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  • The Dead Do Not Snark

    I was named honorary "Snarkalec" several weeks ago and temporarily added to one of their member twitter lists after I hacked their logo onto Kai and joined in a live tweet Syfy watch party. Although I'm not an official member, here are a few links that are fun to check out. You can grab this pic with a highlight rollover for cut and paste.
     
     
    This entry can also be found at Lexx- wallpapers, icons, pix 
     
  • early monthly update April

    First of all, let's just see where my head's at.

    Easter weekend was cool because the weather actually got kind of nice. I can't get over the camera quality in my droid. I might never go back to a regular camera. Spent some time outside with the chickens. We were all relieved to get out.

    This was my first video upload onto youtube from my droid. happy 

    The groundcover is popping out.

    I was able to open windows and my house was filled with the scent of hyacinths blooming. They grow wild around here.

    March was a pretty rough month after a really rough winter. I tend not to talk about my stuff while I'm in it, prefer to curl up in solitude, so anyone who actually knows me is probably surprised I managed to stay kinda public through a lupus flare up affecting my nervous system, and even now nearing the end of some pretty rigorous physical therapy. I built my first Lexx fan site in full blown illness and no one ever knew I crawled through my nights practically wearing sunglasses while I worked on my coding. I confess I have a little more trouble nowadays staying that dedicated, so my Lexx film study went on hold. Didn't help that photobucket's new beta flipped my way of mass posting pix upside down.
     
    My chickens had it rough, too!  In all the years we've lived here, we've never had a parasite problem with our chickens. Not sure what the crap, but they got a big bad mite infestation in their nests this winter and were eaten alive while the mites chewed their feathers to the nubs around the oil glands above their tails and the vent area where their skin is moister. It looked like we took an electric razor to them and buzzed their bottoms bald. This happened so quickly that it was mind blowing and very surprising. So we got the chicken house and pen all cleaned out and dusted real good, and their poor feathers are trying to grow back. Feathers don't grow continuously like hair does, so we may have to wait till they molt to see if the damage is repairable. Some of them are getting some fluff back, but the pin feathers were just destroyed. How To Protect Your Chickens From Mites - BackYard Chicken This isn't the best video for assessing mites, but you can see what I mean, and this is after treatment and some recovery, so you didn't see how bad it got.
     

     
    We didn't have a big to do for Easter, but I went ahead and made yummy food. This is glazed ham and candied butternut squash.

    Kinda needing to assess where I'm at now since I started this blog back up, kind of surreal being so detached during my not feeling well stuff. My widget box on the left side of the main page (you can't see it on individual post pages) says I've gotten over 7000 clicks just inside the box since I installed it. My sitemeter says I've had 6900 extra views on top of initial main page hits, but it doesn't count redundancy, like people visiting more than once in one day or even week. My Xanga tracker shows me that stuff, though, some of you are pretty dedicated. heart Actually, Xanga says I've already got over 2000 hits just this week so far, so my site meter numbers must be extremely conservative.

       

    And believe it or not, Lexx fans, this isn't my highest traffic blog. winky If I combined all my blogs hits it would be pretty impressive.
     
    Does this matter? Not really, but I use it as incentive to keep going and to assess what sorts of things I maybe should be concentrating on. Remember, I'm the one who deleted all the old Lexx stuff in the first place, never told anyone how sick I was, and I assumed when I came back that no one cared and that was all in the past. Apparently a lot of you do care, and the past is swirling all around us into the future. It helps to see those numbers when my days get rough, because it's easy to assume 'no one' reads something if numbers are low (and easier to forget that these things can be read in the future, it doesn't all have to be immediate). Believe it or not, I actually considered shutting down again last week, or at the very least just walking away (it was a fleeting hour in the dark of a very bad night). It's hard work keeping up 5+ blogs and writing for other people on top of it, plus other stuff I'm doing, but you know what? I think that is the key to getting through hard stuff, staying busy. That I have people supporting me with traffic is icing on the cake, and it does help a person feel better. But if I weren't a puny person, I'd be doing all this anyway just because I love blogging, and the numbers wouldn't mean a thing to me. I have 8 years of blogs tucked away in private.
     
    I want to make a couple comments on stuff I've seen recently on twitter regarding numbers.
     
    One woman decided to shut down her paid for blog because readers (apparently to her mind) didn't appreciate that they didn't have to put up with ads, and she wasn't getting the feedback and traffic she was expecting to get in return for what she was paying out. You know what? Blog for YOU. Pay to remove the ads for YOU. I'm talking to all you bloggers. If you don't get traffic and that's what you want to see, dang, pay for the traffic to get it started, start networking. There is no magic. Sometimes you have to work to be seen in the crowd. You might be a boring person, but there are way more boring people than me on twitter and blogs that have more followers than me because they dedicate the time to networking, and I don't think boring has as much to do with it as simply just taking people on your journey with you. Share your world because you want to. It's ridiculous to fuss at your readers for not being better cheerleaders. They have lives and stuff, too.
     
