If you are ever in an auto accident, no matter how minor, if you ever make any medical claim, save those records for life.  Because decades later a Medicare recovery group can run a query and find that you had an auto accident and even though you were treated and released with minor soft tissue damage, your Medicare benefits from that moment on ( Read more... )

It is time I document, if only to keep me honest, the changes I am making in my life.  Because they are fantastic and I need to keep on this path.  I have lost 45 lbs so far but what has been more amazing is how I feel.  Arthritic changes, gone, gi distress, gone, intermittent acid reflux, gone, energy better than I remember in years.  I can't even ( Read more... )

I had pretty much thought I had lost my chance to be a mom.  I had just not felt I was good enough, too scarred from the issues of my own childhood and ran from serious relationships that might lead to a good thing.  Until finally one caught up with me at 38, a sweet and gentle man.   Ok, I found him on the internet, but only by chance one ( Read more... )

My mom has Parkinson's, among other things, and it is advanced from the neglect of 5 years in a "skilled" nursing facility.  That means many of her muscles are stiff and it takes great strength for her to use.  She is regaining much of that by huge leaps with better nutrition and some med changes, but it takes time.  She will talk up a storm, well ( Read more... )

Sitting in the Duwamish Longhouse last night with my 8 year old and watching a film about the first peoples of the Northwest and the white settlers that pushed them out, and then listening today to a talk about the "Tea Party" movement and recent elections, struck me powerfully at the parallels.  We saw first how the Denny's and other families ( Read more... )

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Finally, a day of sun that I am not sleeping off a night shift!  Lots of good garden work done today.  In the second big, new bed in the front yard I planted the Little Bells peppers that have been happily growing well in my bathroom under grow lights.  (found the perfect spot on the side of the tub, under the towel warmer) I cozily tucked them ( Read more... )

First morning home in our own quiet space.  We had some lovely places to stay with wonderful family, but even our messy home is a good place to be, good coffee at my fingertips and wifi without buying a cup of coffee, heaven ( Read more... )

Instructions: Highlight in BOLD whatever applies to you

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor - though it's my sister, so does that count? I didn't have any growing up.
6. Were the same or higher social class than your high ( Read more... )

Hard to summon energy today. I worked this weekend with a low grade cold-the sore throat thing everyone has-not enough to really take me down but now after 2-12hr night shifts I just feel drained with a smoker's cough. Work was not too crazy anywhere, just the normal odd situations with drunk medical interpreters arriving in bare feet, odd is the ( Read more... )