6/29/06 Well, of the two Sundresses I ordered, the first was too small when it
arrived, but I kept it in hopes that it would someday fit. Today the second
arrived, same size but blue, and it fit. Happiness! Plus, it is
really cute. When I have it on and look down it makes me
happy. When I have it on and look in the mirror I see an
awfully heavy woman wearing my pretty dress. lol

But, if I stand up tall and face forward I look quite a lot
like the picture (bearing in mind that I have a lively
imagination). But, really, the dress has a few gathers, as
opposed to being tight across my hips. It's quite hopeful.  

It's when I turn sideways that my excessive inches are
shocking.
iconicon
8/16/06  Yesterday was two years from the day I got the needle in my toe that
led to tetanus. I learned so much from having a central nervous system disease
that, aside from the astounding pain when the back muscle seizures hit, I'm
grateful that I had it.

Today I've discovered a truly neat thing. I should have told you on the day that
Maggie told me about serrapeptase that she also told me about chia seeds. I
ordered them, too, but because I can't go out to shop it's been a hard to figure
out what to have them with.

Maggie thought they would be way superior to brown rice. Her feeling was
that chia seeds are the answer to dealing with diabetes and a few other things,
to include weight loss.

What the chia seeds do is make gelatin, really quickly. The day that my order
arrived I put some in a glass and added water. When it came time to taste
them, about twenty minutes later, I was reluctant. They look like seeds, maybe
sesame seeds, but still, seeds. Sort of like seeds in cloudy, soupy Jello.

Still, I drank the glass of them and they had no taste. The feeling of eating
them is not unlike eating Jelly Babies that aren't hard. It's not bad. But, it's not
like eating ice cream, either: they didn't make me desire to have them again.

Today, ah, here is where the neat thing comes in, today I had a new kind of
multivitamin with my morning coffee. Coffee is my breakfast. (There have
been several news reports on how people who drink coffee commit suicide
much less than people who don't. I can understand that because on the worst
of days in the worst of times I have been uplifted by the thought of coffee.
Even though I did not want to get out of bed ever again, I did want to have
coffee. So, I got up, made it and felt so much better after drinking it.)

This morning I had the multivitamin with my coffee and at noon I wasn't
hungry. I mean really not interested in eating. But I knew that would be tricky
because of the serrapeptase which now controls when I eat. I can't eat for an
hour after taking it, and I can't take it until three hours after eating. It seems
very complicated to me.

Since I wasn't hungry I decided to have the serrapeptase and not eat lunch. So,
of course I was hungry a couple hours later but then it was too close to dinner.

I began to wonder what the chia seeds would be like in coffee, which I drink
with so much creamer that it's nearly thick. (I use Creamer because milk
products, other than yogurt, give me a lot of mucus.)

I put some seeds in filtered water, waited twenty minutes, made strong,
concentrated coffee (Columbian from Wal*Mart with some Starbucks French
Roast), put a lot of Creamer in my mug, half filled it  with chia gelatin and
added the strong coffee.

I love coffee so much that I was hesitant to taste it. But, it was dynamite.
Totally dynamite. It was like one of those coffee drinks that Sonic or Dairy
Queen advertise on telly all the time. It was sooooo good. And, filling. I feel
just so satisfied right now, except it was so good I'm going to go use the rest
of the seeds I soaked in a second cup. MMMMMM.

Later: Oh, Oh... Chia seeds turned out to make me sick. See 12/2/06. It
might be fine for some people, it wasn't for me. Also see 8/23/06.
Envisioning myself in shape
"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."
“Envisioning the end is enough to put the means in
motion”
“When we create something, we always create it
first in a thought form. If we are basically positive
in attitude, expecting and envisioning pleasure,
satisfaction and happiness, we will attract and
create people, situations, and events which conform
to our positive expectations.”
"Imagination has brought mankind through the dark
ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination
led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led
Franklin to discover electricity."
"The possible's slow fuse is lit, by the Imagination."
"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single
man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a
cathedral."
6/14/06  I needed to lose weight. I've been inactive for nearly two years,
major inactive. When I looked in the mirror (two months ago) I could see that
it was hopeless, and I went to the kitchen for something to take my mind off it.

But then I started looking at catalogs and I began to see myself differently. I
remembered that when I worked in Green Bay, many years ago, I lost a lot of
weight by going shopping every noon hour. In those days, I bought a black,
rabbit fur coat instead of a car.

I'm refusing to weigh myself. My weight always makes me sad. (Two months
ago I weighed 280 pounds, that's twice as much as I weighed when I was
young and thought I was fat. Back then, I thought 140 pounds was Huge. That's
how much I weighed when I was pregnant with my son. In London, where I
had my son, they'd say, "10 stone." (A stone is 14 pounds.)

What I'm doing, rather than weighing myself, is reveling in my clothes being
more and more loose.
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is
out of focus."
“Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the
music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your
mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for
out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all
heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to
them, your world will at last be built.”
anchor1
6/18/06  I don't know if you've ever measured how much exercise it takes to
lose weight... but I have. Sort of.

A few months ago (before I lost my condo) I was determined to lose weight.
I had a combination breakfast/lunch of three saltines with one, single,
pre-sliced slice of American cheese. I ate half of the dinner entree that is
delivered to me (because of having had tetanus and how debilitating it is). I
didn't eat the soup or any bread, and I froze the dessert.

