Wow. That didn't last long! I just watched a really good movie,
American Sniper. It really touched me. I avoided the Vietnam War ONLY by my gender being what it is, but I was certainly the right age for it! I was a senior in high school (1964, a few months after Kennedy was assassinated) when the beatnik girl who sat in front of me wasn't in school one day because she had been arrested at something new called a "sit-in".
She and her protesting cohorts SAT DOWN in the middle of the street, she said, defying police orders to disperse. (And all these antifa and BLM folks think that they're so original! It's all been done before.) Big YAWN.
Nothing new. I lived through the '60s and '70s on the Left Coast very near the action. They were called Flower Children if peace loving or Hippies if into drugs. At that time, I lived approx. 75 miles or so away from the Haight Ashbury.
Anyway, this 5-star movie, based on a true story, really showed what happened in Iraq and at home in the US to this one soldier, a decorated and famous Navy Seal sniper who eventually made 160 kills, but the movie humanized him and showed what it did to him as a person, a husband, and a father. It also showed some of the horrors of war and man's inhumanity to man. It was riveting. They showed the ways that PTSD can affect a person who has been in long term war.
If you’re close to someone with CPTSD, it’s also important to remember that their thoughts and beliefs might not always match up with their emotions. They might know that, logically, they should avoid their abuser. However, they might also hold onto a sense of affection toward them.
Any type of long-term trauma, over several months or years, can lead to CPTSD. However, it seems to appear frequently in people who’ve been abused by someone who was supposed to be their caregiver or protector. - www dot healthline dot com/health/cptsd#causes
Well, that sums it up, doesn't it? It continues to amaze me: I'm not sorry that I didn't go to see her in her last years, but rather I feel an intense sadness that she made it so that I couldn't go see her without being attacked verbally and emotionally. And SHAMED. And
COMPETED WITH! But
only the competition that resulted in her winning and me losing. Incredibly
sad that she was like that. We both missed out on so much because of that.
But that is over now and I also feel a great sense of relief. So yeah, sadness, yet relief. She used to use the word "crippled" to refer to anyone disabled and she said it with disdain and even disgust. But her very attitude of hatred towards me (that I never deserved) crippled me in my mind and my heart. It twisted me and left me with self-disdain...yes, and even disgust. It's taken me years to heal up from that treatment that began over 70 yrs. ago. But as long as I allow it to go on
IN MY MIND, it will. The ball is in my court now and the responsibility to correct what she did is with me now. And that is a relief. She has
nothing to do with it. THANK GOD!!
====================(7:30am New Year's Day)
The ham hocks and the most beautiful collard greens that dear son got for me are happily boiling on the stove ATM. For some reason there are no stores carrying collards right now. Even Walmart (whose fresh "greens" look so sad and yellow and bug-eaten whenever you
can get them - UGH!) haven't had the pre-cut ones in the bag in months now. So now I've learned how to clean, cut, and cook unbagged fresh collard greens.
I'm planting pepper seeds inside for the grow lights today. I've decided to use some older seed and see how they do. I may try to get outside and rearrange things today like straw bales and big bags of potting soil, but just standing in the Hobby Room and trying to decide which peppers to use my back began to ache a lot! On either side of my hips. I need to either try to do more and more each day or just give up since I'm no longer a spring chicken, but a big NO on the giving up.
======================(Saturday)
I PLANTED MY PEPPERS LAST NIGHT! I put them under the grow lights (not necessary yet actually). The pots look happy enough this morning, albeit a bit dry, so I gave them a little "drink" of water. I need to plant my tomatoes, too, and found that I have tons of seeds from a year or so ago. Whether they are viable or not remains to be seen. I have found that the peppers really need to be planted this soon, though, since they are more slow to grow than the tomatoes, etc. The first pepper I planted was the Nadapeño, like a Jalapeño, but without the heat. (
Nada in Spanish means none or nothing.)
Last year (or the year before) my Nadapeño crapped out while still under the grow lights.
