that cheerful Howdy! hasta stop

I forgot to get the good pic again, but remembered to grab one coming back thru on my way home this time. The other side says Partridge Family. Also noticed this time it's for sale. Don't know if you can read that, maybe next week I'll get a better pic.

And I felt bad for not doing the neighbor's squash blossoms justice last week, so here's a better shot.

I have done my planning, my shopping, and yesterday initiated my original paleo / South Beach / Rosedale health plan combo diet. The only thing I purchased with Rosedale was the book (used, spent under $2), didn't buy anything else or take any supplements, and the rest I just studied online and did on my own.

Back around 2009 I had become desperate and bent my mind around putting together my own health care team. By 2011 I was cleaning off years of medications and lost 50 pounds in 4 months, but it took a lot of research on how diabetes actually works, how 'nutrition' is skewed into the wrong foods by big companies, how to survive without medications by actually paying attention to what I put into my own mouth. It's work paying attention and keeping track, but it's very easy with all the mandatory food labeling we have nowadays.

This is my public trail through healing.

pill phobia at its finest - coming out of the stupor of medication addictions, poor medication management, over prescribing

my problem with healthy food - challenging the healthy grains concept

Holidays With Diabetes- Easier than you think - An easy way to understand what the holidays do to diabetics

Diabetes and Steroid Meds - Surviving steroid treatment for other chronic illnesses and allergic reactions while maintaining control with diabetes

I've come a very long way since I wrote those articles. I've slipped off my own path a bit, regained a little weight, backslid into pain complications and medication problems, and now I'm very tired of 2017 dragging on like this. Time to get my control back.

Because I keep after continual physical therapies throughout the year, I am still not only maintaining function around my home, but keeping up with far more activity than I ever dreamed I could do. I still can't get on my knees at all without destroying them and have almost continual pain somewhere in my body during everything I do, including reclining and sitting, but it's manageable. However, I've lost my grip on that manageable part a few times this year, and I want it back. Part of losing that grip is because I'm slipping on my nutrition planning, and it doesn't take much for the diabetic headaches and slower healing and stomach problems and nerve pain to pop back in my door with a cheerful Howdy!

It's too easy to grab quick and starchy bites on the run because I have high energy young people in my house now. I must menu plan for MYSELF and stick to it. I work around food allergies, so I heavily depend on dairy for proteins, but some dairy has lactose and lately my glucose spiking is worse on lactose because of my new blood pressure pill. So, I bought an extra dozen eggs this week and boiled them up. One boiled egg a day will replace my second cup of coffee with creamer (canned milk).

I also bought bacon. Bacon gets a really bad rap when it's actually much better for you than cookies and cake and pie and spaghetti, especially when you're diabetic. It's easy to cook up a package of bacon and then keep it on hand in the fridge. When others grab a cupcake, I can grab a piece or two of bacon, and later I can use the bacon drippings to cook up a big load of pan roasted brussels sprouts, which are even more awesome with aged balsamic and grated parm.

Guys, I lost 50 pounds in 4 months one year without even trying just doing THAT and stopping when I reached 1500 calories. I could nibble all day and still dropped 5 bowling balls off. It never really hits home how much we carry around until you pick up a bowling ball and go wow, that was IN ME.

Anyway, I reached a point in 2011 where I felt like a skinny fat person, which was really fun for new clothes (got down to an 18), and I would really like to go past that now. I've been in size 20 jeans for awhile and if I'm going to be having difficulty with pain and possible falling (the klutz is becoming strong again), I'd like to be easier for others to help getting back up, knowhutImean? So I bought butter and bacon and eggs and cheese and brussels sprouts and broccoli and lettuce (I love lettuce wraps around chicken tenders!) and stuff like that, and let's see how the rest of the year goes.

I've been hovering just above 200 pounds for months, I wanna break through that. Can I do it? I've never lost weight on gabapentin before, plus I'm back on low dose xanax and still on daily zyrtec. In 2011 I was NOT on meds bossing my weight/water retention around, because I had spent 3 years cleaning off most of my meds and got into physical therapy. We'll see what happens. I do know that I gained weight this year on baclofen and higher doses of gabapentin, so the baclofen is gone and the gabapentin is back on very minimal pain control.

I. Want. This.

click for more fall gifs

weird bacon

Let's be honest, bacon isn't really the cure for everything. Only *good* bacon is, but bacon in general is one of those hit and miss things. I've been bacon experimenting for years- brands, cuts, flavors, saltiness. I've tried it all. Or so I thought...

I had a heads up the other night and at the time it was so weird that I just blew it off- I was dreaming about white bacon. White bacon? Where was that coming from? Weird. Chuckled and went back to sleep.

IT'S REAL. AND I THINK I GOT HOLD OF SOME. Granted, probably some under the table *cough* mislabeling, but dang.

