Happy New Year

To my family and friends:

As this year ends I have spent a great deal of time this past year reflecting on what really is important in life. As I made my list I realized there wasn't a single material thing on the list. The first item was God, the second was family. Short list. I also came to the realization that I need to let go of this need for everything in my life to be perfect. That doesn't mean that I will or should just let everything go to hell and back or lower my standards of work, it just means I need to learn to accept others for who they are and that their ways of doing things may not be the same as mine and that's ok.


My goal this year is to focus on being more patient with others both at home and at work; I need to breathe in and breathe out more and just let go of little things; I will endeavor to work on accepting people for who they are and what THEY can do with their talents no matter what they may be. I will work on being less critical of myself and understanding that I do NOT have to do everything. I will work on being able to delegate more of things that I can delegate and let go of some of the other things.

I want to work harder at being more healthy, to get off my medications and take a more holistic approach to my care. I want to work on having more of an open mind in regarding to new ways of dealing with my health rather then automatically saying no just because it is unheard of and not the "norm".

My wish for you my family and friends for this coming year is this:

Let go of grudges, they have no place in your life. They are poisonous and they accomplish nothing but bring you down. Learn to be the better person and forgive first. Not for others sake but your own. You absolutely do not know when someone's life can be taken away without notice and the guilt of wasting valuable years will eat away at you for the rest of your life.

Today open a new book, it's pages are white and blank and is called Opportunity. The first chapter is today. When this next year ends let it be said that you were a friend of the best kind, that you lived and loved to the best of your capabilities. The object is not that we start each year as a new year but that we start it with a new renewed soul. A new year is a new chance to get it right, to banish worries, doubt and fear from your life. Learn to love live and laugh.

We are given this chance once every year and we need to take advantage of it. Let go of the mistakes you made but learn from them and from others. Try and grow each and every day to be the best you can be. Live each day as if it was your last. Take this opportunity to right some wrongs. I want to wish you health so that you can live each day in comfort ( I know a lot of us who deal with chronic illnesses and pain). I want to wish you love of family and friends and peace within your heart.

I want to wish you the beauty of nature. Take the time to enjoy it. Take more walks, watch the sunrise and sunsets more often. Take advantage of your surroundings. I want to wish you courage to change the things you can , acceptance for the things you can't and wisdom to choose your priorities for things that should really matter in life.

I want to wish you generosity so that you may share all the good things that you have been given. I wish you happiness and joy in this new year. I wish you the best of everything good that you so well deserve. I wish that we may all be a bit more wise this next year, more kind, more brave to try new things,with  a heart that is a bit more true. I wish that we may learn to be a bit more anxious to reach out our hands more, despite hurts and problems to still understand and accept the heartache that life often brings.

I wish for more peace within our hearts, our families and our friends, faith to guide our way when lost and hope to guide us each and every day. I wish for us to have sunshine to lighten our days, stars to wish upon and rainbows to let us know we have another tomorrow. I wish for you to have tears to show compassion to others.

When the clock rings at midnight there will be cheers heard all around the world but for some it will be just another day on the calendar. For others it will symbolize a start of a new life, the beginning of a new tomorrow. So if you are looking forward to a new tomorrow, take the time to spread that happiness to others. Don't keep it all inside. When you are lonely I wish you love, when you are down I wish you joy, when you are troubled I wish you peace, when things seem empty I wish you you hope. May the dawning of this new year fill your heart with new hope, open up new horizons and bring for you promises of brighter tomorrows. Most of all I wish for a better relationship with each one of you, more time together and a better understanding of what is going on in your life.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

resolutions

It is that time of year again. I am not big on New Year's resolutions.. I would rather just try and live my life as good as I can and at least make improvements from the previous year. But this year I am going to focus on 2 areas. One.. I am going to work on being less of a perfectionist which will help make me more patient with others and secondly I am going to work on being 75% off my medications by the end of 2010.

What is your plan for the coming year?

