Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Another great walk in the woods this morning. After Tropical Storm Lee came through it left behind cooler temperatures and a lovely misty morning. Two important ingredients to take my Springer Spaniel out for a walk. While I do not hunt with my Lizzie girl she still has the desire so I tried to help her get some of it out her system. I think I was a springer in another life because I love it too!

Nothing says “comfort food” like chicken pot pie. It has yummy vegetables and a slowed cooked chicken in its own broth. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I enjoyed making it. It is easy and good for a multi-meal leftover. Prep and cook time total about an hour.

Crust:

2 boxes refrigerated pie crusts, (that is four crusts).

Filling:

1/3 cup butter, unsalted

1/3 cup chopped onion

1/3 cup flour

½ cup milk

salt and pepper to taste

1 ½ cup each potatoes, carrots and peas

Precooked whole roasting chicken in crockpot day before cool and deboned.

Keep leftover broth from chicken that was cooked before hand in crock pot. Do not add water, just the juices coming off the chicken.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In stock pot add chicken, diced potatoes, carrots and peas with broth from chicken. Warm up, gradually stirring in the broth and milk mixture (see below).

While waiting for the chicken and veggies to warm up, about 15 minutes, prepare in a 2-quart saucepan to melt butter at medium heat. Add onions, cook about 2 minutes, stirring under tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until well blended. Gradually add milk until it begins to thickened. If it starts to thicken too quickly add in enough Progresso chicken stock to loosen it up.

Line casserole dish with pie crust. Takes two, as you can see I overlapped and did the “Jamie Oliver” way of throwing it together. Spoon in mixture, cover with two more pie crust and then fold edges up. Place on cookie sheet in case it cooks over the top, do not want it all over the oven. As you can see it may have some spillage.

Bake time 30-40 minutes. If you find that the crust is turning dark too fast, cover crust edge with strip of foil to prevent excessive browning. I cooked my casserole pie for 35 minutes, turned off oven let rest in oven for about 45 minutes then served. Perfect!

Hint: We ate this over a four day period, heating up in the microwave. We added Progresso chicken stock to taste to give it more liquid each time we warmed it up.

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”~Sophia Loren

I feel old. But my mind does not know it. I still feel the“the fountain of youth; it is your mind…..” If you are any age over seventeen you know your mind does not know you are aging at all. The only thing that I find that works against a person aging is well, the body. It just starts to slow down and no matter how much the mind does not accept the changing, the body does know that aging happens. There are things that started happening that made me realize I could not just bounce back. It started happening in my mid-thirties. I was playing kick ball with the kids. They were happy and playful and down I went. What! What was that? It felt like my vital organs relocated. It hurt. I mean it really hurt. That was the first time I noticed that I was not seventeen anymore.

Okay that river in Egypt,“denial”was still working for me until my mid-forties. The mirror became my nemesis. It kept looking back at me while I saw my face begin to look like my mother. And what is that waddle there? Oh and gray hair? I had to get that covered and fast. However, it was not until I hit the fifties that the glorious nap while sitting in a chair began to be common place. When I was a youth I wondered how older people could just nap in a chair, gently doze off. One minute they are there and the next minute snore city is going on.

I think youth is wasted on the young. Not that young people do not have the right to it. They do. But youth without a life of information is well, just youth. There is one other thing that youth has besides vitality that aging does not. The ability to take risk without counting the cost. Once you get older you just know you have to be more reserved. Every once and awhile I miss that risk taking.

Slowing down has been the hardest for me. Both my husband and I lost our parents at a relatively young age. So we never had the opportunity of our parents passing on vital information about aging and watching how it is done. Experiences we picked up from others or reading on the internet replaced our parents. What I see now is that young people look at older people as invisible. I find this in public situations the most often. And I love it! Why? Because it affords me the opportunity to see things that I would not get to if I was noticed. For example, the other day I got up pre-dawn per my normal habit to go out and get the paper. There coming up the street were two young men. They did not even notice me. But I noticed them. I remember what it felt like to be like them. That was awfully early for them to up. Or were they still up for the night before? What were they into that they were up that early? Anyone who is past youth knows that is unusual behavior that early in the morning and we draw on our own youthful antics to wonder about the situation.

