Lightening Online

Was last week.

I missed it. Did you?

Well it was here in SA anyway. I can’t answer for anywhere else.

A couple of weeks ago our local surgery advertised for people to book in with our visiting female doctor to have a pap smear. Given it’s only been, oh, 4 or so years since my last one, I thought it was about time to stop putting it off and book in.

There’s always a good reason not to go. At first it was because of my breakdown - it was just too hard. Then when my doctor left he reminded me and suggested I see the visiting female doctor to have it done.

Then I was always forgetting when she was coming (I think she only comes once a month). Or finding out and forgetting to book in.

Hey, I’m the Queen of Procrastination. I can come up with plenty of reasons why I haven’t been. I’m also the Queen of Excuses.

So I rang before I even finished reading the paper and got the appointment booked. I even remembered to write it on the calendar. AND I remembered to GO!!!!

It’s funny how it’s not really all that bad when you actually get there. I’m sure the thought and the build up is much WORSE than the actual event.

So if you’re like me and rather (ahem) overdue for a smear, just GO. DO. IT.

Then you don’t have to think about it for another 2 years!!!!

From the Cancer Council SA website:

Around 1,200 women are saved from a developing cervical cancer in Australia each year through cervical screening.

As I was sitting in the doctor’s surgery waiting room, it occurred to me that dealing with cancer is a LOT more invasive than a simple pap smear.

Ooh!!!! And I got pressies too! A little notepad and pen AND a voucher for FREE coffee and cake at our local bakery. BONUS!!!!

I’m quite a fan of Motivational Speaker Craig Harper. In fact, I subscribe to his blog so that I can get regular doses of his wisdom and inspiration. I’m actually kind of surprised that someone that is such a popular speaker and writer would give of themselves so freely by way of a blog that anyone can read and participate in. I think it shows a lot about his HEART.

This morning I read his post Mind of a Teacher, Heart of a Student and something within that post really spoke to me. He talks about a man he met at a conference he was speaking at named Bobby Cappucchio.

Here’s an excerpt from the post that really stood out to me:

It’s so incredible what we can do when we find a way, rather than find an excuse. There were so many reasons for Bobby to be anything but amazing and nobody would have blamed him. But he chose to live an amazing existence and to be the most he could, with what he has. And he has done it incredibly well.

I hope you do too.

At that moment it hit me right between the eyes that I really DO want more from my life. Those around me that have heard my story are quick to say that I haven’t had the easiest of lives. People haven’t always treated me well and I’ve allowed them to continue doing so into my adult life because I didn’t feel that I deserved anything better.

For a long time I felt that because there were people out there who’d had worse childhood’s than mine, any hardship I may have experienced didn’t count. It wasn’t the worst therefore it had to have been okay. I guess through counselling and having the support of professionals around me, I’m realising that there were things that weren’t OKAY and trying to say they were okay is actually hindering my recovery process.

It’s not easy because I’m very quick to blame myself for things that happen. Even now I have moments of doubt where I think that all of my struggles are in my head and a result of me misunderstanding my whole childhood.

I guess the fact remains that whatever intent my parents had, it didn’t change the fact that I FELT unwanted, unloved, insecure and worthless. It has taken a long time for my counsellor to get through to me that my feelings are VALID irrespective of how anyone else might view the situation.

I grew up feeling that my feelings were invalid. That I was too emotional and basically my emotions were WRONG. For those who don’t read my “For I Know the Plans I Have For You” blog, I wrote about one such experience from my childhood in this blogpost.

So, where am I heading with all of this? Some of you in your comments over the past couple of days have reminded me of the power of adversity to make us stronger. I feel like I’m ready for the adversity to be over so I can get on with the “being stronger” part of my life.

But we don’t always have that choice do we? Some people seem to go through life with knock after knock and how they keep getting back on their feet is beyond me. Lately I’ve been feeling like the wind has been knocked out of me and I’m not confident I have the strength to keep getting up after each knock-down.

