I began to have such incredible sugar crashes after having carbs and soda that I had to buy a sugar monitor. When I finally gave up soda, all of this went away. My body would still have this reaction if I had a tremendous amount of carbs – like going to 5 guys:) But, otherwise, giving up the diet soda probably prevented me from spiraling into a type 2 diabetes situation. It doesn’t intuitively make sense to me why diet soda would cause a sugar crash. I guess, perhaps, that it’s because of the diuretic effect. But I’ve also had days where I would have a lot of tea and I have not had this problem. It must be something specifically about diet soda.

Folic acid, diet soda, and other chemicals April 24, 2009

Posted by irisia in health, mom.
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About 6 months ago, I gave up diet soda. I had overindulged in diet soda for many, many years. I loved the carbonation. I loved the fact that I could drink something that tasted like sugar and it wasn’t fattening. I was addicted to it. I enjoyed drinking a soda as I drove. I enjoyed drinking a soda as I worked. I enjoyed drinking a diet soda as I watched television. But, I knew how bad it was for me. I thought about it every day. Then a couple things happened that finally made me want to change.

First and foremost, my brother came to acknowledge his addiction to alcohol. We had always known it but for some strange reason unless the behavior becomes truly reckless or unless they admit it, I think we all try to fool ourselves that it’s really not to that level where we need to label it the a word – “addiction”. But, a couple really bad reckless events happened in a very short period of time and he also landed in the hospital for the second time in as many months for pancreatitis. He could no longer fool us that the pancreatitis was the result of something other than chronic alcoholism. So, after a tremendous amount of prayer, tears, sadness, encouragement to him and yes – hope; I decided to give up diet soda. I realized that what I would go through would be what he would go through. How could I support him if I didn’t really understand what he was going through? How could I understand the daily trials if I did not bear my own cross? I wasn’t going to celebrate my success but I was going to share my struggles and when I fell off the caffeine wagon. I called him periodically to tell him things like “I was driving in the car today and really wanted a soda. It was not because I was thirsty or craved the taste. It was that my body wanted that motion.”. I would tell him how I understood that not only were our bodies thirsting, but even our muscles were aching for that familiar routine.

Anyway, that was October 22nd, 2008. I didn’t have a soda for a few months. Long story short, I still miss the fizz so periodically I will buy a big 20 and have about 2 sips here and there. The big 20 will last me a week. My family has been really good. They don’t harp on me although they do look at me funny every time I take a sip. I can only imagine how my brother feels.

But, here’s the great thing – my face totally changed. I did not realize how puffy and swelled up it was. But as I looked in the mirror, I could see the swelling disappear around my eyes. I could start to see some definition in the end of my nose. My cheeks began to show my cheekbones again. And, here’s a really good one. I had actually started to get the red porous nose that alcoholics have – and it started to go away. It’s almost gone.
jan-08-fat-face-web Here is a picture from before giving up soda. here is a picture now. steele-gravatar2.

Here’s another really interesting thing. I started to have sugar crashes all the time. I had started testing my blood sugar to see if what I was experienced was a true sugar crash and it was. It was always a couple hours after having carb foods with soda. My blood sugar would go down in the 70’s. I think the sweet taste of the soda was actually triggering in my body like real sugar would and it was overworking my pancreas making me more susceptible to pre-diabetes. After I stopped drinking soda – no more sugar crashes – none.

My memory has not been very good for about a year. It’s embarrassing how bad it is sometimes. It got so bad that I would make jokes about it to get myself out of a sticky situation where I was acting like an 80-yr old. I didn’t want to talk about it to my doctor because I was embarrassed. I finally asked him and he suggested Folic Acid. I tried it and it works GREAT. Also, my mood seems more buoyant.

Kick the diet soda, grab the folic acid!