March! It is my least favourite month of the year.
My Granny passed away in March of 1976, I still tear up when I think about how much I miss her. My very dear friend and lover Pat Logier passed away in March of 1996, a very sad time in my life. March is when winter weather can seem like it will never, ever, ever end. March brings the spring season, but not necessarily spring weather. March, even when the weather is lovely, holds no promises that winter’s worst will not return for a star performance.
I don’t like March much. But, I am having comparatively grand March this year. Living at Mist Cottage means that we see the snow melt away in March, we are reminded that milder weather will come. This year March is stirring our longing to be out at the Rideau Camp; we are beginning to think about being there, what we will take with us for our picnics, what little projects we want to work on, how wonderful it will be to sit under the trees in the shade on hot days, and to sit under the stars around our campfire on clear nights. Yes, we are having a pretty good month of March this year.
Our wedding anniversary is in March. For our anniversary this year we made ourselves a pizza, and bought a movie from iTunes. It was lovely. But it seems that we need another little boost just now, as another weekend greets us with cloudy skies, a nippy wind, and the threat of freezing rain. Time for another pizza! March is a two pizza month! We purchased some CD movies on sale from iTunes some time ago, one of them will provide us with an enjoyable “pizza and a movie” night in.
When I was a single Mom going to Grad School, my special time with Terra was treating ourselves to a Friday night pizza, and watching Star Trek on the television. By that time Luna was well into her teenage years and had no interest in spending time with either Terra or myself, preferring her friends. Terra and I both remember those Friday nights with fondness.
After not having had a family Doctor for some years now, I am finding that the Doctor at the walk-in clinic has taken an interest in providing me with good care. I had chest pains last year, and he has been following up on that quite diligently. I don’t have any significant problems with my heart, which is good news. I will be tested further for my high blood pressure though, and I have a related appointment with a cardiologist. The walk in clinic doctor is also arranging for testing on several other health concerns I have described, which will involve a few more non-intrusive tests. We discussed cholesterol, and my levels are a bit high, which I take quite seriously because of the slight problem with the valves in my heart. He wanted me to try a new medication, so I agreed, because you just never know, and began to take it today. There is no noticeable side effect after the first dosage.
The pills were shocking. When the druggist opened up the prescription bag to go over the details with me, I could hardly believe my eyes. The pills are humungous! I was so disoriented by the size of the pills, and the fact that I am to take six of them every day, that I walked out of the drug store in a daze, forgetting to pay for the medication. I realized it after I got home, and called them to arrange going in to pay the bill next week. They hadn’t realized that the bill was unpaid, and probably wouldn’t have caught it. I am glad I caught it though, and called them, karma is a powerful thing.
Tonight I will be baking sourdough breads. I will make one loaf of 100% whole wheat bread, and one loaf of Finnish Pulla bread. The sourdoughs are fed and proofing on the top of the refrigerator where it is nice and warm. I will also be baking oatmeal bread and Pineapple Coconut Muffins. Time to get busy with the baking because I am running out of snacks to eat!
I am wearing my beanie today and enjoying it very much. The next project will be learning the double crochet stitch, by making a washcloth using it. There is an excellent learning tool on one of the crochet groups on FaceBook (thanks Bex for pointing me in their direction)! I have been learning from videos, which work well for me when I already know how to do something, but are really challenging when first learning. Using videos to learn requires constantly taking my focus off the task at hand to fiddle with the video controls, so that a confusing demonstration can be repeated, or the video can be paused while I catch up. The site I discovered is one that demonstrates using animated gifs for every little step in the process. It is easy to see what the crocheter is doing, and the gif repeats over and over, so that I can try it, tear it out if I need to, and try it again without ever having to adjust the screen.
Attila and I went for a walk today. It was surprisingly cold out there. The temperature is above freezing, but with the brisk wind, and the dampness, it felt a lot colder than that! Still, it was nice to be out under the sky for a little while.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
2°C
Date: 2:00 PM EDT Saturday 25 March 2017
Condition: Cloudy
Pressure: 102.9 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 2.2°C
Dew point: -1.6°C
Humidity: 76%
Wind: NNE 22 km/h
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.”
