On Aug. 1st, my world plummeted into a void. My youngest brother died by suicide and my family will never be the same. It cannot remain taboo to speak out about suicide, to speak out about mental illness, and to speak out about depression. Because when it is taboo, people will hide what they are going through and the end result is... this.
My brother was a carer, of anyone and everyone. He gave of himself so much over the years, but was never one to let anyone know how he himself suffered. I think he became convinced he could not share his vulnerabilities with anyone, despite how he was hurting.
And in the end, that isolation led him to the only solution he could see. An end to his pain meant an end to his life. And although his pain has ceased, ours is massive. My heart is so broken. I will miss him forever.
Tuesday 13 August 2019
Monday 1 July 2019
Losing a friend
One of my favourite bloggers, LX, posted his last the other day. Cancer is taking its toll. He has many friends amongst those of us who are still slogging around the blogosphere, and will be sorely missed. He came to visit me about a decade ago. We spent a few days seeing the local sites and I took him to Gimli (aka New Iceland) just to the north of Winnipeg, where we had pickerel cheeks (which he said were good, despite not really liking fish) and vinarterta (aka Viking cake, as he called it, and which he really enjoyed). My heart is breaking that his service to his country is ultimately killing him. He is such a gentle soul. May your journey into the ether be as pain free as possible, LX. Much love to you. It has been my privilege to have known you. xoxoxo
Wednesday 15 May 2019
Well, this isn't bad!
An update on my progress of kicking my sugar habit, and dropping some weight. Adopting a keto WoE (Way of Eating) hasn't been difficult at all! I can eat bacon any time I want, I snack on whole avocados, I use lots of butter, and food tastes great!!
So in the first 30 days, I have dropped 13.8 lbs and a total of 8" (I am only measuring bust, waist and hips). I am rarely hungry and when I am, I eat. I still have a long way to go to get to where I need to be, but it took me many years to get heavy, so slimming down in going to take time too. I'm in it for life now, so I have patience.
On a completely different note, last fall I discovered a website called Icelandic Roots, where those with Icelandic heritage can enter their names, birthdates, birthplaces, and any family they know of, and have a whole new world opened up to them! Icelanders are very big on genealogy. I have discovered, also, the Icelandic National League of North America, an organization that strives to maintain strong ties between Iceland and those of Icelandic descent elsewhere in the world. This year, the 100th INLNA annual conference is here in Winnipeg, so I arranged a few days off work so I could attend. I am so excited to learn more, and to meet cousins! Distant cousins, but cousins all the same.
So in the first 30 days, I have dropped 13.8 lbs and a total of 8" (I am only measuring bust, waist and hips). I am rarely hungry and when I am, I eat. I still have a long way to go to get to where I need to be, but it took me many years to get heavy, so slimming down in going to take time too. I'm in it for life now, so I have patience.
On a completely different note, last fall I discovered a website called Icelandic Roots, where those with Icelandic heritage can enter their names, birthdates, birthplaces, and any family they know of, and have a whole new world opened up to them! Icelanders are very big on genealogy. I have discovered, also, the Icelandic National League of North America, an organization that strives to maintain strong ties between Iceland and those of Icelandic descent elsewhere in the world. This year, the 100th INLNA annual conference is here in Winnipeg, so I arranged a few days off work so I could attend. I am so excited to learn more, and to meet cousins! Distant cousins, but cousins all the same.
Sunday 14 April 2019
Addiction
Hello. My name is Ponita and I am addicted to sugar.