    Then I read a story about a guy who had been on twitter for four years, made over 10,000 tweets, and had less than 20 followers the whole time. He finally decided to shut his twitter account down, had tried everything, like retweeting funny or interesting stuff, couldn't ever seem to get more followers. I think the guy's mistake may have been that he wasn't original. YOU are the only person on the planet that can say the stuff from the point of view that is your head. What do YOU think about things? What makes you laugh and cry? What do you think is cool? And again, share because you want to. If it's only about numbers while you repaste other people's stuff, you lose the game. You have to care about your readers caring about you, not just pull their strings to get reactions. If you don't enjoy entertaining people off the top of your head with your stuff and you think it's too much work, maybe tweeting and blogging isn't your thing. Kind of like people on American Idol who can't carry a tune, sometimes you just have to realize that no matter how much you love something, not everyone else has to appreciate that you love it. Doesn't mean you can't walk around singing at the top of your lungs or tweeting your eyeballs out, just don't take nonresponse as a signal to quit.
     
    Another guy I follow on twitter gets those little weekly or monthly activity reports that show up in his feed for everyone to see. This last week he had 22 retweets, 6 new followers, and 15 mentions. What most of his followers may not realize is that he cross tweets over at least 3 accounts that he owns while pretending to be other people. Then he live tweets a tv show that he rewatches that has been over for a couple of years, but his tweets are random action alerts, rarely snarky, rarely emotionally involved. You know what? People must love it because he has a LOT of followers compared to me. Why? Because he also contributes real content to movie review sites, interacts well with people all over the world, and gets excited about other people's stuff. He's interesting in probably a very different way than he thinks he's interesting. His personna amuses me, I like him, nerd to the max. If something doesn't go right, he just creates another account and keeps working away. You have to admire and respect that kind of dedication.
     
    And still another guy I follow on twitter does almost nothing but build legos. Every day he shares a pic of a new lego thing he constructs with his young son, and dang if he's not talking to people all over the world about legos. I'm not a legos person, but because of the ocassional interesting picture or little story about his kid, I've begun noticing all kinds of really cool lego stuff from conventions and lego obsessed builders. There are some really talented people out there.
     
    Stay busy. Keep blogging or tweeting or whatever it is you do. Do it because you want to. Numbers are nice, and it's a fun game trying to bump them up, but never let numbers tell you what you are doing is dumb or unwanted. It may be that you just aren't being seen by the right audience, or that you haven't figured out how to network yet. Don't limit yourself to one media and reject the rest. This world is too big for that. Also, use your numbers wisely. Stat reports like this one are a great way for me to gauge how well I'm still managing during a sick spell. It's not about traffic as much as it is about my weaker productivity.
     
     
    Watch your trending, compare it to same time year before, assess yourself and your content, do experiments to see where you can tweak your traffic. NEVER use traffic stats as a one-time only assessment tool to shut down your stuff. Time and traffic are fluid, numbers go up and down, and it might have a lot more to do with weather and the time of year than you think. I've noticed for years that my worst traffic is usually between spring break and Memorial Day.
     
    Ok, back to real life. My commissioned Lexx art t-shirt is supposed to get finished up pretty soon. It's a huge job, two artists are working on it, it's pricey, and I can't wait to be a show off in it. cool 
     
    Also got a nice gift for my coming soon grandbabies from a really sweet actress-entrepreneur in England after I got silly and told her she'd be rewarded for talking to me on twitter with a promo on my silly survey blog. Click this pic if you want to see where they came from.
     
     
    I'm hoping that my energy level is picking back up for real and that I'll be getting busier on my blogs again soon. If it hadn't been for twitter I think I would have just croaked off in a corner, so thanx to everyone on twitter who tolerated my weird facebook crossposting at one in the morning kind of stuff. Honestly, droid has changed the way I handle life, certainly makes it easier to get through tough nights now. I never want to bother people with middle of the night phone calls, and blogging about stuff only makes it more depressing, but get me rocking twitter on a droid and the night just flies by. There are so many awesome funny and creative people out there, and it's nice to find I'm not alone in the wee hours. And sometimes I get lucky and a someone famous retweets me or follows me back. It's a fun twitter game. laughing 
     
    Ok, guys, I'm off to make some cookies. I haven't had a cookie in a long time.
     
