Dr Kruse MD, neurosurgeon, posted an excellent article about how we can tell if we might be deficient in key nutrients without a Dr ording a lab test: Your Home Based Physical Examination. Here's a few observations from my "home physical exam":
Vit D & A
Rolling metal on my shin didn't hurt that much, but I do have problems reading in the dark. Good to know to increase Vit A/orange foods while supplementing with D3.
Zinc
Ex FIL lost a bet with one of his obese friends about whether the friend could drop 100 lbs over a summer. FIL lost the bet, then the obese friend told him his dr diagnosed him with a serious zinc deficiency after the obese friend complained of his taste buds not working anymore. Supposedly it took many months of supplementing with zinc for him to be able to taste foods again. I'm not too worried about myself, but it's important to men. Too bad BP caused oyster prices to soar. So I'm glad DH enjoys wheat germ in cornbread, since wheat germ is fairly high in zinc.
Iron
My thick nails have some ridging, and I've always shaken my legs when sitting. I had no idea these could be related. PS: I haven't had complaints of kicking while sleeping, but I supposedly toss back and forth a lot, and wrestle the blankets.
Magnesium
My knee prevents me from running or doing stairs LOL, but at least I don't sweat a lot. We're supplementing with magnesium anyway, me for peri-menopause. But since seeing how much magnesium is in dried herbs, I might not buy more magnesium supplements.
K2
I don't have a gall bladder anymore, AND my dental hygenist just got all over me about tartar/plaque. On Chris Kresser's K2 page, he states: "bone would be richer than muscle meat", so I wonder if bone broth might be pretty high in K2? I'm making my 4th batch of bone broth from our Thanksgiving turkey. I think a cheese omelet cooked in butter might be beneficial, as well as yummy LOL
B Vitamins aren't quite the easy read as the other nutrients/vitamins he started with. But what's up with Marmite having such high amounts of about B1, B2, B3, & B9? I heard Marmite tastes better than Aussie's Vegemite, which DH thought tasted quite "different" (and didn't finish it LOL, but I've never tried either one.
Dr. Kruse covered a few toxins too:
Mercury
I do leg lifts while in downward dog, so I guess my balance is ok, whew!
BPA
We're not entirely BPA free yet, especially DH, who doesn't like the Double-Wall Plastic Cold-Drink Cup with Reusable Straw I bought for both of us.
Omega 6
I haven't used Crisco or margarine in almost 20 years, but I did use vegetable/corn oil up until about 3-4 years ago. Now I use olive oil, butter, coconut oil and sometimes sesame oil because it's so yummy. Oh, and we take fish oil caps, and eat salmon occasionally too.
PC Glasses for $15 (including shipping)
Well we're still not sure about DH not having a paycheck for 3'ish months -- due to the roof cave-in -- but I've needed Laptop glasses forever, and took advantage of goggles4u.com free lenses combined with Coupon Code: BigSale that ends in a few hours (Nov 27, evening).
No extras, just the cheapest everything came up to $14.99 including shipping (that's with the above coupon code). I want to make sure I get my sizing right (I have a big head to match my taller than usual body, otherwise I'd look weird, and my eyes are set a bit wider than usual).
I also want to see how well I'm able to see with Online Glasses. My recent pair, progressive tri-focals, aren't that accurate for small print, so another reason I didn't gamble with Online Glasses, since I'm not sure if it's the script, or the local place that made them (see I do try to give local business a chance, too bad I can't read small print that well with their product -- that cost more than 10 times as much as the internet glasses! although there will be a difference between progressives and single vision scripts). Meanwhile for small print, I still do better with 99cent store magnifying glasses.
No extras, just the cheapest everything came up to $14.99 including shipping (that's with the above coupon code). I want to make sure I get my sizing right (I have a big head to match my taller than usual body, otherwise I'd look weird, and my eyes are set a bit wider than usual).