Yes, I think if I had the strength physically of youth then that would be ideal. But would I give up decades of aging for it? Never! I like aging, it is quite satisfying to know what to expect and how to plan for the future. Yes, the fountain of youth does exist,“It is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

Aging is in the eye of the beholder!

My hands are amazing. I started thinking yesterday about what we do with our hands in a 24 hour period. They are not like my feet. My feet are pretty special as well but my hands have a lot more flexibility.

First thing I do when I wake up is use my hands to pick up my water bottle to get a good drink of water. From there my hands will get me through hours. I start by heading to the front door, using my hands to leash up my dogs to go out and get the morning paper. Using my hands I guide them down the sidewalk, grabbed the paper and wander around in the morning air for a few minutes. Then wander back inside to unleash and use my hands to grab my coffee. I wash my hands, make my husband a sandwich for lunch today and feed my dogs. Then I do the crossword and get online. All these actions need the use of my hands without a second thought that they will be there for me.

And it is only an hour since I got up! The whole day will go like this. I think the detail of using our hands is hard to calculate because I unconsciously am using my hands every waking moment.

Hands can be known as prehensile, which means they have adapted to grasping and holding. They are the main organ we use in our environment for what we called gross motor skills, for lifting or holding large objects. And fine motor skills for small detail like sewing on a button or picking up a small object. Okay, so how many times a day does that happen to any of us?

I garden. You know that if you follow my blog. I use both gross and fine motor skills to do so. If I did not have the use of my hands I would not enjoyed gardening. I couldn’t. It is more that the use of my hands that is affected when I garden. I enjoy the fresh air and it affects the endorphins in my brain in a positive way.

Hands are useful for emotional needs as well. We use our hands to touch our loved ones, our pets and they are major sensory organ that tells our brain a lot of information when we touch. We feel cold or hot, soft or hard, smooth or course just to name some uses.

And those tiny little bones inside my hands work all together so that I can do all these things. I first started musing about the use of my hands when I noticed a tinge of discomfort in the joint between my distal and intermediate phalanges of my left index finger alerting me to arthritis pain. I was reminded of all things I have put my hands through over the years. I have had blisters, cuts and burns then broke my middle finger on my left hand at the intermediate and proximal point. I have not been good to the skin either. I have dug in gardens and washed them numerous amount of times throughout the day. And even though many sales pitches tout relief with their lotion products alas, all the use of time does catch up.

I used my hands a lot for technology. My phone, iPad or computer are used several times a day. And all of these different things I do with my hands will be done multitasking. Leaving me to say once again, my hands are amazing. I was going to walk this blog through to show all the things I do with my hands but that would take a lot writing (another use of my hands!). So I decided to just highlight a few things I do in a day.

I did not mention uses that I do not use daily, like sign language. People who are deaf need their hands to communicate. Another amazing use of brain and hands that would be a whole other subject, right?

Okay so here I go off to use my hands to prepare a meal, which will be a recipe that I will put on Gray Gaia. Then I will get ready to leash up the dogs for the morning walk, garden, drive to appointments and whatever else this day will bring.

My amazing hands, so useful and so easy to take for granted.

Recently I read a blog on the different issues in our culture that are driven by the fear factor. As I looked closer I decided to explore just one area, healthcare. More directly I looked at High Blood Pressure. I hear so many different views on what is normal blood pressure. And frankly I think it is important to ask why it is such a hot topic in healthcare.

So I went out to check what I considered a reputable Internet site. The National Institute of Health which, wrote a lengthy guide on blood pressure, proper diet and exercise to maintain balance. One thing they recommend is lowering your salt. I learned the recommended daily allowance changes depending on how old you are. For example The Mayo Clinic states that, “The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting sodium to less than 2,300 mg a day — or 1,500 mg if you’re age 51 or older, or if you are black, or if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.”