  • monthly update March 2013

    Aspie going through ASTYM in physical therapy this month, in case anyone is wondering why in the world I'm slacking off. I've been through a lot of stuff in my life, but have never gone through such thorough automatic shutdowns in my brain as with ASTYM. We are restructuring soft tissue scarring from an ancient nasty car accident, and every treatment covers most of the area from the bottom of my rips up to my skull and down my arms. I'm doing very well, but the sensation super overload keeps kicking my brain right out of my skull while I go through treatment and recovery every week. I'm refusing to feel guilty or depressed about my workload slowing down and piling up on me, but I do apologize to three particular people I volunteered to do work for this month. Hoping this tiny little post means my brain has managed to crawl back in and start running the gears again.
     
    Briefly in my own words, ASTYM treatments mainly scruff up the fascia (white fibrous tissue) covering the muscles, micro fissuring scar tissue and forcing it to rebuild correctly. I don't bruise easily, but I have experienced some discoloration and a little swelling, especially around my shoulder blades and backbone, along with some temporary nausea and pain increase. We are doing quite a large area on me, and anyone with Asperger's can probably imagine what this is doing to my overload tolerance. But this is supposed to be a permanent thing, and I'm already gaining in greater mobility and my overall daily pain levels going down. One positive thing I noticed right away was being able to sit in a dentist chair with my neck hyperextended without triggering a migraine, a sweet little change in my life.
     
    I'm actually still working, just need to polish before I post, hopefully very soon now. Thanx to everyone for being so patient.
     
    My theme song. Me and Jack go way back. 

     
     
     

  • the day after Q

    Everything that looks like snow in these pictures is wicked slick sleet and frozen rain. We didn't get one snowflake. Walking even a very short distance is like taunting the fates for broken bones. You don't sink in, and treads don't make a difference.

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  • wrath of Q, sort of

    Winter storm Q looks more harmless in these photos than it might have elsewhere along the plains, but every bit of this is ice, NOT snow. When I stepped outside to get pictures it felt like being stung by sand flying around in a sand storm. Normal freezing rain around here comes down wet and then freezes, building up a glass-like world that sparkles. This was different, it came down like hard sleet and piled up like snow. We got lightning and thunder with it just like a spring rain storm. Q came in two waves over my house that lasted for hours. Local news is calling this 2 inches of sleet. It didn't stick like snow, so every wind carried it off, and it got pretty windy. My street has been plowed, but now it's black ice.

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  • diabetes and steroid meds

    Disclaimer- I am not a medical professional or nutritionist, but I do have diabetes and have become really good at controlling my blood sugar with diet since I cannot take the diabetes meds.

    Having to deal with diabetes sucks bad enough, but sometimes you have to get prednisone shots or go on a medrol pack for allergies or autoimmune flare ups or goodness knows what else, and then diabetes can turn into a real nightmare. Steroid meds force your adrenal glands to squeeze out more cortisol, which in turn makes other hormones and chemicals do stuff, and while this can be wonderfully life-saving, it also makes your liver dump out its glucose backup, originally meant for fight or flight emergencies, into your bloodstream *right now*.

    Facts About Corticosteroids (Steroids)

    Steroid meds are awesome when we need them, even when they temporarily make us gain weight and lose sleep. But a diabetic person on steroid meds is in a catch-22 situation when their blood sugar spikes a hundred or more points and stays that way while on steroid treatment. Increasing your diabetes meds without strict monitoring can get dangerous, and then you wind up on a roller coaster between high spikes and low drops. This is especially dangerous in traffic. I have no proof of that, but I'm sure doctors and highway patrol would agree, because low blood sugar drastically affects decision making and reaction time, kind of like being drunk or sleepy.

    I have a solution! And it works! I confess it's not my idea, bit it's brilliant, and I can help you. happy 

    The best thing I ever found for easily controlling blood sugar spikes during steroid treatment is the Rosedale Diet. (I'm not being paid to say this, and I bought nothing from them but a used book off Amazon.) Dr. Rosedale takes the time to list foods you can eat that don't spike your blood sugar. There are plenty of foods out there in the form of proteins and healthy fats that you can rely on. The problem is that our world nowadays is so saturated with carbohydrates (sugars and starches) that it seems almost impossible to know what to eat during times of illness and stress, when a diabetic's blood sugar goes the highest.

    Other easy ways to learn what 'carbs' to avoid is by following the South Beach Diet or by learning the glycemic index. Even people without diabetes find they lose weight faster and in a more healthy way when they simply limit the amount of carbs they eat. Diabetes websites such as American Diabetes Association also recommend 'counting carbs'. But that sounds like a lot of work, you say. Nope, it's EASY. Food labels show you how many grams of carbohydrates per serving. Rule of thumb is 10-15 carbs or less per meal or snack. You get 11 carbs in one cup of milk, for instance (that's half of a tall glass).