I also want to see how well I'm able to see with Online Glasses. My recent pair, progressive tri-focals, aren't that accurate for small print, so another reason I didn't gamble with Online Glasses, since I'm not sure if it's the script, or the local place that made them (see I do try to give local business a chance, too bad I can't read small print that well with their product -- that cost more than 10 times as much as the internet glasses! although there will be a difference between progressives and single vision scripts). Meanwhile for small print, I still do better with 99cent store magnifying glasses.
No paychecks for 3 months?
DH's boss called while DH was at Home Depot, saying not to come see the caved-in roof today, but to come in regular time Monday morning. Bossman also told DH not to make any big purchases anytime soon, as it's possible they might go without paychecks for THREE months!
I've already spent $20 on a Christmas present for DH, so I told him that was his limit for me. I'll be on the lookout for shelf-stable recipes or building stuff for gifts.
I've already spent $20 on a Christmas present for DH, so I told him that was his limit for me. I'll be on the lookout for shelf-stable recipes or building stuff for gifts.
Thankful no one was hurt!
DH's boss just called to report that they had a roof cave-in! Thankfully no one was hurt!
The building that caved was one of their original buildings that had its roof peeled off during Hurricane Ike, so the roof that caved was a new replacement put in in late 2008. Sure, we got some training rain today, but the Hobby Airport area is showing 1.10" for today, I can't believe such a small amount of rain could cause a 3 yr old roof to cave-in!
DH just left to go to Home Depot - I bet he swings by work too.
UPDATE: KHOU carried the story: Building partially collapses in southeast Houston
The building that caved was one of their original buildings that had its roof peeled off during Hurricane Ike, so the roof that caved was a new replacement put in in late 2008. Sure, we got some training rain today, but the Hobby Airport area is showing 1.10" for today, I can't believe such a small amount of rain could cause a 3 yr old roof to cave-in!
DH just left to go to Home Depot - I bet he swings by work too.
UPDATE: KHOU carried the story: Building partially collapses in southeast Houston
GP Physical - lab results decent
I wonder if any other families share their lab results with each other like my family does? My elderly parents send me a copy of their labs, and have been at me a while to find out my cholesterol and thyroid levels. So now that I've finally received my general physical lab results, I'll have to send them a copy to make them happy ROFL
TSH (thyroid): Normal, whew! This and my cholesterol levels are my parents main concerns for me.
My A1C and Blood sugar were both upper limits of normal - the scheduling staff didn't make me NPO after midnight, so maybe my blood sugar results aren't as bad as it sounds, although not being NPO wouldn't affect my A1C. I've been lax with pre-sweetened flavored teas, so I'll be brewing more from scratch with stevia the next few months, and cut back on grains again.
Triglycerides: 141 (normal <149)
LDL: 128 (normal <130)
HDL: 67 (normal >39)
Another reason to cut back on sugars and grains, since my trigs and LDL are just barely under the mark. I'm happy with my HDL, although a bit higher would be nice.
Vit D: 22 (normal 30-100)
I seriously thought I'd score higher on this one, but at least I know I should be taking 5000 mg caps instead of 1000 mg caps. I want mine in the higher range!
Kidney and Liver: Normal
I requested uric acid levels, since there's some pretty bad gout in my family, but it wasn't on their lab postcard (HIPPA allows lab results on postcards? Well it was double-stapled at least haha). I'll call the nurse this Monday to see if it was drawn. If not, I'll wait until the next time I "need" to go to the dr, since I haven't had any gout attacks - I just wanted to know if I should watch my purine intake since I'm higher risk.
TSH (thyroid): Normal, whew! This and my cholesterol levels are my parents main concerns for me.
My A1C and Blood sugar were both upper limits of normal - the scheduling staff didn't make me NPO after midnight, so maybe my blood sugar results aren't as bad as it sounds, although not being NPO wouldn't affect my A1C. I've been lax with pre-sweetened flavored teas, so I'll be brewing more from scratch with stevia the next few months, and cut back on grains again.