Big time addiction. Sweets, breads, chips, donuts, fries... all those delicious high carb foods. I frequently eat those and forgo real food. I often have a voice in my head that screams like a toddler having a meltdown that makes me buy those cookies, or chocolates, or chips, when my logical brain is saying 'no! don't do it'. That voice often makes my logical self feel helpless. And it has made me about 60 lbs overweight (although being tallish means I can hide it a bit but the belly is getting pretty damn obvious when not wearing loose clothing and I am too old to be preggers). I have all kinds of aches and pains, I get completely winded if I have to move at any speed or am walking long distances at a pace faster than an amble. I huff and puff just bending over to do up my shoes (which is why I usually try to sit down, but even then I still huff a bit). I have a thyroid autoimmune condition and take medication for that, which has caused weight gain. Menopause has caused weight gain. Sore feet and a bad back, which limit my activity, have caused weight gain. I am about as flexible as a 2x4. And I am 61. I ain't gettin' any younger, folks. Time to bite the bullet.
So I decided enough is enough and began an internet search on changing my "way of eating" (also known as WOE) that doesn't involve an endless supply of rabbit food, caloric restriction, and exercising til the cows come home. None of those appeal to me, and they usually only work short term unless you are a mindless fanatic about sticking to it. Plus putting up with being hungry a lot.
Then I found a site called Diet Doctor. It is run by a real medical doctor, and has lots of science and medicine to back everything up. Not just another "diet", this is a way of consuming foods that keep you from feeling hungry, keep your blood sugar levels on an even keel (even if you are not diabetic, this is important) and recipes can be pretty easy to make with real foods.
It is low carb high fat eating. Yes, that sounds an awful lot like the Atkins diet, because it is. But not entirely. It is based on eating foods that keep our blood sugar and insulin levels as unfluctuating as possible, because that is what allows us to use our body's fat stores for energy, instead of the carbs we just loaded up on. It is not just all the meat and fat you want. It is how our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten. I don't buy into the paleo thing simply because there are a lot of good foods around now that weren't way back then, and there is no reason to exclude them from our diet. There is a lot of healthy fat, moderate protein and very low carbs in this WOE. Atkins wat high protein and high fat. The fats do not affect your blood sugar or insulin levels at all. Keeping your carb intake really low also means they do not have much of an impact on them and that is the key. The doc who started the Diet Doctor clinic (in Sweden) and website has been eating this way for over 15 years. As I said, there is a lot of science in this, the website has lots of videos from experts (read: doctors and scientists) given at medical conferences, not just made for the website, plus references for all that and that is huge for me. I need the science behind this kind of stuff. My medical training means I can understand most of what they are saying.
So I started 4 days ago. Let me tell you, when you start doing this, you pee... a lot! Switching from a carb burning machine to a fat burning machine generates a lot of water! That has already subsided a little bit, I weighed and measured myself on the first day, and then weighed this morning, because Sunday mornings will be the official weekly weigh-in day as I go. In those 4 days, I have already dropped 1.6 lbs. I know it is only water at this point, but the fact that I can pee that much out (and still be drinking lots of water each day, which has always been the norm for me), then I know all those carbs hang on to extra water within my body. Which is why a lot of people who have high blood pressure get off their meds and have their BPs normalize when they do this WOE. Even people who are type 2 diabetics can often come off meds too because with weight loss, blood sugars normalize. (I knew this tidbit already, and losing even 10% of your weight can make a difference for a diabetic, but keeping it off is key, right?)
I am sure I have metabolic disease, meaning I am a hair away from becoming a diabetic. I have had the occasional slightly elevated blood sugar with blood tests but my Hbg A1C (which shows blood sugar average for the past 3 months) have always been within normal (upper end, though) limits. I don't want to go there. I don't want diabetes to kick in. I don't want the health complications of that horrible disease and if I can get myself on track to lose the weight and get everything back down, then I will be improving my health and life. I can hopefully look forward to losing body fat, feeling better, and having the ability to start being more active.
I have battled with my weight for decades. It's time to get a grip on it once and for all and get it down to a healthy level. And it's not even about what the scale says! It is about how my clothes fit, how many inches I lose, and how I feel, because those are the things that matter more. I took pictures at the start and I plan on taking pictures every month, wearing the same clothes. Some day, down the road, I may post pics for comparison.