Wow! That is a mouthful isn’t it? When my doctor said minimize the salt I started reading labels. One report said that 2,400 mg a day or 1 teaspoon of salt is all you need. And now the Mayo Clinic says if you are over 51 years of age you should only get 1,500 mg a day. Okay so I needed to start somewhere right? Wrong! You try looking at every food you eat in a given day WITHOUT grabbing the salt shaker and you will see it is just not that easy unless you plan on eating everything from home prepared meals. Sounds great except most people are just too busy with job and life to eat at home or make a home prepared meal every day. It is almost next to impossible to live within the guidelines but I am trying. Herbs, spices and pepper have become my new friends.

Okay what about blood pressure? What should it be? And what time of the day should you take your pressure? One thing I learned is not to take it immediately upon awakening. One report says anything below 140/90 is a good blood pressure reading. And yet another study states that the normal range is 120/80 , keep in mind this site promotes medication that controls blood pressure so they have a financial interest in you accepting this reading as fact.

And I found the Internet has a slew of websites that have an opinion about blood pressure, salt and exercise that seem to be the three legged stool to managing blood pressure. In my research I have determined that if  a site is not a government or medical site that is viable such as Mayo Clinic, National Institute of Health or Center for Disease Control then I discard it. Usually someone is selling something and using fear for our health to get me to buy into it.

Now I am miserable. The “experts” all tell me what is good for me but they can’t agree on what I should do or what is the guideline. Yikes! So here I sit wondering what to do? I concluded that this is my body, I live in it 24/7 and I have done so for years longer than some doctors have been alive. I go to a doctor I have never met, wait up to two hours in a waiting room only to be hustled into to see a doctor behind schedule and overwhelmed. He looks at me, takes notes down in his pad and viola, within 15 to 20 minutes has the answers that will change my life to make it better (or worse). Shuffles me off for further tests, x-rays, possible surgery, and oh yes, don’t forget the prescription that will put everything right.

After months of playing this game and finding no answers to find that I am relatively healthy I decided to help myself out by taking control of my own destiny. Like eating right, losing weight and exercising. And yes, it is harder than it sounds. But now I see that a large percentage of my health woes are due to my self-inflicted life style. And what about blood pressure? I was told mine was getting a tad high. One of the doctors said it could be a reaction to the medication I was taking, told me to stop for a couple of months so we could track it. And yes, he was right! Besides other side effects that were not pleasant. I do not know if I can have “normal” blood pressure again but I know I will do what I can.

And think about this? How can I possibly expect a doctor to know the answers when he barely knows me? I know this body I live in. I know how much exercise is good for it, how much weight is normal and foods that keep moving properly. I can do that much for myself.

I did invest in a blood pressure cuff so I can check my pressure often so I can make sure I am not in danger. I do believe that medication and doctors are necessary and have their place. But I also believe that we are falling for the fear about our health from the medical industry. Prescription medication is not magically safer than street drugs. The difference is you are under a doctor’s care so it is monitored. And there is a whole other topic about over the counter drugs that anyone can buy.

So whatever you are doing to make your life better that is great. I know what I need to do too. And it starts with finding a reputable source for what blood pressure is, find out if there are things I can do to lower it and if it doesn’t go down then be smart and seek medical advice.

“Be doing the best over and over you can master the art of transformation. By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time. ~Don Miguel Ruiz

I recently began reading again on personal management and communication skills. I do this frequently to remind myself of the best tools to deal with people and to be focused on self improvement. Self improvement was one of my New Year resolutions so I think I am off to a good start. When exploring I got stopped on toxic people, who they are and how to deal with them. And lo and behold! I found that without learning and dealing with relationships with toxic people I could not effectively be a better manager, parent, partner, friend or sibling. So here I stopped to ponder toxic people and this is what I learned:

What is a toxic a person? Someone who drains you of your self-esteem, leaving you feeling angry or tired or feeling you have no dignity. I have found a toxic person is easily upset or “set off” and very hard to please. Anytime that you need “me” time they want that time from you. These personalities can be found on the job, in the community, among family or friends. They are exhausting and make their victims feel sought out. Toxic people need someone to draw life off of so you won’t find them being loners. So when do you know if you are affected by a toxic person or if you yourself are manifesting toxicity to others?