After two weeks, I had lost ONE pound. 1 pound. And each day of those two
weeks I had been starving. (I needed to lose one hundred pounds. 100 lbs.)

Then something happened, I forget what, probably something to do with the
foreclosure, and I was so depressed that I ate all the frozen deserts in two
days. And, you know what, I didn't gain any weight.

That made me wonder, Why had my body lost so little when I had eaten so
little, and not gained at all when I ate weeks of desserts in two days?

I decided the reason I had lost so little was that I am in bed all of the time.
Zero exercise. (Tetanus is extremely frustrating because if I do the least bit
too much, my muscles tighten up all over again. I can't use my lovely Gazelle
exerciser because five minutes makes my stomach muscles so tight they bend
me over.)

My only hope, it seemed to me, was to walk a little bit in my garden, day by
day, gradually increasing the distance.

So, that's what I did. I was up to four times around my back yard, but then my
beautiful condo was taken away and it was so stressful that I was having
intense sudden pain and falling, so I had to stop; but still, my clothes are
fitting more loosely.

I've also been spending time looking at clothes and imagining myself in them
and slimmer.

I actually ordered things from Old Pueblo Traders, but I ordered the wrong
size. I measured myself and everything, but I put in the smaller size, by
mistake, that fits me from the shops around here, rather than the Old Pueblo
Traders' size for my measurements. Bother!!!!

I'm going to try the things on again next week, and see if...    
“I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the
extraordinary is not the birthright of a chosen and
privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That
is my one certainty: we are all the manifestation of the
divinity of God.”
“If at first you do succeed, try something harder.”
“It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities
which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities.
A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.”
“Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the
purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason
demands of him? Something very easy—that he live in
accordance with his own nature.”
“Love not what you are but only what you may become.”
“No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are,
raise your sights and see the possibilities – always see
them, for they're always there.”
"No vision and you perish; no ideal, and you're
lost; Your heart must ever cherish some faith at
any cost. Some hope, some dream to cling to,
some rainbow in the sky, Some melody to sing to,
some service that is high."
"Those things that nature denied to human sight,
she revealed to the eyes of the soul."
6/30/06  In the 60s when I had recently moved to Santa Fe with some of my
girlfriends from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, (Yes, I'm a pretty old lady --
certainly old, maybe not that pretty) one of our friends was a commercial
artist who wanted to be a genuine, starving artist, only he was heavy-set. His
name was Richard. Maybe his last name will come to me. Anyway, he
introduced us to the brown rice diet. Basically, you could eat all the brown
rice you wanted, with anything on it that you wanted, like brown sugar or
white sugar or honey, if you were looking for something sweet. Well, low and
behold, we all lost weight. We decided it was because the brown rice was so
boring that we gradually ate less and less.

I have a different take on it now. Here's why: in 2003, just as the privy pit
began to undermine so much in my life, Miria L'auroel wrote me to say thanks
for the B12 information on my site. She said her fingernails had ridges and
that the B12 was making a difference. She said she had been a chemist, but
had gotten sick and decided to devote her life to what she loves, her music,
and she wanted to warn me that hydrogen sulfide (from the privy pit) is
dangerous for health. She also said to look into the Eat Right for Your Blood
Type diet by Dr. d'Adamo, and gave me the link for its food database.

I didn't know my blood type, so I found foods in the database that were
beneficial for all, or neutral for all, and I ate those things. One of them was
brown rice. At the same time I read that brown rice was good if you had
pernicious anemia. (My mother had pernicious anemia and I think that if I had
not found out about my B12 deficiency that I would have developed it. There
is research that shows it is a result of low B12; that once someone's B12 has
been low for a long time, they begin to produce less and less intrinsic factor.
Without intrinsic factor no B12 can get into the body in a useful way.)

After ten days of eating brown rice consistently, I lost several pounds. In
those days I used to weigh myself. But, more significantly, my gastrointestinal
system regulated in a way that it had not done in at least ten years. I was
amazed.

But, when I got tetanus in 2004 and Kitchen Angels was going to bring me
food every weekday, I thought it would be easier if I took what they offered,
rather than saying I needed brown rice. (The food they bring was/is totally
amazing. And I am so grateful.)

Now that I can be up long enough to peel an onion and cut it into a cooking
pot, I have been making brown rice for lunch (I like the short grain sticky
kind) with chicken. The thing about it is that I can literally eat all of it that I
want, like when things are so stressful with losing my condo without knowing
that they'd foreclosed it and sold it, I can eat bowls and bowls and bowls of it
to help "sponge" some of the stress out of my system, and I don't gain any
weight. In fact, I've been consistently losing weight, judging by my
consistently loosening clothes.
"Some men see things the way they
are and ask, 'Why?' I dream things
that never were, and ask 'Why not?'"  
                      George Bernard Shaw
7/1/06  I'm finding it hard to figure out how to arrange this page. I think it's
too boring to have all my comments at the top. I think the quotes are so much
better at the top. But if I just start out with the images and quotes, it looks like
I sent you here to buy something. Really, I want to tell you that I've been
spending a lot of time looking at images of clothes in catalogs. For instance
last night I looked at a couple hundred dresses and had no snacks whatsoever.
I didn't even think about snacks.
"May you live all the days of your life."
"Your vision will become clear only when you
can look into your own heart. Who looks outside,
dreams; who looks inside, awakens."
"If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above
it; Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth."
"We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon our
vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life,
you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself.
Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always
everywhere."
"Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible
objections must be first overcome."
"If you constantly think of illness, you eventually
become ill; if you believe yourself to be beautiful, you
become so."
7/7/07 Con't  The next telling thing that happened was over a decade later
when the truant officer in London invited me to a party. (My son was always
late for school, is how I met the truant officer. My son and I were living in a
derelict building and there were other stresses as well so that I wasn't getting
him together in time.)