Lord Byron
1788 – 1824
Good for you, with having a 2 pizza month!
I’ve decided there’s nothing wrong with “comfort” foods, especially when they do actually impart a level of comfort. So, I’ve been more open to eating a somewhat higher level of carbs than I have in the past. Not over-indulging but instead just being open to having some foods I’d set aside for a time.
DH and I met his younger son and family at Timmies, today. As you said, it was quite raw and cold out. I had to come home and snuggle under an electric blanket for almost an hour before I warmed up. BRRRRR!!
Teri, comfort food does apply to pizza, for us anyway! It is a splurge for me, as it has a high sodium content, and we also put cheese on it, the lactose thing might kick in later tonight, or maybe it won’t, fingers crossed. I deliberately had very low sodium in my breakfast, and in my lunch, under 150 mg in total. My pizza slice contained 900 mg of sodium (the low sodium bacon and the cheese are the culprits in this case). Then I had croutons on my green salad, which added up to about another 150 mg of sodium. My total for the day is still only 1200 mg, right at the top of my limit. I can’t do this very often, but I do enjoy the pizza!
Electric blankets are handy for getting warm again after a chill. It should warm up by the end of next week, thank goodness.
I was definitely counting pizza under comfort foods, and I could tell you were too just by the way you spoke about it in your original post.
Funny story about forgetting to pay for the meds…easy to do when you are in shock! I take Act-Atorvastatin for cholesterol,and it seems to work for me. I think the trade name for it is Lipitor. Hope you can manage those big pills!
We got these coated 500mg acetaminophens, recently. Couldn’t tell from the packaging but they were huge for a pill, the size of a small gumball. I took them a couple of times and I could feel them for hours, moving around inside me. Very uncomfortable! I finally said enough and we got the caplets, which are less than half the size. There must be a lot of filler in the gumball-sized pills.
At least your pills are in tablet form, Maggie. Hope that makes them easier going down. Drink a little water first, so your throat isn’t dry when you first take them.
My high blood pressure med is Amlodipine. The pills are large rectangles with the corners cut off to make an elongated sexagon. I’m not really a fan because the pills start dissolving as soon as they enter the mouth, but they do their job with keeping blood pressure down.
BTW, I understand that Amlodipine is also used to ease angina, in case you’re curious about it.
Diane, the statins work really well, but I swell up like a balloon when I take them, so they are off my list of possible medications. Too bad, because they are good at what they do!
The big pills aren’t too difficult to get down after all. They are very light, like styrofoam.
The possible side effects fill a whole page, the drug is Lodalis, first approved here in Canada in 2011, so not much of a history on it yet. I will be keeping a careful watch on the side effects. So far it is only symptom I am seeing is the unmentionable yet highly intrusive constipation. Of course, there are medicinal cures for that, but those solutions are hard on aging kidneys, then there are more problems to deal with, and more medicaitons to take to solve that problem… dominoes.
I was taking Fenofibrate, which was good for cholesterol and triglyerides, but wasn’t controlling the cholesterol very well, and the same problematic side effects occurred. This new medication actually increases triglyeride levels in some people, so if it does for me I am going back to the Fenofibrate, and will have to live with mildly high cholesterol. There comes a point when you just have to cut your losses on the benefits for these drugs.
Teri, the pills aren’t very difficult to get down, thankfully! I have to drink 8 oz of water to take them, as per instructions. The blood pressure meds are complicated for me because of my allergy. I was originally on a very effetive medication, I can’t remember the name of it, and I had to switch to something else because the allergist didn’t want me taking it, as it would magnify an allergic reaction. The new meds aren’t as effective, but they are safer for me. My allergy issue always has to be the first consideration, because it will kill me in minutes, the other problems will take years to kill me.
