No more lost sunglasses!

I love sunglasses. I have several pairs. I like them plain, sparkly, colorful. It doesn't matter. Expensive or cheap. I'll take 'em. I also have a puppy.

I love my puppy. She's so cute. She's getting so big. Over 40 pounds now and 10 months old. She's so soft and...well...puppy.

She greets me at the door when I come home. So very excited to see me after being apart for 9 hours. She jumps up to see what I have in my hand. Something for her maybe? Usually not. But she is still full of enthusiasm as she prances down the hall to my bedroom. She'll jump up on my bed as I set my purse and work bag down. Then she will shove her head into my purse and start rooting around because I have undoubtedly hidden some tasty morsel in the darkest regions of my handbag just for her. And what she comes up with are my sunglasses. As I yell for her to drop them she jumps down and dives under my bed for cover. I can hear her crunching them before I can grab a broom to try and retrieve them. This is an everyday occurrence. I have started closing my purse up before setting it down, which does deter her from gaining access to whatever pair of sunglasses I have worn that day. But I have other pairs just waiting for her in a basket on my vanity. And they are just within her reach if she cranes her neck. I am tired of wearing sunglasses with teeth marks. So I found a solution.

The other day I went to Goodwill and found some picture frames that were priced so cheap I couldn't pass them up. Some of them had pictures in them, but there are no rules that say you can't take the pictures out. So I bought them. They were all 99 cents. One was of a little boy and girl on the beach. Cute. But nothing I wanted to keep.

 I also recently purchased some ceiling fans. My oldest son has assumed the task of installing them. There were some extra lengths of wire. I assume that's ok that they were left over. I mean, the fans seem to be working just fine. So I gathered up some of the wire because I just knew I could find something to do with it.

Then it dawned on me. A way to keep my sunglasses out of puppy's reach. But first I would need to change out the picture in the frame. Since I was doing this for sunglasses and I miss the beach so very much, I decided on a favorite picture of my favorite place. Bolsa Chica Beach.

Then I cut the blue wire into smaller lengths to fit across the picture. I pulled them across the glass and tucked them behind the picture securing them with tape and fitting it all back into the frame.

I hung the picture next to my bedroom door. Then, I gathered up the sunglasses I could find. (I'm still missing my white ones with the polka dots!) I slipped the glasses onto the wires and voila! I now have a place to keep my glasses where I can see them all and just grab the ones I want as I'm walking out. Best of all, unless she grows 3 more feet, the puppy can't reach them.

 

 

Magnesium...nope, not a trace

A lot of my friends know that I have A-fib. Totally not fun. And it's not like I had an "episode" and never had another. No, no. I have "episodes" every day. My heart goes in and out of A-fib all day long. If you don't know what that is, well, it is an irregular heartbeat. The kind that will make your heart race up to 172 beats per minute. (65 to 75 is considered normal) In my case, it did that for 12 hours. Now everyday I get a quickening. It feels like butterflies in my chest. Or sometimes in my throat making it difficult to breathe. It causes dizziness. And it makes me exhausted. 

A while ago I saw a Physician's Assistant who had my blood tested. After taking 14 vials of blood and putting it through the wringer, my results were less than promising. I was deficient in just about everything. One of these things was magnesium.

Magnesium is very important for the human body to function. It is vital for muscle and nerve function. It's suppose to reduce PMS, indigestion and fatigue. They say it can reduce diabetes, hypertension, and it plays a vital role in...wait for it...normal heart rhythm.

Now, it's not that I don't eat things that are loaded with magnesium. I love almonds, spinach, peanuts, shredded wheat, avocado, bread, peanut butter, yogurt, oatmeal, chicken, rice and apples. Oh there are loads of other food items that have magnesium. But these are my faves. The ones I eat a lot of. So imagine my surprise when I find out the blood test results say I have .7 g of magnesium in my body. A normal adult should have 25 g. Hmmmmm...I think I'm a little short. But I am not alone.

Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, author of The Magnesium Miracle said, "A hundred years ago, we were able to obtain 500 milligrams of magnesium from our diet. Today we are lucky if we get 200 milligrams." 

Why the difference? Well, one reason is soil depletion.  I was listening to a debate this morning on my Sunday commute to work between organic farmers and representatives from Monsanto. I can't even type their name without curling my lip. The representative of Mon..... even admitted that they have contributed to soil depletion. That modern intensive agricultural methods have stripped increasing amounts of nutrients from the soil in which the food we eat grows. Sadly, each successive generation of fast-growing, pest-resistant produce is truly less good for you than the one before. I don't want to get into all that now. That is a discussion for another day.

So now I'm taking supplements. The recommended dosage for a woman of my age is 320 milligrams. But my health provider has me on 800 every night. It does seem to help with the brain fog. But I haven't really noticed any other changes. If you have brain fog, or you feel your heart flutter, get it checked out. Maybe you have been feeling tired with no real explanation. It could be you are low on magnesium. Get a blood test. It could help you sleep at night.

The magic of Baking Soda - Bees and Wasps

I think this is one of the most recognizable images ever. We always had a couple of boxes around our house. Arm & Hammer has been providing us with one of the most versatile and affordable products for over 165 years. When I was a child I had no idea it could be used for so many different things. The only thing I ever saw was my grandmother dumping it down the drain after it had done time in the fridge as an odor collector. But it has endless uses. And I'd like to talk about one now. One that, maybe, you didn't know about.


We've had several days of monsoon rains here and that can leave standing water. And standing water leaves...mosquitoes! Now, I am allergic to mosquitoes. They can find me anywhere. They've even been known to wait for me outside of the movie theater. Seriously, there was a swarm buzzing around my car in the theater parking lot. Only my car. I can be standing in a group of people and be the only one to get bit. They know me. They like me. They bite me. I will swell and itch like nothin you've ever seen. So I try to stay inside around dusk and I try to remember to wear my eau de bugspray. But sometimes, despite my best intentions, I will still end up with a mosquito bite. Luckily there is itch relief waiting patiently in my fridge.

If you do get bit by a mosquito, do not scratch it! Instead, make a paste with baking soda and a little bit of water.  Apply it directly to the bite to relieve swelling and itching. Now, I'm not positive what it is in that magic powder that helps, but I know it does.

Baking soda can also help with stings from flying beasties that don't itch. Many years ago I was stung by a wasp. I hate wasps. They just are not attractive to me. My roommate and I were relaxing in beach chairs on our patio when she swatted at a wasp with a magazine. The wasp landed on my leg and for some reason, instinct I guess, my roommate swatted the wasp while it was on my leg! So of course, the wasp stung me. It hurt so bad! It started swelling right away. I yelled at her, "You do know I'm allergic to bees!" She panicked and ran inside to call her mother, who happened to be a nurse, in Colorado. "Mom! I killed my roommate!" I can only imagine what her mother thought. I hobbled inside and lay down on the couch while she took instructions from her mother. She shoved pillows under my leg to elevate it and then ran to the fridge and started rummaging around. The first thing she brought out was a meat tenderizer. I thought, "Wow, she's getting a dinner recipe while I'm just waiting for my throat to close." Then she grabbed the ever present box of baking soda. She made a paste using the baking soda and a little A-1 and put it on the sting area. By the time I finished my Cosmo magazine you couldn't even tell anything had happened. And it turns out I wasn't allergic to bees after all. 

So if you go out around dusk, or work in your garden, keep that little orange box handy.