Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Celebrations with Libations

It's New Year's Eve 2013! I cannot believe it.

No, really, I cannot believe I am alive. Abandoned and left for dead by my family nearly three years ago, I am astonished I have made it this far. 

As a survivor, I understand how I could. I am strong. I am independent (within reason). I am happy!

Every New Year, I feel like I have graduated into the next level of existence. It doesn't matter if I am rich or poor. It only matters that I am alive and (somewhat) able. 

I have my little fur family and we are happy. 

Happy is the key word. Without happiness, I would become a bitter, enraged old woman. Why let negative people win?

Some people will always be small minded, immature jerks. With what little time I have left, I don't want to waste a second on someone(s) like that. 

Would you?

So when making your New Year's Resolutions this night make sure to list items and goals that will make you happy. In the end, it's not about anyone else. It is about you.

My advice: be happy. 

Like John Lennon said: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

Thank you for your patronage! See you next year ;)

Monday, December 30, 2013

Migraines and Karma are Bitches

There is one thing in life that I despise more than peas and lima beans... any guesses? It's migraines. 

I had a nice one yesterday morning, which carried over into this afternoon. Usually one of my migraines is about detoxing or weather patterns. So I'm guessing a detox reaction. 

Great. Swell. Better out than in!

The cats didn't care until this morning when I did not get out of bed and open up the curtains for their viewing pleasure. So I got played on, meowed at, and otherwise terrorized by the furry inhabitants of my home. 

But I have a cure for incessant negative behaviors and that is the squirt bottle full of water. Don't tell Jackson Galaxy! When you can't hardly move and you need some peace and quiet... the squirt bottle is the best option.

People tend to frown upon murder and it almost came to that this morning. My migraines are so painful that they not only raise my body temperature, they inflame my senses: so I cannot stand light or sound.

That's okay, my vision is so blurry I cannot get around well anyway. That means: no television, no reading, no nothing. 

And sound? Everything feels like a drum on my body. Even the slightest touch can feel like a heavy brick chaffing my skin and bruising my muscles.

What a nice gift mercury and black mold gives to the body. Since I cannot take any pain medications, I'm totally allergic to most OTC and Rx drugs, I have to lay quietly and still with ice all over my head, neck and sometimes shoulders and back. My muscles tense up so badly in my legs that I can get charlie horses and other cramps while I am trying to get past the migraine.

I even have melted ice so fast that I have had to change out water for cubes almost hourly. 

Thank you to everyone who poisoned me. What a joy it is to be in that much pain several times a month. You should try blinding pain sometime. It really is great.

Do they care? Hell no.

That's the great thing about karma. Once you've done something so offensive, it's kind of difficult to relieve yourself of galactic payback. So they might not receive migraines. It might be a car crash injury or cancer. Always the balance must be restored on the cosmic scale. 

Even when you think karma is finished with you, here she comes again!

My illness and maybe even karma was not because of some offense, but because I believed that people would do right by me as I had done with them. Silly me. What was I thinking?

So I lay here hoping the pain in my temple is not another migraine coming on. 

I think back to the way I picked up nails in my boss's parking space on a near daily basis, warned people when the cleaning crew used a dirty chemical rag to wash out their coffee pot, helped people out when I did not have to, and took in my family when they had nowhere else to go.

And I think how stupid I was to believe that when you do right, right is returned to you. 

It seems the only constant in life is karma and am I forever paying for my good deeds.

Isn't that a bummer?

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Clutter, Minimalism, and Harmony: Guess What's Hitting the Trash?

You don't know how much crap you have until you go through it. 

I have been on a tear, which for me is nowhere near light speed, for a while now to clean, organize, and harmonize. Once I began meditating and clearing out the old mindset, I have just trashed things I didn't want, weren't mine, and shouldn't have. All gone.

Trash day is Friday in my neighborhood and sometimes I wonder if my bin can be lifted by the city vehicles! Yet, each time they are with ease. I pack so much clutter in there that the lid isn't perfectly sealed down.

I am in a phase of my life where I don't want the things that I own to own me. Minimalistic, symmetrical, and harmonious. If I do not have a place for it, I will stash it in my china closet or somewhere else safe for a while. If I am unable to find a home in the grand scheme of my decor, then off to the thrift shop it goes! 

January is another bulk trash month. I have some things in the back yard that are going to see the curb. Good-bye!

I don't want to deal with clutter. I don't have to. That is the best part: I do not have to! 

I want to walk into any room in my house and know that everything has its place and everything is in its place. 

It's a great way to view life. I did the collecting and the pretties. It never satisfied me the way an easy flow decor does because the energy doesn't weigh me down.

I still have years to go to perfect my little world, but that's the funnest part: shopping! Online (mostly) or in person, I can decide what will work and what doesn't. I decide my pace and budget!

