This month’s list is long, many thoughts, few photos. Settle in, and enjoy!
Food
1.Intermittent fasting for three months did not work to remove me from the category of pre-diabetes. I am discouraged, disappointed, disgusted. Dis, dis, dis. Maybe it is time to accept the reality. I hear over and over that “EVERYONE” is prediabetic, but that does not reassure me. I pursue removal from that category just in case it is the cause of peripheral neuropathy, as the neurologist is so confident about this.
2. When I was with Mrs. Texas, she did something so funny that I want to share it with you. Whenever we were eating something really extra good, she held up her hands, palms out, and said in a commanding voice, “NO TALKING.” (She said when you talk, you can’t taste things as well.)
On one occasion we decided to get ice cream. We stood there awhile, deciphering and considering the flavors, and then Mrs. Texas pointed to the price for small size dish with a single scoop—$6.75. EXCUSE ME?? Nope. We left without ice cream.
Still wanting a treat, we went to Starbuck’s because I had such curiosity about pumpkin spice lattes. I ordered a 12 oz. requesting only 2 pumps of the glorious flavored substance instead of the normal 3 pumps (the employee explained it to me—I didn’t know this from experience). Holy guacamole—I had to take it back to the house and dilute it with black coffee because it made my teeth hum. HOLY GUACAMOLE — it was $6.25!
No wonder I don’t go out to eat much. (at all)
3. Serious Eats is an interesting website with tips and information about food—articles about letting meat rest, how to really clean your kitchen sponge, never cry while cutting onions. . . and that was just the first time I went exploring on the site. (Already forgot most of what I read.)
4. Some friends said they like to drizzle olive oil and then sprinkle a little salt on vanilla ice cream. At first it sounds like ice cream abuse, but they said it was delicious.
Someone seems obsessed by food in this month’s learning. Is this a result of intermittent fasting??
Work
5. Sold five pencil drawings and no oils. WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?? I learned that I don’t know what I am doing when it comes to reading my customer base or understanding my market.
Since I didn’t sell any oil paintings, I will stop painting just for the fun of painting any particular subjects. Instead, I will accept commissions and paint sequoia trees or other subjects that stores sell for me.
Fun to learn
6. I finally toured the Point Pinos Lighthouse. (It ought to be Piños, but no one bothers with the tilde.) I learned so much about that lighthouse and lighthouses in general.
General Wisdom
7. Wisdom about anger from This Evergreen Home:
The late theologian and pastor Tim Keller once wrote that anger is energy spent defending what you love.. . .The next time you experience a bout of anger, be thankful that your brain has given you such a useful barometer into the things that you love. Take the opportunity to reflect on what makes you angry and whether those things accurately reflect the values you claim to treasure most. If not, it may be that the culture you live in has shaped you more than you realize, and that your loves have become misaligned.”
8. Getting older means loss. In the last year, I have sold my tennis racquet and my canoe, and this week I gave away my cross country skis. Tryna be realistic about my shrinking abilities to do stuff. The combination of a wrist problem and a foot problem have squeezed my limited activities even further. Never a fan of any sportsball*, the few activities I participated in didn’t require a great deal of athleticism. In actuality, I hadn’t used any of my gear for a long time. It just took awhile to face and accept this, and then figure out what to do with my unused stuff.
Maybe I should just join Pippin in the window, observing the outside world.
9. Clearly I need to face truth about my health, activity, business, and age. This wisdom is from M. Scott Peck. (When people use a first initial, does this mean they wish to be addressed by that initial? If not, then why even put it there?)
Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled)
*team sports
13 Comments
I just wrote a post about being diagnosed with Diabetes. I’m trying to have a good attitude about it. But I know what you mean when you say aging means loss. Apparently that includes the loss of ability to process sugar effectively. And honestly, in my case, the ability to digest anything well! And the ability to sleep more than 5 hours a night!
Oh ugh. I hear you on all counts. Sigh.
1. As an official diabetic (according to my A1C levels the last 8ish years, although ‘they’ have lowered the target number since I was first diagnosed, so now it feels like I’ll never be in the ‘normal’ range again even though I’ve always had about the lowest A1C you can have and be diabetic–or even pre-diabetic), fasting is not something I can do. I have to eat certain amounts of carbs, fats, and proteins three times a day like clockwork or things get funky. The better I can adhere to this routine, the better my A1C comes in at when tested (originally every 3 months, but only every 6 months the last two years or so). I can’t eat ‘heavy’ one meal and then light the next; doesn’t work for my body.
