a Bad memory Pill?

It has come to my attention (through surfing the AOL tidbits of information), that “we” have a pill designed to erase bad memories. So I decided to look into said drug and google-ed it. Sure enough … there is such a pill. Designed to help folks with post traumatic stress syndrome this little “helper” sort of deletes the bad memory.

Is this a good thing? How many wonderful things have resulted from a tragedy? If we couldn’t remember the event why would we set about to make it right? Would we find a way to work through something that isn’t there?

There were a few examples and you can find them if you have the inclination to explore. One was a lady that was told she had cancer … pop a pill to forget the news and six years later she dies from the illness. Would she have died anyway? How did she get one of these pills? One would have to think somewhere along the way the subject would come up again. I assume she didn’t just live a healthy six years without some sort of complications.

There are articles from women wanting to forget an “ex”. Don’t we learn lessons from mistakes? How does the pill know what to erase. As adults we all have things we would like to forget ever happened. Does one dose erase all bad memories?

The longer one thinks about the memory pill, the more questions come to mind. Maybe I need a pill to forget I read about the pill?

Sings ~~ Memories, light the corner/s of my mind …

Well … maybe not?

Pistachio Bark? are you serious? :)

After one has been on the South Beach Diet for 4 weeks (and lost 12 pounds, thank you very much SBD), ones mind starts to wander to things like, oh I don’t know … chocolate.     It’s not even really like you crave it .. it’s more like an old friend you miss, ya’ know?   Like “wait a second, something is missing here.”   I think it’s the a-c-t of sitting down with the coffee and having the comforting feeling of dark chocolate surrounding you.   There is no craving of anything carb related at all which seems weird.     I am still cooking those things for the household and there is no temptation to have one bite or a thousand bites.        

Anyway ~~

  Those SBD people or person is one smart COOKIE.   (Carb-free, sugar-free cookie) of course, because lo and behold they have included a recipe’ for pistachio bark AND said, “go ahead, eat it, it’s good for you.”   

NO WAY !

    Put 12 squares of semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave, zap for one minute, stir, zap for another minute … toss is one cup of shelled pistachios, stir, spread the whole deal out on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper, pop it in the fridge, do the dishes, take said bark out of the fridge and break in pieces.

EAT.   Here is the next amazing thing, the wonderful melting stuff is so rich you don’t WANT to overindulge.

VOILA’ no more cravings.

amazing stuff ~~  and only five more pounds to go although I feel so much better I am going to keep doing it.    We are becoming so creative with the ingredients and dinner plans.  

Yay !!   Bring on the sun and the sundresses …

sings~~

Here comes the sun, doo doo do do, and I said, “it’s all right!”  

treading water in the shallow end ~~

   This week has been a little cra-zzzy … work has picked up (a blessing), the sinus whatever infection I managed to acquire has leveled out thanks to the tylenol and the litter of fox terrier puppies dropped off at the vets because (don’t you know) they wouldn’t “sell” … stayed at the vet’s through the weekend (another blessing).     I joined face page (due to the shoving into it by a co-worker) LOL … the verdict is still out on that and life goes on.    Happily, the South Beach Diet is STILL hanging strong even with the serious influx of candy provided by the work boss, the clients, the other employees … acckkkkk Valentine’s day.    (I didn’t think of that when I started this).   Valentine’s day I mean. <grins>

     We are supposed to have another two inches of snow today.    Spring is really trying to push in with the storms but mother nature has other ideas. 

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow just to stay in the shallow end.

it’s time to make the dog food !!

Today was dog food making day. As everyone knows we make the food for the “littles” (the little dogs). With Agnus being a million years old and Denny being not quite 1 there is a wide range of ages between the five of them. We are always working with, talking about, attempting to fortify Chuck’s coat … something with the little ones. I found it’s better to just feed them what I know is going into the food.

 I have mentioned recipes for dogs before. This is what everyone just ate for dinner.

In a large pan I browned some cut up chicken (this was raw but if I have left over I use that), a little bit of left over ham (ham is really salty so I don’t use this very often and when I do it’s just a little bit) and fresh garlic in olive oil. Then I remembered we had some fat being saved for the birds’ suet so I took a tbls. of that. You want a certain amount of fat in the food. This is what makes the coats nice and shiny and this time of year they like to lay in front of the heat vents … it seriously dries them out. When the meat was just about done I chopped up an apple. Toss the apple in the pan, tossing it around to start it cooking. (This is a good time to add a chopped up carrot if you want).

Add a can of chicken stock. Watch for chicken stock to go on sale. Sometimes I use bouillon but when I do it’s just one cube. I don’t want the food really salty. (When we are feeling especially enthused we cook an entire chicken, bone it, chop it etc. etc., today was not that day). 

Someone asked about using beef the last time I put this on my blog. Beef is fine if your dog can tolerate it and a lot can’t. Sometimes I use ½ ground beef, with ground turkey. Pugs can be VERY gassy, it isn’t pretty. A lot of dogs are allergic to beef. Can you believe that?