In a conversation about meds, I am lost. At one point, when I was seeing a doctor, she put me on some high BP med but I stopped it. Yes, I probably have higher BP that the “experts” say I should have, however, I don’t believe those are real standards. Funny how they keep lowering the “healthy” BP’s all the time, just to keep everyone on meds! Big Pharma! Anyway, I take nothing except 3 tiny Aleve pills a day for the pain from what I have diagnosed as fibromyalgia all over. They help minimally. Heck, I’ve almost reached 70 in another year or so, and I haven’t had a sick day in more than 18 years…
Was that crochet site the Belle Coco one or the Beginners’ one?
I am planning to design and make up a crochet cover for my computer monitor & keyboard upstairs that I never use anymore… it attracts dust like mad.
Do you use a DVD player Maggie? Are your DVD players in Canada the region 1 or region 2 type? Was just wondering what regions you can play. Did anyone see A WALK INVISIBLE about the Brontes last night on PBS. I almost didn’t watch it. I have seen so many versions of their story, have been to the Parsonage and even sat on the divan where Charlotte died! So I know the story well, but I have to say, this version of a small period in the lives of the Brontes was the BEST one I’ve ever seen. Fabulous rendition. Left you wanting more – but alas, they did not live that long!
Freudian slip.. s/b “Bella Coco” — not “Belle” — for obvious reasons.
Bex, you might be on to something with the medication racket. My Aunt passed away at 70 from a stroke. I lost my Granny when she was only 73, and she had strokes from the age of around 50, which were increasingly disabling, which is why I take the cardiovacular issues very, very seriously, it is a family history thing. I don’t want to have a stroke, so I am being very careful. I don’t know about this cholesterol issue though, it seems a bit bogus to me. My weight is beginning to respond to my low sodium, low sugar diet, so when I reach what I consider a normal healthy weight for myself, I am going to consider stopping the cholesterol meds, they are really instrusive! The high blood pressure meds I will carry on with, my Granny had high blood pressure and it was related to her problems with strokes. So far so good for me, no strokes yet. My Mom has almost perfect health, no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, and she is 85, I hope I take after her!!
I found the link to the gifs in a comment on the Beginners group I think, it was buried in the comments and I just caught sight of it. I think this link might take you to the discussion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Crochetbeginnersgroup/permalink/1869893749960154/?comment_id=1870103383272524
That is a lovely idea, making a crochet cover for the computer monitor and keyboard! I look forward to seeing the photos of that project!
I use an Apple USB cd drive, we don’t have a television, only the iMac. I don’t know what region it plays, it has played all the DVD’s I’ve purchased. It is a sad thing, but we are not able to get PBS here on the iMac. Canadians have very limited access to online entertainment, at least the kind of entertainment I would find interesting!! Thanks for sharing about the program on the Brontes, I might bump into it somewhere in future!
LOVE the Freudian slip!
*roll eyes* Realized last night that a rectangle with its corners cut off is an octogon, not a sexagon.
Strokes and lung embollisms are from blood platelets sticking together in arteries (blood moving away from the heart). Heart attacks are from plaque building up in veins (moving toward the heart). They have different causes and are treated differently.
DH’s dad had a minor stroke about a month ago. His entire right side went numb for about an hour and then it came back. They have him on blood thinners now, to stop the platelets from sticking together.
Canada uses the US region DVDs. We cannot use European.
Teri, well if you hadn’t pointed out the octagon versus sexagon, I would not have caught it!
Sorry to hear about DH’s Dad’s stroke! Wishing him all the best with it. Hopefully the treatments will work. My Granny lived for 23 years after her first stroke.
That’s good to hear about your granny living another 23 years after her stroke. She was hardy stock, wasn’t she.
DH’s dad is doing fine, so far. He wasn’t allowed to drive the first month but can now. The doctors are still doing some tests.
Thanks for the good wishes!
We had a weekly movie night with our kids when they lived at home, and we all enjoyed that and looked forward to it. -Kate
Kate, I think it was my favourite thing to do with my kids, and now Attila and I enjoy the same thing together.