The Longest Time

It has been just over six months since losing my brother. It has been a very long six months and one aspect of this is finally coming to a close.

It took 3 months to get probate on my brother's estate, which allowed me to deal with his estate and not have legal repercussions against myself if anything went south. So that meant I could put his house up for sale. We (myself, my sister, and niece and nephew) had a weekend long sale of his belongings at his house. We had distributed mementos to family and friends prior to this, but then had to deal with the rest of his stuff. It was very weird selling things we had seen him use/wear. But in the end, it helped with expenses as all that brought in about $1400.

I listed the house mid November. It just sold. There is a lot involved with selling a house. We held a number of open houses on weekends to allow people to come through to have a look. But it was a hard sell, because he had gutted the upstairs bathroom and it was only roughed in, with new plumbing and electrical, but no fixture, no flooring, and needed drywall work and painting as well. There is a 3 piece bathroom in the basement so the house is definitely live-in-able. Ultimately, it was a young woman who had come through an open house mid-December with her parents who ended up buying the house. She takes possession next Friday, Feb. 21st.

And that is one huge relief! I had the bank that held the mortgage put the payments on hold starting January after there was no interest by mid-December. Given the location (walking distance to a large hospital, and downtown) and a decent price point, I had hoped for a quick sale, But no, that bathroom put a crimp in those plans. There was only so much money in his bank account and it was dwindling fast, Pausing the mortgage payments helped a lot but the sale changes all that. Because that means there will be the funds to pay the lawyer, pay his final taxes (if any), and give a bit of money to his beneficiaries (no, not me, although I will get a bit for out of pocket expenses).

The next step will be to do his taxes. Because he was a salaried employee with no life insurance and no investments, it should be pretty straight forward, unless Canada Revenue has something in a file somewhere showing he owes them money from way back. I have his files and he's done his taxes annually from what I can see. Fingers crossed, this tax thing results in a simple return with a refund owing.

After that is done, all is just a waiting game, for the government to issue a clearance certificate, stating he owes nothing more to them, and I will be free and clear to distribute the remaining monies.

All this sounds pretty business-like, paperwork and scratching pens and clicking computers. But none of it conveys the heartache, the tears, the worry, the work involved. The piles of boxes and papers in my tiny house, making an obstacle course that I cannot clear until all this is done. The time spent after work and on weekends trying to get things all tied up. The sale of the house is a huge relief, because it took 2 3/4 months on the market to move, and we had to drop the price $5k to get it to move, and even then, it went $9K under than. But it is done, and for that I am grateful. We survived Christmas with a toast to my brother, and each of us in our own way honouring his memory and missing his hugs and gentle presence.

The road ahead has fewer bumps and turns than it did a few months ago. One day, it will just be a trail of memories littered with laughs and smiles. One that I will travel with the rest of my family.

A selfie taken long before selfies were a thing.

Circa 1989

Devastation

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.

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

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.

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.