4. As a person who puts salt on very few things, yuck, just yuck! Not sure I’d try the olive oil either.
8. *sigh* you’ve convinced me I must get off my butt and get myself new ski boots so I can use my cross country skis before it’s too late. I last used them in 1993, 8 months pregnant with my second child. With the next two pregnancies my feet grew and so when the kids got older and I did have the time to think about getting out my skis again, my boots were way too tight. I’ve been saying for about 10 years now I want to get new (bigger) boots and go skiing. The time is now!! I’m not getting any younger.
Kris, thank you for your comment. Bodies are so individual. The numbers keep changing in terms of what is what. It used to only be the fasting glucose number that mattered, and suddenly everyone started talking “Ay-one-see”. No such thing as “settled science”. Even 100 years ago no one knew what vitamins were, so who knows what will get figured out in the future.
I’m awfully curious about that ice cream combo but not enough to actually buy a carton of vanilla, because I would lose all control.
1993!! Wish I could send you my boots, but they are size 6. Useless for most normal people.
I have been on Ozempic for 6 weeks now and my blood sugar has lowered and I’ve lost 12lbs. I hope to be able to keep it up. I am blessed that my insurance pays for it.
Good to know, Kathy! I’m very leery about medicines, and since I am not diabetic, I doubt insurance would pay. Those pharma companies (insurance too) seem to care very little about prevention, only about getting people to depend on their stuff. (What?? Me, cynical??)
Because they make more money selling you meds that you have to take the rest of your life as opposed to something (without using meds) that will prevent the disease in the first place.
Love,
Your Fellow Cynic
#9 – “Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful.” I agree with that statement. The rest of the paragraph is way too rigid. At 68 years old and as a diabetic who struggles with her A1C because of a love of sweets and Dr. Pepper, I have come to believe that quality of life is more important to me than quantity. I want to enjoy what is left of my life without demanding constant discipline from myself. My “personal discomfort” is NOT relatively unimportant to me. I try to eat healthy and exercise, but don’t demand perfection from myself. I don’t know who this guy is, but he must not be a very happy person—there are too many “musts” in his statement.
Hi Marjie, M. Scott Peck has written some interesting thought-provoking books, probably mostly in the psych/self-help category and is considered a wise dude, but has assumed room temperature.
He does use a lot of “musts”. Reminds me of a T-shirt my aunt had – “Don’t should on me!”
I was drawn to the quote because of the thoughts on reality and truth. Sometimes I wonder if I live in a world of self-delusion.
I completely understand about that love of sweets and Dr. Pepper. Did you know there is an entire Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, Texas, where it was invented?? You sound quite balanced and mature about life, with not demanding perfection of yourself. I admire that in you!
1. Tell me about it! *sigh*
2. Just in the last few months I’ve had sticker-shock when I dined out. Yikes!
6. Not on purpose; just a lack of ability to add a tilde ~ on top of a letter on a computer keyboard.
8. Don’t think of it as “I can’t do this anymore,” think of it as “I can do something else instead!” And Pippen has chosen . . . wisely (obscure movie reference)!
9. I had a friend (he passed, unfortunately) who went by “O.D.” Why? His given name was “Othneal Dewey.” Yeah, I would go by “O.D.” too!
If you are still on earth, the purpose for which God has placed you here is not yet completed. Or, “Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.” (Richard Bach)
Sharon, I thoroughly enjoy your responses to my Learned Lists. Thank you!
The way to add a tilde is to hold the option key while typing N and then hit the N key once more. ñ The option key supplies the tilde while keeping the cursor from moving forward.
Jana just introduced to a new book you might enjoy entitled Aging: An Apprenticeship. It is a compilation of essays organized around the decades of life starting with the 40s on through the 90s. Why Apprenticeship? Because each decade is an apprenticeship for the next decade. Someone was once told to “act your age”. The response was “I haven’t got the faintest idea on how to act my age. I haven’t been this age before.” Besides, Jana, you’re not old. You’re just serving an apprenticeship for becoming my age. Ben
Thank you for the recommendation, Ben! Such words of wisdom. . . I will add this book to my TBR stack. (To Be Read)