Large Batch Punch

With the holiday season upon us I thought there might be some of my readers looking for a large batch of punch recipe. I used to use this all the time when I lived in Sask and had my catering. It maks 129 - 8oz glasses

7-48 oz orange juice
1-24oz lemon juice
2 whole oranges and lemons
4-48 oz of pineapple juice
10-24oz ginger ale
10-24oz soda water
2 cups berry sugar
Mix altogether and serve. Make sure the sugar is well dissolved

If you need a smaller amount to serve here is a smaller version . This serves 60-8oz glasses

3-48oz orange juice
12oz lemon juice
1 whole orange and lemon
2-48oz pineapple juice
5-24oz gingerale
5-24oz club soda
1 cup berry sugar

Both recipes you slice the fruit to float in a punch bowl

Enjoy!!

wonder how big is big?

Little bit of an eye opener for sure. When I started on my weight loss journey 6 years ago (in a couple of weeks it will make 6 years officially.. thanks Jan!) I was shocked at how large our food portions were. You think well I ate chicken so I am ok.. but that one chicken breast was 2 full servings... glad I had a good friend who talked me into changing my lifestyle and making it a new and better life. It now makes 4 years that I have maintained my weight with no gains.. 

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/42673

Care of your Christmas Tree

As most people will be getting their real tree this week I thought I would give you some tips on how to keep it fresh longer. We have tried a lot of different ways depending on who we spoke to and have found that this has worked every single year. We like our tree up the first Saturday in December and we don't take it down till the 1st or 2nd weekend in January and we rarely lose needles. The only time it did not work was when we mistakenly got Grand Firs instead of our usual Noble Firs. Grand Firs have amazing true Christmas tree scent but only last 2 weeks at the most. Which is ok if you only put your tree up the last week .

-When you get home, decide where you want your tree and once decided, cut at inch off the base. Do this EVEN if you only chopped it down an hour before. Sap starts drying up within minutes of a tree being cut.
-The stand needs to hold at LEAST one gallon of water. A freshly cut tree can take up at least 4 litres of water a day in the first few days.
-Make sure the base is in the water. At times we just check the stand and think as long as there is water in it, the tree is fine, but if the base is not in the water it can not take any water into the trunk.
-Fill the stand with BOILING water. Keep an eye on the stand and keep it full.
-Keep using boiling water for the first 48 hours, after that regular temperature water is okay.
-You do not need sugar, syrupy solutions, aspiran etc in the water. Plain water out of the tap works plenty fine
-Keep it away from registers, fireplaces and heat sources. If you do not use LED lights make sure you don't leave your lights on for extended hours as the heat from the lights does dry out the needles which in turn dries out the branches.

That's it.. pretty simple. Enjoy your tree and if you have any questions please feel free to ask away.

Tis the season.....

Today was a great day :) We went to our family annual Christmas tree hunt with some of our family, I look forward to this day for months!! The only thing that could have made it more perfect was if there would have been snow outside .. but that's ok.. it was snowing great big snowflakes in my imagination!!!!

This is the 2nd year that we have gone to this new place. We used to go to this other place but last year they announced that they no longer did U-Cut due to whatever reason they had. It had something to do with not having enough big trees and that people were cutting the wrong trees. So last year I googled a search and found this new place...http://www.dogwoodchristmastreefarm.com/Dogwood_Christmas_Tree_Farm/Welcome.html
We loved it and went back again this year. You could tell we were getting close about 4K from it as all these cars kept passing us with trees attached to their roofs. I guess the first Saturday in December is a good date for everyone to get a tree.

This was the first year though that the grandkids cut the tree. That has always been Papa's or one of the dad's jobs but this year the kids did it. I have to say they got that tree down pretty fast! The boys also helped him put the lights on which again has always been Papa's job with the kids helping me do the decorations. I guess they are growing up :( After they boys were done the girls and I did the decorations. It was hilarious watching our 15 month old granddaughter wanting to help. I would give her a decoration and she would just put it on a branch and toddle back to get another one. If I was taking too long she would yell NANNNNAAA and try and pull the box down to reach one lol. Her big sister had to go behind her and hang the ones that fell to the floor as they were sitting on a branch and not hooked on.

