the_resa

I know it's been awhile -- I haven't been online much at all for the last few months. But I thought that this might be worth posting about.

You might remember that I've spent the last year or so, searching through various heath related cooking -- fermented food, kefir, kombucha -- searching for the thing that would fix my tummy. And eventually, when my cousin Jatina was diagnosed with diabetes, I followed her on to a Very Low Carb/Zero Carb diet designed to help lower her blood sugar (she has had an severe allergy to every one of the blood sugar lowering meds she's tried).

I've been doing this now since November '08. And folks, more things have been fixed than just my tummy.

I've been suffering from moderate to severe depression and anxiety since my teens, and that is just GONE. And my hair, which had thinned and stopped growing about a decade+ ago, has started growing again. It's not longer, yet, but it's about twice as thick to about 6 inches from my hair ends. There's such a difference, that it feels like my hair is tangled in a knot back there, as the thicker edges brush the back of my neck.

It was a real trial for while, putting my hair back until this new hair grew long enough to be tied back. And more new hair is still coming in, so that I now have a scarf in my car to put over my head, so the little hairs don't drive me to distraction.

I've also suffered from extreme fatigue for ... dang, a long long time. And that's gone too. I've had trouble, again since my teens, functioning on less than 10 hours sleep. Now, 8 hours is my norm.

And yes, of course, I have no more stomach problems.

So, what about this diet did it for me? I suspect that it was the no wheat/grain/cereal or bread part.

See, I've been dang good eating with Jatina, but I have had a hand full of "cheats". My first about 3 months in. And all it takes is one bread roll, or a piece of fried chicken, for all my symptoms to return with a vengeance. They hit me within 6-8 hours of the meal. And worse, it can take about 3 days for them to fade.

The difference between my having no wheat/gluten and some wheat/gluten is quite striking. Jatina suspects this is because I've lost any adaptation my body once had when I ate these breads/grains/cereals very regularly. In fact, I LOVED the stuff! But it seems it was a bad love.

So, there it is.

And, best wishes, eh?

-- Resa

Hi all,

One of my greatest fears is of being caught on the road with a tornado.

I know nothing about them, and can't imagine anything more frightening. And now, with severe storms striking the mid-sections of the United State, I wonder again what I should do if I ever encounter a tornado while driving.

The last time I drove back east from Washington state, there was a tornado watch less than half a state away. I found out about this as I stopped at rest stops and heard the constant posting over the speaker systems updating people about the weather. And I also noticed that most of the rest stops seemed built like bomb shelters. I couldn't help wonder if the design was to help provide shelter if something turned that way.

I have also heard that you should leave your car if you see a tornado. But with the debris in the air, wouldn't that be more dangerous? And I've heard that you should not go anywhere near underpasses, because they create wind tunnels. So, what should a person do?

So, to my friends who live in places where tornados happen -- what do you advise? And, hey -- be safe, eh?

A live streaming vid of a Eagle nest with chicks!!! Go HERE now!

Found via stardragonca. Whoo! It even has sound!

Oh, and ... I'm quiet lately because I pulled a muscle or two in my back a bit ago. And it's still bugging me a bit, but better. So, you'll see more of me soon! Honest!

A Quote from the article:

They divided 62 children with cavities into three different diet groups for 6 months. Group 1 ate their normal diet plus oatmeal (rich in phytic acid). Group 2 ate their normal diet plus vitamin D. Group 3 ate a grain-free diet and took vitamin D.

In group 1, oatmeal prevented healing and encouraged new cavities, presumably due to its ability to prevent mineral absorption. In group 2, simply adding vitamin D to the diet caused most cavities to heal and fewer to form. The most striking effect was in group 3, the group eating a grain-free diet plus vitamin D, in which nearly all cavities healed and very few new cavities developed. Grains are the main source of phytic acid in the modern diet, although we can't rule out the possibility that grains were promoting tooth decay through another mechanism as well.

-----------------

Fascinating stuff!!

I finally found it. It's under the cut. ( Read more... )

It seems like lately, I only come online to ask a question. And tonight is no different. Though -- I am sorry about that. I've just been really, really tied up with stuff here.

But ... I now have TV. And that led to the discovery that the Toon channel has Anime from time to time. So, I went online to find out more, and discovered this page online -- animeontv.com -- that will tell you what, where and when to find them. (Probably needs to be tweaked to my time, but hey! Cool!)

So, my question -- what's good? I have zero idea what I should go out of my way to see. I've seen Bleach and Full Metal Alchemist, and liked those. What else is there?

And thank you, as always!

So -- questions about DSL.
We are thinking of dropping Netflix for a bundle that includes TV and faster internet. When it all works out, we're only paying $15 more a month.

Back in around 2004-5, we had DSL. And we still have the modem we bought then. It has all the parts save the green line (dsl?) phone cord thingie, and we have no idea if that was just a regular phone cord, or something we need to replace.

And ... it is okay, isn't it, to use an older DSL modem? We're only getting one up from the lowest speed for DSL, I believe. So if the older ones don't have the speed, that may be okay.

Any tips for my ailing mind?

If you haven't read The Foreigner Series by C. J. Cherryh, you probably won't get it. But still, if ya have -- it's here. For the C.J. Cherryh LJ Stick Figure art contest.

If you've ever thought about having some kind of food around that will last a long time, and be portable -- be it for a possible emergency, or just a hiking trip -- I would suggest that you try making some old fashioned Pemmican.

From Lex Rooker -- a fully illustrated PDF on how to make your own Pemmican.