Define the difference between normal or mild neediness and suffocating blood drawing neediness.

Everyone knows the needy people and we may be mildly needy ourselves but the difference with toxic people is they use emotional blackmail, a way to keep you on the hook. Or maybe they just want someone to hold their hand making decisions in life. The thing to remember is needy people hate being alone. They are whiners, complainers and always come off as a victim. I am not talking about the daily complaining we do. We are living in hard times and everyone is unhappy. What I am saying is do they come by your desk to complain or want you to feel sorry for you especially if they see you are busy?  Or do they call you on the phone, IM or text you wanting to dominant the conversation with negative “feel sorry for me” conversation? Then the only answer is to get out of that situation before it become extreme or pathological. Or if you cannot get out learn coping skills to change the situation.

Bullies

We have heard a lot about bullies in school and work in the past year. What we learned is that bullies come after you because they see you as easy prey. And they usually suffer from low self esteem using bullying to elevate themselves above someone else. So don’t let them! I think the best way to handle a bully is not to cower away or avoid them. From the standpoint of children it is a lot different and they need a special kind of coaching to handle bullies but as adults we can and should find better coping skills when dealing with a bully. Bullies are not just the big mean guy in high school. Women can be bullies to their children, spouses or other family members. In my opinion bullies lack character or they would not use the bullying tactic to dominant and control. And they are afraid of the confrontation to their bullying. I don’t mean pick a fight rather look them in the eye, calmly and once the storm has passed walk away. This is an over simplification but you can search on the internet on “how to handle bullies” for some good techniques to use.

Takers

OMG! You know them; want something, anything they can get from you. A favor, money or your time and they will be annoying but generally do not ruin your life so neutralize their affect. Say something like “sure I can do this favor so can you do this other favor for me in return?” No way! Takers are not givers so they sure are not going to give you a favor, money or their time. I remember one time being so busy taking care of a problem and a taker wanted my attention. No thought that I was dealing with something. This taker was only concerned for the attention they wanted.

My all favorite taker is the narcissist. It is all about them. What about me, they ask. What about my feelings? In our culture you see this one a lot on reality TV shows. Basically just spoiled people, takers well they are different. They can be life draining. Takers love to get attention on them and just do not understand why you are not as interested in them as they are.

Sociopaths, Psychopaths and generally big league toxic people

Unfortunately we are around the mentally unstable folks who have anti-social behaviors or someone who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards others. We were rudely awakened to one such person in the Tucson Arizona shooting recently. Usually we are not directly affected at work or in the family but we have to be aware that they are around. If we get really good at handling or overcoming neediness, takers, bullies or narcissists then we probably are in good shape to steer clear of the these kind so folks.

When doing research I found that toxic people affect our health. I had the experience of being exposed to a person and I was drained both physically and emotionally. Once I removed the problem my life has become revitalized. What I learned in this experience is that yes, I played a part in the problem. By allowing the toxic person to gain a foothold on my life I was basically part of the problem. I say this because toxic personalities can only gain a presence in our life IF we allow it.  It is like you are wearing a bit “L” for loser on your forehead that only toxic people can read. How I realized that I was part of the problem was that I did not say “no” to the person. Thus giving way to my own problems but since saying no my health and overall outlook has improved!

Toxic people are sadly unhealthy relationship. There are a lot of people who are toxic in our society. Which means we, all of us, work with them, are friends with them, are related to them or quite possibly are a toxic person. So if we are toxic we can seek help for that. If we are exposed to such persons we can take steps to manage the situation.

Toxic relationships are generally negative and carrying around a “little black rain cloud” with them. We are all busy but taking time to stop, relax into it and deal with toxicity will add a better quality to our daily living.