    I had the opportunity to try this myself recently after an ER trip with IV prednisone, benadryl, and pepcid for unknown cause that could have been anything from allergic reaction to lupus flare up. I also had to take a pain pill on an empty stomach there, so they gave me 4 crackers, which normally won't spike my blood sugar much at all because it's just under 10 carbs. Since I hadn't eaten in several hours, my blood sugar was most likely below 100 before I got the prednisone shot. (I'm able to control with diet since I can't take diabetes meds, and therefore test regularly, so I know pretty well how it goes for me.) After I went home I got my glucose monitor out and a piece of paper to keep track. My blood sugar had jumped up to 148 from only 4 crackers on an empty stomach. I knew better than to eat any more carbs that evening, so I scrambled a couple of eggs and ate a piece of cheese. My blood sugar held steady like that for about 12 hours. When it finally came down the next morning (tested 111), I had some coffee with a little milk and a half tsp. of sugar in it and did ok, but I still stuck to mostly proteins and healthy fats until I was sure it was going to stay down through the afternoon. THEN I went back to 10 carbs per meal and snack. But then when it was time to take prednisone pills that evening (24 hours after the shot), I stopped all carbs again about an hour before I took the pills and didn't eat anything else through the night. The next morning my blood sugar was down to 115, so I was able to handle a small amount of carbs with breakfast, and then eat normally as the day wore on.

    This worked fantastically until the fourth evening. My brain fell out, I wasn't thinking, I remembered my prednisone and took it without waiting after I ate, and 30 minutes later suddenly decided to polish off the rest of some chocolate milk I had left over, about a cup. *WORST*NIGHT*EVER*. ~omg~ My blood sugar must have spiked over 250 and stayed there for hours, because I was miserable, up every hour to pee, tossing around feeling like my heart was beating too hard, felt too hot, finally got a nasty headache that went down into a neck spasm and I had to get an ice pack out at one in the morning just to be able to lay back down. It didn't even dawn on me until I woke up again at 3:15 with a nasty throbbing headache that I did that to myself. I totally forgot to count my carbs and slammed that prednisone down right in the middle of them. I took my blood sugar right then and it was 142, so at least it was on the way back down, and was 118 by 5:45, thank goodness. The next night I watched my carbs again and *slept great*.

    Ideally, you want to keep your blood sugar below 120, preferably between 86 and 100. Blood sugar goes up and down all day as we eat, and that's normal, but it's not normal for it to go over 120 and stay way up there for hours, which is what prednisone will make it do, especially if you've just had a shot. So until that comes back down, NO CARBS, or you'll make it go way higher. A great site to get really good blood sugar information from another real person like me is Blood Sugar 101.

    If you are diabetic and must spend a week or longer on steroid meds, here are a few quick rules of thumb until you can get your menu figured out-

    *Avoid all sugared drinks, including soda pop, tea, and fruit juices.

    *Cheese, cream cheese, and butter are ok, but cut down or avoid all other dairy, because lactose will spike your blood sugar, including cottage cheese and some other soft cheeses.

    *Eggs, nuts, meats, poultry, and fish are awesome, but avoid eating them if they are breaded in any form, especially tempura. Breading (flour) will spike your blood sugar as much as sugar will. Peel the breading off. This goes for other breaded foods as well. NO onion rings or other breaded veggies like okra or mushrooms or jalapeno poppers! Also beware of sugared or honeyed nuts and main dishes with added sugar in any form, which happens in some Asian, Mexican, and Italian dishes. *note- IHOP uses pancake mix in their scrambled eggs and omelettes, which will spike your blood sugar. Check labels on frozen precooked meals.

    *Avoid all grains in any form as much as possible until your blood sugar comes down, and then only in moderation because grains are super carby. This includes all pastries, cakes, cookies, pies, breads, buns, tortillas, gravies, sauces, pastas, and rice. I know this is really hard. *hug*

    *Be very careful with all legumes. Beans will spike your blood sugar a little differently from grains, but will stay high for a long time if you eat a lot. This includes chick peas and tofu. This part is really tough for vegetarians who use legumes for protein, so please watch this and keep monitoring your glucose levels.

    *Avoid potatoes and other high starch or high sugar root vegetables and gourds, such as squash, pumpkin, carrots, parsnips, and beets. Stick to leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and radishes. NO french fries or chips! Corn is the worst, watch the peas, stick to green beans, unbreaded okra, and asparagus. *note- some restaurants soak lettuce and salad veggies in sugar water to freshen them up, which can spike your blood sugar. This has happened to me. It sucked. It's not fair when you can't count on 'healthy' low carb foods in restaurants because of poor practices, so be vigilant.