Triglycerides: 141 (normal <149)
LDL: 128 (normal <130)
HDL: 67 (normal >39)
Another reason to cut back on sugars and grains, since my trigs and LDL are just barely under the mark. I'm happy with my HDL, although a bit higher would be nice.
Vit D: 22 (normal 30-100)
I seriously thought I'd score higher on this one, but at least I know I should be taking 5000 mg caps instead of 1000 mg caps. I want mine in the higher range!
Kidney and Liver: Normal
I requested uric acid levels, since there's some pretty bad gout in my family, but it wasn't on their lab postcard (HIPPA allows lab results on postcards? Well it was double-stapled at least haha). I'll call the nurse this Monday to see if it was drawn. If not, I'll wait until the next time I "need" to go to the dr, since I haven't had any gout attacks - I just wanted to know if I should watch my purine intake since I'm higher risk.
Thanksgiving with Nesco Roaster and an old crockpot
My old stove is kaput, and DH has to do some serious electrical work in order to put in the stove our neighbors gave us. But with just the two of us, I do fine with a toaster oven, hot plate (electric, as well as butane, since living on the coast means having a few ways to cook without electric), and of course a microwave.
But turkey's don't fit in toaster ovens - well except for turkey breasts, which lately have been those gross piece-meal, turkey-parts glued together globs, gross! So I sacrificed crispy skin for cooking a real turkey in a Nesco Roaster. I also made the gravy in it, even though the Nesco Roaster didn't make brown bits on the bottom, but gravy still tasted good (Kitchen Bouquet to the rescue!) DH said the turkey was moister that oven-cooked turkeys, and the Nesco Roaster didn't heat up the house enough to kick in the AC (mid 60s F in Houston today).
I made mashed potatoes in the crockpot yesterday, and cornbread in the toaster oven. I boiled eggs in the crockpot this morning, but instead of covering my old-style crockpot with its usual lid, I put a sautee pan on the crockpot to slowly sautee onions and celery for the cornbread dressing. Now if you're in a hurry, this wouldn't work at all, but if you're multi-tasking and have plenty of time, it worked out great, giving me plenty of time to coordinate without the worry of over-cooking/burning things. I put the crumbled cornbread and a few slices of wheat bread in the toaster oven to dry, then put the turkey into the Nesco Roaster.
After approximately an hour, I lifted the sautee pan off the crockpot, spooned out a few eggs into a bowl with water, peeled the eggs, repeat until all the eggs were peeled and yolks removed for deviled eggs. Emptied the water from the crockpot, dumped in the sauteed onions and celery with the cornbread and sliced bread. Then made the creamy roux for the dressing (all the cornbread dressing I found called for Cream of X soup, so I made it from scratch with butter, flour, and Half and Half). Again, the roux took a long time on top of the crockpot, but when not cooking on a schedule, it was lovely not worrying about burning while multi-tasking. But I also put a bit of Half and Half into the crockpot with the breading, just to make sure nothing burned while waiting for the roux to smell like pie crust before adding in the Half and Half.
Finally the creamy roux (homemade Cream of X) was finished and dumped into the crockpot, which was spiced with Chicken Seasoning and extra sage. Then I finished the deviled eggs, arranged the relish tray, then a bit later, the turkey was done. I had DH help me transfer the turkey to a big disposable tin, then poured off about half the pan juices into the crockpot, then the rest into a 2 cup measuring cup for the gravy. The Nesco Roaster heats up to 450F, so making roux in it was much faster than on top of the crockpot. By the time the gravy was finished, the turkey had rested enough for the juices to settle (probably the main the turkey was juicier than usual haha).
Yesterday's potatoes were nuked at 70% power in a covered casserole, then I nuked frozen spinach with butter.