It was an amazing party with people from all over the world. It was at the
time of the Iran hostages and I got the impression that I was more in question
as an American than the Iranians were. But that gives the wrong impression
because everyone was so nice. It stands out in my mind as such a warm,
friendly event.

The next day plaque kept coming loose from my teeth. It was called tartar
back then. I'd never had that happen before and dentists had always told me I
had an unusually large amount of tartar.

I thought the garlic dip I'd eaten on a million potato chips
must have dissolved the plaque.

Several years later I was back in Santa Fe and I had to go to court. I'd gone
before and had done terribly. I had felt so intimidated, and I lost.

Worried about how I'd probably lose again, I decided I might do better if
people were there who knew me and liked me. So I asked a lot of people to
come, and many did. Some of them amazed me because I hadn't thought they
would come, only they did.

I can still remember the feeling of all these people in court with me. And, I
won. It was so amazing feeling.

The next day plaque fell off my teeth in chunks.

Those are the only two times in my life that chunks of plaque have
spontaneously fallen off.

However, once I started having B12 replacement therapy, many years later,
the plaque stopped building up and I needed a fraction as many cleanings.

So, it looks as if stress causes our bodies
to make plaque that can be unmade by
warm, supportive friends, love and B12.
(The picture is of a heart made by a
sweet potato I baked in this iron skillet.)

(A friend with Parkinson's Disease told
me that Parkinson's involves a build-up
of plaque in the brain.)

Here's what I think: I am able to lose weight now because I have been having
B12 replacement. It makes me feel good the way I did in university when I
was able to live away from home and my mother's constant anger at me. Not
only that, my skin is pretty firm. By that I mean that I've lost several inches
and my skin gets quite wrinkly, but then it gets firm again. So I think it's the
B12. (If you want to try it be sure to get Methylcobalamin.)

Also, I think the B12 is making my cellulite far less noticeable. (or, maybe
it's the serrapeptase)

I'm inclined to think it's the B12 because in London I was major thin at one
point and I had horrid cellulite. I remember wondering how it was possible
to be the thinnest I had ever been in my life and to have my thighs look all
pitted. It just didn't seem fair.

At the time, in London, things were dire. (I had no idea that there were going
to be decades of dire.) My gums used to bleed, my periods would be so
heavy I couldn't go out, and when the bleeding stopped and I went to visit
friends, they would comment on how pale I was.

I was younger then, so I think my body was better able to cope, whereas by
1997 the stress was too much for my body which was no longer as resilient
and I got permanent nerve damage.

The long and short of it is that I am slimming. (That's what they
used to say in London; they would never say they were "dieting,"
rather, they would say they were "slimming." I just loved it!)

I know I am slimming because the dress I ordered that was too small, was so
small in fact that it was hard to get out of and I feared I was stuck, well, now
it is so loose I can grab a handful of fabric, which gives me a nice feeling.

That's why I was thinking I'd look for something in a smaller size to order,
only the links weren't working so I wrote this instead.  
"It's so hard when I have to, and so easy
when I want to."
7/8/06  This is a picture of me at a Fiestas
party before IRS levied me in 1991 for
1984 which I'd paid. The stress changed
me from my nerves out.

(I'm putting this picture here because I
heard people look at things with pictures
more than things that are all text.

7/11/06  Yesterday I measured myself
before ordering some new lingerie and, Ta
Da!  I have lost another inch around my
waist and another inch around my hips.

I better mention that a dessert is delivered with my meal five days a week --
and I eat it. I was thinking I should give it up but then I reminded myself that
I'm already losing weight. (Judging from the inches I'm losing.)

I think being able to eat the deserts has something to do with the brown rice.
Maybe the brown rice regulates my metabolism. I don't know. But... here's the
thing, losing the inches is happening!

Another important thing is that I have been unable to walk in my garden. I can
walk out to my chair. But walking around has been cut short by this fierce
pain I get near my hips. It is sudden and it makes my legs give out, which
scares me. Mostly it's happened in the house where I grabbed something for
support. Of the times it's happened outside, I've twisted my ankle twice and
hurt my wrist. But I haven't broken anything and I keep praying for a reduction
in stress. I'm pretty sure the pain is from the extreme stress of late.

The point is that once my body got the idea I was going to do some walking
every day it treated calories as if they were being burned up by walking...
even when I wasn't walking. This is what I meant when I wrote about
exercise. The amount of exercise that is needed is simply more than the body
is used to, just enough to set the body into a whole new schedule of behavior,
so to speak. By "schedule of behavior" I mean level of metabolism.