I was tired, the little store I was in (famous for it's meat counter) didn't carry my extremely particular kind of bacon, saw an identical description on a different brand, almost thought better of it, and then thought how bad could it be?

Well, for crispiness, it's perfection. I have never had such a delightful crispiness in my mouth at the peak of cookness. The flavor is really throwing us off, though. The hardwood hickory smoke is but a faint hint, and I'm completely missing *bacon*. At first we thought maybe it had gone bad, but nothing at all smells wrong, looked great both raw and cooked, just maybe a wee lighter color... Or a lot lighter. I mean, it seems to be bacon... It's just this super light golden color like I've never seen before in bacon.

I have discovered white bacon is a real thing. This clicks to that link.

It's edible, just unexpected. I think, basically, it's difficult to make lower sodium salt pork pretend to be regular awesome bacon. That weird flavor coming through is really plain- nothing. I feel like someone sliced up a big slab of lesser brined pork belly that had been hung in a smoker area just long enough to be legal for a smoked label. Don't get me wrong, I've had really bad fatty bacon that looked and tasted just fine cooked but was miserable getting it cooked because the cut area went through the sorts of fat that either super curled or wouldn't crisp up or whatever, but this package was perfect for the fat just chillin into heavenly crispiness without putting up any fight whatsoever.

And yes, clever readers have noticed that I ventured into white bacon and completely sidestepped that I dreamed it ahead of time. I almost wrote 'white bacon' into a post the other day before I found out it's a real thing. I've never seen it in print or expressed like that in a recipe. I've known about salt pork for a long time, but I don't cook with it. So I'm having one of those Matrixy moments, and it's baking my noodle.

5 Things You Need to Know Before Cooking with Salt Pork

~couple hours later~

So I was having this deliciously lazy morning back on the couch watching the weather channel from my blanket igloo, eventually taking a vote about whether to stay in pajamas all day. Every cell in my body enthusiastically sang *pajamasssss*, and, evil dictator that I am, I kicked the igloo off and was just about to strip into some real clothes when I remembered I wanted to get a shower this morning.

It's cold.

I don't feel like getting wet. Yet.

Pajamas it is.

Every cell in my body sang *huzzahhhhh* while I walked back into the kitchen looking for hot chocolate to go with my minecraft.

Gonna be one of those days. Gonna hafta show these cells who's boss. 😈

rub some bacon on Doctor Strange

Written late yesterday afternoon. Skip if you hate anything stats.

I think my favorite thing about statcounter is that it'll totally believe everything about you is in another country, including your hardware and software equipment and hosting and user service, and then blandly point blank say incoming from this city and state in the U.S. that is completely unrelated to Mountain View Google, Facebook, or any other massive bot referral masking system, and then I know the user manually adjusted the IP to look out of country. If everything about the IP is too matchy, that's a mask. A normal person with the usual stuff can ping up to 5 IP locations hitting a page because everything your system uses from hard drive to wifi IDs with its own ping, and out of country using almost anything chrome or google and especially a translator pings through Mountain View, and then Facebook has a couple main locations that I know is FB routing the ping before I even see referral address. Anyway, I waited a few weeks to see if this would happen again, because one day they got a little Pinky happy and I didn't wanna scare them off, but I guess not.

So here's what happened. They thought they were masking, but their corporate network pinged and I was able to easily look up that corporate HQ street address and phone number in the heart of Orange County, so this whole "I'm from Canada" thing is stupid. Also, it kind of looks like they might have bids out to national defense gigs, among other things, so basically I think I'm looking at players covering a hacking organization with a security front.

By the way, a Brazil association also came up, other people discussing this in forums, so another clue for the ol' Pinky List. I can't help wondering if this is how and why all these account compromises you hear about with banks and host servers and stuff keep happening. It's like inside jobs from super spies setting up sabotage wait I mean corporate strategy services and bidding out jobs.

Or it could still be this pissy head cold and I'm reading way too much into a few little numbers. You know, because weird. That's all, it's just weird. But I srsly feel more comfortable about Pinky blog being linked through a few porn sites in several countries and Ukraine bots crawling my pages than I do about pretend I'm from Canada while I ping your blog over and over for no rhyme or reason thing. Actually, kinda miss those Ukraine bots. I wonder what happened. Maybe they got bored, or my site mapping got too overwhelming, bcuz over 700 posts now with a million links. Or maybe someone got caught... o_o awwww.

Today.

I've already got 36 points from LeGarrette Blount in Thursday's game, woot! Week 3 in #SnarkFF (Snarkalecs Fantasy Football) and I'm up against Mandie, who has a fun fashion blog at pinkhairfloosie.com that I enjoy checking out. Click her pic to see lots more.