Perhaps this is where my fear stems from in terms of weaning off my current medication. I’m ready to give in and accept a kind of “half life” rather than go through yet another round of knock downs and struggle.

But the human spirit is amazingly powerful.

Here’s another excerpt from Craig’s post:

What too many people don’t realise is that it’s the challenges and the discomfort that cause us to grow if, and when, we step up to the plate. As I’ve said before, pain is our greatest teacher if we choose to learn.

I’m not disputing the fact that we all face real adversity, real pain, real tragedy and real hardship even in our privileged lives (if you’re not starving, you’re privileged), what I am saying is that we can choose to be exceptional despite our situation, despite our circumstance and despite whatever challenges life throws at us.

I want to choose to be exceptional.

I want to CHOOSE to be exceptional.

I don’t say this lightly. I’m still afraid of what the future holds. I’m still working through issues and events that have hurt me and made me consider myself to be a worthless human being.

I don’t believe for a second that the road ahead of me is going to be easy. But I choose to believe that it is going to be worth it.

So, where to from here?

Farmboy and I have pretty much decided that I will “detox” from the medication I’m currently on, do a stint on nothing and then make a decision about whether to try another medication. I’m not against using medication to help with my condition. I AM against taking a medication that doesn’t help. Maybe what I’m taking now is helping more than we realise. Or maybe not. There is only one way to find out.

The plan - such that it is

I have another 2 and a half weeks until I begin working with my personal trainer. In this time I want to continue working on my fitness and strength so that when we do begin, I’m ready to hit the ground running.

Last night I actually managed to jog the full 3km that I’ve been working back up to. It’s frustrating to think that this time last year I could jog 5km and enjoy it rather than it being a chore. It’s hard not to lament my loss of fitness but I’m trying to focus on the future rather than the past. I’ve done it before so I KNOW I can do it again.

I will then have 4 weeks of training with my personal trainer before I next see the Psychiatrist and we begin the gradual process of weaning off the drugs. The poor girl has no idea what she’s getting herself into. I hope she doesn’t bale on me when I explain what’s happening. I think I *need* her now more than ever.

I am *hoping* to be able to maintain as much exercise as possible during the weaning process as it will help.

The future?

Right now, what the future holds is anybody’s guess. Not that any of us REALLY know what the future holds for us.

In terms of this blog, it will be “business as usual” as much as is possible. I will keep you posted as we go (need my cheer squad and support team with me on this one).

I still have fear and doubt. But I feel somewhat comfortable with the decision we’ve made. There are still some logistical details to put into place. But we have time.

I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband, a wonderful counsellor and all of you to support me through this. Never doubt that you are a valued member of my blog community. Each and every one of you.

{{{HUGS}}} to all.

Lightening

One GIANT LEAP for Lightening!!!!!

I did something very brave!!!!!

Very VERY brave!!!!

I signed up with a PERSONAL TRAINER!!!!

She phoned yesterday to confirm and to schedule a weekly session.

So I am now officially SCHEDULED!!!!

And I have a starting date…..

31st March.

Today I am off to the local council to see about a membership to our tiny gym.

I need to become a member so I can meet with my Personal Trainer there.

Hear that???? MY personal trainer.

I so have to add this to my “100 Things I Thought I’d Never Do” List.

The one I haven’t written yet for this blog.

But I will.

Soon.

Because I can put “training with a personal trainer” on it.

Which sounds waaaayyyyy cool!

Even though cool isn’t a “cool” word anymore.

It is to me!

Oh my goodness. I am excited and terrified all at once.

What am I doing????

Lightening has a personal trainer.

Doesn’t that so make me sound all fit and healthy like????

