I saw the word of the day for today’s challenge and I thought, ”I can talk alot about that!”
But not about the touchy subject everyone else is talking about.
I’m talking about the painful kind that blows your belly up and makes you feel bloated. I’ve become an unfortunate expert on that kind here lately! I got to digging around trying to find causes because it’s been quite common here all of a sudden. I know that the foods I eat can cause it but really?! All the time??
My research uncovered something new, however, in the least likely of places. I found out that it might be my sweetener! Everything I eat or drink or chew has stevia, or erythritol in it! My coffee, my baked goods, and sweets, even my gum!! Plus, chewing gum is another bad culprit. So i found this gum on the internet that isn’t supposed to cause gas, but of course, its kind of expensive. It’s called Glee gum and I guess it’s relative, a 16pc box, variety pack of 12 is $22. 99.
What if you want to just try a pack before you commit to a whole case I wonder? I should have looked at Sprouts today while I was there looking for dill seed. I ended up scoring that at Walmart. Yes, I made pickles today from our home grown cucumbers! We are so going to be able to live off the grid soon, lol! Growing our own veggies, making sausage and pickles, and our own dog food! Yep, headed in the right direction anyway!
This might be our new home someday!
But back to the gas, Dave and I are thinking pretty hard about getting a motor home when he retires, then the other kind of gas will be an issue! 😉😂
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “product/produce.” Use one, use them both, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use both. Have fun!
So Linda G Hill has given us this prompt for today’s SoCS and after our two-day trip to Zavalla in East Texas, the results we hoped for were not produced. However, we did enjoy getting away for a couple of days and staying in our tiny airBnB. It was your basic fisherman’s shack, but dolled up with a woman’s touch. Everything was in one room except the bathroom, which was nice and roomy for such a tiny house.
The little shack in the woods.covered and screened in patio.
We had gone to look at a couple of prospects for a place to retire that had house and/or property close to a lake.
House number one. A real log home.
The first house we looked at was a log home on two and a half acres. It needed foundation leveling and a new roof, but the biggest issue was right behind the wooded acre. To be politically correct, I’ll just say some extremely trashy neighbors had let their property and belongings fall down and pile up around them. Not desirable in a retirement home.
House number two.
The second house was the product of someone’s thirty-five year career. So many beautiful touches and extra features, I really wished we could have gotten it! Two drawbacks though, five people were already fighting to get it, and again, trashy neighbors right next-door and too close for comfort. We’d prefer to be on our own patch of land that no one can encroach with their junk.
I took a ton of pictures in there, but I hate to show you now that we have no hope of getting it.
On top of all that, Lake Sam Rayburn is difficult to access. Restrictions abound, there are no boat ramps (or very few) and no boat houses can be built. So the next day we went up to Toledo Bend. Many more possibilities, but we didn’t have the agent with us, so all we could do was look around. Beautiful area, gorgeous lake, pretty little communities (not all but some) with controls in place to keep out the ”trashy” element. I have to interject a note here so you understand I’m not being snobby. These woods are full of folks who engage in illegal activities, if you know what I mean. We do not want that element living on or near our property, especially considering we might be sinking our life savings into this!
So, its back to the drawing board for now. We’ll sit with it awhile, explore other options, and come up with a new plan. On the way home, we even considered the possibility of purchasing a motor home. That way, we could live by the ocean for a while, and then go visit the lake for a while. Who knows, we will definitely keep you posted!
It might interest you to know that this girl, the one raised on horror movies, the one who lives on ID murder mystery shows, the girl that drew people’s blood for nigh on 22 years-yeah, this girl, can’t deal with blood outside the human body.
It was one thing to watch it flow into a tube day after day, entirely another thing to see blood streaming down someone I knew’s face or other body parts; especially my loved ones.
So yes, blood makes me squeamish, only if it involves someone I love. I remember the first time one of my boys was injured, once I saw the blood coming out of his mouth I turned calmly to my husband and said, “this Bud’s for you!” making a reference to the old Budweiser ad. He grabbed his best friend and the baby (Chris) and headed to the hospital. Chris and Cassie (Larry’s daughter) had been running through the tiled kitchen with a toy in his hand. He slipped and fell, mouth first on the toy, which split his tongue wide open. That was my baby, my heart and soul-and he was bleeding profusely from the mouth.