So, deciding to lose weight and rushing off to the gym for an hour's workout is
a bit counter productive since that sets the body's expectations way too high.
(at least for me to keep up with - if I could even go to a gym right now.)

I think buying new clothes is a real stimulus to losing inches for me. It's so
rewarding to have a really good reason to buy something new: Because the
old things are too big! It sure works for me.   
"Imagination is the ability to create an idea, a mental
picture, or a feeling sense of something. In creative
visualization you use your imagination to create a clear
image, idea, or feeling of something you wish to
manifest. Then you continue to focus on the idea, feeling,
or picture regularly, giving it positive energy until it
becomes objective reality ... in other words, until you
actually achieve what you have been imagining."
"The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built
into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience.  
Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around....
Throughout history, "tender loving care" has uniformly
been recognized as a valuable element in healing."
"So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains,
and we never even know we have the key."
7/13/06  I forgot to mention something that illustrates an important point: On
Saturday I burned my brown rice into a charcoal lump stuck to the bottom of
my pot. Remembering that tomato sauce removes that kind of thing because it's
acid, I boiled some expired spaghetti sauce in my pot. (The sauce was Hunt's
and reminded me of Rob Hunt, the director of the condo association who
wanted to get my condo for cheap... and low and behold, I'm told it's his real
estate agent who bought my condo at the foreclosure sale I had no idea about.
I remember talking to Rob Hunt shortly after 9/11; he was saying he'd been
flying and was stranded in a few places, but luckily he had a home in each.)

Okay, so while the tomatoes were boiling, it smelled so good I thought I'd
make spaghetti instead of brown rice for dinner.

I was excited about having spaghetti and it was great! But, I had forgotten that
spaghetti leaves me hungry. After eating as much as I would have if it were
brown rice, volume wise, I was still hungry. So I made twice that much more,
ate it, and still felt hungry.

That's when I remembered that when I was in major poverty after the privy
pit, that I used to get Ramen Noodles, which are basically thin spaghetti with
a pulverized bullion cube for flavoring. Their big attraction was that they
were nine cents. But even if I ate a huge, twenty-seven cent bowlful I wasn't
satisfied. That's the big difference with brown rice: it makes me feel satisfied.

For instance Saturday night after I'd sadly burned my brown rice, I still had
enough to eat with fresh cherry tomatoes from my garden. I had two small
heaps and I felt satisfied after I ate it. So when I stopped eating it was
because I felt satisfied, not because I was trying to lose weight.

I used to eat HUGE bowls of Ramen Noodles. I'd feel full, in the sense of my
stomach feeling jam packed, but I wouldn't feel satisfied. I've tried taking
vitamins when I eat cheap food, to produce a satisfied feeling. It may help a
little, but not enough.

What makes brown rice so great is that it's satisfying. It makes my body feel
as if it has what it needs. Plus, I think brown rice scours the gastrointestinal
system because after two weeks of eating brown rice there's a fresh feeling.
"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there
was in me an invincible summer."
"Say you are well, or all is well with you, and God
shall hear your words and make them true."
"Whenever you fall, pick something up."
7/14/06  There's something else that's playing a part in my slimming. But, it's
time for another picture. (This
one takes courage.)

My hair looks less gray, more
blonde, so that's good; the outfit
is Vikki Vi from Dillard's. It's
wonderfully black and conceals
bulges, except on my face.

The picture was taken May 9,
2006 at the hearing on my
condo. I was upset and saying
I felt like a fool for believing in the rules. I'm pointing at a book of court
rules. I left "Buy a Print" on because I think it's okay for me to use the New
Mexican picture if I leave that on.

Oh dear, a worrying thought just struck: What if I lose a lot of inches and still
look horrible? Okay, not to go there. (That's sort of what I wanted to write
about, though.)

Prior to buying the Dillard's outfit I had lost some but was still very heavy. I
wonder if I'd have won if I'd looked like the model in the dress at left.
(Although I am aiming at getting into that dress I haven't ordered it yet
because it is a lot of sizes away. It is a medium.)

It helps me to look at this picture and see myself looking like this.

Years ago when I first read Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain, I took
the book to heart when it said to start out with something small, something you
really wanted but didn't think you could have. I visualized myself getting this
cute, casual outfit from Dillard's. It was way more than I used to spend on
clothes, but... I kept at the visualization, and low and behold in no time I had
the outfit and I never ceased getting compliments when I wore it. (I stopped
wearing it after the IRS thing.)

What I think now, is that it's probably no harder to visualize being slimmer
than it was to visualize being prosperous.

I'm visualizing myself: both thinner and smiling, just like the model in the
picture. The outfit is from Bedford Fair. They have some of my favorite things.
7/15/06  I started taking serrapeptase last night. I was told about it last
Sunday, and my order arrived yesterday. It's supposed to reduce pain,
swelling, and the plaque that clogs arteries. My friend Maggie sent me an
email about it after reading this page. So, I ordered some. I'm hopeful. Pain
has played an enormous role in my weight gain, and I think that's a common
problem. So, we'll see.  
"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry,
and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that
worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the
beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."
"The universe is transformation; our life is what our
thoughts make it."
7/27/06  Serrapeptase may be making a difference in the amount of pain and
how quickly it sets in; but, for sure, it is contributing to my weight lose. But
not the way you may think.