For some time now, I have wanted to grow my own Aloe Vera plant. It has to be one of the handiest plants for saving money on medical supplies. I FINALLY have 2!!! For a grand cost of ….NOTHING!!!! It took me some time but I eventually found sombody with their own plant who potted up not 1 but 2 plants for me!!! Gotta love a freebie! Especially a freebie that could well SAVE me quite a bit of money over the long term!I have been doing some research into the benefits and uses of Aloe Vera. I figured while I was doing the research, it might be helpful to put together a blog post about the benefits of Aloe Vera. A lot of these are anecdotal benefits (there haven’t been scientific studies done to “verify” them). Please use some common sense and caution when first using Aloe Vera in case you or your family members have some sensitivity to it.

External Benefits:

skin moisturiser

relief of sunburn

anti-inflammatory

promotes healing

relief for burns

insect stings

itchy rashes

antimicrobal

relief from eczema & psoriasis

relief from acne

aids healing of scrapes and abrasions

scalp care

sore muscles

cold sores

bruises

sprains

arthritis

anti-ageing (apparently Cleopatra used to bathe in Aloe Vera juice to help maintain her youthful appearance)

Internal Benefits:

aids digestion

assists with bowel problems

lower cholesterol levels

fight infection

reduce inflammation

absorb toxins

heal ulcers

aid circulation

alkalises digestive juices which can aid indigestion

aid immune system

GROWING YOUR OWN

How to Grow Aloe Vera plants

This link provides a detailed explanation on how to care for and grow your own Aloe Vera plant. I learnt the hard way that they don’t like frosts. My first attempt at growing a plant from a cutting in our garden some years ago met with limited success as the plant curled up it’s toes at the first frost. Apparently they are 95% water which is why they don’t like frosts. Interesting that they are able to survive on fairly low levels of watering though. They obviously hold onto their water well. I’m sure the shape of the leaf and the thickness of it’s outer coating have something to do with that!

Now I’m growing a couple of plants in pots and so far they seem to be growing and thriving well. They seem to thrive on neglect which makes them a perfect plant for me to grow!!! I tip a bit of water into mine occasionally and they seem fine. If I put the pots outside though, they need a lot more care and attention (I’m assuming due to a higher temperature and evaporation rate).

HARVESTING THE GEL FROM YOUR HOME GROWN PLANT

One of the great benefits of growing your own aloe vera plant is that you have fresh gel on hand at all times. In my opinion, fresh is always going to better than a bottled product that has had to be stabilised in order to give it some kind of shelf life. The down-side is that the juice surrounding the Aloe Vera gel can cause skin and bowel irritations in some people. To apply externally, some people simply break off a piece of the plant and apply the opened flesh to the wound. This is fine if you don’t have sensitive skin.

For those with sensitive skin or who would like to make use of the gel as an internal tonic, the following link provides step by step instructions on

How to Harvest Fresh Aloe Vera Gel

It also provides some explanation of various parts of the plant and which parts are of benefit to us as humans. The writer recommends harvesting a leaf when it is the size of your forearm. I grow my aloe vera in a pot so it’s not likely to get that big. I guess the point is the larger the leaf, the more gel you can harvest from it.

WHY I CHOOSE TO GROW MY ALOE VERA PLANTS INSIDE

I wanted to try growing an Aloe Vera plant in our bedroom as I read somewhere that it is a good plant for removing toxins from the air and aiding a restful sleep. Any plant will help to do this but those with a rubbery leaf texture like Aloe Vera are known to be particularly good at attracting dust particles. Plants also produce negative ions which are good for improving mood (so a MUST for me LOL).

I currently have 1 plant in our bedroom and 1 in the dining room (close to the kitchen).

Here are some links to articles on the benefits of indoor house plants:

Happy, Healing, Healthy Houseplants

Air Cleaning House Plants (mentions that Aloe will remove formaldehyde from the air)

Other interesting links

If you would like to read more on the benefits and uses of Aloe Vera, you might enjoy some of these links:

Herb Info - Aloe Vera

Herbal Information Centre - Aloe Vera

Benefits of Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera

Mayo Clinic on Aloe Vera

I hope you’ve found this article interesting and helpful. I’d love to hear of your own experiences with growing aloe vera and how you’ve made use of it’s many healing properties.