She also kept hanging on to Papa's leg while he was trying to do the lights. I guess every job needs a supervisor! The kids kept putting her on the other side of the coffee tables to keep her out of the way and she would scream till someone would lift her over. Then she would just toddle back to the box to get another ornament. It was priceless!!

We ended up getting a much shorter and smaller tree then we usually do which made it difficult to locate but one was found. Now we can get onto the rest of the preparations!!

Health Analysis.. huh go figure

Well hello all.. man where does time disappear?? Days are getting shorter and not just because it is becoming late in the season. Christmas has always been by far my favorite time of year.. I love all the hoopla that goes with it, the lights at night time, the prettiness of the decorations everywhere, the family gatherings.. all of it.. the baking till all hours of the night.. the smells.. the food.. yup yup yup I am a happy girl at this time of year.

This season has been slow moving for me. Well slow moving physically at least.. mentally I am still going on at break neck speed :) I was talking to my mother the other day and she was asking if I had had a nap that day, or the before or anytime this past week.. I said Mom I am 53 years old what are you going to do.. send me to my room? I am too old to be told to go have a nap. She went on to say how I needed to slow down. I was quiet and she finally said what?? Are you still there? Yes Mom I am here.. you are telling me I need to slow down.. yes... this coming from the woman who is going to be 80 in a few months, who still plants gardens, who still washes her walls every month and scrubs the inside of her oven and fridge every week.. and YOU want ME to slow down? She chuckled at that point.. sheesh mother... :)

So mentally my brain is as busy as always but physically my body is going so slow most days it seems I am going in reverse. UGH. I have started the Prolotherapy treatments, I had my first one almost 2 weeks ago now and will go for my 2nd one in a couple of days. The hard part was not moving at all... Thank goodness Keith was sitting at the head of the bed so I could squeeze his hands. The specialist kept asking if I needed a break or wanted to stop for the day and I kept saying no keep going. He kept saying how impressed he was that I could lay so still that most of his patients are yelling or squirming or asking to stop. He was putting Lidocaine in with each injection as he had mixed it in with the solution so that the freezing could go as far deep into the muscles as it could. So needless to say the freezing wasn't there so much to prevent me feeling all the injections but more for keeping me somewhat comfortable later on when I got home. And you sure could tell the second the freezing wore off.. not nice.. Poor Keith.. He sure is getting his fair share of sleepless nights. Thank goodness for family members who pop over at midnight to come and give me blessings and check up on me.

So last weekend we went to the West Coast Christmas Show. I had seen the ad for it and thought cool... they had designers there that held workshops on how to decorate your home, chefs that taught you new and exciting dishes to make for the holidays, dairy producers who had cheese tasting shows etc etc. All for ten bucks.. right in my budget!  Man I had a blast. But they also had exhibtors and one of them was a practitioner who did health analysis. Now I see them as kind of like hocus pocus that they draw you in with small talk getting you to reveal info about you without you realizing that you actually were doing so. I was walking with a cane that day and so I put it in the stroller so that they could not see I was having difficulty. The idea is you place the palm of your hand on a computer mouse sort of thing. You take some deep breaths and then in a couple of minutes the computer generates this analysis. Now I stayed quiet the whole time just letting her talk.. not letting on that she was right or wrong.

Then when she finished she asked if I had any questions. I just looked at her and said I had never had anyone peg my health so clearly and to the point. It blew me away to say the least!!The printout comes out in a bar graph and each area shows whether that area in your life was just fine etc. It the bar was clear it was normal, if it showed a splotch of green it usually was a temporary thing that needed to be fixed such as you needed to eat, you stayed up too late the night before, had jet lag or something that was easily fixed; it it was yellow it meant your body was trying to right that area on its own, if it showed orange, you needed to take care of it, kind of like a warning light; if it was red it was a problem, a serious problem.