See, you aren't supposed to take serrapeptase with or near food. You're
supposed to wait three hours after eating, and not eat until an hour after you've
taken it. So right there you can see that it cuts down on how much time there is
to snack.

If it weren't working in relation to the swelling in my jaw and the pain in my
back I wouldn't be so keen to keep taking it, especially since it tastes a little
as if I've been chewing cardboard and it leaves my mouth feeling as if the
cardboard soaked up all the moisture.

I only ever had that weird feeling once. So that's not a worry any more.

In terms of slimming results, the lingerie I ordered on 7/10/07 arrived and it's
too big.  
"It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and
unchangeable color to every object; beware of this
stumbling block."
"I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you
truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an
eggplant."
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him
free."
7/30/06  Okay, I think the Serrapeptase is making a difference in how my
veins near my left ankle look. I think it is also making a difference in the pain:
reducing it a bit, and extending the length of time before it sets in. But, I tend
to be optimistic. You can look at the pictures I took of my ankle. I'm not just
posting them here because they look a little ... not that pretty. And this page is
supposed to be about keeping a beautiful image in mind.  

The other thing is that I am going to order the dress that only comes in a
medium, the black one up above. It's scary to think that as many inches as I've
lost, I have to lose 17 inches more to fit into the dress. It's hard for me to
believe I can lose that many more inches. It's just such a big number. But... it
would be so cool to be able to post a picture of me in the dress. So... I'm
going to go order it right now.
“Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it once,
because I need it. Don’t work for my happiness, my
brothers—show me yours—show me that it is
possible—show me your achievement—and the
knowledge will give me the courage for mine."
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you
become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall
one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you
shall at last unveil.”
“Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life
is complete. If you're alive, it isn't.”
"Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth.”
“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”
“He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life
destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in
eternity's sunrise”
"The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster
of fused ideas and is endowed with energy."
"Peak performers develop powerful mental
images of the behaviour that will lead to the
desired results. They see in their mind's eye the
result they want, and the actions leading to it."
"Relentless, repetitive self talk is what changes
our self-image."
"An individual's self-concept is the core of his
personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the
ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A
strong, positive self-image is the best possible
preparation for success in life."
8/23/06  Whew! I had to file my appeal on Monday. It took all my brain cells
and I got confused on my serrapeptase schedule. In the end I was relying on
chia seeds and coffee, and I forgot to take serrapeptase for a day and
two-thirds.

But, I learned something. I felt starving after eating chia seeds (a thick, large
amount of them in many cups of coffee) for a few days. I ordered a pizza and I
was still starving. I ate frozen dinners, I was still starving. It just seemed too
complicated to make the rice. It's not complicated, except that my mind was
overwhelmed with the appeal. There were so many "issues" and I couldn't
remember them without going back over and over again. It finally was
hopeless to think I could do anymore: I was too confused. I couldn't write
anything because I couldn't remember what I'd just checked on. Very stressful.

So, I don't know if I got a cold sore from the chia seeds (which is what I
thought) or from the stress, which is probably likely. I don't know if you know
that vitamin C makes cold sores go away, but it does. So the cold sore didn't
last. But while I had it, it made me think of how I tend to get them from corn. I
never get them from brown rice so I began to wonder about the difference
between chia seeds and brown rice.

Here's a link for a chia seed page:
www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c20nN.html
Here's a link for a brown rice page:
www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c21U6.html

I don't know if the chia seed page is correct or not, but it doesn't show any
vitamins in chia seeds, whereas the brown rice page shows several different
B vitamins.

Today I cooked brown rice and ate a ton of it, and I finally feel satisfied. I
wish I hadn't forgotten to take the serrapeptase because on Monday some
pretty sharp pain hit me sort of where my thoracic diaphragm is.

This morning sharp pain hit my thigh/hip so hard I couldn't walk. It made me
fall back when I was trying to get up; when I was up, it nearly toppled me. So,
again, it could be the stress, or maybe the serrapeptase was helping but then
when I didn't take it regularly my body reverted.

I'm not sure, but maybe the brown rice works for people who are low on B
vitamins. Maybe when someone is low on B vitamins they feel hungry, the
way I was feeling like I was starving even after I ate. What I mean is, it may
not be the same for everyone, but for me brown rice takes away my hunger,
and the chia seeds don't seem to do that. Plus, believing that the chia seeds
were going to take away my hunger worked against me because I wasn't
prepared for how ratchet-ie I felt, and how uncomfortably starving. (Have you
ever used a ratchet? I got my finger caught in the first one I used and got a
spectacular blood blister.)
"Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines
what we become."
"Image creates desire. You will what you imagine."
"Every person is the creation of himself, the image of
his own thinking and believing. As individuals think
and believe, so they are."
"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do
not stop."
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain
way to succeed is always to try just one more time."           
                                        Thomas Edison
"Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental
picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture
tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek
to develop the picture...Do not build up obstacles in your
imagination."
"All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and
frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail.
That is the talisman, the formula, the command of
right about face which turns us from failure to
success."
"But the real secret to total gorgeousness is to
believe in yourself, have self confidence, and try to
be secure in your decisions and thoughts."
e-mail this link
enter recipient's e-mail

"I've been thinking about how brown rice never bores me.

