hairball

Maybe I have a hairball?

Anyhow, back to the hospital for the third time this week to see if someone can figure out what’s wrong with me. That’s their job, right?

the felitron

The Felitron

Subtle Energy Harmonizing Device

This instrument harmonizes disturbed subtle energy patterns of an cat. It depends upon radionic, shamanic and dowsing principles. Its effectiveness depends on your confidence in your efforts, your degree of focused intent, and your dowsing ablities.

I dunno … it’s either this or the psychic facelift. What do you think?

~ found over at nursemyra’s ~

full of hot air

Well, it was a possible medical emergency for about 4 hours.

What happened was I woke up Monday morning feeling just awful. At first I put it down to being hungover as the previous evening I had been out with you know who , so I reckoned I’d feel better after a bit of coffee and breakfast. Instead I was suddenly hit with the most amazing lower abdominal pain, as if the Alien creature was trying to bust out of my guts . . .

plan of action

Started working on a biz plan today. . .

Well, a couple of them in fact. All tied up with and thanks to a couple of wonderful women I’ve met at different AWC meet ups. Sort of a follow-up (addition to?) my global brainstorming session post from last January.

Anyhow, I’ve found what looks like a good biz plan template online and took the first baby steps this week to start making it more than just something that makes my eyes glaze over by page 3. This means it involves having another real person in the room with me and going through it all together. Bouncing ideas off each other to our mutual benefit. Stuff like that. It’s all looking very positive.

Now I just have to get over feeling so scared.

the daily plate

I found a link to The Daily Plate over at Wandering Coyote’s yesterday and then spent most of the morning setting it up and getting all obsessive about it (I love setting up new pages, blogs, websites,etc).

The Daily Plate is an online destination focused on all things food. Our mission is to help you eat smarter by allowing you to get quick and easy access to comprehensive nutritional information on the food that you eat. You can search for food items, view healthy alternatives and track what you eat on a daily basis.

Although I have avoided the “C-word” for years I’m beginning to realise and accept that, as I am now a woman of a certain age, in order to lose weight in a healthy way it isn’t going to be a spontaneous thing that just happens without a lot of work on my part. And so I am reacquainting myself with “Cals” and seeing what options are available to me.

The only thing I don’t understand is the amount of Cals burned per activity listed on the site - it seems very high to me. I thought the same thing about a similar online tool that daisyfae is using. Unless it is added to whatever one would be burning anyhow just from being alive. And for some reason one hour of pilates uses more Cals than an hour of yoga, which I don’t think is actually the case. But what the hell - it’s a fun guideline thingy that will help give me a better idea of what I eat and how that works with the amount of activity I do every day.

It even looks like it’s going to be fun!

are you happy?

Well, are you? If so, how do you know? What makes you happy?

I came across this list of questions about happiness on an h2g2 ‘talking point’ and thought they would make for a good starting place to discuss some thoughts and ideas about what happiness and being happy means to us.

1. Are you basically a happy person?
2. Can you learn happiness? Is it a skill?
3. Are some people just born under a dark cloud?
4. For the terminally miserable, is happiness just a phase that some people are going through?
5. Can a dyed-in-the-wool unhappy chappy suddenly wake up one morning to find that they’ve turned happy?
6. Are ‘things’ underrated? Can material stuff bring long-lasting happiness?
7. Is good health the secret of all happiness?
8. Is loneliness the root of all unhappiness?
9. Is being happy actually a bit boring and overrated?

Feel free to deviate from the questions and/or add some of your own…

vitamins may shorten life?

Vitamins May Shorten Your Life

Research has suggested certain vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to a premature death.

But the Health Supplements Information Service, which is funded by the association which represents those who sell supplements, said many people were simply not able to get everything they needed from their diet.

“For the millions who are not able to do that, vitamins can be a useful supplement and they should not stop taking them,” said spokeswoman Pamela Mason.

Not able to get everything they need from their diet? Yet they can afford expensive supplements? Yeah right.

