Update

1. Vanna, I'll Take a Clue for 500:
The stress/cleansing herbs and the acai berry supplement were used for three days, Friday through Sunday. I had been feeling progressively worse up to that point, which is why I purchased them. It may have saved me from a hospital trip. I cut back to salads and lean meat or eggs, lemon in water for drinks, and herbal tea. I slept Friday night through Saturday noon a sleep I haven't slept in years...YEARS.

I'll boil down the rest. Making this complete halt and reversal in eating and in adding these herbs saved my bacon (haha, yeah, I know...not your typical Jewish turn of phrase). My body had a crisis over the weekend, which at first I thought was onset flu, maybe as part of the typical "healing crisis" I have when cleansing the yuck. I took more lemon juice and water, kept the liquids coming, but good gosh, I slept almost three days...um, yeah true confession. I simply felt so terrible that's all I could do...NOT normal! (I did manage to read through a 750 page Tom Clancy book during intervals, though, and have some vivid dreams) I lay there thinking "I want chickens, dogs, (continue the list for a few minutes...)...but I don't even feel like walking to the mailbox." Not my greatest moment.

Day Three was yesterday and when I tried to get outside to transplant a few baby plants and run to the library (for more Tom Clancy fix), I felt like crawling back under the covers and willing the world to disappear. At this point, my husband decided this was NOT a normal healing crisis, and we whipped out the blood tester to see my sugar levels. They were off the charts. Which leads me to conclude that they were at least double that three days ago and if I hadn't altered things radically at that point (SO glad I did!) I could be in the hospital right now, or worse.

I've halted the cleansing program till after my sugars normalize, but am keeping the foods really simple and will continue with lots of lemon and water. I'll pick right back up with the supplements when I've had normal readings a few days, since I did really like the benefits and want to see what they do for me in the long term.

And so, my little Lesson to Self is "Robbyn, lay off the stinkin' tortillas, babe!" (banging my head on the keyboard...oh how I love to eat Mexican) Nah, it's not just one thing, but it has been a gradual progression of things, and in the vein of "eating cheap" I've been including more and more starches in my meals...to stretch the meals. Well....crud. No more. And that's my little story. I'm not all the way back, but I'm not engaging in 14 hour sleeps any more, either...sheesh!

2. The little rock/crystal deodorant thingy I also bought at the health food store as a deodorant experiment ACTUALLY works! and yes, I'm constitutionally wired to give it a run for its money, but hey...no chemicals (especially aluminum) and NO STINK...yay!! That said, it's not an antiperspirant, so if I had to dress-to-impress, it wouldn't be a full solution in these hot climes. But since I don't have to impress anyone (meaning I can endure some sweating), I'll use this since it really does deal with the underarm-odor situation ...and hey, I was a Mitchum girl, Mitchum being the last line of defense for those with overtime underarms.

3. Some of the plants are coming back! The gynura is one of them. I spied two more nasturtiums peeping out from the soil, and I'm transplanting some of the lettuces under the dry brown crispy foliage of the plants that became toast in the freezes, in hopes they'll get chummy, shade the lettuces somewhat till maybe they decide to stage a comeback.

4. We've been talking ferro cement and papercrete, chicken houses, clothesline, drip irrigation, plotting sections of our garden. Still chipping away at all the niggling details of bills and getting out of debt.

5. My housework's abominably behind. The hired help never showed up. <------(hahaha, laughing at this till I hurt) The elves apparently are on extended leave, too...

6. I realized when horizontal for so long, it's been a long time since we had a vacation of any sort (read "stay-cation"). Work right now is much appreciated, though it takes us away from having much time with each other. I'd love a vacation where I'm feeling more "myself" and we can get a breath of fresh air. But for now, the thing is to stay steady. There is a momentum we need to sustain before we can relax it.

7. I need to take care of more 'puter duties and....that's all for now. I think I'll go wash a dish or two. Or three. And so on. Rome wasn't built in a day...

;-)