Big time addiction. Sweets, breads, chips, donuts, fries... all those delicious high carb foods. I frequently eat those and forgo real food. I often have a voice in my head that screams like a toddler having a meltdown that makes me buy those cookies, or chocolates, or chips, when my logical brain is saying 'no! don't do it'. That voice often makes my logical self feel helpless. And it has made me about 60 lbs overweight (although being tallish means I can hide it a bit but the belly is getting pretty damn obvious when not wearing loose clothing and I am too old to be preggers). I have all kinds of aches and pains, I get completely winded if I have to move at any speed or am walking long distances at a pace faster than an amble. I huff and puff just bending over to do up my shoes (which is why I usually try to sit down, but even then I still huff a bit). I have a thyroid autoimmune condition and take medication for that, which has caused weight gain. Menopause has caused weight gain. Sore feet and a bad back, which limit my activity, have caused weight gain. I am about as flexible as a 2x4. And I am 61. I ain't gettin' any younger, folks. Time to bite the bullet.
So I decided enough is enough and began an internet search on changing my "way of eating" (also known as WOE) that doesn't involve an endless supply of rabbit food, caloric restriction, and exercising til the cows come home. None of those appeal to me, and they usually only work short term unless you are a mindless fanatic about sticking to it. Plus putting up with being hungry a lot.
Then I found a site called Diet Doctor. It is run by a real medical doctor, and has lots of science and medicine to back everything up. Not just another "diet", this is a way of consuming foods that keep you from feeling hungry, keep your blood sugar levels on an even keel (even if you are not diabetic, this is important) and recipes can be pretty easy to make with real foods.
It is low carb high fat eating. Yes, that sounds an awful lot like the Atkins diet, because it is. But not entirely. It is based on eating foods that keep our blood sugar and insulin levels as unfluctuating as possible, because that is what allows us to use our body's fat stores for energy, instead of the carbs we just loaded up on. It is not just all the meat and fat you want. It is how our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten. I don't buy into the paleo thing simply because there are a lot of good foods around now that weren't way back then, and there is no reason to exclude them from our diet. There is a lot of healthy fat, moderate protein and very low carbs in this WOE. Atkins wat high protein and high fat. The fats do not affect your blood sugar or insulin levels at all. Keeping your carb intake really low also means they do not have much of an impact on them and that is the key. The doc who started the Diet Doctor clinic (in Sweden) and website has been eating this way for over 15 years. As I said, there is a lot of science in this, the website has lots of videos from experts (read: doctors and scientists) given at medical conferences, not just made for the website, plus references for all that and that is huge for me. I need the science behind this kind of stuff. My medical training means I can understand most of what they are saying.
So I started 4 days ago. Let me tell you, when you start doing this, you pee... a lot! Switching from a carb burning machine to a fat burning machine generates a lot of water! That has already subsided a little bit, I weighed and measured myself on the first day, and then weighed this morning, because Sunday mornings will be the official weekly weigh-in day as I go. In those 4 days, I have already dropped 1.6 lbs. I know it is only water at this point, but the fact that I can pee that much out (and still be drinking lots of water each day, which has always been the norm for me), then I know all those carbs hang on to extra water within my body. Which is why a lot of people who have high blood pressure get off their meds and have their BPs normalize when they do this WOE. Even people who are type 2 diabetics can often come off meds too because with weight loss, blood sugars normalize. (I knew this tidbit already, and losing even 10% of your weight can make a difference for a diabetic, but keeping it off is key, right?)
I am sure I have metabolic disease, meaning I am a hair away from becoming a diabetic. I have had the occasional slightly elevated blood sugar with blood tests but my Hbg A1C (which shows blood sugar average for the past 3 months) have always been within normal (upper end, though) limits. I don't want to go there. I don't want diabetes to kick in. I don't want the health complications of that horrible disease and if I can get myself on track to lose the weight and get everything back down, then I will be improving my health and life. I can hopefully look forward to losing body fat, feeling better, and having the ability to start being more active.
