A-Z Challenge - 'W'

Today's topic for the A-Z challenge is 'walking.' Since the onset of my symptoms, something as simple as walking has often been a struggle for me - though considerably less of an issue now than even one year ago.

I was admitted to the hospital in September of 2006 when I attempted to walk a short distance from the courthouse in Middletown to Russell Library - a grand total of 0.2 miles, though with a slight incline. I experienced an extreme shortness of breath and barely made it. Prior to that, walking in a straight line without some sort of support was an issue.
In the hospital, I was immediately put on a corticosteroid similar to prednisone and issued a pair of red socks - the steroid was used to reduce swelling and the socks indicated that I was not allowed to walk without assistance (they were afraid that I would fall and hurt myself).
The prednisone-like steroid caused me to gain a lot of weight over the almost 5 months that I was taking it. While steroid helped me in one aspect, it hurt me in other aspects. After coming off of it, I had odd issues - super-sensitive teeth, no appetite at all (just the smell of food made me sick) - in addition to the problems that go along with obesity.

Prior to October 2008 (you may recall from previous posts that this is when I started taking VIDACELL), my walking was limited to flat surfaces with hand rails for support and then only for short periods. Grocery shopping with a shopping cart to lean on was a decent option. After October 2008, walking became a regular part of my journey to wellness.

Walking for fitness and walking for mobility are two different entities yet very similar. The first is something that we all should do more often yet it seems like a chore for many of us. The second is something that we easily take for granted.

Take It To The Limit

One thing about recovery, whether it be from an accident, surgery, or disease, is that you need to constantly - but within reason - push the limits of your abilities.  Really, you have two paths that you can choose to follow.  On one side, you have the path of least resistance.  Following this path means that you accept your limitations and essentially give up the fight.  On the other side, you have the path to recovery.  This path is much more tiring to follow.  It entails physical activity - using your body in a way that will take it to the limit of your endurance (and, of course, the title of this post refers to the song from the Eagles, Take It To The Limit).

This week has been a relatively busy one, but today I pretty much ran into a brick wall.  Let me recap a bit...

• Last Wednesday, I took Ginger for a fairly substantial walk.  I already talked about that in my last post, so I won't repeat myself here except to mention it as the beginning of this recent flurry of activity.
• Thursday morning marked the first of ten weekly sessions at the YMCA for myself and the girls.  We have a group of homeschooling families that have secured one hour of pool time at the Y.  I didn't swim last week but I went with the girls to let them have some fun in the pool.  I will be swimming with them tomorrow, though!
• On Friday, we hopped in the car and drove to New Jersey - just over the NY border.  We stayed the night in a hotel so we could be up and out to a Renaissance fair on Saturday.  After we arrived at our hotel, we unpacked, unwound, and hopped back into the car to head to the Palisades Center Mall.  This mall is huge at four stories tall.  Normally, we would visit the food court for a meal, but this year we packed food, so this was merely a shopping/walking visit.  We spent about 2 hours walking the mall until finally heading back to the hotel.
• Saturday was spent at the NY Renaissance Faire.  This meant a lot more walking for me.  I fortunately had the insight to buy a pair of gel insoles for my boots!  I have a really nice pair of Minnetonka moccasin boots that I wear as part of my ren faire garb.  The only down side is that, even though these have a harder sole than your average moccasin, I still feel every little rock that I step on.  For my feet with the constant pins and needles I feel, it can be unbearable.  The insoles made all the difference!
• Sunday really was a day of rest!  I was beat!  Even with the insoles, my feet were protesting any sort of real activity.  We did, however, go grocery shopping.  So I still got some walking in.
• Monday found us with Ginger at the dog park in the neighboring town to let her get some quality, outdoor, off-leash time.  The park is set back in the woods.  It isn't much of a walk to get to, but it still takes a little effort.  There were several dogs and their people at the park and Ginger had a blast!  As well, we took a trip to Lyman's Orchards to pick some more apples.  We came home with about 10 pounds of apples - gala, empire, and Cortland.  We were just going to buy some apples at the grocery store, but would have only gotten about 10 apples for $11.00!  We go through at least 12 apples per week, so that wasn't working for us.  At Lyman's we saved $0.59 per pound off of the grocery store price and we got to pick them ourselves.  On top of that, the individual apples are smaller so portion control is a lot better.
• Tuesday was another relatively uneventful day.  Phew!

