Health News : Some personal good news, my doctor's visit went well. All my blood work numbers showed improvement and I have not slipped into Diabetes. I forget the number and even the meaning of the number... 6? I have a difficult time keeping numbers in my memory for longer than a few minutes, which may explain why I never excelled in mathematics.
My official weight is 180 as of Wednesday. My weight here at home is 172. If anyone comes up with a good theory about the scales at doctor's offices I would certainly appreciate hearing from them. Leon says that the scales at the doctor's office are/is better technology, I suggested it was certainly older technology - our home scales is based on a simple spring and can be effected by many things, even the weather. My weight at the beginning of my diet, mid- September was a whopping 216 so I have lost 36 pounds. The doctor wants me down to 140. I may try for even lower, just on the simple theory that I don't like authority figures telling me what to do but also, I want to LOOK thin. At 140 I will still look plump.
Very few understand there is a permanent knot somewhere in my soul when it comes to authority. I hid in youth but in middle age, heck no. The poor deluded doc things I am eating 1500 - 1200 calories. I did not LIE> I just didn't tell the truth.
I said nothing and smiled like the simple housewife I am. 'Oh, yes, 1200 calories, how few calories that is... !' I am trying my best to eat about 500 - 600 calories a day, though, I admit many days it crawls towards 700. When I ate 1500 I gained weight and when I ate 1200 I didn't much lose weight so I finally took the great dive into the three digit ranges and that is when I saw actual weight loss.
I actually gained no weight during Christmas and lost 2 pounds since so life is good. Sometimes I amaze even myself !!!!!!!!!
The Revolutionary War : I am listening to the book 'The Glorious Cause' by Jeff Shaara. It is the second of two books about the events that lead up to the founding of the United States. The first, 'Rise to Rebellion' is up to and including the signing of the declaration of independence. This novel is the actual war.
I am a true lover of America, what it stands for, what it has done, not only for me but for my family and what it did for the world since its founding. I do not understand those who blame America for the ills of the world... it is a kind of madness, I suppose, an inability to see the good, a self-hatred that flows deep in people's souls, an ignorance born of spoon- fed education by prejudiced professors, a denial of the actual facts of the history - most of all, it seems to me, a refusal to see what human nature is really like, many blame America for things that all cultures, races & countries do - What is natural for our species as a whole to do when given the chance - forgetting, in a way, that America is an institution established by human beings and for human beings and can be no better and no worse than what we make her. Human nature throughout history and even beyond into the shadows of prehistory is not pretty or pure-hearted. People are not nice. Americans have done nothing that other human beings have not done - and, most of the time, we have hesitated to do the worse that our species is capable of ... that is something few people ever mention. I suggest you just accept that and get on with your life.
Without America, Europe would be in even a worse mess than it is and the last 200 years would have been even more horrid than they were. Asia, too would be no better and may very well be worse without us... think of Japanese imperialism without America to stand in her way.
Those who do not know this history (the founding of the USA) can not appreciate how narrow an escape we had from the confines of monarchy - or even why it was time to escape monarchy and elitism. I really suggest you look at this novel as a dramatization of the history and use it as I plan to - a stepping stone into other, purely factual reading and research into those events. I have used fiction as a stepping stone into deeper historical study most of my life. I am mostly self-educated, as I have mentioned many times. Study alone demands attention to your own course of study that is usually done by the professor in college so it is best to get a good overview of the entire subject, first. Without the professor guiding and protecting you, you must choose what books to read and what areas of the story most interest you and therefore, are worthy of further study, oh, by the way - history is story ... don't ever forget that.
I don't specialize in any one thing : I don't need to, I study for the shear enjoyment of study. It doesn't really matter - I did not walk the path of the scholar this lifetime. I like being a housewife. It is a noble life, a giving, service oriented life... but my mind hungers for knowledge and I feed it a steady diet of books, both those I read and those I listen to on tape/CD. Listening to a book while washing dishes makes the chore bearable !
Well stay happy. I hate January, I have decided. Some solar worship would be very inflaming about now, don't you think? a book under a tree... a tall glass of ice tea... hummmmmm ... So much for global warming... we keep hovering between raining and cold and raining and colder.