I have battled with my weight for decades. It's time to get a grip on it once and for all and get it down to a healthy level. And it's not even about what the scale says! It is about how my clothes fit, how many inches I lose, and how I feel, because those are the things that matter more. I took pictures at the start and I plan on taking pictures every month, wearing the same clothes. Some day, down the road, I may post pics for comparison.
Monday 25 March 2019
An update on this lifetime
Some of you have asked if I have heard anything about the survivor's pension I had applied for, 27 years after the death of my then husband.
(And for the record, it *has* been a strange mix of emotions, completing the application and reliving, albeit distantly, that time in my life.)
Last week, I received a letter stating that starting January of this year, I would be receiving $365 per month... for the rest of my life. I was taken aback at the amount! We had been married for just under 2 years and I assumed it would be just a few dollars, but I guess that his Canada Pension Plan credits from the time he started working have been applied to this pension.
At a time when I am getting closer to retirement, this is very welcome! Once I am done my career, I will have a pension and coupled with my own CPP pension, my work pension and the Old Age Security pension the federal government supplies, this small addition will definitely make things a bit more comfortable. I certainly can't complain!
And because it is retroactive to January (sure wish is was retroactive to 1992) I will be getting a lump sum payment of 2 months' pension added on to this month's amount. I have a piece of artwork from a certain Ms. Blackthorn in the UK that is in need of framing, and I will now be able to get it done sooner than anticipated. A welcome bonus!
(And for the record, it *has* been a strange mix of emotions, completing the application and reliving, albeit distantly, that time in my life.)
Last week, I received a letter stating that starting January of this year, I would be receiving $365 per month... for the rest of my life. I was taken aback at the amount! We had been married for just under 2 years and I assumed it would be just a few dollars, but I guess that his Canada Pension Plan credits from the time he started working have been applied to this pension.
At a time when I am getting closer to retirement, this is very welcome! Once I am done my career, I will have a pension and coupled with my own CPP pension, my work pension and the Old Age Security pension the federal government supplies, this small addition will definitely make things a bit more comfortable. I certainly can't complain!
And because it is retroactive to January (sure wish is was retroactive to 1992) I will be getting a lump sum payment of 2 months' pension added on to this month's amount. I have a piece of artwork from a certain Ms. Blackthorn in the UK that is in need of framing, and I will now be able to get it done sooner than anticipated. A welcome bonus!
Friday 1 March 2019
Several lifetimes ago
Some of you may know I have been married more than once. And some of you may know that one of those men I married took his own life. That was way back in 1992. It was a horrific situation to be a widow at the age of 34 after less than 2 years of marriage. But life carries on, and many things have transpired in my sphere of existence since then.
Imagine my surprise when, in mid January, I received a letter from the federal government telling me that I could now apply for the Canada Pension Plan survivor's pension benefit. They changed the rules. Way back in '92, you had to be age 35, or have kids, to be eligible to apply for it. Neither of those conditions applied to me, so my application had been denied.
So now, I had the forms to reapply. But I needed some information that I no longer possessed. Like his social insurance number and actual birthdate. I knew his birthday was in November of the same year as mine, but couldn't remember the exact date. And I had no idea what his SIN was. So I went online to the government's website and found out I could actually request this info for the whopping fee of $5! I received the requested information earlier this week.
Today, I went to the Service Canada office to get photocopies of our marriage certificate and his death certificate certified as true copies (they do it for free). The lovely agent who looked after me checked on her computer to find a time line for processing my application (~6 weeks) and then saved me the postage by taking the application and saying she would submit it through their direct channels.
I am quite certain that less than 2 years of marriage will results in about 10 cents a month, but hey... you never know!
Imagine my surprise when, in mid January, I received a letter from the federal government telling me that I could now apply for the Canada Pension Plan survivor's pension benefit. They changed the rules. Way back in '92, you had to be age 35, or have kids, to be eligible to apply for it. Neither of those conditions applied to me, so my application had been denied.