So, after the meat, garlic and apple have cooked in the broth add a couple of cans of water. Today I added one can of sweet potato. Sometimes we use fresh sweet potato but I didn’t have any. This is also a good time to add some beets. Cool huh? A few tabls. of cooked pumpkin is a great thing to throw in as well. Pumpkin is wonderful for settling upset tummies in the canine kids. Now we have most of the ingredients cooking away.

This is when the “littles” start gathering in the kitchen. They know when dog food is being made!!

Finally, we throw in the two fish oil capsules. Let them dissolve and stir the whole deal up. Today we had a little bag of enriched pasta in the shape of the alphabet!! LOL .. How fun!! Use enriched rice if you have it, brown rice would be great. If we have left over rice from a dinner I throw that in as well. Bring it to a full boil, turn off the burner, put on the lid and leave it. The whole thing will continue to cook softening the noodles or rice and apples. Yummy ~~

You can put this into a food processor if you want it to look like dog food. With five of the little ones we don’t really do that step. This is so fun to do and is different every time. Sometimes I put in chopped fresh green beans, apple sauce, rice baby cereal, ½ of a squished up banana. This is a great time to clean out the fridge!

There is a down side; we give the newly cooked food to the little ones while it’s warm. They want warm food now! LOL ..!! That’s okay, add a bit of hot water before feeding and voila’, warm food.

All of our dogs have wonderful coats!! I love it when some one says, I LOVE the shine on your dogs what do you feed them?

 Well …..

calling Guido’

   ~~and so a few weeks ago we heard of a women being abused by her so-called husband.    She wouldn’t leave him because she was afraid he would kill her two little dogs … (won’t say what I am thinking, at least not yet) … we took the little dogs, she went into hiding, someone bought her a plane ticket to fly far away with her TWO LITTLE DOGS,   and all is well.   

They asked us what we would do if the so-called man came after the dogs … we said we  

h-o-p-e-d… h-e… d-i-d.

smiles slowly ….

bye-bye Earl (or something like that).

sometimes people need a little rescuing too.

needed, one rainbow bandana

   My Charlie (remember the rescued Pekingese?) is seriously “attracted” to other male dogs.    Hmmmm … not just male dogs but really big breed, extra furry dogs.     He came from a breeding farm where he lived in a barn stall with Mastiff’s so that’s maybe his love of big dogs but doesn’t explain the fur part.   That’s not all thats weird, he was a stud dog and produced puppies so he obviously got the drift of the females.    Yesterday we groomed a large, beautiful, full coated Golden.   Charlie was all about him !!   The little guy cried and danced around the table, it was so funny he had all of us laughing.     Now when someone really big, furry and male comes in we all call Chuck, “hey Charlie look at this guy … he’s hot!”

   laughing … He also points out any females that come in … in heat … within, oh I don’t know, less than a minute.    

(I think Chuck is Bi) ~~     oh well, it happens.  (makes mental note to get Chuck a rainbow bandana)

grins

about music and pot belly pigs?

Okay, you can call this cheating if you want but the other day I was reading a blog that was just a list of the writer’s life likes/dislikes and thought that looks like fun … so here goes.

 

I think I will call these…little things you don’t know about me and probably don’t care to know.   J

 

Book?   Right now I am reading Discovering your Past Lives by Chadwick and If you could see what I see (for the second time), Sylvia Brown.

 

Music?  Almost anything, I usually have my ipod attached to my head especially if I am doing a project.

 

Pets?    LOL .. seriously, right now there 7 dogs and numerous cats I would LOVE to rescue a pot belly pig and am currently doing the research.  

 

Job?    I groom anything that can be groomed for a living, teach obedience and behavior modification and have been working on a dog book forever.   In my free time I am caring for some living being.

 

Hobby?   Well, I guess if I had to say what I like to do in my free time it would be the slot machines.  I know, I know … but there is something so freeing about sitting there, popping in the quarters (big time gambler).   I don’t do it often but when I do I am so excited!

 

Misc.:

 

I am a morning person … getting up at 4:30 am every day.   Six hours sleep is all I need and if I get more I get grumpy.  <grins>

I prefer dresses over jeans but realize how impractical dresses are most of the time.

 

Hair is long … mostly because it grows so fast it’s just easier.

 

Organization makes me very happy.   No clutter, no mess … (I am the messiest cook in the world but that cleans up).    I have to be careful because I could easily go crazy with this, (I blame this on the fact that I am a Virgo)  grins … The cleaner everything is the happier I am.  

 

Biggest frustration?    See above …

 

 

If you read this far try it, it’s fun.   

 

 

Laa dee daa la dee da~~

 

I will take three cookies, one fudge and a side of Whitmans.

