Produce-Lined Streets

I have a dream that every city had fruit and vegetable carts on every corner. Well, every other corner would do. Right now, I’m living in it.

As I rush from appointment to appointment in New York, carts of fruits and vegetables nourish me— basket of blueberries sold for $2 and a pear for 25 cents. Yesterday was the first time in a long while that I ate my seven servings of fruits and vegetable without strategic planning.

By having these purveyors out on the street where traffic is flowing makes it easy to associate whole foods with satisfying the hunger that is occurring. And those hunger pangs aren’t the crazy, ravenous kind either since noshing on these natural fibrous fillers has kept my blood sugar steady.

Imagine a world where each city had the same availability of fruits and vegetables. My hope that it would mean a healthier population.

The Beauty of Schedules

I have never been a strict schedule kind of girl. I’m not sure why. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants person. I believe in being on time, but when it comes to me (and even Baby A) our daily events happen around certain times.

During Baby A’s first year, I had a schedule to go to the gym. I would wake up at 4 AM on most weekdays to workout and shower. On the weekends, I would sleep in and, if I went, it was a bonus. This schedule helped me lose 50 of the 60 pounds I gained when pregnant.

When we moved to Los Angeles we didn’t join a gym right away. I decided I would get up early and head to the track for my workouts. Weather, work and waking up got in the way of that plan. Even after joining the gym, morning workouts have proven to be difficult. But now, I have a schedule.

It allows me to go to the gym two weekdays and on the weekends. It gives me a plan. It alleviates the self-imposed guilt I have when I leave Baby A with M. It gives me the balance I need and have difficulty requesting. It’s a beautiful thing.

Cough Cough Cough

I haven’t been taking my own advice. M. is definitely not taking my advice. Baby A. isn’t even following it. Sore throats and coughing abound in this house as the second bout of this cold is has gripped our house. Fatigue so great that apparent I slept through Baby A.’s cries. (Thank goodness for M.)

So that’s why it has been quiet here on Thank You Everything, and honestly could be quiet for awhile. I need to rest when I can and lately the debate has been nap, blog or work. None of the above has won.

A Major DO: Bed Rest

Ahh...The Westin Heavenly Bed. I loved this bed so much I bought one. Aaron Gustafson/Creative Commons

Never underestimate the power of bed rest. Christmas night I was congested so I took some NyQuil and went to bed. I woke up yesterday feeling like a semi had hit me. Lucky for me, I have a caring husband and an active father in law who were determine to let me rest. And boy did I! Honestly, I didn’t have a choice since I couldn’t be out of bed for more than 10 minutes without wanting to crawl back into bed because I felt so weak. So I slept and read magazines all day.

Today, I feel nearly 100 percent. I’m still a little bit sore, but the congestion is gone. I have never been one of those people who takes to her bed when she is sick—unless I physically do not have the strength to do so and even then I’m usually still tapping away on my laptop. I had no idea yesterday that I would wake up today feeling so much better.

During this sickness season, I urge you to call in sick and take to your bed to rest if you sneezing, coughing and achy. Not only will you feel better sooner, you won’t spread the germs.

Tea: The Natural Soother

Photo taken by Chumsdock

It used to be that every year the week before Christmas I would get sick—really sick. In fact, I would usually spend December 21 until December 27 in bed. Then, I decided to get a yearly flu shot and all that stopped. Well, until now.

I stopped getting the flu shot when I stopped going to an office and even then I haven’t been sick around the holidays for at least three years. Today, I have a sore throat. You know, the kind that hurts to swallow, the kind that usually turns into something bigger, and the kind that is annoying. That is unless you don’t have tea.

I love tea, especially today. Besides giving relief to the scratchiness in my throat, it is calming. Which is another thing I need since I have more deadlines looming before the holidays begin. So I will sip my tea when I can because Baby A still wants to play. Drum circle anyone?

I Challenge You to a Week of Thanks

The countdown to the biggest day of gratitude of the year, Thanksgiving, begins today. And I am throwing down the gauntlet. I challenge you to be thankful for something each day until Turkey Day. Here’s why:

• People who are grateful are more content and hopeful, according to Robert Emmons, PhD, professor of psychology at University of California at Davis and author of Thanks! How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier.
• Thankful people recover faster from illness.
• Gracious people handle chronic stress better.

So for the next seven days blog, tweet, write or tell others why you’re thankful. (You can leave comments here all week). Consider it a warm up for the big day.

Lessons Learned in a Small Town Hospital

I know this blog has been quiet. There’s been a medical blowout here at ThankYouEverything and internet access is severely limited. I’ve been lucky to email via my Treo. Blog and tweet is another story. (Yes, I know there are settings but I haven’t set them up. Anyway.)

So I’m here in a small town outside the valley I grew up in because the accumulation of G’s smoking (50 years), his neglected heart murmur and his doctor dodging has come to a head. My mom took him to Urgent Care a week ago because she was afraid he wouldn’t make it another night. She was probably right as they admitted him right away. Since then he’s been moved to a larger hospital and we’re making decisions test-by-test. Despite what looked like a dire situation, the prognosis is good.

But this post isn’t about G’s health. It’s about the lessons I’ve been able to take away from this situation because there are many.