The swan thing at the top clicks to the facebook convo, also made an earlier tweet. Still not sure why that called to me, unless it's a retro design triggering a childhood memory of somewhere I've been.

So, MacGyver last night. I wanna say it was awesome, but I was still able to tweet through it, so it's on awesome-reserve. I'm more on edge with South Park's new drama this fall as Skank Hunt's 'reign of terror goes global'. Honestly, I had missed seeing this last ep when I wrote my troll post, had no idea how perfectly timed that was. If I had seen it before I wrote that, I'd have used South Park memes instead of those other ones. Love me some Dr. Ken. I think that entire cast is fantastic. We actually dropped a scifi show for Dr. Ken, so that's saying something. Superstore is our other laugh candy. Dina is my spirit animal, very well played by the stunning Lauren Ash. I may hafta keep track of her for some memes in my future. The real star with us this week is the new Lethal Weapon series. Not very many drama movie series get me hooked, but I'm a hardcore everything Lethal Weapon fan, and I thought they did an outstanding job casting and filming and getting that story rolling again.

No idea how I'm going to keep up with all the TV coming up. There's too much. I'm sure we'll be running behind a lot of it like last year.

Twitter is my Jag, lol.


I think we might have the weekend off, and now @bonenado's got this head cold from hell and sounds terrible, poor man. He poured maximum strength mucinex into his coffee IV, and you've gotta know he's not a meds man AT ALL. If he's taking something? ~*~it's bad~*~

In case you're not aware of this yet, very cool.


I so cannot wait for this movie. I'll probably have to wait forever for it to be released to Dish and DVD. There's a martial arts in film review directly after the trailer. I studied Jackie Chan's Drunken Master frame by frame and behind the scenes diaries, just brilliant.


That's right, I have absolutely no agenda today. I'm blabbing on about not a whole lot. I need to peel off here and go cook some bacon. This is for @bonenado's head cold.


df :edit: ignore that, it's not code for anyone, just a place holder after a bunch of html that I forgot to wipe.

aspienado selfie kind of a day

Fluid-filled ears, TMJ, and bacon. That's all there is today. Every time I walk into another room, my brain falls out. I'm going in circles. I keep coming back to the bacon I cooked up, so at least there's that. About two hours ago I thought I'd better go put some clothes on. I just realized I'm still in my pajamas, so I'm going to go put some clothes on. BRB.


Yes, I had to write out instructions to myself and go follow them. I'm back with real clothes on, matching pink underneath my orange FINAO tee. I meant to tell you guys several days ago my fave sock ever finally bit the dust. Yeah, the green one sticking its tongue out.

And now I'm getting supper cooked up ahead because it's just too hot to cook later. Italian chicken fingers, yay! Which we'll have with salads this evening. I feel like I need a vigorous back massage with brass knuckles, or at least a few nails jabbed in for homestyle acupuncture, so let's just keep distracting me while stuff cooks. I got this the other day, too. It's really hard to get a good pic where the gray actually shows up. That's my wizard hair. I'm a wizard.

My mom was all white by this age, so I don't know what's wrong with me, it's still all brown and red except for those very front pieces trailing back.

You guys probably won't believe me telling you I already knew when I was a little girl that I wanted wise old woman hair when I grew up. I've always thought white hair is awesome. I mean, aside from blue hair. I've ALWAYS wanted blue hair. Now that I'm so allergic to makeup that just watching these makes my eyes puff up, I realize I missed all the fun. It's worth clicking out and reading the description for this one, lotta people have skin challenges.


My parents would have freaked completely out over this.

I think this is my all-time fave baby pic in the family.

I didn't know 'goth your baby' is a real thing. I also didn't know Is Your Child a Godless Goth? is a real thing. O_O *wow* Seeing's how I live in the bible belt, I feel quite comfortable suggesting the maybe 'goth' is a reaction to *cough* overzealous parents *cough*. History of modern Goth. What was that, a music lesson? Here we go- History of original Goth.

"Since histories have relied primarily on Roman sources to present the history of the Goths, these people are frequently equated with the concept of the "uncivilized barbarian" or the "noble savage". In fact, they were neither. As Wolfram points out, their history cannot be claimed as that of the ancient German people nor of the Slavic people nor of any people presently living (74-75). The Goths entered history at a pivotal moment in the decline of the Roman Empire and played their part in that drama. With the empire gone, they ruled over two great kingdoms: one of Odoacer and Theodoric the Great in Italy, and the other in France (that of Theodoric I). In Totila, the last great king of the Ostrogoths, they produced one of the most brilliant military leaders in history, a match for the legendary Belisarius of Rome, known as the "Last of the Romans'. With Belisarius' victory, the history of the Goths ends. It is therefore difficult at first to determine exactly what the legacy of the Goths is to the modern-day world until one realizes that, without them, there would not be one. The kingdom of Odoacer preserved the best aspects of the Roman Empire and that of Theodoric the Great maintained that preservation. Western civilization continued after the fall of Rome, an entity that was disintegrating daily and would have fallen anyway even if the Goths had never set a single boot on Roman soil; it was the Goths who preserved the light of western civilization, even as they helped to topple the empire that had given rise to it."