Today, the girls are all off at the homeschool co-op, so I once again have the day to myself.  I didn't sleep well last night, so the morning found me dozing off quite a bit after they left.  Around noon, I decided that it was time to do something!
We have a small garden out back that has been rather unfruitful this year.  The soil is just awful - mostly a rocky clay - but we have had varying degrees of success.  Tomato plants usually do quite well but even they struggled this year.  I was able to harvest my two whole peppers, though, so that's at least something.
My goal for today was to prepare a small, raised bed for next year's planting.  I had made three frames a couple of years ago for the same purpose, but we didn't implement it well and decided not to use them this year.  As a result, I have been using one of the frames to contain my compost pile - which is doing quite nicely.  I read up on using raised beds for vegetable gardens, and I really wanted to give it another shot.  So...out I went with shovel and cultivator in hand to prepare a raised bed.
I started loosening up the soil and clearing it of weeds and rocks.  Somehow, no matter how well you clear out the rocks, they always seem to work their way back in to the garden!  After clearing a sufficient space for the frame - about 2' by 3' - I started to dig down about 6 inches, moving the soil into a pile.  I continued to encounter some really big rocks!  After placing the frame around my newly dug hole, I needed to level do a little more excavation so that the hole was as big as the frame.  I then lined the bottom of the hole with a weed barrier.  Raised bed farming is not supposed to require a weed barrier due to the fact that the plants are placed in such a way as to limit weed growth.  I figured that it couldn't hurt, though.  We had purchased a weed barrier made from recycled materials and is even eco-friendly.  Next came the refilling of the hole.  Along with the frames, I had also built a sifting frame.  This is simply a frame of 2x4's with a screen attached to sift smaller rocks out of the soil.  Setting the frame in the hole, I scooped a couple of shovels of dirt into it and sifted the soil right into the hole.  This meant a lot of bending and lifting for me and it is where I reached my limit of physical activity.  After about 8 or 10 rounds of shoveling and sifting, I was about done.  I began feeling a bit dizzy and nauseous after each round - each 'round' consisting of: shoveling dirt into the frame, bending to lift the frame but keeping it close to the ground, shaking the frame to sift the soil, and finally standing and dumping the rocks out.  I continued to sift more soil until the weed barrier was completely covered but not even close to filling the hole back up.  It didn't matter, though...I had nothing left.  One more round of sifting probably would have done me in.

I plan to revisit my currently-sunken raised bed within the next couple of days.  I really want to get the dirt that I removed from the hole sifted and returned to it soon.  I also need to establish a second compost pile so I can let the current one finish decomposing so that I can add the compost to the planting bed.  If I keep adding to it, it will never be ready for use.  I will eventually add more soil and compost to fill the hole and the frame thus creating the 'raised' bed.  This will result in depth of about 12 inches of sifted soil/compost for the plants to grow in.  Hopefully that will give them adequate space for the roots and will result in a much better harvest than we had this year.

Today Was Just What I Needed.

Sorry, yesterday's mention of The Cars just made me want to do it again, but the title really does fit.  Today really was just what I needed.  Nutritionally, physically, and even spiritually, today was amazing!

Greenspring, the new name for the homeschool co-op that we are a part of started today.  Well, it actually started yesterday, but the girls didn't end up taking any classes on Tuesday.  So, with them gone all day, I had the house to myself.

My morning pretty much ended up the same as it normally is.  Breakfast - after my regular, daily VidaCell - consisted of two free range eggs fried in my cast iron skillet, 1 slice of Ezekiel bread (the sesame variety), and a banana.  After breakfast, I did some surfing on the internet.

I recently joined a social network similar to facebook but with a twist.  SideTick is really new, so it isn't quite as deep in what it offers when compared to facebook.  It does have chat, blogs, picture albums, video links, and other common features.  One thing that it does have that facebook doesn't offer is your own, personal, video channel.  It will interact with your webcam allowing you to run a personal TV station.
Further, SideTick also rewards you with 'tickbucks' for all of your unique actions each day (up to 1,000 per day).  There are other ways to earn more tickbucks, as well, over and above the 1,000 earned for actions.  One way is through referring new members.  For each new member that joins SideTick through your invitation, you earn 2,000 tickbucks.  Here's the kicker... each 2,000 tickbucks earned converts into $1.00.  Yup, you can earn money to be social.

If you are interested in checking out SideTick, I invite you to click the banner on the right.

After surfing, I cleaned up from breakfast and took the pepitas out of the dehydrator and replaced them with the almonds.  Almonds take longer to dry, so they won't be done until some time tomorrow.

On the last trip to Deerfield Farm, I picked up a package of two veal chops.  Deerfield Farm, in addition to offering their own raw milk, cheese, and other products also provides space in their store to two other farms that I am aware of.  One of the farms sells free range eggs through the store and the other sells grass fed veal.  The veal is neatly packaged, frozen, and marked with the type of cut (cutlet, chop, kidney, etc.) and price.
Well, I decided that I wanted to cook the veal today so I took it out of the freezer to thaw.

Next, it was time to take Ginger for a walk.  We headed out the door and began to walk on the glorified sidewalk that runs along West Lake Blvd.  Instead of heading toward the bike trail that leads through the woods, I went the other way.  She was really anxious about the cars, so after a short walk we turned around.  I wasn't ready to go home so I kept on walking past our street and went on to the bike trail after all.  Rather than taking the trail all the way to the bridge, however, I decided to veer off into the woods.  Years ago, before they paved the trail, we had discovered a foot path that wended its way through the woods, past a swamp, and eventually back to the road.  I decided that this would be the route that Ginger and I would take today.  After getting out of sight of the paved trail, I let Ginger off-leash.  She doesn't get much of a chance to roam free and I wasn't sure how long she was going to be able to handle it.  I was a bit concerned that she might decide to chase a squirrel or rabbit and not come back to me.
She handled it so well that we made it off-leash until we started to approach the road again.  We got home after about an hour of walking and she immediately claimed a spot on the floor and promptly fell asleep!