Oddly, gory movies or pictures don’t bother me, probably because that’s not real life. Soon enough, there was lot’s more bloody boy stuff I had to deal with on my own. I didn’t get over being squeamish, but I had to learn to ”man up” real quick. it’s just a part of life if you have boys. Stitches in heads, goose eggs on heads, cuts, scrapes, scars, once my baby (Chris again) was literally hit by a car and got up and ran off! It scared him so bad and unbelievably, he was mostly just shook up. Me, I though I was going to die! I was incredulous. He was embarrassed by the incident and went on to play the football game he was headed to when he was struck by the car.
The other thing that makes my so squeamish I get anxiety attacks just thinking about it is when I used to twist or dislocate my knees. I have dislocated both knees so many times, I’ve lost count. It’s a pain I cannot describe. The first time it happened to me, I was in the alley playing baseball with my brother and the next-door neighbor kids. I was running one minute and as I was in mid-air, my kneecap rolled out of socket and when I landed on the ground, screaming and writhing in pain, I guess it went back in. My parents had no idea and, thinking it was just sprained, made me walk around on it for a week. It was the size of a grapefruit and not getting well, so the following week, my dad finally took me to the doctor. That’s a story for another time, but suffice it to say, when I walked in the house on crutches with my leg in a cast, my mother burst into tears. It’s one of the only times I remember her feeling sorry for me. (Back then they casted after draining the fluid, nowadays, you get a brace). Once I was in the Army, it just kept happening, so I ended up getting out on a medical (but honorable) discharge.
What else makes me squeamish? Slimy stuff. Just slightly. In fact, I’m pretty much past it now, but I still don’t like boiled okra or real oatmeal. Oysters don’t bother me any more, but i have to have the horseradish and hot sauce and it has to be on a cracker. 😂😉
What makes you squeamish? tell me in the comments!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “cent/scent/sent.” Use them in any form you like. Use one, use two or use them all. Bonus points if you use all three!
This is going to be a short one folks. Despite my feeling under the weather, I still have to get out this morning and accompany Dave and my brother to my dad’s house to help Julie get the furniture she bought at our estate sale. My diagnosis at the first of the week was a UTI but now seems to have morphed into something else. I’m exhausted, but trying to push through. They sent an antibiotic (Macrobid) so I just associated feeling icky to that. All day yesterday, I felt feverish and tired, yet still managed to run errands like shopping for a Father’s day gift (which I never found and had to come home and order online). I did find a cute card and we also had lunch together. Then I went to the Leukemia society and bought myself a few more summer tops for a few cents and came home and washed them in a load of laundry. I took some more Tylenol and worked on my Diamond art lighthouse while I watched an intense movie on Hulu with Ben affleck called ”Deep Water.” Wow, what a bad girl his wife was, but he showed her, lol! (he was bad too, btw)
I have not lost my sense of smell, but my nose and eyes are burning this morning. I have no idea what is wrong with me, but if I don’t feel better in a little while, I may have to take myself to the clinic and get checked out. Normally, the scent of peppermint oil uplifts me, maybe I’ll try that.
Good grief! The month is almost gone and I have whiled it away doing almost nothing! Where does the time go? And now I’m feeling under the weather…which is Africa hot btw!
I’ve been busy with church things, working and worrying about Dad’s house, which is over now, and dealing with my grief. Things are improving in general, and Dave and I are planning an out-of-town trip next weekend (hopefully) to go look at some property in east Texas. It is getting close to the time for him to retire and for us to enter into the next chapter/phase of our lives.
I have so many things I want to do but have no energy lately to do them. I’m hoping once I feel better, this will change because I have begun to write things in my head again. Like this silly little poem, I can write whole posts in my head but if I don’t write them down, they’re gone forever. I started my book/essay/whatever and I’m working on my entry for this year’s Literary Taxidermy contest. I still need to sort through pictures of Mom and Dad and get them into the album. We need to start whittling down our belongings because the plan is to downsize when we move. I’m trying to keep several plants alive, and Dave has a nice garden growing that I also keep an eye on. I have choir, practice, and faith-based book club meetings at church that I love, yet will have to leave behind when we move on.
All these things and more are swirling around in my head and I’m trying to get to a point where I feel like straightening things out. I have only worked out once this week because I feel bad, but I am on antibiotics now, so things are hopefully going to improve soon. (stupid body, I can NEVER play without paying for it!)
My office is a nightmare, I think I’m going to cancel my Medium membership because I never write on that platform anymore. I need to find a new one. I was invited to join a Discord writing group yesterday but watched an expose on Discord last night so…I’m thinking not.
Well, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, trying to stay cool, or warm wherever you are!
Words On A Page 