There are certain perks to being a pet groomer.    One of them is the serious influx of goodies during the holidays.   Clients provided us with cookies and I mean c-o-o-k-i-e-s, fudge (holy patolies fudge!), cakes, chocolate covered everything you can think of, hard candies, nuts, candied nuts and on and on.   Most are wrapped in pretty paper with a little note, From Sadie Catherine Marie (a schnauzer).   So, as one grooms one eats.   All day long fudge is shoved in, cookies tasted and cries of, “Oh wow you HAVE to try this one!”   There is no time to stop and actually have oh I don’t know a salad?   It’s easier to open the latest box of Whitman’s, find the coconut one and munch away.   By the time you get done grooming, clean up and leave its dark outside and your body is in some sort of crashing sugar coma so on the way home it’s much easier to just run through the Mickey D’s.  (keeping in mind you just ate 20,000 sugar calories so you don’t get the fries.)   <<looking proud>>

 

::blink

 

Fast forward to last week ~~

 

I won’t tell you how much weight I gained the last two weeks of December but it’s between 10 and 15 pounds and closer to the latter.  

 

   Last week my closet door was open and I was eating a chocolate do-nut or two and glanced over … guess what?  There hung the sundresses and while it might seem like winter will last forever I know it won’t … “UH-OH”.    Besides the fact I feel like crappy doo-doo and feel heavy, like walking through a fog most of the time the summer clothing hit me (thank goodness).   Oh, I had/have excuses, I couldn’t use the treadmill because Flower came to be fostered and said treadmill had to be folded up to make room for the X pen.  There really wasn’t time to eat.   <said with convincing poutey face> … no matter whatever the excuses/reasons the weight is here and has to go …

 

   Enter the South Beach Diet (forever to be referred to as the SBD).   I love the SBD.   I used the program several years ago to lose extra poundage and refer to the program whenever I fall off the proverbial eating healthy wagon.   Basically, the jist of it is no white food.   NO, it isn’t the same as Adkins.   The SBD is seriously healthy.   Right now I am in the middle of the initial 2 week start and even this part isn’t bad.   But, that isn’t the best part of all.   After eating this way for a little over a week the energy kicks in.   I am sure it’s because the sugar is leaving my body but there is a serious change of energy level, you just feel better!

 

By the by … am 6 ½ pounds lighter after 9 days.   Wooooohooooo !!  

 

<<< — doing the SBD dance …   

let the sun shine, let the sun shine in ~~

I was having a discussion with an old friend and I asked what he believed to be the easiest way to explain faith .   He said, “when you flip the light switch in your home you expect the light to come on”.

Wow … 

Faith just IS

  I wish there was a way to convince people that it’s going to be okay.  You know?   Another family was found after a murder/suicide in Columbus.   The news dude said that the government is afraid this reaction to the economy is going to become an epidemic.    People feel hopeless and helpless.    I understand this thinking, I really do but …

 

(Stops typing to think because the frustration is real and I am not sure how to say what I am thinking yet.)

 

   You might say to me, “it’s because y-o-u have never been in a situation as bleak as this”.    Ummmm … yes I have.    

 

  See here is the issue for me … I want to save these people. On the other hand I believe the paths were pre-chosen.   Predestination … not that we can’t make choices that delay or side track us, we really (I) really do … but eventually I know I will either come around to where and what I am supposed to be or start over.   

 

How do you convince people that if they trust the universe, their creators and listen they will learn how to pull through or be pulled through?   Faith is a difficult thing to explain.    Faith just IS.  So, I thought I would list some of the many times it’s happened to me and share some of it.    Some are small … some are bigger … but all came from a higher power.   All came because I said, “I can’t do this, I cannot take care of this alone … do you hear me universe?”   Now, you can call it prayer if you like.   Maybe it is prayer.   It is the result of what happens when your will becomes less important than what is supposed to happen.   When you stop trying to force an issue, or make a decision based on what y-o-u want.  Things might change, things might not change but the reasons will become clear immediately or eventually.

 

<<stops to drink coffee and redirect again

 

    Have you ever watched those toy cars that go straight until they bump into a wall?   They back up, spin the wheels and turn.   Sometimes they don’t turn far enough so the corner of the car will bump into the wall again but this time when it backs up the turn is sharper and off the car goes until it hits the next wall … This is how life can be isn’t it?   We go off bumping into walls until we figure out what the deal is and then off we go into another direction until BAM … crap another wall.    See, I think the walls teach us something.   Sometimes, I just do not get it.   Sometimes, I think I will never get it and then frustration just pulls me and pulls me which makes me not turn my wheels at all until finally I just throw up my hands and say, “all right already .. for the love of all pickles just take this and give me a push.”   I also believe we can escape the wall by saying, “I am done.”  “I can’t do it”  “I don’t want to learn this lesson”.    We might be pulled away from that exact situation for a while but believe me … we will be put back into it until we figure out what the h-e-double-toothpicks is going on.   That’s the way it goes.    Like it, not like it … it doesn’t matter.

 

   I just realized I never did get to what I wanted to share, the good things that have happened because I stopped being so danged stubborn for a few minutes but these little ramblings often take on a life of their own and my fingers zip away until finally I get to what I was thinking in the first place .. <grins>.

 

   We are all tied together and not just “we” but the entire universe.   Sometimes the messages arrive and we don’t know what to do with them.  The walls are too high and too strong but if we can have a little faith, find a little faith, ask for faith … life will make sense again even if it’s not the sense we are looking for because there is a power greater than us working.  

 

There just is … we are not the end all … we have to be willing to give up the purse strings, the heart strings and for one second find a way to believe.

 

Blessings to all ~~