I’ve always thought that taking vitamin supplements were a waste of money, not to mention the false sense of security it gives people who can’t be bothered to eat properly, as apparently your body just pisses away most of them. It’s interesting to read here that some may also have an adverse effect on your health.

What do you think?

fat is dead

New Nietzschean Diet Lets You Eat Whatever You Fear Most

NEW YORK—While dieters are accustomed to exercises of will, a new English translation of Germany’s most popular diet book takes the concept to a new philosophical level. The Nietzschean diet, which commands its adherents to eat superhuman amounts of whatever they most fear, is developing a strong following in America.

Fat Is Dead, proclaims the ambitious title of the dense, aphoristic nutrition plan, which was written by Friedrich Nietzsche in the late 1880s and unearthed three years ago. After reaching bestseller lists in Europe, the book was translated into English by R.J. Hollingdale and published by Avon last month.

“One must strive to eat dangerously as one comes into the Will to Power Oneself Thin,” Nietzsche wrote. “What do you fear? By this are you truly Fattened. You must embrace your Fears, as well as your Fat, and learn to Laugh as you consume them, along with Generous Portions of Simple Salad. Remember, as you stare into the lettuce, the lettuce stares also into you.”

I think this is fabulous! Way better than The Secret, which stupidly promotes staying away from fat people as a way of getting thin - like duh. I’ve been living with a stick insect for almost four years who actually eats more than I do and a big fat lot of good that’s done for me. But finally here is a no-nonsense diet I can really sink my teeth into.

Eating dangerously, eh? Sounds like fun to me.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Oh, and also click here…

miss bimbo

website promotes extreme diets and surgery to 9-year-olds

The internet game, aimed at girls aged 9 to 16, gives users ‘bimbo dollars’ to buy lingerie, diet pills and nightclub outfits. It has attracted 200,000 UK members

A website that encourages girls as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure was condemned as lethal by parents’ groups and healthcare experts yesterday.

The Miss Bimbo internet game has attracted prepubescent girls who are told to buy their virtual characters breast enlargement surgery and to keep them “waif thin” with diet pills.

Healthcare professionals, a parents’ group and an organisation representing people suffering anorexia and bulimia criticised the website for sending a dangerous message to impressionable children.

It looks like since I first came across this article a couple of days ago that the Miss Bimbo website has been blocked. What do you think? Too much ‘nannying’ or does a website like this pose a serious threat to the young girls who visit it?

get your socks off

I think this would feel wonderful!

Awhile ago truce wrote about spontaneously walking home from work barefoot in downtown Sydney and I was reminded of her experience when I saw this Grauniad article about Barfuss (barefoot) walks.

On a specially-designed Barfuss you don’t simply trudge over rather samey woodland floor. At Trentham, different stages of the walk present you with running water (pumped from the lake), stone and brick (from the remains of the old house), sand, grass, logs, planks, pebbles, flint, those knobbly paving stones you find near pedestrian crossings and - at the start - a mudbath the colour of dark chocolate.

The beneficial effects on your whole body of stimulating your feet is the basis of the ancient practice of reflexology. In China, reflexology paths paved with different types of stone have been around for thousands of years and are regularly walked on for relaxation and to promote longevity.

Research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 2005 showed that walking reflexology paths three times a week for 30 minutes a session over 16 weeks can reduce blood pressure and improve balance.

As a kid I remember going barefoot all summer and so every autumn when school started my shoes always felt extra tight because my feet had spread out so much. Even now I can’t stand wearing shoes, so I’m lucky that I can wear sandals for at least eight months out of the year. But I don’t actually go barefoot much anymore, except at home and at the beach.

I don’t think I’d like to try walking barefoot in downtown Sevilla. Not only because of the horseshit everywhere but also because of the dangers of cutting myself. As well as feeling grossed out about possibly stepping where dogs have peed and people have spat or vomited, etc.

But one of these reflexology paths sounds like it would be amazing.