"I was thinking about when I worked at the Lamplighter, I
was never bored by donuts. I used to get so depressed,
and I would eat half a dozen. That was before I was
having enough B12 not to be depressed.

"Okay, so when I make chicken and brown rice, I put lots of black pepper
on the chicken and a bit of salt. I sprinkle on quite a bit of sage then throw in
a few kubabas -- that's Polish for whole allspice. Oh, and I started out with
olive oil and a couple of cut up yellow onions. Yellow onions reduce the
incidence of skin cancer. They are very good for us. Then I add water. When
it's boiling I throw in a mug of short grain brown rice. It smells so good
when it's cooking. It is never boring. It is sooooo good.

"But right now I've been adding ginger because ginger helps ward
off depression; I need to do everything I can not to sink under
recent events. The most upsetting thing is that the court refused
to acknowledge the case law I cited, which should have been
controlling. So, I need to give it to the Angel of Divine Love.
Otherwise it is too DEPRESSING and actually disorienting
to find out you can't trust the court, that there is no rule of law.

"Okay, so I've been using ginger and pepper, a bit of salt and sometimes
curry powder on the chicken. (Michelle buys me the boneless, skinless
breasts and I've been having at least one huge one a day.) I feel as if I need
the protein, as if my body is really craving the protein.

"It's strange because I ate so much rice with the chicken
right after those first hearings. But now I seem to want  
the chicken more, and I'm not as hungry as I used to be.

"Okay, so you could use a lot of different spices. Think of how good brown
rice would be with green chili, Mmmmm. Or, you could put in squash and
onions and -- I forget the other things that go into that neat dish that's made
with zucchini -- that would be really good with brown rice in it. But get the
sticky kind, because it's more, I don't know, more like mashed potatoes or
dumplings or, even sort of like the tortillas in our breakfast burritos. Mushy.
It's really different than the white rice that is so ... stand alone proper. I hate
how it doesn't stick together. Sticky brown rice sticks together."  (6/21/06)
Envisioning myself in shape
"We have a mental block inside us that stops us from
earning more than we think we are worth. If we want
to earn more in reality, we have to upgrade our self-
concept.
"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating
yourself."
"Every decision you make - every decision - is not a
decision about what to do. It's a decision about Who
You Are. When you see this, when you understand it,
everything changes. You begin to see life in a new
way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into
opportunities to do what you came here to do."
"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change."
12/2/06 - Well, the chia seeds made me really sick. Or, it was that the chia
seeds didn't offer the nutrients I needed and I got sick from relying on the chia
when it was nutrient poor. I don't know. I didn't realize that at the same time I
got the cold sore I got a bed sore. I didn't feel it. By the time I found it, it was
huge. I;d been feeling so sick so much of the time, but I didn't guess. It took
months to get rid of, using a lot of alcohol and Neosporin. I couldn't even feel
the alcohol when I'd press cotton balls soaked with it against the sore. Very
scary. The whole area that was red was about the size of a saucer. The
running sore was about the size of the indented part of a saucer.

So, don't get chia seeds and think that they are a healthy addition to your
nutrition. They are not. Plus, it was extremely hard to get my money back. I
got lecture after lecture and no refund. It took months.

For the last 6 weeks I've been having Whey Protein with my coffee, and it
does not leave me feeling starving the way that the chia seed did. (The chia
seed may have reacted that way for me because of whatever it is that makes
me not tolerate corn very well. Something like Celiac Disease, maybe.)

The protein/amino acids in the Whey seems to be helping me heal from the
tetanus. I'm beginning to realize that if I'd had more protein early on, I might
not have gotten as sick as I did. Sadly I ate a lot of the cheap free food
because of my poverty due to the whole privy pit problem. The free food is
really bad. It's got lots of the hydrogenated oils, and the canned meat was
either extremely fatty, or a bit fetid. It probably wasn't really spoiled, it just
wasn't fresh smelling or tasting. I began to wonder how healthy the cows are
that they use for this kind of thing.

Also, except for when I'm stressed, I've been sleeping more soundly. But then,
I'm also taking magnesium because of an infection in my jaw around old
dental implants.

One thing I never wrote about, but started to many times, is that I use my
garden to help me believe I'll lose weight. When I look in the mirror it seems
impossible that I'll ever lose a significant amount of weight. But when I look
at the "cool corner" of my garden, which was barren to start, and I see things
beginning to grow, I'd have hope. That works really well.

But then, fall set in and my garden was no where near as far along as I'd
hoped. There wasn't enough time when it takes me so long to do things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted with how much I got done at the rate of
three spadefuls followed by rest (or I'd crater and be in too much pain).

But, I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I'd thought. When there was
only one zinnia, I got so sad. It was fall, it was too late for more, and there
was only this one zinnia. I got so depressed.