    *Be careful with tomatoes and ketchup, very high in both natural and added sugar content. Avoid salsas, spaghetti and pizza sauces, basically stay away from concentrated tomato products if your blood sugar is already high.

    *Cut out fruits until your blood sugar is under control, although you can probably eat most berries without much of a problem. NO watermelon! Fruits are naturally very high in sugar content and are as bad on spiking blood sugar during steroid meds as drinking soda pop. I think avocados are ok, half a banana or less, but since fruits aren't marked for carbs and are generally carb rich, it's easier to walk away if you haven't had the time to look it up.

    DO NOT DESPAIR. Remind yourself this is temporary until you can figure out your blood sugar pattern, like I did, or until you can make sure your diabetes medication is working well for you while you are on steroid meds. The worst thing you can do on top of feeling sick or dealing with something like flare ups and meds is make your diabetes worse. When you don't feel well in the first place, it's very natural to grab and eat something that tricks your body into thinking it will feel better, like caffeine or quick sugars and starches. But that feeling is very temporary, and the consequences are not only miserating, but harmful and even dangerous if your blood sugar is spiking up into the 300's. YOU CAN CONTROL THIS. I've learned this because my own health depends on it, since I can't take the pills. A nice perk I've noticed is that when I carb count while on steroid meds, I don't have any new weight gain.

    I'm not going to abandon you there. I have a lot of experience with making food yummy and keeping my blood sugar down. That list up there is for emergencies while you are trying to get through the next 24 hours (or week) of misery (because that is usually when I find articles like this myself, and probably why you are here, too). You need a reward for sticking through this far during such a sucky time! heart Let's make this easy!!!

    I know what you're thinking- it's already sucking bad enough, but the thought of eating salad and no dessert when you need comfort food the most is about to send you through a black well of despair. If you absolutely must have something or go crazy, the dessert I have found that does the least harm is a very simple cheesecake, but you still need to keep the portion small so you won't make yourself sick. I got this recipe from a Philadelphia cream cheese box. Total carbs in the entire cheesecake is 224, and if you slice into 8 portions, each portion is 28. So eat half a slice of this cheesecake and get only 16 carbs, which is fantastic compared to most desserts having 30 or much more.

    Crust- 1 1/4 graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 c sugar, 1/3 cup melted butter, stirred together and patted into pie plate.

    Filling- Mix together 2 8-oz blocks of cream cheese, 1/2 c sugar and 1 tsp vanilla, then mix in two eggs. Pour into crust and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Do NOT add a topping when it's done unless a label says it has no carbs because it's been replaced with artificial sweeteners. Fresh berries are ok if you don't add sugar to them, but please use your glucose meter to verify this and not my word.

    One of the biggest challenges in switching to a low carb diet is thinking you have to sacrifice flavor and feeling comfortably full, if you are used to filling up the empty corners on breads and desserts. One of the myths of good health is that fats will kill you, when in fact the sugar is already doing it much faster. The body craves healthy fats because they are essential to good nerve conduction and proper metabolism, among many other things. Because fats have lots of flavor and calories, a little bit of fat replaces a whole lot of sugar and starch and your body is much more quickly satisfied when you eat them. When you eat sugars and starches and play the game of spiking your blood sugar, your body sends out an alarm when your blood sugar starts to drop, and if you are diabetic, this alarm is sent out prematurely because your system is wonky, and bing, you're hungry again even when you've had more calories than you need and it hasn't been that long since you've eaten. This vicious cycle can be broken without the horrible suffering you imagine, simply by eating more proteins and fats. Treat yourself to some delicious food as you limit your carbs while you are on steroid meds, and you will feel so much better in both the short and long term. I have a few recipes of my own linked right here that work wonderfully for me.

    campfire scrambled eggs- add more veggies if you like, it only gets more delicious

    restaurant quality alfredo sauce- if you need a low carb sauce or gravy to go over grilled meat or poultry (do not add pasta)

    Italian Chicken Fingers- the breading is half parmesan cheese for low carb

    really good chicken soup- super low carb unless you add carby stuff like potatoes and rice

    I wish you all the best, and I hope this was helpful.

     

  • monthy update February 2013

    Chickens! Today I had the camera out. Winter gets so boring for chickens, stuck in the pen when it's cold and all the greens are withered and sour, bugs are deep in the tree bark, and the only thing left to eat is little worms under big piles of leaves. I supplement their winter feed with fresh veggies, which is easy since I get excited and tend to overbuy produce I think looks beautiful. Today they got some lettuce and tomato with a little bit of bread.

