IntrinsicTina

Ya got me! Blatant false advertising; I have no intention of talking taxes. In my defense, I figured nobody would read a post titled Upon My Death. Am I right? 😼 ...Not that tax is sexy...

I'm listening to the audiobook Toxic Parents: Overcoming their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life . I've known for years that I had toxic parents. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was able to identify, determine my part, if any, and move to acceptance and the amends process. I love and accept them today but they perpetrated many injustices upon their children. Additionally,  I don't kid myself into thinking my own daughter escaped the cycle of abuse unscathed. I can think of a half dozen examples she probably carries with her. I regretted the actions at the time and to this day. I'd like to think I made the appropriate amends to her but you would have to ask her. My own charming mother employed the use of wooden spoons, belts, and hangars to beat us for infractions. I remember being pre-K in the middle of a thrashing with a belt and, stubbornly, deciding not to give her the satisfaction; I turned my head to say Didn't hurt. As you can imagine, it infuriate...

  .1 1 1                                                     ...white as a Mormon. ...the smell of cat piss and dying parent..                                        "I wasn't ready to become an official member of the 'Dead Dads Club'." This gleefully irreverent and vulgar remembrance is just what the doctor SHOULD HAVE ordered. Marshall tells it like it is, no Pollyanna "think positive" white wash of the gritty details of living with parents dying from ALS, aka Lou Gehrig's Disease and Cancer from a spoiled child-turned-caregiver's point of view.

I've read Sue Grafton mystery novels from A - W. I've devoured them within the last few years one after the other since finally acting upon a recommendation from an acquaintance at water aerobics. I immediately connected with her protagonist, Kinsey Millhone. Not because I'm like her but because I admire her. She's a loner. Confident but not arrogant. Fit but not a super-healthy eater. Runs her own business, supports herself, doesn't need a man. Decent integrity, but not unrealistically virtuous. I like that she can and will pick a lock when it's right but not necessarily when it's legal. I don't get her aversion to pets and children but it works for her character. I liked her observations and eventual acceptance of Ed the cat. It's beyond me why she didn't snap up the gorgeous Chaney and dump the commitment-phobe P.I. But I appreciate her not simpering about for a man. I like her habits, non-smoker, light drinker, tidy, industrious, and light ...

Tuesday is shaping up to be my best day of the week. Every day holds the requisite eating, changing, television, and napping. But Tuesday, I got a glorious, hot bath in a handicap-accessible bathtub with my Angela and Lisa, reorganized my shower caddy with my Lisa, read "The White Album" by Joan Didion with my Lindsey, "supervised" doughnut-making and sampled same with my Sandra among others, and listened to Ryan Feng play classical piano. A new book fell into my lap today. Of course, I mean that figuratively. "Play It As It Lays" by Joan Didion was just laying on top of the informal Bailey Boushay House library cart, so I borrowed it. .Guess what we'll be reading? I feel very blessed!

Yesterday, due to a communication SNAFU, my routine medications of Advil LiquiGels, Probiotic 10, Gabapentin were halved and I missed the Ditrapan altogether.  As a result, I awakened with tight and stiff joints and hobbled out of bed.  Oops!  Today I got it right and managed to take them both am and pm.  I took the following as part of the Deanna Protocol: AAKG 18 g (First day of full dose!) AKG  300 mg caps x 7 = 2100 mg (half dose to start) Glutathione 50 mg x 6 = 300 mg (350 mg is full dose) NAHD 40 mg (full dose) GABA 500 mg (full dose) CoQ10 200 mg (full dose) B Complex (full dose) Bee Propolis 500 mg (full dose) 5-HTP 50 mg (full dose) Creatine 800 mg Ginkgo Biloba 120 mg (full dose) Glycine 1,000 mg (full dose) Magnesium 400 mg (full dose) Methyl Folic Acid 2 mg (full dose) Phosphatidycholine 1,680 mg (full dose) Taurine 1,000 mg (full dose) Theanine 200 mg (full dose) Vitamin D3 5,000 iu (full dose) Still missing from the regimen i...

Thankfully, one pastime that I haven't had to relinquish since the onset of my occupational disease is reading.  Having to put the kibosh on former activities such as working for a living, knitting, cooking (unable to safely control a knife), and many household chores, including yard work (BTW, I love yard work especially mowing and mulching), I am ever so grateful that I can still (with enough pillows to provide support) hold a book and read it. While I also will download audiobooks from the library onto my iPod and listen to those while I manage other chores, I am resistant to iPads, Kindles, and the like. Heck, I have a computer I can either listen to or read eBooks on.  But nothing quite measures up to the look and the feel of a real, live "low-tech" book.  Hardback or paperback usually make no never mind to me.  I just the love the physical reality of a book in my hands. The most recent series of books I read are actually aimed at the teenager and young adul...

(even without children) 1). Get up with alarm at 5:30 am (hit knees to ask God to direct my day), 2). Get self ready for work, (place a load of laundry in the washer), 3). Go to the bathroom, (clean out the toilet, pick-up any towels and put up new ones), 4). Grab lunch from refrigerator, prepare a nutritious breakfast of yogurt or whole grain cereal, (pick-up previous night's mess, time permitting), 5). Drive to work, stop off at Starbucks or Cutter's Point for a decent cup of coffee, 6). Work a full-time work schedule with a half hour lunch break, 7). Clock-out of work, stop off at bank and/or post office for the office on the way home, 8). Make any number of side trips on the way home such as: nursing home to visit husband's mother (drop off payment once-per-month); grocery store if something needed to make dinner or for the weekly shopping; Sam's Club for monthly AA cake and/or stop off at Chase to deposit weekly AA monies; Reber Ranch to pick-up wild bird f...

Ambitious me. During this period of unemployment, I have been in anguish over lost and wasted time. I trend towards isolation out if a sense of responsibility and duty (to my husband and obligations). I want to do my part but I get into psychological trouble with this mode of thinking. To combat this trend, I have been stepping out to seek the company of real, live human beings. When I'm holed up at home, besides satisfying my obligation to continue to actively seek work, I've taken some online courses, worked on my photography and knitting, learned how to blog, and I've started working on my 'bucket list' of reading. My bucket list of reading consists of great literary works. Personally, I trend towards popular reads by Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Ann Rule, and the like. One day (quite out of the blue) I decided to attack the grand-daddy of my bucket list - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Today I finished that read. I'd estimate it has taken me about...