Falling Off The Wagon

Last night I fell “off the wagon”. For many weeks I have been carefully restricting my salt and sugar intake. I have been diligent. But Halloween got the better of me. We bought candy for the Trick or Treaters, and had only 10 children show up at the door. Oh dear. All those little chocolate bars sitting there in a bowl. Oh dear. I tried, but in the end I realized that the demon had been let loose, I could make myself resist them, but then the craving would escalate, to the point that I might make an even worse choice today. So I gave in, and grabbed a handful of those little bite chocolate bars, and gobbled them up. Today I will have to resist the urge to eat sugar, because once I have some, I continue to want more. It will be work, but in a few days the cravings will disappear as if they never existed. Next year, I told Attila, I only want to buy a little bit of candy for the few children that come to the door, and I want it to be candy I don’t particularly care for. No temptation, and not too much leftover for Attila to eat himself.

My blood pressure improved on Friday, after trying the vinegar and honey routine that Bex suggested in the comments of the last entry. Initially it went down by 40 points, then came back up 20 points this morning. So I am still down 20 points from from last week. I hope my sweet Halloween indulgence doesn’t send it back up again! The evidence this morning is that I am holding steady at 20 points below last weeks levels.

We had a quiet weekend at home, Saturday was warm and wet, Sunday was cold and wet. Attila finished the French Drain, and landscaped the other side of the garden shed. When that was finished he took the door to the garage off its hinges, moved the snowblower out, and put the door back on. Then he moved the snowblower to the back yard and easily stored it in the garden shed. On Sunday we visited Home Hardware and purchased six patio stones which Attila used to create a walkway to the front step. It becomes very muddy over the winter in that area, so this will provide dry footing, and the level path will allow the snowblower to clear the snow easily on the level surface.

It is here that I would like to add my observations about the local wildlife. It is going wild. Our back yard is host to squirrels constantly digging holes in which to bury their treasure. Every time I look out the kitchen window, I watch a squirrel at work. There are birds everywhere. The Robins are loving the red berries on the trees in the front yard, there is constant movement just outside the living room window. It is mostly Robins, and small birds that may be Chickadees. Disturbingly, the Grackles continue to maintain social memory. The nest they build inside our roof is long gone, the hole has been covered by metal for more than one breeding season. They continue to land on the site of their former retreat and aggressively peck at the metal. Surprisingly, small woodpeckers have been landing on the painted siding and going to work; thus far there has been no discernable damage to the siding.

Attila has kept baited mouse traps in the garage for the last month. In the first few weeks he caught mice every night, eventually totalling ten mice. He is no longer capturing any mice, We hope it is bacause they have moved elsewhere, rather than caught on to our technique! So far we have seen no sign of them in the house.

I have been working on my genealogy book. The original family that came as pioneers had twelve children. I have written the section on the eldest child, a girl, who had one child. I am now working on the second oldest child, another girl. She had eleven children, so it is taking some time to add and reference the many photographs and documents. Referencing material is fiddly, with many steps involved, so that it is very time consuming. I am including references though, because they indicate the legitimacy of a piece of information, and it allows the reader to find and view the original documents if they so desire. I am surprised, over and over again, that there is ever more to discover. I often get sidetracked into pleasurable avenues of inquiry, into new details to be included in the book. Right now I am corresponding with a Great Grandchild of one of the eleven children. She has sent me pictures and information that cannot be found on the internet. She had been interacting with another family researcher who collects information from people and puts it into an Ancestry family tree, but he seldom, perhaps never, I don’t know I haven’t viewed all the material he has posted, references the source of the material. There is one particular piece of information that I know is fabricated, having diligently researched it myself, and interacted with the curator of the museum where the said information was to have resided, it isn’t there. I need to see the supporting documents before I include information in my database and in my books.

I am still converting home videos to digital format, which does not demand very much of my time, but it does demand my attention at specific points, so I have to keep an eye on it.

My Sister-The-Youngest-Girl had shocking news yesterday, the company she has worked for for a decade announced that the division she works in is being sold off. She has no details as to what will happen to her job, she is a Certified Accountant. She supports herself, so the loss of her job would be a total loss of family income. This closure will affect my niece and her fiancé as well, both Professional Engineers. It will be many months before they know how it will evolve. Things may yet turn out well, it is possible. I hope it isn’t too stressful, as Attila and I know all to well how stressful it is to have no working income and to be looking for a job in this economy. I hope she is spared that!

My entries are far from cohesive these days. This may be influenced to the shrinking and cracking of my immediate social environment, and it may be influenced by the chaotic storm of the larger picture, where integrity and decency are dissolving before our eyes, melting faster than the polar ice caps.

My Mom at 15. This portrait is cropped from a high school picture, which included all students in the school, and the teachers. This is the first face that I saw when I arrived on planet earth, lucky me. My Mom is a descendant of the pioneer families that took the first land grants in the District. There is an indomitable spirit that is passed on generation after generation from those who first hewed the forests.

Worldly Distractions

Weather

8°C
Date: 10:00 AM EDT Tuesday 1 November 2016
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.3 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 7.5°C
Dew point: 3.2°C
Humidity: 74%
Wind: S 33 gust 44 km/h
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”
Charles Kingsley
1819 – 1875

I think the “we” is a top-down phenomena in North America (not having lived anywhere else I don’t want to venture an opinion beyond my experience). The media, entrepreneurs, politicians etc., assume in everything they present for public consumption, that these are the values that healthy humans aspire to. It is true that more and more people are adopting this top-down presentation of reality. But there are those of us who feel, “What do you mean “we” “white man”!?!”

I have never held social power beyond my immediate environment, nor have I desired it. My power is accountable to those around me, as is Attila’s.

In reality top-down entities only use the word “we” to gain what they desire. My “we” is a very different “we”.