      

    They heard the back door and burst out of the hen house cackling so loud that the neighborhood dogs started barking, flew exuberantly into the wire, and settled into a crowd by the pen door. Snack time is always such an exciting event. Some day I'm going to catch them on camera coming out of the pen to graze, sometimes a couple of them will fly right across the yard. I used to have a duck that would do that, too, and he just missed plowing my head one day.

                                       

    Some days they get leftover squash (the seeds are *yum*) or a little bit of canned corn, maybe a handful of leftover shredded cheese. On really nasty cold days they get a bit of raw burger or canned tuna with the goodies because between laying eggs and staying warm, they burn through calories and nutrients like crazy. We buy top dollar vegetarian chicken feed because I'm allergic to so many foods and can't touch cheaper feed with vague ingredient lists (plant protein...??) that I break out and itch, but chickens are born carnivorous and ready to work hard for their food scratching through forest litter, so when they stand around in a pen they sometimes don't eat as well as they should because, believe it or not, they get bored, and scratch grains like cracked corn, milo, and wheat just don't put up a good chase, even though they are yummy. Chickens move almost continually unless they're sleeping or do a freeze pose on alert, and they'd rather pick through every molecule of dirt in their pen than sit around talking about what's on tv while they munch. They're actually kind of destructive because they like staying so busy. So I try to make it interesting, and they keep churning out big pretty eggs. When all else fails, we toss in a flake of straw for them to kick around, or a bag of delightfully clean new dirt to dust in.

    Since I so rarely post about the chickens, I imagine most of you who have actually followed this blog since last summer have probably forgotten their names and what kind they are. Every new flock gets a theme, this flock was named after television characters and personalities. The golden laced wyandotte right up front is Nadia G. Fancy, huh? I never had 'laced' chickens before this year. 

    The mahogany colored one up front in this next one is a speckled sussex named T'Pol. She doesn't lay as heavily as the others, but makes up for it by being our buddy. She follows us like a cat until we're afraid we'll step on her feet, but she doesn't worry about standing on our feet all the time. She's our biggest critic, too, will always come let us know what we're doing wrong or what we're supposed to fix. The white hen by her is Myka, a cross between Delaware and New Hampshire that is called Indian Rivers. I really like her, she's calm and fluffy and lays super big eggs. She also has such a deep voice that she sounds like a goose honking when she clucks to herself. 

                              

    Mary Margaret (aka Snow White) wound up not being very snow white at all. You can't tell in this one, but she's got a big black spot on her back, like Snoopy, black freckles, and black legs. White chickens generally have yellow legs, but she's an austra-white, a cross between a black australorp and a white leghorn, a super layer. She's petite and a real pig, probably because her body is so busy turning everything she eats into eggs, there isn't a speck of extra anything on her. She especially craves extra protein more than the other hens and will shove them over getting to any meat I take out once in awhile. I think regular layer feed doesn't have enough protein in it for her. Sometimes when she gets mean and picks on the others too much, I think she's just cranky with food cravings, and all I have to do is take out a little bit of raw burger for her to wolf down and she's fine for a few days. I've never had a problem with my chickens picking each other's feathers out, and I think the raw meat helps with that.

    Morgana is a silver laced wyandotte and almost never takes a bad picture. I've never seen such a photogenic chicken, maybe it's the black and white contrast. But she's also our dumbest. I don't know if she's just laid back or doesn't care, but she's nearly always the last one in because she gets stuck on the wrong side of the door and can't remember or figure out how to walk around like the others do, a real 'bird brain'. She's also much slower to pounce on goodies or find worms in the leaves, but she lays beautiful big eggs and she's gorgeous, so she's my favorite. I can't help it. I'm usually not that shallow. winky 

                           

    I've also got an easter egger but missed getting her picture because she was inside on a nest, and I was too cold to stay out any longer. Her name is Amy Farrah Fowler, and just as quirky as the one on tv.

    This last month has been a bit busier than I'm used to. I've been writing on other blogs, contributed copy to a couple other websites, and I've been a lot more distracted with 'real life' since both my daughters are manufacturing new humans. Still making it to the fitness center, but complications came up and a doctor has told me to stop all upper body workouts until I see a neurologist. I thought at first that I was working out wrong and triggering fibro flares up my neck and shoulders, but when my face and head started going numb last month (no added pain there), doctors started getting excited. I said maybe it's stress, they said stress doesn't do that. So far they've ruled out a few big scary things I didn't even know existed, and still doing tests, but nothing has gotten worse and I have such a weird history that I'm not going to worry about it. They put me on prednisone just in case, so I've been wound up for days not sleeping and I'm about ready to get off this stuff!

    Still not very good at getting self pix, but I got this one a couple of weeks ago at the fitness center.

    Also found a few pix in my phone, was out on such a pretty winter day, got up to nearly 60, then plunged 40 degrees later that afternoon and snowed. Didn't get snow pix.