In sickness and in health. If you’re married you have probably uttered these words in your wedding vows. This week I have witnessed them in action. Besides witnessing my mom helping G be comfortable and taking the abuse that normally occurs when one is scared, unrested and hospitalized, I saw other spouses doting on their spouses. I would say that most of us are not made up of nurse material—patience, empathy, and knowledge—and granted, there are some nurses who aren’t either. But throughout this small hospital of 78 beds, there were husbands and wives caring for their loved ones despite their own fear, uncertainty and concern. If love has the power to get you through the uncomfortable task of helping your spouse pee into a cup, it’s stronger than I thought.

Better living through medicine. I write about natural remedies and tend to shy away from taking anything unless I really need to. Because G. had a difficult time sleeping, he was put on a sedative. Not only did this make him drowsy (good for him), it also seemed to alleviate his low-level anxiety and grumpiness (like most people in my family, he wasn’t the best patient in this tiny hospital). Having him on that medication made the days better — for him (though he would probably disagree), for us, and for the hospital staff. Medication has it’s place and when used wisely, it can make a painful situation a bit less so.

Lean on me. No song lyrics could be truer. My role here has been to be a second pair of ears, question girl, medical jargon dictionary, pinpoint person, answering machine, and personal assistant. My mom needs me to do these things and I’m happy to. When it comes to family, I feel (thanks to M.) that we are here to prop each other up through the bad, the good and even the mundane. Science has shown time and again that having a strong support system allows us to recover from major heart surgery and heart attacks, adopt healthy behaviors and live a more satisfied life.

G.’s roommate was a woman who was 50 years old and had Down Syndrome. Every day she had numerous visitors—family and friends. There was a lot of laughter from that side of the room despite the fact she was sitting in the ward that’s one level down from ICU. My bet is she’s living so long with a disease that is suppose to shorten her life span because he is surrounded by a loving family and close friends.

Don’t blame the messenger. Sometimes nurses need to repeat what a doctor has explained to a patient. All of the time they are following doctors’ orders. Unfortunately this makes them on the firing line of cranky patients. Nurses take a lot of abuse, much of it unwarranted. There will always be times when bad or disturbing news and most of the time it will be delivered by someone other than the source. Watching the nurses day in and out, I decided that as a general rule to take a deep breath before reacting to the bearer of bad news. For the most part, he’s only doing his job and why should I make his day worse by unleashing my displeasure on him. Besides, it isn’t very productive.

There you have it. The lessons I observed while sitting in a 78-bed hospital outside the Coachella Valley. Sure, I knew these. In spite of the circumstances, I’m thankful that I could find something positive out of this experience.

Explained: Why I Can’t Stop Eating Ice Cream Until the Carton is Empty

Anyone who knows me knows that I have incredible ability to put away gobs of ice cream in a single sitting. Lactose intolerance, be damned. I never have been able to figure out why I can’t stop myself from shoving in the creamy good stuff, not stopping until I hit the bottom of the carton. It’s strange but while I’m scooping away I’ve always felt that something in my brain clicks off and all eat-right bets are off.

This morning I received the explanation of my binging ways, courtesy of the UT Southwestern Medical Center PR department.

Apparently researchers at this institution have found that fat we eat—specifically palmitic acid, which is found in foods such as butter, cheese, milk and beef—travels to the brain and causes a communication break down between our cells and the hormones leptin and insulin, which suppress appetite. The bottom line: Our whole brain chemistry can change just by eating something delicious. These fatty acids make us resistant to the every mechanism that tells us not to overeat.

Ah-ha! That clicking in the brain wasn’t just my imagination. Thank you for clearing that up.

An Economic Virus?

I haven’t been feeling well. Mostly I’m fatigued that surfaces as malaise which in turn makes me feel like a blob. Something must be going around.

Last month (on my birthday no less) M went to the ER for symptoms that could have been those of a heart attack—dizziness, light-head, nausea, extreme fatigue. It wasn’t one, thank goodness. But the trip was enough to scare him into re-evaluating his non-stop working habits and eating.

So we cleaned up our diet, started taking vitamins again and tried to relax. You’d think I would feel great. (He does.) No. I’m craving sweets like an obsessed seven-year-old (haven’t done that since I was pregnant); my pee is the color of a 1980′s fluorescent yellow t-shirt I used to own and my sleep isn’t so restful. What’s up?

Like many people, the economy has got me down. Moving twice in a year didn’t help our financial picture and add that most of my checks didn’t find their way to my Arizona mailbox, money has been tight.

Today I am thankful that my mailbox dance was fruitful. I received one of many reissued checks. It’s nice to work for money. Doing so has made me feel a bit better—even though I’m sure the clean eating hasn’t hurt. And I still think there’s a bug going around.

In the Market for a Farmer?

This week Baby A and I went to the farmer’s market in Santa Monica. It was his second, but the first time that he was in the Baby Bjorn carrier. This give him a front row seat to all the action: the farmers, the fruit, the flowers and the vegetables. He loved it, sampling nectarines, berries, basil and oranges. He even picked out his own tomato, which he carried and chewed on as we shopped.

I have always enjoyed the market. I love the way it smells. I love talking to the farmers about how they grow their food and why they do so. I love the food when I get home. It tastes better than anything I ever buy at the grocery store and, as a result, I eat more fruits and vegetables. It has always been a time investment in my health. Now, that Baby A is enjoying it too; it feeds my body and my soul.

Note: The title of this post may seem a bit weird. It comes from M. who asks each time I return from the farmer’s market if I bought a farmer.