Well, I've done enough writing for one evening. I listened to lectures online again today. I have to relearn everything I used to know and then it still doesn't remain in my synapses. That's the thing about chronic illness: you can't count on anything. 

Yet, I had a good day. I slept in. I ate. I played and petted my kitties. I organized. I dusted. I listened to music on the radio. 

Tomorrow, I probably will have to recuperate from my "good" day. Okay, the rest of the week too. OMG, I used to go 18 hours a day. Now I sleep it and still find time for a two hour nap!

I hope everyone has a great night and rest of the weekend! 

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Proof, Placebo, and the Earth Effect

My brain is fried. I did too much watching of scientific research videos online. Oopsy!

From quantum physics to comparative mythology to Earthing, I have done it all and boy, am I tired. I didn't realize all these disciplines had opened up and now are talking to each other. I wish there had been more cross collaboration when I was in college.

Well, I did take a lot of classes. I felt that I had broached nearly every subject that was offered until I had to specialize. I remember taking a year off community college in order to take classes I didn't need for my associate degrees before I moved onto my bachelor's degree. 

Before I was made ill by my former employer, I was in the middle of attaining three associates and two (at least) certificates. Learning for me is no more difficult than breathing... until my body collapsed under the weight of heavy metal poisoning.

There is nothing fun about gasping to breathe for years.

So when I get excited that I had a good brain day, now you know why. I have spent too many days not having a well functioning brain because of the constant inflammation my body produces because of the toxic overload it possesses. 

One thing I did find information about is Earthing. I like energy work. Grounding oneself metaphysically as well as other energy healing modalities are interesting and produce results for me.

I don't want to be broken anymore. I don't have millions of dollars to get me well again, so I have to do it the slow, old fashion way.

With Earthing, all I have to do is find some grass or earth, stand there in my bare feet, and soak up the energy from the ground and sun. That, I can do. That is easy.

This afternoon I went out and stood in some grass coming up in my decorative river rock. I stood.   One of my outdoor cats came to see what I was doing.  James just lounged around as I felt the Earth under my feet. 

Funny thing was the inflammation I have been experiencing subsided for all the time I was outside and a half hour after I returned inside. I will keep seeing if this procedure works or not. I am a scientist at heart. I want proof, not placebo. 

One thing when I started this journey of self healing is that I wanted to see real results. Results I could pass onto others with MCS/EI/Mold. Knowledge is good. Healing is better. Free is the best, but results are king.

I can't wait for my brain to heal good enough for me to start writing books on my experiences.

Wouldn't success fly in the convention of serious illness? I hope so. I have a lot of people to show that you can hit me, kick me, and beat me down... but I will ALWAYS get back up again...

Don't you feel that way some days too?

Have a great and wonderful night!

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Physics, Comparative Mythology... A Perfect Combination

Today, I was kind of spunky. I organized my hobby tools, caught up on laundry, and am really trying to get the house looking like the cats have not taken over. hehehe!

Then I wanted to listen to something while I worked. I ended up on youtube listening to David Talbott: Seeking the Third Story | EU2012

Very interesting intersection about physics, plasma, and ancient mythology. I love comparative mythology. I have read Joseph Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces as well as many other books on the subject. 

I am always fascinated by the connections we can make to the ordinary and the extraordinary.

You will find out that I like opening my mind to different knowledge, information, and perspectives. Ever since I began my meditative work, my brain has been eager and hungry for all sorts of knowledge. It seems I cannot get enough learning done.

And, you wonder why I am so tired all the time! My brain is exhausted! hahaha!!! I am hoping this influx of new ideas will make me a better writer and lecturer in the future. 

I enjoy watching intellectual discourses especially when they are free online. I cannot afford cable because I spend my money on life saving supplements. So free is awesome!

That was my Xmas day.

I hope yours went as well and that Santa was very good to you!

Have a great and wonderful Holiday!!!

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Home Alone for the Holidays

That is one thing that upsets me about the holidays. Since I am chronically ill and no one wants to help me out: I am home alone for the holidays.

I have always been ultra responsible. Clean. Non-smoker. No drugs. No alcohol. 

I have taken care of everyone one else including their messes. When the tables were turned, good bye! and good luck! 

Even now I take care of other people's cats in the neighborhood. The man next door trapped and spayed a mother cat and her three babies. Then he stopped caring for them. One was so skinny and sickly, I scrounged up some food to give to her. Another sibling was ill and I had to give her up, my service cat, to the Humane Society to fix up and adopt out. (I so mourn for her everyday.) 

Then there's the man's renter. A drug addict with AIDS who doesn't help me out even when I demanded him to do so. I am left holding the bag and his grey, long-haired Russian Blue calico cat.