I was surprised how many clear spots there was so that was good. The only one that I felt was wrong was my immune system. It showed as clear and I know for a fact it wasn't so I told her this. She said oh no, she said there was a difference between immune and auto-immune. She said you don't get colds or flues do you. I said I have never gotten a cold and the only time I have ever gotten the flu was when I had to get flue shots but other then that nothing. She then showed me my auto immune graph and that was red. She said your body is trying to fight against itself, it wants to heal itself but it's hitting brick walls.

It even does moods.. go figure - My organizational skills were clear, my enthusiasm, cheerfulness, communication and tolerance were also all clear as was thoughfulness, forgiveness and emotional stress release. My memory was red.. really? sorry what were we talking about :), Contentment, sympathy, and courage were yellow. I had no orange. Then she did the radiation.. now no laughing at this part!!!!! Computer radiation was off the cart red lol. I think that was when Lareta snorted behind me! So was mocrowave radiation (well I do nuke leftovers most days for my lunch) and radio radiation was orange.. radio?? She said well not transistor radio but radio waves from power lines etc.

Then she went into environmental poisons.. She said tobacco was bad.. but not tobacco but more second hand smoke was nasty. I told her I knew that for years. I also told her when I know I am going to be around a lot of second hand smoke even smoke that is on people's clothes I have to take allergy medicine ahead of time. She said why not just stay away from it totally because it was so bad.. I said well because my family smokes and they won't listen to me when I tell them it's bad for them :) . Mercury, copper and tin were all yellow/orange.My vitamin B's were all bad, carbs were orange, gluten was orange and my PH balance was out.

Then she went onto the organs, she said heart was excellent, part of the brain that works with sleep, cell rejeuvenation, calm was not good; Liver, skin kidneys needed help.

But it goes on.. she had it down pretty good. Cost me 20 dollars and well worth the 15 minutes of my time. I don't know if that is what it normally costs but it was a pretty good deal to me! Here is her website if you wan to check it out more:

www.SAHservices.com

Right next to her was an acupuncturist that did by acuppressure. His claim to fame was that he could tell all about you through your ear. Ok.. well the last one was so good let's go for it. Again there was no way he could have heard what she had been telling me. He did not see me with my cane so didn't know I was in pain etc. He checks my left ear for all of one split second and says you had a head traume right at the top of your head a couple of years ago and then right after says you had another bad head trauma at the back of your head about 40 years ago or so. Lareta asks what he was looking at in my ear that he could say that so fast?? So he shows her.. She told him I had a head truama 3 years ago and then I told him I had been in a bad car accident about 35 years before when the car I had been driving rolled off the road and I had been thrown completely through the windshield quite a ways out of the car. He went on to say I had a lot of pain in my shoulders and lower back, my right hip and left knee.. ok do I have a flashing sign on my firehead?? So he asks if it was alright to do the acupressure that he uses whole mustard seed and places them on pressure pointsl I said sure. So he starts and keeps asking is the pain gone? Nope. 6 times he does it and 6 times I keep saying no then he calmly said I had to ahve taken something for pain within the last hour and I said yes about 30 minutes or so. He said that was why, the pain killers were blocking the relief. So he walks around me and puts the mustard seed in my right ear and the pain in my shoulder blades disappear. He does anothe rspot and the burning in my tail bone disappears. The acute pain never left but the burning did. Again I was blown away.

So blown away that the next day I drag Keith all the way back so he could get done. Needless to say it was with the same results.. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry or shout Hoorah!!. So they both gave us some advice on how to work on ourselves, and I told him that I was a firm believer in accupuncture but had never had acupressure done. Although I do have to admit there is no pain whatsover in acupuncture but I could not say the same about the acupressure :)

So his website is www.mikelang.ca if anyone is interested in hearing more about him.

OH and the best part? Keith and I went to the cheese tasting seminar and he actually tried not only Brie cheese (And loved it!!) but he got to try all these other cheeses that weren't even orange!! He figures if it is n't orange cheddar it isn't real cheese hehehehe