Image by Old Shoe Woman via FlickrI finally went for a run this morning. Between illness and being away, it’s been a while. They say it doesn’t take long to start losing your fitness and with my body still struggling with asthma, I decided to take it fairly easy. Not only did I take it slower but I also cut my jog short. As I got to the 1 mile gate (we have a gate about 1.6km from the house so I’ve nicknamed it 1 mile gate) it got me thinking about the 1.6km run we had to run as part of PE at school.

What I was thinking was how easy running 1.6km seems to me now in comparison to when I was forced to do it at school. In some ways I wouldn’t mind being able to travel back in time and finally nail that run once and for all. It’s okay, I haven’t lost my marbles. I’m definitely in the “hate PE” camp and really have no desire to go back there.

BUT what a shame that I didn’t know then what I know now about health and fitness. All PE seemed to be from my angle was a bludge for those who were good at sports and a nightmare for the rest of us. Now maybe I just scored BAD PE teachers but the amount of favouritism and assumptions they made (putting people into boxes) was terrible.

I remember my first PE teacher reacting in complete surprise when we had a netball section as part of our PE program. She actually said to me “you’re really good at netball for a beginner”. I was tempted to slug her. I was new to the school and had just come from 2 years of playing netball both summer and winter as well as inter-school. I even played up a grade at times and my Saturday team only ever lost 1 game while our inter-school team didn’t lose any! I’m not saying I was a netball star or anything (far from it in fact) - but I certainly wasn’t a beginner!!!! She just made that assumption based on the fact that I wasn’t a natural at all things sporty - and had a fairly obvious dislike for the subject.

Not that it’s really fair to blame it all on my teachers’. After all, when you hate something with a passion like I did with PE, you don’t exactly put in a great effort. And any excuse to get out of it will do. LOL. And I must have been a frustration to my PE teachers as I spent half the time unable to participate due to an injury in my wrist (which was unfortunately made a lot worse thanks to the PE teachers that ran our school camp-site who insisted I climb a rather tall tree even though one hand was bandaged and I had a note saying I wasn’t to use it).

Every 6 months we had to do this fitness test which involved a timed 1.6km run, sit ups and a flexibility test. I could nail the sit-ups no worries. We were only allowed to go as far as 100 and I could do that without causing me any muscle aches the next day. No idea why as I definitely didn’t practise. I just could. But the run - well let’s just say I came pretty close to the back of the pack most times. And flexibility - well I certainly had none of that. Now, with doing yoga, my flexibility is HEAPS better than it was back when I was in my early teens! I used to struggle to reach my toes with my fingertips and now I can get over a handspan past - doh! It never once occured to me that doing some simple stretches at home might have assisted my flexibility a little.

So, out of curiosity, I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to go back to PE now and see if things are any different. If I perform differently (with improved fitness and confidence) and if it may have changed my attitude toward, and general enjoyment of, PE.

I do wonder though, if I had been treated less like a leper by my PE teachers (perhaps that’s exaggerating but I’m hoping you’ll get what I mean), whether my interest in all things physical might have been sparked a little younger than 30. I feel like all I really learnt from my PE classes was that any physical activity was simply pure torture and humiliation.

How about you? Are you in the “loved PE” or “hated PE” camp? Anyone out there have a PE teacher who was actually nice to those who didn’t excel in the subject? Anyone want to share any of their own PE teacher stories? LOL.

I have one more to share with you. I was involved in a youth choir during my early high school years and one day we had a big reunion of past and present members of the choir. Guess who turned up? My PE teacher! Nothing like running into your PE teacher on the weekend. LOL. She was very pleasant and friendly toward me and lo and behold, come next PE lesson, the friendliness continued. What the…..? I will admit it was nice for a change but at the same time I was completely confused. Now that we had some kind of common bond I deserved to be treated better? It just shouldn’t work like that. Oh well, we teach our kids that life isn’t fair and I guess that’s the sad truth of it.