Four, 16lb bags of dry cat food, five bags of natural litter, and sixty cans of wet food a month to keep up everyone's cats on the block. Perhaps I should start a donation site and link it here so I can see if anyone can help me before I have to send half away to the Humane Society. I just cannot keep up.

So as I lay here in bed trying to stay warm, I am alone. The cats I do have inside love sleeping on my couches. They are great couches by the way, which I cover with towels. 

When my family left me, they left me with nothing. Literally. I had a bed, desk, computer chair. I believe that was all. They took everything else in the house including the appliances. 

My family was trying to further debase, torture, and punish me for being chronically and devastatingly ill. Part of which was their fault. They made me ill with black mold from a leaky sink. 

After not telling me for two years of the leak, I had to call for a handyman while I was trying to recover from the pesticide poisoning from my former employer... I was not a well woman to be doing anything. So my family left the black mold to grow in the particle board for seven months after I fixed the leak.

By the way, it takes less than an hour to remove the particle board from a sink cupboard... but that was too much to ask of my family.

By then, I was skeletal, allergic to practically everything because my immune system was already collapsed from the mercury poisoning. It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

My inheritance was also confiscated by my family as I guess payment of taking care of me when I had taken care of them for over ten years. My bills apparently weren't as important as their bills. 

So I am here. I should probably get out my copy of Home Alone just to cheer me up. Well, that's if I still have it and it too wasn't already confiscated like so many of my other possessions were. 

OMG, how depressing... I must find something good.

I did get furniture eventually when I received my disability. I discovered I didn't have to go into chemical laden stores to shop for furniture. I was so happy! 

I found a furniture store across town that was an outlet of sorts. I got a beautiful two-tone dining table, six chairs, a couch, and sofa for a very reasonable price. Good furniture too. I believe it is called Ashley Signature Furniture. Of course, I paid the close-out prices! I didn't have much to spend. 

I did find another online store with discounted furniture and got a wonderful bedroom set. I never had a bedroom set before. It's the warm dark cherry wood. 

Okay, I turned the bad into good. Wheew! That was a close one. 

So I better go harass my kitties, steal one to watch a movie with me as I cannot wait to sleep to see if Sugar Plums really do dance in our heads!

Have a great and wonderful night! 


P.S... my Home Alone dvd is missing ;(




Monday, December 23, 2013

Have a Very, Merry Spring?

Today it was warm. Tomorrow and the rest of this week will be in the lower 70's. Yippee! 

Since I am chronically ill, my body cannot regulate its own temperature that well. Anything below 90 and I am breaking out the winter wear. As long as the house gets warm during autumn and winter afternoons, I am pretty well set to do some household chores. 

Then as the sun sets, I take a shower and jump into bed. The cats get fed on or before dusk until the warmer temperatures of spring hit. 

Right now as I type this post from my heavily blanketed bed, my feet are ice cold, my fingers tingle, my head hurts, and my eyesight is blurry. I do need new glasses but it's the roving migraine that I contend with nearly daily that puts pressure on the optic nerve and creates this vision problem.

Could be worse. I could have not learned to touch type and this post would be unreadable. I also increase the magnification on the pages so I can read bigger lettering. The red underlines of typing errors helps too.

As our weather stabilizes and we remain warm and dry, I will be getting to more of my house as the days commence. An hour of housework can create a happy area of cleanliness. 

When the 90's return. so will the cleaning of the area rugs. I don't have carpet or tile because I am allergic to the chemicals. I have carefully laid out rugs. Vacuuming them does produce a breathing reaction even with my carbon mask on, but in the winter it is a necessity.

But it sure does not feel like winter, which is fine by me. The last few winters have been very cold with hard freezes and bushes being burned back. Not a fun sight. I rather have a mild winter so the humming birds can drink the nectar from my Golden Dew Drops' violet and white flowers. 

So this week is a very, merry spring. 

And no... you can keep your snow. I lived in Iowa before and you can still keep the snow. I live in the desert and I am happy.

Have a great one!

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Afternoon Naps and Other Forms of Healing

Even for adults studies have shown that naps in the afternoon are great for the body, mind, soul, and spirit. 

I now have to take daily naps. Two or three hours in addition to the twelve to sixteen I sleep daily makes for a short day. Chronic fatigue is a symptom of my MCS/EI/Mold illnesses.  

It's a tough pill to swallow even if I am allergic to most pharmaceuticals.  I like when I have the energy to get something done. Often, I have to budget my time and make command decisions on what can and cannot be done in a day. 

Some chores get sacrificed for others. Dishes... I hate dishes especially since my hands are dry, cracked, and bleeding most of the time. My body cannot keep oil in itself so water and soap make a bad situation even worse. Laundry is pretty simple. Vacuuming once a week. Dusting is whenever.