At this point the veal was thawed out enough for me to put it into a marinade.  Last week, Tatyana and I made another batch of mojo de ajo so I decided to use that as the base of the marinade - a little mojo de ajo, a little balsamic vinegar, some sea salt, and some papaya pepper.

After the walk, my feet were really sore and I was a bit sweaty, so I decided to soak my feet in the tub before taking a shower.  Some warm water, epsom salt, and Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap made for an amazing foot soak.

Next came some reading time.  Currently, I am reading Deepak Chopra's Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul.  I'd give you a review, but I really haven't gotten all that far into it yet.  Reading pretty much filled the time until everyone else came home.

Time to cook dinner.  I lit up the grill and got out the food processor.  I needed to do something with the eggplant that came home from the library garden before it rotted on me.  First, I prepared a baking dish by spreading a little mojo de ajo into the bottom of the dish.  I used the food processor to slice the eggplant thinly.  I put down a layer of the eggplant in the dish.  On top of that I spread some sliced zucchini and some tomato sauce.  I then repeated the pattern of eggplant, zucchini, and tomato sauce.  Next came some Parmesan cheese followed by a final layer of eggplant and tomato sauce.  Into the preheated oven (400 degrees) it went for 15 minutes.  The veal went onto the grill shortly after that so that it was ready to turn when the timer went off.  At this point, I added some shredded cheese to the top of the eggplant dish and let it finish off for another 5 minutes - just in time to pull the veal chops off the grill.
OH MY GOSH!!!  Everything tasted absolutely amazing!  ..and I am not even a particularly big fan of eggplant!

A great day that was indeed just what I needed.

Life is just a candle, and a dream must give it flame.

The title of this post is from a song by Rush from their Caress of Steel album, The Fountains of Lamneth.  This is definitely a thought-provoking line.

Well, the weather has returned to being amazing after several cold, overcast, rainy days.  The girls are all busy with their homeschool co-op today, so I decided to capitalize on the weather and take Ginger for a walk on the trail.  I did the now-usual walk to the bridge and turned around to come home.  For some reason, Ginger was really anxious and pretty much tried to pull me home once we started to head back.  I really hope that by taking her out for walks we can both benefit - me by getting the much needed physical activity and her by growing accustomed to the walks and not being so anxious all the time.


I haven't used the Wii Fit Plus for almost a week, now.  This is partially due to a lack of motivation to do so but it is more due to the fact that I just haven't had much of an opportunity over the last week.  The girls had a 4H event on Saturday and that took the whole day.  Additionally, I just wasn't feeling too great which is probably what led to my lack of motivation.

We need to go grocery shopping soon.  I am running low on milk and I am out of yogurt among other things.  So, today for dinner I made French Toast!  You know what is really odd about French Toast?  It is neither French nor toast.  Bread dipped in egg and fried in a skillet.  For my French Toast, I used Ezekiel 4:9 bread and cage free eggs along with a little 100% pure organic maple syrup.  I used 2 slices of bread instead of only one.  Finding the cheaper price on it at Trader Joe's makes it a little easier to use more than one slice, though I am still trying to keep to an average of 1 per day.

A 'spring' in my step...

Spring has not yet officially begun though it is literally right around the corner - only 11 days until the first day of spring.  Major League Baseball has begun spring training with the Boston Red Sox with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses.  More importantly, the weather has been absolutely amazing  for the last several days and for 3 of the last 5 days I have gone for walks approaching (if not exceeding) 2.5 miles.  I haven't used the Wii Fit Plus since Friday but I intend to spend some time with that tomorrow.  If the weather holds, I will likely take another walk tomorrow as well.

I have been starting every day with VIDACELL, one capsule of Primal Defense Ultra, one capsule of Omega-Zyme Ultra, and a breakfast of two cage free eggs with a slice of Ezekiel 4:9 bread.  Today, knowing that I was going to go for a walk, I decided to have a yogurt smoothie for lunch.  I didn't want to have anything too heavy that would slow me down or cause me to cramp up on the walk.  Today for my smoothie, I used frozen, organic raspberries and blueberries that we bought at Trader Joe's.  I was amazed at the difference in flavor compared to the Stop & Shop brand that I had been using.  As well, I added the usual flax seeds but this time I included a packet of VIDACELL.  I have occasionally taken an extra serving of VIDACELL in the past, but not too often.  Because I am a distributor of VIDACELL, I earned a enough 'life points' to redeem for a free box.  My free box arrived the other day giving me a little freedom to boost my intake and hopefully speed healing.

VIDACELL has been a wonderful benefit for me for the last year and a half.  I really don't know where I would be physically without it.  According to GreatLife International, "VIDACELL is an all natural functional food that provides your body's cells with vital and essential nutrients they can use to fight the "cellular aging process" and promote better health."  By helping the body to regenerate healthy cells, VIDACELL helps us to heal.