     

  • glitchy guestbook

    I'm so used to lurkers all over me that I kinda blow off my tracks, but it hit me that I've been getting so many hits on my guestbook and no one writes anything, thought I'd try it out. Comment box wasn't working, but there is a link directly beneath that makes the box accessible, so I tried that out, works great, except it's supposed to allow embedded pix and they show up awesome in the preview but don't transer over to the published comment. Sorry about that, this blog will be 9 years old soon and Xanga has updated their coding a few times, and I elected to keep this blog set in an unsupported old style because it adapts more easily to the things I want to do. Anyway, just wanna say THANK YOU to all the continual traffic I get even when I don't plugz or tweet linx back here, and I really am working on the I Worship His Shadow film study, sorry it's taking so long because of holidays and other family stuff. It's been over a month since an update on that, I know, I suck! censored But I love you guys, and I really love Lexx, and it's time to gear up and crank it out.

     

  • The Nerdist Wimp

    (This post follows two previous posts called The Nerdist Way and Team Nerd, and after this post go to The Nerdist Score- 'aspie spoonie Lexx fan on a mission' assessment.)

    I've been singing the praises of Chris Hardwick for founding the Nerdist Way for all us nerdlings spinning our puny little wheels and not getting anywhere with our brilliance in our dark little rooms, surrounded by tech and living on feeds. Chris knows the secret to coaxing evil villains out of the dark, and I ventured forth, blinking in the light and found my way into a real fitness center, the premise being that evil genius must be nurtured with good health. I was doing awesome one puny step at a time, reaching personal goals I didn't believe possible for someone like me.

    Kinda all blew up this last month. Holidays, stress, other people's dramas, and then you throw in fall allergies and other people's germs, not to mention the social pressures- social anxiety isn't cute on its best day and blows up into a nightmarish hell around holidays. All these things start spiking depression and preexistent pain levels, and when you already live with *stuff*, sometimes the wimpy spiral back down goes out of control into the screaming before the big crash stage, and then you lay there after the holidays in a little jumbled heap wondering how in the world you can ever pull it back together.

    For instance, going to physical therapy and then 'graduating' to the fitness center was helping me get a really good handle on my fibromyalgia, which a rheumatologist once called "severe", and docs all feel frustrated because I react badly to so many meds. So I treat the old fashioned way- quality rest, good hydration, excellent nutrition, and psychological health projects. But all that does is create a great way to tread water. Throwing workouts into the mix actually brought the pain level DOWN, and depression easing up followed close after. I have Chris Hardwick to thank for that motivation, because no one else on the planet was getting me to take that last step into accepting fitness as a way of life.

    So everything piled up again the last 6 weeks, I crashed like the alien chasing Will Smith in Independence Day, and now I've got to come up with a Plan. WWCHD? (What Would Chris Hardwick Do?)

    First thing is assess. Go back to part one in his book The Nerdist Way and review. What are my character strengths, what things do I love doing most, what am I doing with my life ~right now~? Next thing is organize it all back into little lists and charts, just like I did in the beginning. What do I want to do? Where do I want to go with this? What will it take to get back on track? And once I have my mind organized, I can start small stepping again back into the direction I was going, remembering that since I've done it all before, my body will remember it and be able to click right back into the pattern. The hard part in all this is picking my crumpled crashed self back up and taking the steps. Especially in the winter. It's nasty outside!

    Assess- I'm actually not doing that bad. Before I started following the Nerdist Way I was in so much pain in my spine that I could barely sit for long or carry groceries in from my car. It seems to be coming back again, but stress and slacking off and cold weather does that, right? I. can. do. this. I don't have to be a wimp just because I'm wimpy. Before you all think I can get up and grind along on sheer will, no I can't. You can't, either, that's why you're reading this. We suck. But Chris says we can suck in a much cooler way. All we have to do is remember our innate penchant for world domination and use our natural brainiac talents to succeed in our quest. And part of that quest is the goal for more mobility and endurance. And part of reaching that goal is to keep moving, keep learning how to keep moving correctly, keep using what we've learned to keep gaining more small steps toward our bigger goals. I have to be honest, I feel like everything sux again, but compared to six months ago, I'm doing pretty fabulous, so even though I went splat on my face, it's not going to take as much work this time to get back to where I was.

    Organize- The third part of The Nerdist Way was about organizing my time. Now that I've slumped, my life is in some disarray again, and it looks harder to get something done. I got sidetracked by all that social pressure and the resultant physical and emotional drain, and I dropped the ball on keeping a pattern going on my calendar. What I need to do is pick back up on making a pattern again, assign tasks to dates and make sure I don't overextend myself. Small steps back into the pattern. Make it easy to get rolling again so I don't get frustrated and give up. Worked the first time, it'll work again.