Since I require a lot of fresh air from open windows, dust accumulates. Welcome to the desert! So dusting is not a task I put much stock into. It gets done when it gets done. 

When my windows are not open, I must rely on my air cleaners. That is: heavy duty air cleaners. These cleaners run all day and night, windows opened or closed plus I have a MERV 12 air filter in my heatpump unit. 

It is not my lungs per se; it is my liver. The mold and mercury inside my body hiding in organs and other tissues as well as in bonded molecular components eats up my sulfur, antioxidants, and methyl groups. I must also eat protein all day in order to assist my liver in maintaining some type of control (and we haven't even covered the renal damage from black mold found in my kidneys). 

Without my liver stabilized, I am unable to breathe properly and I require oxygen supplementation. The liver does many great tasks for the body. One of which is breaking down harmful substances into non-harmful substances. When my body has to concentrate on the already high amount of toxins and biotoxins in me, my liver cannot self-regulate. So I become allergic to the air I breathe, water I drink, and food I eat. 

Scary.

For instance, a few weeks ago I had a tablespoon of buttermilk ranch and had a severe allergic reaction while I was eating a tomato. I had had ranch for months without an issue, but that night my body decided that a line had been crossed. I have no idea how or why but regular ranch dressing is okay and buttermilk ranch is not. 

Talk about frustrating. I have to wait for my body to stop reacting until I can even try a tomato again or risk a permanent allergy. Isn't chronic illness wonderful?!

Now try to explain this scenario to people who do not have these types of sudden and unclear reactions. Others try to understand but then stop because it is easier to label someone crazy, insane, or psychotic than to realize the symptoms are real and part of a larger toxic cascade happening in the body. 

I have had the experience of knowing and living with people who rather bully you, isolate you, and threaten institutionalization instead of doing the right thing. Right being: researching the issue within the community that has said medical problems, finding the best course of treatment, and following through by getting the patient to the right physician. 

Sounds simple, right? Do the right thing by another person. 

As a former caretaker of my elderly mother, I always did the right thing by the person I was taking care of. When the roles were reversed, my parental unit and siblings decided to ignore the medical issues in lieu of scare tactics. 

Because of course someone that sick cannot possibly be mentally stable. 

Truth be told: the people who neglect, abuse, and torture someone who is physically, medically, or mentally ill are not only criminals but are morally and ethically corrupt to the point beyond rehabilitation.

In order to combat the cyclical night terrors associated with being terrorized, I have discovered meditation. Guided meditations on youtube and other free websites have become routine and helpful. I am glad I found them.

Rewiring a damaged/injured brain due to lack of medical attention is essential to combating reactionary impulses in the primitive brain. Plus I have cognitive issues as well as Central Nervous System damage stemming from systematic inflammation. 

I may not be able to drive, remember much in my short term memory, or use hand-eye coordination, but I am finding new and unorthodox ways to recreate neural pathways so I may recover some of what was lost over the past five years. 






Saturday, December 21, 2013

Happy Yule Tidings

December 21st is the customary day of celebration for Yule. It's supposed to be the shortest day of the year. With the long night, the land lays fallow waiting for the warmth of the spring to come.

Pagans have celebrated this day of death and rebirth for as long as humans have marked the cycles. 

Other religions have taken the holiday and made it their own through political and religious might. So we have holiday after holiday during the winter season. 

I enjoy celebrating today because it feels purer than other days. I am not brainwashed to believe in a birth I know did not happen until March or pressured into being like everyone else. I can be me and celebrate what I chose, when I chose to do it.

Yule for me is about saying good-bye to the old. I have a lot of old to say good-bye to too. This year I have become quite independent as a disabled American. I have my ups and downs, my bad days and my good days. Everyday I am grateful that I can be who I am without ridicule, pressure, or disrespect from others. 

I am very ill. Nothing is really going to change that aspect of my life. There is only so many times your immune system can be collapsed, your liver compromised, your renal system infected, and your digestive system attacked to notice that your nervous system, heart, and lungs do not work as they should any longer.

Even though I am in bed more hours of the day than I am in motion, I still am grateful for every day that I am here. I have a lot to do! I am doing my art and writing my books. 

I am doubly grateful to be the editor and staff writer for my community online newspaper: the Villa de Paz Gazette. I only hope to continue writing great articles that impact the way people perceive reality. 

I am also helping my community fight off a vulture capitalist that wants to destroy our golf course for a housing development. It's nice to be back in the saddle again, even if it's a kid's pony ride. 

Yule like other holidays should bring out the best in you. 

Be happy. Be grateful. Be open. 

The universe is watching and waiting for you to open up to the possibilities that await. So take some time this busy holiday season and make a list. Check it twice. List all the things you are grateful for. 

With joy and gratitude in your heart, nothing is impossible: including a miraculous recovery...

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