But then I tried to look at it from the point of view of how lucky I was that
there was one zinnia, instead of none. And then the zinnia looked very
beautiful, with a rare quality. And I was happy.
12/26/06 - I've been taking Serrapeptase before I go to sleep at night, and in
the early morning when I wake up before it's really time to get up. There was
a week of intense pain in my thoracic diaphragm, which has tended to bode
ill. That pain has been so bad in the past that I can't make it beyond the edge of
my deck. So this time, when I don't want to take Ibuprofen because of what the
Periodontist said about it weakening my jaw bone were my old implants are
causing an infection, I took the Serrapeptase, and it helps. It's not like an
aspirin that makes pain go away, but it for sure dulls the pain. And I think, I'm
pretty sure, that by not taking the Ibuprofen anymore, that I may be helping my
liver, too. (I'm also taking Milk Thistle, because I'm sure my liver has been
over worked.)
7/17/06  About the serrapeptase: Yesterday my left leg felt like it used to
when my B12 was very low - sort of extremely tingly, not in a good way, sort
of a pre-frostbite kind of feeling. I'd had a B12 shot in the morning so it
wasn't from low B12. Still, I took the full dose of three serrapeptase.

Today I didn't have the feeling and it seemed as if the varicose veins by my
left ankle were smaller. (I don't have them on my right ankle.) They had been
standing out quite a lot. But today they were hard to find. The thing is, I could
be wanting this to happen, and so I had a hard time finding them to make my
hopes come true. Do you know what I mean?

I took a photo of my ankle so that I can see if they improve from here. I wish
I'd taken one of my ankle before I started the serrapeptase.

One thing that's improved is the swelling and pain on the right side of my jaw.
I think my jaw was out of joint from the left side having been swollen from a
bad toothache or maybe the tetanus. Anyway, my bite was way out of
alignment. So, that's cleared up. Which is very good because I was taking
Ibuprofen for that, too.

I'm planning on taking the serrapeptase as long as it was advised for clogged
arteries; that's because after just a short walk around my garden my chest feels
as if it is full of something. When I had a similar feeling during the hydrogen
sulfide time, I thought it was my heart, but the heart tests showed that my heart
was fine.

Only... I mean... didn't former President Clinton have heart tests that showed
he was just fine shortly before he had that life threatening episode? I think so.
And if he did, then I think his doctors must have been sort of the best you can
get, and so too the tests, and they still didn't identify the problem.

So, I figure it will be wise to take the serrapeptase for the 18 months. If my
chest starts feeling like it's easier to breathe before the end of 18 months, that
will be so good, and I can reevaluate then whether to keep up for the entire
time.
"Keep your faith in all beautiful things; in the sun when it
is hidden, in the Spring when it is gone."
"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,  
we must carry it with us or we find it not."
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of
their dreams."
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with
our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so
a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To
make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To
make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the
kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
"The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he
gets for it, but what he becomes by it."
"I lost 10 inches around my waist! Almost an inch a month! Read 6/18/06,
6/30/06, 7/7/06, and 7/13/06 for sure! I've made them red so they stand out."    
                                                                    Karen Kline, August 2007
6/30/06, Continued - Bobbette, who has been providing help for me through
the state, because of how debilitating tetanus is, said it sounded so boring to
eat brown rice all the time. I can see how it might sound that way, but this is
what I emailed to her:
7/7/07  Most of the links aren't working today. Brownstone is, that's about it.
So, without the catalogs to use as spring boards to seeing myself slimmer, I
began to think about the one big underlying thing that I haven't talked about.

It falls into the "Why I'm Fat" category. And obviously since I've already
talked about exercise, it's not lack of exercise that is making me fat. (Well, it
is, or was, but there's more to it than that and not eating brown rice.)

Basically, I've had a weight problem since I was eleven: after I had my
appendix out I gained weight and it never left, not entirely. Though, up until
now I was more, "too tall" than "too fat."

Okay, so, my mother was always angry at me. I don't remember her ever
hugging me. She blamed me for her marriage breaking up, saying that I had
come too early. I wished she'd had an abortion if she didn't want me, but it
was too late for that so it was meaningless to even think about it.

In college I went out every night so that I would avoid her. I drank water most
of the time, so it wasn't a drinking problem. In the morning I didn't get up until
after she'd left for work. But still, it was constant stress.

When I had a chance to orient the freshmen at university I applied
immediately because I would have to live in a dorm. (My grandparents lived
almost across the street from Old Main, and mom and my brother lived
several blocks further away.) I don't remember getting paid, but
accommodation and meals were free. What I do remember is losing weight. I
remember thinking it was because I wasn't worrying so much.
This is a short bit of music I've been listening to because
it makes me feel so good: Barbados Rocks
12/2/06 Cont.  But I also had a huge deck problem. My deck was rotted in
several places, which I didn't really appreciate. If I hadn't been taking
pictures to show off my cool corner, I might not have noticed and I might have
stepped on one of the rotted places and broken through and broken my ankle
or leg.

The deck was a headache because it was really hard to get anyone to do a
good job. One man endlessly inspected the wood to determine where the
"crown" on each board was... He was very expensive given that after three
days of work he'd only put down 7 boards.

I was getting chest pains from the stress of it. So that's why I haven't updated
this. And, sadly, I gained weight back while I couldn't exercise. The garden
was full of the old rotten wood, and I couldn't walk for fear of falling on a
nail left sticking up in some of the wood. The stress was also making me fall
quite a lot again.