So now, I had the forms to reapply. But I needed some information that I no longer possessed. Like his social insurance number and actual birthdate. I knew his birthday was in November of the same year as mine, but couldn't remember the exact date. And I had no idea what his SIN was. So I went online to the government's website and found out I could actually request this info for the whopping fee of $5! I received the requested information earlier this week.
Today, I went to the Service Canada office to get photocopies of our marriage certificate and his death certificate certified as true copies (they do it for free). The lovely agent who looked after me checked on her computer to find a time line for processing my application (~6 weeks) and then saved me the postage by taking the application and saying she would submit it through their direct channels.
I am quite certain that less than 2 years of marriage will results in about 10 cents a month, but hey... you never know!
Monday 21 January 2019
Cleanup Crew
Pips, as a senior cat, and as well, a cat, has the occasional bout of upchucking her dinner. She almost never upchucks hairballs, leaving that predilection to Lila, who seems to do it on a regular basis.
No, Pips just occasionally (and with no real regularity) decides that her dinner is best deposited somewhere very shortly after it has been consumed.
Pips is 12 years old now and in general very good health. She is trim and muscular, active daily and loves to chase that elusive red dot. (Who knew that military lasers would end up being the ultimate cat toy?) She is my #1 cuddle buddy and loves to snuggle on me when I am watching tv. She supervises absolutely every activity I do in the house, and is eager to head outside for some fresh air when the weather is fair, even in winter. (She's not fond of the -30 deep freeze we've been currently experiencing, however. I wonder why.)
These bouts of regurgitation occur without any warning. She has a good appetite, eating her food most of the time with gusto. And every once in a while, she will give one gag and then up everything comes. Not the usual hack hack hack of a cat working up to a good puke. This is weird, and usually contains, besides the obvious catfood, quite a bit of frothy mucous. She is not feeling ill afterwards, which leads me to believe the presence of the mucous means her stomach rebels against adding more to that limited space and up it all comes. She is quite ready to eat again very shortly thereafter.
I fed the cats their wet food when I came home from work today. They were all milling about and meowing at me, convincing me (yeah, right) that they were starving all day long, despite having each had a bowl of kibble in the morning before I left the house. After eating , they all wander off to do cat things.
Pips climbed up onto the top of the cat tree and promptly puked up her dinner. This is in the front bedroom and I was in the living room. I heard a sound so turned the volume down on the radio and then heard her jump down and start to meow in a bit of distress.
When I made my way to that room to investigate, I found her with catfood smeared from the tip of her nose up between her eyes, and a couple of paws that had been dipped in the same. Don't ask me how she managed all that, as it was a first. I had brought a couple of paper towels with me so wiped off her face and paws and proceeded to find out where the rest of the mess was.
The top platform of the cat tree has a sheepskin cushion cover from Ikea as padding. No foam cushion inside it, as it drapes nicely on the platform, offering the cats a soft and warm place to sleep. She left her mess there. So I took it down and cleaned it up, wiping up the catfood as best possible from the sheepskin. The wool is about 4" long, so you can imagine it was a bit tricky. I left it on the table to dry before brushing it out and returning it to the cat tree.
A short time later, I heard Aska in the kitchen and found her doing her best to brush out the sheepskin... with her tongue. I am sure it smelled tasty (that food had been inside Pips for less than 5 minutes and probably wasn't even warm yet) and as Aska is a bottomless pit when it comes to food, she may have thought she'd hit the jackpot!
Needless to say, I took it away and gave her a good dose of hairball remedy to follow the cathair/sheepwool she just ingested as she gave cleaning it her best effort!
No, Pips just occasionally (and with no real regularity) decides that her dinner is best deposited somewhere very shortly after it has been consumed.
Pips is 12 years old now and in general very good health. She is trim and muscular, active daily and loves to chase that elusive red dot. (Who knew that military lasers would end up being the ultimate cat toy?) She is my #1 cuddle buddy and loves to snuggle on me when I am watching tv. She supervises absolutely every activity I do in the house, and is eager to head outside for some fresh air when the weather is fair, even in winter. (She's not fond of the -30 deep freeze we've been currently experiencing, however. I wonder why.)