Even on days where I feel like my brain keeps falling out and don't feel like I'm getting anything done, I actually get a lot done. Research counts. Moving pictures off my phone counts. Practicing my writing skills counts. I learned from Chris Hardwick that all that counts. That's why I don't get so depressed any more over it. I'm still inching forward. I'm still creating content and sharing my soul with other people who might be stuck today.

Back to some fun stuff! Bunny got pictures made the other day, this little outfit knocks me out, I love it. Like a tiny flapper girl.

Batman is partially indigenous to this country. I grew up near a reservation, so it tickles me to hear him doing a circle chant without any prompting or even being exposed to one. Native American Prayers


I guess I need something besides a couple pieces of bacon in me. This might be a good day to go watch a Sherlock ep again and notice more background stuff.

larak tarath

Bacon brownies. They're REAL.

Weekend fixins and doins. 

    

My theme song after I exuberantly hoisted a 26 pound Bunny a few times around on an old L/S herniated disc and inflamed the hell outa my sciatic lesion. I'm currently negotiating terms with the revolt and uprising. You'd be surprised how well the Mak'Tar chant of strength actually helps when one gets stuck.

as long as I stay focused on fictional characters we'll all be fine

My week continues to blur right by me. That's good, because I'm in a hormonal manic euphoria hell, exuberantly killing all in my path.

My theme this week is tongue in cheek while chemicals bathe my brain in a hate/lovefest. If Moriarty had been a woman in hormonal manic euphoria hell, Sherlock would have already been eaten for breakfast. Poor John would just have to blog about it.

helping you get through Friday afternoon at work

So you wanna fill out a quick bio but you're not sure what to say. Let the professionals help! Robot twitter accounts have made a science out of filling out bios. In fact, I'd bet these are fourth graders doing hi-tech billionaire home school tutorials on how to conquer the world. Just follow these simple guidelines.

Both have 11 words that make four distinct phrases.

Common words- bacon, wannabe, alcohol, fanatic

Words with similar meanings- specialist, maven

Cool kid words- ninja, practitioner

Double meaning phrases- social media scholar, twitter lover, pop culture

Words that can't go into the same bio together- certified & unapologetic

Words left over- coffee, twitter

You can learn from this how to set up a bio that targets quick audiences. Obviously, bacon is the top word anyone can and should be using. Begin and end your bio with tie-in words, the way specialist and scholar go together, and fanatic and lover go together. Wannabe is critical for grabbing followers who will identify with your struggle. Pick one- certified or unapologetic, but don't mix them in the same bio. Be sure and sprinkle in other top words like coffee or twitter.

In case you are still screaming bored and cranky and want to keep being entertained, feel free to glue your eyeballs on this video and get sucked into weirdness. Have a nice day.

booger bacon- because I'm the only person on the planet who'll use a title like that

I know, it's been a week since I posted. A lot can happen in a week.

First of all, let's just get this out of the way- yes, jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes, and I once tossed a grown goat over a fence. Don't worry, she landed on her feet. Goats are like cats.

Bacon enthusiasts went crazy over this one, but did you know this goes back to 2008? Total carbs 3.1 for those of you going paleo. (There is a nutrition chart in that 2008 link.) The pic clicks to the runaway tweet, but you can see more pix here.

My dad met burrito on Thanksgiving. No matter where he was, wherever the light came from it seemed to wash out the picture. I told him he was glowing. Not sure what it portends, but I'm pretty sure it was real. It was really hard to get a good picture of him inside my house with my phone. I kinda wonder if my own aura was interfering a bit, I was really glad to see him. Burrito took to him immediately and couldn't stop running to him and climbing on him.

Burrito got her own baby turkey. Yeah, she thought I was crazy. And she does NOT like cranberry jello salad. She ate about half that sweet potato, though.

I completely missed the parade and football, but we had such a good time visiting that it didn't matter. I showed my dad an episode of In Search of Aliens and we yapped like crazy old people for hours. Not a lot of people can brag about being raised by a Mennonite who includes UFOs in his religious studies. The convos get pretty wild.

The next day burrito mutated into a booger being, dragging us into a snotty pajama party blur while mama got great Black Friday deals on everything from cool burrito stuffs to new tires. You guessed it, we're all booger beings now.

Just in time for the ice storm moving through.

I'm currently doing a fan video search per request "that had something with lexx in it and really cool Russian song", which seems like an awesome way to start a Monday. Get your Monday on like a Divine Assassin and GET TO WORK.