At least I have the satisfaction of knowing I would blitz that fitness test if I did have to take it today.

I have discovered a great combination of foods for a dessert that I LOVE and is fairly healthy too. Cut up apple (green apples work best but it’s still nice with whatever apples you have), several dollops of natural yoghurt and a drizzle of honey. It’s such a great mixture of flavours and textures. I’ve never really been a big fan of honey but have been using it more in my attempts to reduce the amount of white sugar we consume. I think it’s kind of growing on me as a “sweet treat” and because it really is very sweet, you don’t need to use very much.

My other favourite food at the moment is celery pieces with cheese. No idea why I’m craving celery but at least it’s a real food. It actually seems to be quite a good substitute for my chipaholic cravings.

With Easter having just past, I can’t say my attempts to keep white sugar out of my diet are going all that well. Chocolate chip hot cross buns - way too yummy for my waistline!!! LOL. But I figure the most important thing with improving our health through diet is to keep learning and trying new things.

My next experiment will be to find a bean or legume that I like cold to have on my lunch time salad. That will be interesting as I’m a fairly new convert to eating legumes and beans much at all, let alone eating them cold. Coming into winter we’ll probably eat more soups for lunch and they’re much easier for including beans and legumes. If I get game enough to try them cold, I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve been experimenting a bit lately with trying to improve the quality of nutrition in our diet. We don’t do too badly but like most things there’s room for improvement. One area we haven’t been doing too great in until recently was the use of refined (white) flours and sugar. So I’ve been trying to gradually find ways to replace these.

This is a recipe that I came up with recently when I was trying to find a low-fat, low-sugar cake to serve to visitors. It’s actually a cake but with a heavier texture than most cakes. You could bake it in a loaf pan but I use a square cake dish and it’s not as deep, more like you’d expect a slice to be. You also get smaller pieces that way so you’re not consuming “too much”.

HEALTHY APPLE SLICE

2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 dessert spoons honey (fairly generous ones)
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup apple sauce
2 fresh apples peeled and chopped

The best part about this recipe is that you basically chuck it all in a bowl and mix. I didn’t add the apples until the rest of it was mixed together though. I have a salad server with a hole in the middle of it that I find just right for mixing the ingredients together. I’m sure any spoon would be fine though.

Topping: Once the batter was in the pan I sprinkled the top with oats and cinnamon before baking (did you know that both oats and cinnamon are good for diabetics?).

It takes about 40 minutes in my oven on around 180C but you might have to experiment a bit with your own oven - no 2 ovens seem to be the same. One good thing about it is that if it’s undercooked a little it’s not so noticable as it’s a heavy-ish texture already. You don’t want to overcook it though.

Once it’s cooled you just cut it up into pieces - all pretty easy really. I love the fact that it doesn’t need icing.

Here’s the recipe I adapted it from:

FUDGE CAKE
1.5 cups SR flour
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup castor sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp imitation vanilla essence
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Whisk ingredients together and bake 35-40 minutes at 180C. They use a ring tin in the recipe. You could use whatever you have. I’ll often double this recipe if I want to make a cake or I’ve used it for making a kind of brownie (again in my square pan). If I’m making “brownies” with it I just dust the top with icing sugar. Otherwise you can ice it with chocolate icing.

You’ll notice this recipe doesn’t have egg, milk or butter/margarine in it so it’s suitable for people with allergies to these things. Just make sure you don’t ice it with butter icing if you’re going to give it to someone with dairy allergies. Not having these ingredients also makes it lower in fat (and you can lower it more by substituting half the vegetable oil for apple sauce like I did for my apple slice) and also fairly frugal.

Happy Cooking!

Jodi