I'm hoping for better this year. I also planted a Midnight Dream (first green, then red, then dark purple to black), a Horizon (orange), a King of the North (red), and an Ozark Giant (also red). They all start out green, though. If I end up with too many, there's always the Excalibur dryer or the freeze dryer.
Speaking of the freeze dryer languishing in my foyer, I'm making a path to put it (via the industrial strength cart it's on) where it will be "living" right next to the kitchen in the family room. I'm also moving my box cutting station from the front room to the family room,
and putting the (still boxed) Teeter Hang-Up in there, too. With a little rearrangement, there should be plenty of room to do so. In a week or two, the mattresses will be taken to the street "on garbage night" for a special FREE pickup (hopefully along with the large backyard items, too) - we get two of these special scheduled pickups twice a year.
I have the vinyl plank flooring that N put in for me. Ah, dear N. He'd really bitten off MUCH more than he could chew, but he had insisted that HE could do the work in one day, so I forked out over $1000 just like that and he began.
OMG. What a mess! He didn't know what he was doing, didn't give himself enough time, and had to leave for his new out-of-state job and he left the job here unfinished. He'd pulled off all the baseboards (which are still off) and parts of the flooring near the wall are unfinished. I'm going to get a good flooring guy to finish it and then have the walls painted (or vice versa), but I really want to get that family room DONE!
I also priced some of the nearly pristine items of dishes that I was just going to donate...until I saw the prices these items (from the 1970s) are bringing in!! $13.00 for ONE dinner plate of my pattern (I have 7 of them)! $7.75 for a 6" small plate from Starbuck's! EACH!! And I have 6 of them. And I have so many things like this. So yeah, those things are NOT going to donations! I took a course in how to do this around 6 years ago, but have forgotten most of it. The trouble is, as I began to delve into all this (SO excited!), I realized that someone has hacked my account. How long ago this was is a mystery, and I found this out yesterday
on the holiday, so I could "chat" with no one. Today I will though.
==========================(sometime later)
I was scouring the internet just now to look for a "best" keto peanut butter (or almond butter) cookie recipe, trying to decide what
realllly sounded good enough to bake. I always wanted a cookie baking and kindly mother - MD certainly wasn't it. I suddenly realized that I AM that mother!! I have sort of morphed into that which I had always wanted! Can you beat that!? I feed the birds, I write recipes, I comfort my ancient dogs, I bake cookies and other things,
I HELP my DS in any way I can, and if I have something difficult to say to him, some urgent complaint, I do it as softly as possible, always keeping an ear open in case he's right and I am wrong (hey, it happens!
). I haven't become MD. I am more like my grandparents, and that's a wonderful place to be, I can assure you!!! There are more ways than one to heal up, and with the lack of intense and cruel criticism blasting at me constantly from MD now that she's gone on to her rest, I'm daily feeling better and better about myself and who I am in this life that I'm creating.
As I perused the good old internet for yummy gems and goodies, I realized all this. Well, that and that I want to really get to work on all this stuff, including that cookie recipe and that I'd not mind making some lemon-blueberry muffins with real blueberries in them. Yes, it's all keto stuff. YUM!
But that isn't what is really working for me. It's the intermittent fasting (IF) that does the trick for me: blood sugars at 132 today! For me, that's phenomenal!!
For some reason, I am exhausted tonight. I bid you a fond farewell and good night...
Honeybera
In addition, this is as safe a place as I have found, thanks to our wonderful moderators, especially Jonesy. So if we lacked a safe place as children, teens, and adults, we have one now. This place is all about healing and getting rid of the old ancient garbage and pain, once and for all. Thank God it's here!!!!
Sadly, you do know how I feel. I frankly wish you didn't. I am glad, though, that you have found a better vet. May this one find peace for you as you wrestle with the eventual loss of your Benji. I know how hard this must be for you.
among vet dentists to pull out all teeth regardless. Unfortunately or luckily here l don't have the money for "fancy" extras. I am anxious as l'm supposed to bring her in in the morning and leave. 
🌶
). On a second thought, not so sure even TW would come up with something as horrific. Take care, Kokoschka