You might remember him an earlier link I posted regarding the fully illustrated PDF on how to make your own $10 Food Dehydrator. Just so ya know, I made one. And have used it repeatedly over the last month. It works perfectly. And once you have your jerky, you can make your pemmican.

I should briefly note, that Lex is part of the Paleo/Raw Meat Diet. So, yes, you can use regular lean beef and beef fat to make your Pemmican -- I do. When he mentions only wild game or grass feed beef should be used, he's speaking to that diet's requirements.

Enjoy!

It's from the TV Series, Star Trek: Deep Space 9. And it's a klingon. If you're a Trek fan at all, what more do I need to say?

"Who Wouldn't Want to Come?"

Enjoy!

A four-year-old Cornwall girl with a severe form of epilepsy is free from blackouts thanks to an 80% fat diet. (Click the link to read, or find the rest ( under the cut )

Since I've been doing weight lifting now for about three weeks -- a link to the website that I'm basing my routine upon: http://www.stumptuous.com/
LOVES weight lifting! Makes me feel all big and bad!

So, um, feeling better today. Sorry about that. And Jatina's doing better again today, so it seems that the setback was just temporary. Me so glad. Yup. Yup.

And, on the thing that hit my computer. I mentioned that it took down my AVG. Well, I installed and tried Avast, and it found a threat AVG had not caught. But things were still questionable. So I deleted Avast, and installed NOD32 Antivirus 4. And that puppy found invaders on the Firefox program AND Zone Alarm!! Jeez! Firefox and Zone Alarm are supposed to be fairly bullet-proof!

And so, I'm keeping NOD32. It's not freeware, so we have to buy it. But I think it'll be worth it. However -- if you think you might have something lurking on your own machine, it can be used for 30 days for free, and hey, maybe even running it once would be worth it. But be warned, it does require you to delete any other virus protector first. (makes face) But, you can always re-install.

Hope you're all having a wonderful day.

It's okay. Well ... now it's okay. We just had a rough ride down here at Challender central.

To be brief, Jatina lost her grandmum recently, and then, on top of that, she also had a pretty wretched reaction to the metformin she was taking for her recent diagnosis as Type 2 Diabetic. The usual bad reaction is very bad diarrhea. But there's a reaction that's worse that's masked by constipation first -- and she got that one. Which meant, since it wasn't listed with the normal adverse side effects, she didn't stop taking it. And so, her digestive tract got a bit crunched.

So, it's been a lousy month. But she's finally doing better. She's got a bit to go yet, but she's now moving in the right direction.

In other news, I've returned to that Low Carb Diet thing back in December (down 4 inches on my waist), and started weight lifting a couple of weeks ago, and feeling pretty good about that. So, hey, things are going much better all around.

Oh, and I think I fixed the computer.
Only took 8 hours. (aaaarrrrghh) Oh, how I wanted to take a hatchet to it. But I held my tempter, and it seems to be working okay again. But to be sure, I'm not using my Eudora or Thunderbird for a while. I'll work from my protected email thing online.

Still ... might have to reconfigure. But at least all the pertinent information is now saved to disc.

I seem to have a trogen or some other fun invader on my computer. Basically, it seems to be sending spam all over the known world from my email client. It's also been kind enough to shut off my outgoing AVG email scanner, which it also wired up so that I can't turn it back on, or delete AVG. How ... cute.

Any tips would be appreciated. In the meanwhile, I am downloading Avast, and hoping that can catch the outgoing crap off my machine.

Oh, and I caught this when I started getting a ton of undelivered mail notices to various places around the globe. Then Jatina noticed the settings had been "permanently" changed on AVG.

Argh. I suppose I should check the settings on Zone Alarm too.

By the way, if you got any mail from me today -- as I think today is when this started -- sorry. It may be catching. I think I may have gotten this myself from a email I got in too.

And, before it can be said: No, I don't open email from people I don't know. I don't click links even in emails from people I do know. And I never, ever, ever, open attachments. So whatever this was, it was crafty. I'm only assuming that I got it from Uncle Ed because we got an email this morning saying that his computer had just been utterly crunched by something that got through all of his firewalls and protections. He actually knows a bit about computers, and he's going through reboots and what have yaz, to fix it.

so. DAMNIT.

And so, the Music4Art trades continue. Tuuli_chan, it's done! And can be found here.

I should have it packaged up and in the mail on Monday or Tuesday. And so it'll be coming your way fairly soon.

You guys do know that you're supposed to get up at 2:30am on the 24th to go see this thing, right? Right?

Anyway, the article I got today in the mail:

COMET TAIL: Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3) is approaching Earth and putting on a good show for amateur astronomers. Yesterday, Feb. 4th, observers witnessed a "disconnection event." A gust of solar wind tore off part of the comet's tail in plain view of backyard telescopes.

Photos of the event are featured on today's edition of http://spaceweather.com. Activity in the comet's tail and atmosphere will become even easier to see in the weeks ahead as Lulin nears closest approach on Feb. 24th. At that time the comet will lie only 38 million miles from Earth and it should be visible to the naked eye.

In the meantime, please note that Feb. 5th-7th, is an especially good time to find Comet Lulin in the pre-dawn sky. The comet is gliding beautifully close to the naked-eye double star Zubenelgenubi. Just point your binoculars at the double star and the

I'm currently testing "1 Moon Above" by 3DWonders. It shows a image of a sky, with mysterious tree silhouettes in the foreground, and a moon in the background. It can be set to your long/lat, and the sky and moon changes by the time of day, and phase of the moon. It also, as I understand it, will show the changes appropriate to the season.

It looks pretty cool. And I'm thinking that I might buy it.

So -- what are you using? Do you have something utterly cool that can be tested for free? Tell me, tell me!