    This probably seems babyish and dumb to people who have boundless energy and preset schedules with work or school. This probably seems monumental to people who have chronic fatigue and endless time because they can't work or go to school for various reasons. I've been on both sides. If you haven't experienced THIS, then none of your advice will help me, because you won't understand, even if you think you do. Chris Hardwick actually understands. He's lived with a spinal injury, anxiety attacks, depression, and being overweight. You can't even tell now. He got where he is exactly by doing what he says to do in his book. He crawled out of his ditch, made a cool nerd map, and now I'm crawling out of my ditch following his map.

    I think the last time I posted about this I had very happily worked my way up to work level 4 for 15 minutes on a recumbant nustep, and 15-20 reps on various weights for core strength training. I was feeling pretty rough when I made it back into the fitness center to pay my bill a couple of weeks ago, so I dialed it back. There was no way I could pull off a hard 20-30 minutes of my full workout. So I geared the nustep back down to work level 3 and took my time pedaling over 12 minutes to warm up, while frantic people all around me flapped their body parts like crazed holiday freakazoids, sweat dripping down bodies I was afraid would collapse across me in heart attacks. Don't exercise like that. Those kinds of noobs don't last long at the fitness center, and all us regulars *know* it. We watch them come and go. You can tell the people who are really used to regular workouts, no matter how light or difficult, because they stay ~calm~ and pace themselves. So don't be a noob. If you don't feel well, take it easy, let your poor body acclimate to the warm up, then move slowly through your workout. That day I also pulled all the pins out and dialed my weights back to just 7-8 reps at only 20 pounds. My total workout time was about 18 minutes, and I was worn out because I went in feeling rough to start (fibro + virus + nasty cold weather, you get the picture). But I felt GREAT walking out that door. I could never have done that workout 6 months previously. I have apparently built up my endurance to the point of actually being able to work out on what feels like one of my worst days. *wow* I can't tell you what that did for my mental and emotional frame of mind the rest of the day.

    It's ok to have a wimpy workout. The main thing is to keep making it out the door and feel good about accomplishing something, even if you have to dial it back a little bit. The main thing is that your body is getting stronger and more capable, even when you don't feel like it is.

    If you are having trouble getting started on your New Year goals and resolutions, please try The Nerdist Way of doing it. Your life really can change, and you can find a way to do stuff that looks impossible to you right now. Chris has it mapped out, it's all there. Just click his pic.

    :edit: 1-3-12 I can't say enough for the nustep TRS 4000 recumbent cross trainer if you have joint pain in your feet.

    :edit: 1-4-12 Nustep did not pay me to say this.

    Photobucket

  • surprise!

    Had no warning on this one on any of the sites I check. Left the house yesterday afternoon, the grass was green. Drove home an hour later in a snowstorm with low visibility and an inch of snow sticking to everything in the wind.

     

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My first tracker was installed in 2004 and broke several times before moving to a new server, which lost a few months of stats, and then Xanga moved to new servers and I lost more stats for more months before the page came back up, so I've lost a total of about two years' worth of stats. The second was installed 2-22-14 and is considered very conservative by business owners who use analytics, which itself is very conservative, estimates being that roughly one third to one half of hits by real live people aren't even counted, most likely due to javascript discrepancies. Actual hits on several posts here are in the thousands now, and the Lexx Index in the ten thousands. I've got pingbacks turned off, so spam isn't counted at all within the Xanga internal tracker, and most direct post hits can be correlated to my real time linking activity on twitter and other social media. When I did Google Analytics beta testing I got to see how search engine performance compares to tracking. I believe live feed linking sources to various social medias are key to a future where search engines are more about performance than cataloging, which has been confirmed to me by coders who create bot algorithms as I was beta testing paper.li. I've fought hard through redundant age-old stacks to make my way to the google front lines again, so my Lexx work shows up faster on Chrome searches now. This has been a really interesting ride. At any rate, my point is, I can still go back 6 years on my original tracker and I can still see that in 2013 just before the last big blog server move, I was getting traffic like this (and since then, the tracker may have been abandoned, we can't tell). Click the thumbnail to see full size.

My original tracker also still lets me see the latest 500 visitors on a map. I once counted over 80 countries among the total visits. You guys are not alone. Click the map to see it better.

Besides Lexx, the most common search phrases that bring new visitors here are variations on 'huge spaceship'. The most seen post from a phrase search is How Big is the Lexx? My biggest Lexx referrer is Lexx Domain. Most of page views per person count comes from the Lexx tag on Tumblr. Visitors who stay the longest come through URLOpener and are pinged through the Google translator server in Mountain View, CA.

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