These bouts of regurgitation occur without any warning. She has a good appetite, eating her food most of the time with gusto. And every once in a while, she will give one gag and then up everything comes. Not the usual hack hack hack of a cat working up to a good puke. This is weird, and usually contains, besides the obvious catfood, quite a bit of frothy mucous. She is not feeling ill afterwards, which leads me to believe the presence of the mucous means her stomach rebels against adding more to that limited space and up it all comes. She is quite ready to eat again very shortly thereafter.
I fed the cats their wet food when I came home from work today. They were all milling about and meowing at me, convincing me (yeah, right) that they were starving all day long, despite having each had a bowl of kibble in the morning before I left the house. After eating , they all wander off to do cat things.
Pips climbed up onto the top of the cat tree and promptly puked up her dinner. This is in the front bedroom and I was in the living room. I heard a sound so turned the volume down on the radio and then heard her jump down and start to meow in a bit of distress.
When I made my way to that room to investigate, I found her with catfood smeared from the tip of her nose up between her eyes, and a couple of paws that had been dipped in the same. Don't ask me how she managed all that, as it was a first. I had brought a couple of paper towels with me so wiped off her face and paws and proceeded to find out where the rest of the mess was.
The top platform of the cat tree has a sheepskin cushion cover from Ikea as padding. No foam cushion inside it, as it drapes nicely on the platform, offering the cats a soft and warm place to sleep. She left her mess there. So I took it down and cleaned it up, wiping up the catfood as best possible from the sheepskin. The wool is about 4" long, so you can imagine it was a bit tricky. I left it on the table to dry before brushing it out and returning it to the cat tree.
A short time later, I heard Aska in the kitchen and found her doing her best to brush out the sheepskin... with her tongue. I am sure it smelled tasty (that food had been inside Pips for less than 5 minutes and probably wasn't even warm yet) and as Aska is a bottomless pit when it comes to food, she may have thought she'd hit the jackpot!
Needless to say, I took it away and gave her a good dose of hairball remedy to follow the cathair/sheepwool she just ingested as she gave cleaning it her best effort!
Thursday 10 January 2019
New Slippers
There has been a vilification of Crocs all over the internet, pointing out their ugliness, their wide-footed lack of style. There are, however, proponents in favour, who wear them with everything from work uniforms to wedding dresses. You can bedazzle the shit out of them if you want bling on your feet for that formal night out. Splash paint on them to make custom Pollock-esque footwear.
A number of nurses I work with wear them everyday on the job. At work I prefer something with more lateral support that will stay on my feet when I have to move suddenly and quickly. Sometimes, you just gotta run for that basin when someone is puking their guts out! So I wear New Balance shoes as I have narrow feet and they have narrow sizes in some styles.
But at home, I prefer something I can slip in and out of easily, something that has some arch support and some cushioning. My feet have taken quite a beating over the almost 3 decades of nursing and some squishing comfort is a must. So I bought a pair of Crocs.
What do you think?
I think they coordinate with my pjs quite well! And they are "dual comfort" so even more comfy that the usual everyday uglies you see adorning the feet of people everywhere.
A number of nurses I work with wear them everyday on the job. At work I prefer something with more lateral support that will stay on my feet when I have to move suddenly and quickly. Sometimes, you just gotta run for that basin when someone is puking their guts out! So I wear New Balance shoes as I have narrow feet and they have narrow sizes in some styles.
But at home, I prefer something I can slip in and out of easily, something that has some arch support and some cushioning. My feet have taken quite a beating over the almost 3 decades of nursing and some squishing comfort is a must. So I bought a pair of Crocs.
What do you think?
I think they coordinate with my pjs quite well! And they are "dual comfort" so even more comfy that the usual everyday uglies you see adorning the feet of people everywhere.
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