Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the most painful diseases around.  I know this from first hand experience.  This encourages me to find different things that could help the pain as well as other symptoms of the disease.  I am currently reading up on red mineral algae.  In the mean time, here is the article.  I would like to know what you think.  As always, comments are welcome (though comment mediation is on).

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/pain-management/rheumatoid-arthritis/can-medical-marijuana-help-rheumatoid-arthritis

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Halo Solar (Photo credit: Alexandre Janini)

I am taking a moment to just sip on a warm Coke for my stomach and catch up with you all about things going on with me and in the world. This might be a more “jumpy” post than normal, but it is always good for friends to visit and get re-aquainted.

Currently I am fighting a stomach bug – again. Having RA means having a lowered immune system and my immune system is really low, so there is a good chance I will pick something up any time I leave my home or will catch whatever a friend has if they come over sick. Last week I took Kolbar out for lunch and to celebrate his birthday. I began feeling ill then but was determined to power through whatever it was, and succeeded…to a point. It caught up with me this weekend. I had to miss a get together with all of my friends and couldn’t help celebrate their birthdays and being able to just touch base with them. Today I am feeling better, but definitely know I am not well, like I had been thinking yesterday.

Yesterday was a day when I felt pretty much normal and did a lot of research and prep work for the werewolf extravagana. I even ate some chicken tenders (that’s what I asked Kolbar for when he asked what food I thought I could eat) and I ate a couple. They stayed…until today. I also discovered I have a slight fever, too. I do not feel well. Enough said about my health because there are other things to share!

When Kolbar and I were out for his birthday lunch/day last week, we went into F.Y.E. at the mall. The letters stand for For Your Entertainment. It is the video/music place in Fayette Mall. (I think there must be a music/video place in a mall to be considered a mall.) There was a song playing I was very unfamiliar with, but it was catchy and the song itself was good. The next song to play was by the same artist so I took me over to the counter and asked who it was: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Her sound is really bluesy with some funk and rock thrown in for good measure. Her sound is wonderful and I actually went straight and picked up the CD. On the CD one of my favorites is turning out to be ”Good-bye Kiss”. Grace Potter is in the same musical realm as Adele. The name of the CD we picked up is called, simply enough, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals.

The new computer is awesome! It has been a shame I haven’t been able to mess with it over-much due to just working on the novel and feeling icky. The more I work with it, though, the more I am enjoying it. Currently I have gotten rid of McAfee and installed another form of virus protection. I am also downloading Rift Lite to try it out. It is a newer MMO I wanted to play since the first time it was advertised on TV. My laptop was unable to handle it and it is almost questionable about this machine, but this one has a far better chance of letting me check it out than my beloved laptop.

Along with the computer being wonderful, I have tackled Gears of War 2. When this version is finished I am saving ALL of my spare change for the next one. I love playing Halo and this one has simply won me over from the very first moment I heard about it. Marcus Fenix, the main character of the game, is AWESOME! When the games are through I will go back through on a different difficulty setting to get more achievements. Halo 2 is also calling to me. What will probably happen is: while I am saving up my pennies for Gears 3 I’ll head into the next Halo game.

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My laptop practically died on me today.  It crashed and it took forever to get it back up onto its feet!  So, the nice, east-to-use Windows Operating System is gone and I am learning Linux.  This is a scary process, but one that must happen in order to write and to just keep going forward with everything I need to do in cyber space.  It is scary how much time I actually spend here (cyber space).  Still, this is just a process of learning, and I can do it, but, truth be told – I miss my wonderful world of Windows.  Still, I am assured the current version of Linux I am trying to learn is the closet one to Windows.  This gives me hope.

According to a lot of people, this is the year the world is going to change and the Apocalypse is going to happen because the Mayan calendar said so.  There are even people I know who jokingly talk about this being the End of the World Year.

I have two questions for these folks, and for anyone else:  1) Have you really considered what “the end of the world” means?  2) What if it doesn’t end?

If this is the year the world, as we know it, ends, then shouldn’t people actually start considering what happens after death and maybe start getting their lives in order just in case there is a hereafter and God?  And, if this isn’t the year the world ends, shouldn’t the future be viewed with more hope and a desire to make that hope into a reality instead of destroying what is left of our planet and world?

Me, personally, I don’t know if the world is going to end or not.  The Mayans predicted a change for this year.  A lot of people are taking this change as being bad, but, What if it is good?  It is so easy to believe negative things than to actually look to the future with hope.  I know – I fight with this almost every day and make a conscious choice to be hopeful and positive (and even then I fail sometimes).  I don’t put on rose colored glasses where I refuse to see reality and “how things really are” around me, but I hope for the best part of humanity playing out and I try, very hard, not to just hope:  I actually try and put that hope into action somehow even if it is nothing more than praying or knitting a scarf for a homeless man, or buying someone a cup of coffee who looks cold.

The positive aspect of human kind rests with each individual human, and that includes me…and you.  This year I want to make my efforts be stronger so the human in me is not wiped out or taken over by cynicism; instead, I want the human in me, the good in me, the God in me more visible because I don’t think it always is.

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Today is a milestone: I have been counting calories and working on losing weight for 20 whole days!!! Why is this a milestone? Because usually something like this only lasts an average of 2 weeks, and now I am going forward with because there is a huge leap of positiveness in me, as well as a different type of desire to keep going. This time losing weight/counting calories is for myself and not for someone else, even though it may have begun that way.

This time I am using an online program to help me, which is also making a difference I believe. It is CalorieKing.com and I am paying $12 a month, which is a lot cheaper than Weight Watchers Online. This program also doesn’t push you and the support groups and people I have found there have helped me considerably already.

On CalorieKing there is a section for keeping down the food you eat, exercise, liquids you drink, and daily nutrition guides as well as a place to help you go up in levels of the program without pushing you beyond what you can do at any given time. I like this more than anything, I think; plus, it takes into consideration your mobility level, which Weight Watchers Online didn’t do. There is also an online diary you can keep there, which I am also doing, to keep down thoughts and observations about when I want to over-eat or when I start to nibble. Noticing what causes me to binge or not eat is beginning to make a big difference in how I handle some aspects of the stress in my life (and right now there is a lot and I will explain that later).

One of the biggest things about this program is how it encourages you to keep a handwritten journal/diary of what you eat. You don’t have to have the calorie count of what you eat because the program helps find the food for you and then gives you the calories. So, as long as you keep down what you eat the pressure is off and you can go out and eat with friends, have a coffee, etc., and not worry about how many calories you are taking in then. It seems like it wouldn’t make a big difference, but it does because you still enjoy the little treats you give yourself while learning how to make different choices in eating out and in snacking. I noticed this not too long ago then went in search on the site to see if other people had discovered the same thing and was pleased to find most of the people who are doing this program do pretty much the same.

If you can’t tell, I am really excited about this. I can’t visibly see any difference in how I look, but I see myself every day; however, I have noticed a difference in how my clothes fit and an increase in my energy level. This is actually one program I am more certain of keeping than any other thing I’ve tried so far. I don’t feel judged if I make a slip and go over the calorie goal for a day and I don’t feel horribly guilty, because the program lets me see in numbers what I did and it makes ME accountable. I am actually making progress, even in the wheelchair!

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It is quite cool here. Winter has arrived, but the sky outside my window looks warm and happy.