Is salt really my friend?

I slid my arm into the cuff, the blood pressure cuff at the drugstore. My son took his and wanted me to take mine. I pressed start and it squeezed off the blood flow then slowly released. My son was delighted with the numbers. "Look at how high they are mom." I frowned. Yes, they were high, too high. Something has to be done.

It took me a few months to decide how to address this. According to WebMd, I wasn't in the danger zone yet but I was approaching. My dad just had another surgery to place yet another stent. It's genetic, he told me and then advised me to get an MRI just to make sure I didn't need a stent. 'What if it's not genetic," I thought. My dad lived high on the hog for many years. I even learned  how to make him a gin and tonic when I was a kid. He drank a lot, smoked even more, and ate rich food for most of his life. And, that behavior really took a toll on his health. I took stock of my life, my son, my husband and I decided that I needed to drop some pounds and make some major changes before it was too late.

I decided to give 6 Week Body Makeover a try. They offer a money back guarantee and I thought what the hell. I can do this for six weeks. If I'm still overweight with high blood pressure, I can try something else. I still have time.

I knew going into the diet plan that after it's over, I can't just go back to eating salt, sugar, and butter slathered on my bacon. What I'm searching for is a healthy way of eating that I can deal with for the rest of my life. In the process of following this eating plan, my taste buds are supposed to be getting used to eating without added salt, oil, butter, or sugar. Those are my four favorite food groups, along with bacon. I've always been a salt fiend. I stopped using Morton's years ago and only used sea salt. You know, the one with all the minerals and it's supposed to be better for you than table salt. But if you use too much, like anything, then it's not good for you.

So far, I haven't been hungry (a big fear of mine which makes me reach for the Cheez Its) and I've actually lost 12 pounds and shed inches from my body. And, today, for the first time, my unseasoned food (actually, I loaded it with ground pepper, fresh thyme, garlic, and hot peppers which are all ok to eat) actually tasted pretty good. I was surprised because just last night I was whining about how I couldn't eat salt or soy sauce. Do you know how hard it is for a girl with Japanese blood NOT to eat soy sauce. I grew up seasoning everything with soy sauce. I used to drink shots of soy sauce.

I'm hoping that after I've reached a healthy weight for my age and size that I can add back in just a few of my favorites, like soy sauce and salt. Maybe a dash instead of a steady pour. And, perhaps I can drink a glass of wine once a week. I just have to wait and see. But I need to do this for myself and my family. I want to be active and healthy and my bacon on bacon lifestyle just won't do anymore.

What I love About Spring

The thing that I love the most about Spring is the fresh smell in the air. If hope were to have a smell, it would smell like Spring. The sweet air swirls and carries the scent of unfolding flowers. Sometimes, the air is tinged with winter's wicked chill and sometimes the sun comes out to banish it. In Springtime, you need a rain jacket and a t-shirt just in case the sun comes to warm your back.

I love the beautiful blossoms. I love seeing people out in their gardens snipping here and there, planting flowers, reshaping a garden that got pushed around by winter. Speaking of the word winter, it doesn't deserve to be capitalized. Yeah, I know we need winter in order to have Spring but I still don't have to capitalize the damn word.

Maybe it's the vitamin D that I've been taking but right now, I feel alive and happy. I love my garden and my husband is building a new fence. It looks good. Oh Spring!

Don't Do Taxes On Four Hours Sleep

The title says it all. I told my husband that I probably made mistakes but I think I got everything in there. I could not sleep last night and I think it was fours hours tops. Maybe there was something in the air. Finally, Spring is here maybe that's it. Maybe I was kind of nervous about doing the Faith Ringgold presentation for my son's class, or maybe it was the tv that I began watching. Once I started watching Medium, I couldn't stop. I tried. I even turned off the TV but as I lay there in the dark, I couldn't help but wonder if they'd catch the evil person. I really enjoy how those stories come together, sometimes the evil doer gets away but they seem to always catch the morally corrupt person. Speaking of morally corrupt, Jane Lynch was amazing on Glee and in her debut music video. I love Jane Lynch. I wish she'd come over for dinner and make us all laugh.

Oh dang, I am tired.

Those Books That I'm "Reading" Right Now

I have a pile by the bedside and if the mood strikes me to read about luscious cakes, then I read about that. If I feel like I need a sassy narrative about her year of cooking with Julia, then I read that. Today, I saw this HUGE and I do mean HUGE tome in the cookbook section. Well, I just had to check it out. Turns out it's a whole 500 plus pages of the life and times of one of the most famous chefs in the word. In fact, his restaurant is rated the best in the world and it's damn hard to come by a rez. You can't just call up Ferran and ask for Friday at 7. Oh no. You need to plan years, yes, I said years in advance. You see, they only have 8000 reservations a year and they have over 200,000 people vying for those spots. So, yes, I checked it out. Who ever saw a 500 plus page cookbook? Oh yeah, it's hard bound and is 9" by 11", that's right. It looks like a dictionary. I'm happy to say that it has lots of glossy pix and only smaller inserts of text. At least it fits in with my lazy reading style. I'll write more on this book find later.

So, yeah, I've always got some book going on how to make a better kid, I mean how to make him do what I want, I mean how to make him behave better. And of course, I always have a dessert cookbook or two that I read because my husband LOVES sweets and I love my husband and I want to make him sweet things.

What is WRONG with people?

This is hard to write about. I'm really upset about what happened to that little girl, the one who was attacked at a party in NJ by at least 12 men and teen boys. I can't even begin to imagine the horror that she went through and will continue to go through for the rest of her life. And, what is WRONG with people. Maybe the attackers were abused as children, maybe it was the perfect storm of society giving up/poverty/misogyny, maybe they fell into madness as it started and then others thought, 'Oh, what the hell.' That whole thing of accepted group behavior is as strange one. Someone else started the attack and then no one did anything about it and this sent a signal to the crowd that it was ok. I've read studies about this peculiar human behavior and most of these studies show that people do nothing or join in. Look at the Holocaust, how was that allowed to happen. I guess I'm just looking for some kind of explanation about how a 15 year old girl can sell her sister and it's accepted at this party.

I cried as I read this story and then I cried again. I didn't mean to click on it for Christ sakes. I was doing a search on Jerry Seinfeld's TV dad, who just passed away and this, horror popped up. I felt it like a stab to my heart.