Out of the 22 pounds I'd lost, I gained back 8. Extreme sadness. But, I think
that if I can not be so stressed (by the court things, now) that I won't have as
much pain and my muscles will be less tight and I can exercise again... and I
bet with the protein powder, that I will lose the weight more quickly. (I hope.)
9/10/07  It's hard to pick up after I haven't written in so long. After my Appeal
Brief was filed a month ago I came home and my right knee kept buckling,
making me start to fall. So I've been in bed and not walking. The good thing is
that an intense pain I had in my left leg has stopped. I think that with all this
rest the nerve that was causing the problem must have healed. But not being
able to walk, I'm worried about gaining weight back.

Since my electric was shut off on April 4, 2007, and I made the decision to
take care of myself and get solar so that I wouldn't be threatened all the time,
I've felt as if I have more control in my life. It feels good. I wanted to pay
PNM that day, but needed a day to transfer money. They wouldn't give it to me
and after they shut off my electric my phone didn't work. By the time Easter
passed, I was determined not to let myself get into that kind of situation again,
where I needed a day and it was refused. I'm sure that not worrying about that
anymore is a part of how the nerve in my leg healed, because of less stress.

The whey amino acids are still working for me, as is the serrapeptase. I have
bad tinnitus today even though I had a B12 shot last night. I think it's because
my Revised Brief is due but I've seen that Leverick, Deutsche's lawyer in my
condo foreclosure, lied in court about pivotal dates and it's disorienting to me
that the Court said it was my "version" which wasn't supported by the record.
I haven't been able to sleep properly, so it's especially hard to focus.

A few weeks ago a telling thing happened. Ever since the therapist I saw in
2003 told me that nerve pathways regrow in our brains and that exercises
help, I've done mental exercises every day to increase my memory.

I tried to remember who brought my meal each day of the week. Then one lady
wore a skirt that caught my attention, and the next day the next lady wore a
great top. I was delighted to find that day after day I could still remember
those two women and their clothes, in sequence.

The following week each of them wore different great things, and now I could
remember two weeks. I was just so stoked about my mind beginning to work
more like it did before I fell when I lived in the hydrogen sulfide, or had the
extended B12 deficiency.

I was looking forward to remembering for three weeks, when I answered the
door and there was a person who wasn't the Wednesday person. When I
closed the door, meal in hand, I could no longer remember what the other two
women had been wearing, at all.

I was shocked that something new erased a memory that had seemed firm. I
think that must be why I get so confused with my Appeal brief when something
shocking happens. It seems like things in my mind are a house of cards,
carefully built up, then something happens and it all collapses and I have
nothing left and have to start over.

The good thing is that I've lost ten inches, I have less daily pain, and for two
weeks I could remember two different women and two different sets of
clothes. In contrast, four years ago I felt as if a black tunnel was following me
and swallowing everything, leaving me no memory, even of what I'd just done.

I wish I could remember what's in my appeal so I didn't have to reread all the
time. I wish I hadn't added stuff that made it too long and that isn't as easy to
delete because it's hard to remember where it fits and where it doesn't.

The Dr. Brothers quote below is helping me remember how when I'm patient
with myself I can get on track and though it takes time, I can do things with an
increasing degree of accuracy.

I used to sit in my cool corner and raise my thoughts to the Angel of Divine
Love, but that got disrupted. I need to come to this page more and read the
quotes to help me feel hopeful.

Gosh, do I ever want to see me wearing that black and white outfit I ordered. I
love the pictures I have on this page now. They speak to me about hope that
seems solid, especially when taken in combination with the quotes.       I need
to find a perfect picture to put next.
Ulla Popken Limited Partnership
This is the image I've
selected to help me see
myself prevailing in court.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe
to heaven.
A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation
with the bricks that others throw at him or her.
It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you
think you're not.  
If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint,"
then by all means paint, and that voice will be
silenced.                         
I fit into the skinny, black dress today! (It's the one from 7/14/06.) It's tight--
I'm only half way there. Still, I am so happy! I'll post a link to the pictures I
took of myself along the way, but be warned: if looking in the mirror had been
encouraging I wouldn't have needed catalogs. The look on my face reminds me
of other thick set women I've seen. It's sort of an inflexible look and in order
to lose inches I had to defeat that look. It is startling to me that I looked that
way: that I looked at myself that way, and actually looked that way myself.
And yet my look perfectly reflects how stolidly I was what I was. Despite the
fact it was easy to eat rice and walk or use my Gazelle for three or four
minutes a day it didn't feel easy. What I felt was that I if I lost a bit, it would
pile back on overnight and there was no way to lose enough to defeat how
quickly it came back. Plus, it seemed that if I had really lost weight, I would
look thin. But I didn't, I always disappointed myself, mirror after mirror, so I
steeled myself with that inflexible look. And, I looked in catalogs to see me,
the real me. When the things I ordered were too tight, then tight, then gradually
lose, it was more reassuring that what I saw in the mirror. It was amazing
today, wonderful amazing, to be able to pull on the skinny little dress. A
couple more months, and I'll look good in it! Happiness. 10/27/07
"One does not see anything until one sees its beauty."
"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as
everyone else and thinking something different."
"Learn to see, and then you'll know that there is no end
to the new worlds of our vision."
"The whole of life lies in the verb seeing."
“All good things arrive unto them that wait - and
don't die in the meantime”