So not having an oven forced me to be creative with ancillary cooking appliances, but I learned a few fun tricks along the way. Hope everyone that celebrated Thanksgiving had a lovely one ^_^
But turkey's don't fit in toaster ovens - well except for turkey breasts, which lately have been those gross piece-meal, turkey-parts glued together globs, gross! So I sacrificed crispy skin for cooking a real turkey in a Nesco Roaster. I also made the gravy in it, even though the Nesco Roaster didn't make brown bits on the bottom, but gravy still tasted good (Kitchen Bouquet to the rescue!) DH said the turkey was moister that oven-cooked turkeys, and the Nesco Roaster didn't heat up the house enough to kick in the AC (mid 60s F in Houston today).
I made mashed potatoes in the crockpot yesterday, and cornbread in the toaster oven. I boiled eggs in the crockpot this morning, but instead of covering my old-style crockpot with its usual lid, I put a sautee pan on the crockpot to slowly sautee onions and celery for the cornbread dressing. Now if you're in a hurry, this wouldn't work at all, but if you're multi-tasking and have plenty of time, it worked out great, giving me plenty of time to coordinate without the worry of over-cooking/burning things. I put the crumbled cornbread and a few slices of wheat bread in the toaster oven to dry, then put the turkey into the Nesco Roaster.
After approximately an hour, I lifted the sautee pan off the crockpot, spooned out a few eggs into a bowl with water, peeled the eggs, repeat until all the eggs were peeled and yolks removed for deviled eggs. Emptied the water from the crockpot, dumped in the sauteed onions and celery with the cornbread and sliced bread. Then made the creamy roux for the dressing (all the cornbread dressing I found called for Cream of X soup, so I made it from scratch with butter, flour, and Half and Half). Again, the roux took a long time on top of the crockpot, but when not cooking on a schedule, it was lovely not worrying about burning while multi-tasking. But I also put a bit of Half and Half into the crockpot with the breading, just to make sure nothing burned while waiting for the roux to smell like pie crust before adding in the Half and Half.
Finally the creamy roux (homemade Cream of X) was finished and dumped into the crockpot, which was spiced with Chicken Seasoning and extra sage. Then I finished the deviled eggs, arranged the relish tray, then a bit later, the turkey was done. I had DH help me transfer the turkey to a big disposable tin, then poured off about half the pan juices into the crockpot, then the rest into a 2 cup measuring cup for the gravy. The Nesco Roaster heats up to 450F, so making roux in it was much faster than on top of the crockpot. By the time the gravy was finished, the turkey had rested enough for the juices to settle (probably the main the turkey was juicier than usual haha).
Yesterday's potatoes were nuked at 70% power in a covered casserole, then I nuked frozen spinach with butter.
So not having an oven forced me to be creative with ancillary cooking appliances, but I learned a few fun tricks along the way. Hope everyone that celebrated Thanksgiving had a lovely one ^_^
Gray update with clip-in ponytail
I'm fairly curly for the first two days after cowashing, so those days the gray still looks almost like the last update. But once I put it in a pony on days 3-5 (post-wash for the straight-hair girls LOL), they gray's finally long enough to hide my chemically dyed hair under a gray clip-in I bought from Amazon.
BTW, it's very challenging to find gray hairpieces online. There's only one left with the 10% brown on Amazon. Hopefully as more women embrace their silver, there'll be more options.
Next up, researching which "blueing" shampoo is good for no-poo cowashed hair (it's a curly thing LOL).
Back online - chicken update
While I was offline (hard drive died**), I let the chickens out in the afternoon since DH said they'd probably return to their cage once it started getting dark. He was right - for one night only! They've been free-range chickens after that first night.
One day I noticed the young male was missing, and wondered if maybe the rooster might have killed it. But two nights later I heard a ruckus and rushed outside to see a raccoon chasing the rooster. We chased the raccoon off, but later when I checked on them, I heard the mother hen making awful noises. She, and her attacker were already gone by the time DH rushed out. DH put out a humane trap with tuna, but haven't caught anything yet (surprising, since we also have possums and at least one feral cat).
Main rooster decides he and remaining young lady should roost on the satellite dish on the roof for the rest of the night. Now they're roosting in the trees.
I haven't tried buying them a cage I can elevate since I don't think we'd be able to catch them. But today something happened that gave me an idea: I found a roach in their scratch container, scooped the roach along with the scratch, and poured it all out in front of the rooster. He nabbed that roach in a split-second, and the young lady ran full speed to steal it away from him! DH said his Grandma's chickens acted that way with crickets, so maybe I could buy some crickets from the pet store to lure them into a new cage. I sure hope it works, for it'll be getting cold here soon.
---
**For the past two years, I've tried numerous times to make an image backup with my Win7 Dell Inspiron laptop, but they all failed for some unknown reason. So once I had the dead hard drive replaced, I thought I had to order replacement disks from Dell (turns out we already had the disks that came with the laptop, but since I didn't set it up, I didn't know, doh!) So I kept waiting and waiting for Dell's "one day delivery" - that took almost two weeks and almost daily calls!
Once we had disks to reinstall, we went straight for the OS and everything worked great - I was able to make a backup image on my external USB hard-drive right away!
I suspect Dell's crapware might have had something to do with my not being able to make an image-backup in the past, as it had its own backup system - maybe Windows and Dell's backup systems conflicted with each other? But since I gave up trying to use Windows backup and found good reviews of Paragon's free home version backup-image program, I suppose it could have been Windows backup not liking me. BTW, I'm pleased with Paragon's image backup.
I'm also going to try to make a slipstream w/ SP1 for my USB hard drive in case I might have different hardware settings in the future, but I'll have to study slipstreaming a bit more, and make a bit more room on the USD HD too LOL
One day I noticed the young male was missing, and wondered if maybe the rooster might have killed it. But two nights later I heard a ruckus and rushed outside to see a raccoon chasing the rooster. We chased the raccoon off, but later when I checked on them, I heard the mother hen making awful noises. She, and her attacker were already gone by the time DH rushed out. DH put out a humane trap with tuna, but haven't caught anything yet (surprising, since we also have possums and at least one feral cat).
Main rooster decides he and remaining young lady should roost on the satellite dish on the roof for the rest of the night. Now they're roosting in the trees.
I haven't tried buying them a cage I can elevate since I don't think we'd be able to catch them. But today something happened that gave me an idea: I found a roach in their scratch container, scooped the roach along with the scratch, and poured it all out in front of the rooster. He nabbed that roach in a split-second, and the young lady ran full speed to steal it away from him! DH said his Grandma's chickens acted that way with crickets, so maybe I could buy some crickets from the pet store to lure them into a new cage. I sure hope it works, for it'll be getting cold here soon.
---
**For the past two years, I've tried numerous times to make an image backup with my Win7 Dell Inspiron laptop, but they all failed for some unknown reason. So once I had the dead hard drive replaced, I thought I had to order replacement disks from Dell (turns out we already had the disks that came with the laptop, but since I didn't set it up, I didn't know, doh!) So I kept waiting and waiting for Dell's "one day delivery" - that took almost two weeks and almost daily calls!
Once we had disks to reinstall, we went straight for the OS and everything worked great - I was able to make a backup image on my external USB hard-drive right away!
I suspect Dell's crapware might have had something to do with my not being able to make an image-backup in the past, as it had its own backup system - maybe Windows and Dell's backup systems conflicted with each other? But since I gave up trying to use Windows backup and found good reviews of Paragon's free home version backup-image program, I suppose it could have been Windows backup not liking me. BTW, I'm pleased with Paragon's image backup.
I'm also going to try to make a slipstream w/ SP1 for my USB hard drive in case I might have different hardware settings in the future, but I'll have to study slipstreaming a bit more, and make a bit more room on the USD HD too LOL
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