Letting go

[honeybera]

3/31/23 Doing better today! Puttering, puttering, puttering...as I should! I'm getting at a deeper level on my tasks/chores. That really sounds awful, but let me reassure you that it's not that bad. What I mean by that is that I'm GETTING CHORES DONE now that I have PUT OFF for forever in the past. Fill the soap dispenser, clean the stove top, continue to address the Amazon/Chewy/etc. cardboard box mountain in my front room and decide to keep them (for growing veggies in) or cut them up and GRIND them up in my amazing micro cut shredder (along with the long sheets of paper packing material, too), all to go into my NOW ASSEMBLED composter (YAY!!), make one of those rat exploding traps (homemade with my new soldering iron, an old plastic lidded Ziploc storage container with a rat-sized hole burnt into the side of it and equal parts of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix (bait) + baking SODA = an internal reaction to rat stomach acid and BOOM! No more mouse/rat), and also some homemade hummingbird water fountains!!! That sort of thing.

Tomorrow (and on into April as far as the eye can see) it will be sunny and gorgeous out there in the yard, so house tasks will be lumped in with garden, garage, and weedeating chores. Or more like small tasks that I've been putting off, but just a LOT of them. "PUTTERING". One I'd like to do on an ongoing basis: find out the contents of at least ONE Mystery Box PER DAY out there in the garage. That means to sort it out and decide what to do with the contents. The Mystery Boxes will all be gone very soon if I do that! Then choose what to keep on the HUGE shelves that line two sides of my garage, paid for by me, but not loaded by me! It was DD and DS who assembled them and filled them up with DD's stuff when she lived in my front room in 2008. Most of it she just left for me to clean up. And now seems to be the time...

============(APRIL FOOL'S DAY! I hate this day! UGH!)

DB left here last Saturday telling me that he made a priority list when he got overwhelmed. Great idea! But I've ALREADY been doing that for years! I used to take the cardboard backs of the bus Day Pass stacks and write on them furiously when I'd get to a stop light so I'd not forget the brilliant thought I'd just had while driving...or even scribble a reminding word on the day passes themselves. I have spent days after retirement grinding them up, and I still run across a batch of them from time to time! They were a part of my life back then.

But he was right, too. I've begun to do that again and for much the same reason: so that it wouldn't slip my mind by the time I had time to act on whatever it was the precise moment I thought of it. So I've been doing that recently and (not surprisingly) it's really helping. I need to go RIGHT NOW and get my laundry out of the dryer so DS can do his laundry. He asked me to do it yesterday, it's now 4pm, and I still haven't done that. I'm also going to examine at least ONE Mystery Box out in the garage. That may get me moving out there, too. I don't have to do it ALL today, but the "keeping moving" ideas are working with me. My health is better today along with my mood, but I'm still dealing with the reluctance to "getting started". The best way I know of to do that is to just DO IT! So off I go. More to follow. I'll let you (and ME) know how I did.

=============(4/2 Thank Heavens!)

I just sent "payment" #2 of $100 of "what I owed to MD" via PayPal to isurvive--- i.e. MD's $$$ is being given to you all who are helping me to heal from what she did to me all those decades ago! I do owe it, can't pay her back due to her demise, and this solution just seems perfect!

Jonesy, please let me know when it comes in. PayPal wants to be not just a middleman, but is making noises like IF it doesn't go to you, THEY will decide who gets MD's $$. Not nice and a bit unnerving. So please just acknowledge your receipt of it. Much love to you all!!

Today I put away the laundry, cleaned up my desk of income tax papers, made a really nice dinner for DS and I, and studied up on what makes up compost (need to fill it up soon) including do I need a trommel (compost sifter) or not, and the plans to build a DIY one if I decide that it's needed. And once I have some compost, I'm finding that I don't need it AT ALL for actually planting my seeds right now! The more I learn, the more I realize just how little I know.

Honeybera

[Jonesy]

Hi honeybera

I just sent "payment" #2 of $100 of "what I owed to MD" via PayPal to isurvive--- i.e. MD's $$$ is being given to you all who are helping me to heal from what she did to me all those decades ago! I do owe it, can't pay her back due to her demise, and this solution just seems perfect!

Jonesy, please let me know when it comes in. PayPal wants to be not just a middleman, but is making noises like IF it doesn't go to you, THEY will decide who gets MD's $$. Not nice and a bit unnerving. So please just acknowledge your receipt of it. Much love to you all!!

It is so lovely of you to do this for us - please know that as I type, no donation has been received.

[joyagain]

3/31/23 Doing better today! Puttering, puttering, puttering...as I should! I'm getting at a deeper level on my tasks/chores. That really sounds awful, but let me reassure you that it's not that bad.
<s>
"PUTTERING

honeybera,

I call it Divine Putzing.
It's what I love to do and something I do best.
I've kind of made a life and career out of it.

joyagain

[honeybera]

It is so lovely of you to do this for us - please know that as I type, no donation has been received.

♥Thank you for the "lovely"♥, but I see it more as a brilliant justification, and I thank YOU all for that! Take that dirty and unpayable money (for me) to satisfy help for others experiencing my same problem that the original payee (MD) caused in the first place. That is justice!! Like money laundering in a GOOD way!

It may take as much as 45 days to arrive...according to PayPal, and it was done over the weekend. I just want to know for sure that MD's $100 goes into isurvive.org's pocket where it belongs. Do keep me posted. And do look for two more $100 payments #3 and #4 in May and June respectively. It seems like so little after all you have done for me. ♥♥♥Thanks.♥♥♥

Honeybera

[honeybera]

3/31/23 Doing better today! Puttering, puttering, puttering...as I should! I'm getting at a deeper level on my tasks/chores. That really sounds awful, but let me reassure you that it's not that bad.
<s>
"PUTTERING

honeybera,

I call it Divine Putzing.
It's what I love to do and something I do best.
I've kind of made a life and career out of it.

joyagain

DIVINE PUTZING! LMAO!!! You nailed it EXACTLY! I get out there and just start putzing around.

It's 2 am again. I'm still up. I just ordered my new stuff from Burpee, including my new Albion strawberries. For some reason, I don't seem to be able to unwind and hit the hay at a decent hour. Then I crawl out of bed at about 3 or 4 pm...and get some dinner for DS and I. Then it's dark. After I eat I get REALLY sleepy, but after a quick nap I awake refreshed and stay up WAY too long! So tonight I am going to bed RIGHT NOW. I haven't worked on the yard, garage, or anything for days. I'm going to try to simply put on my shoes and go stand in the garage and/or the yard and let the "feelings'" take me where they will. So my tomorrow chore: put on my shoes, hat, and gardening gloves, open the door to the garage, and go stand out there until I DO something. It's a very gentle way, but disciplined, and it usually works with me.

Nighty night...♥

Honeybera

[Jonesy]

Hi honeybera

Do keep me posted.

I will send you an email

[honeybera]

There seems to be just TOO MANY CHORES that all need my attention all at once. "Prioritize", my DB says. So I made a list. Every time I think of something that REALLY needs to be done, I put it on my list of things to do - and there it sits. DS is off to work today (this evening actually). He no sooner left the house than 7 min. later a BIG "heavy" marked package came. Here's my choice: leave it on my exposed front porch for the porch pirates to see (a real problem in this area) or struggle to ease it into the house and risk falling again? Both are real threats here. So I chose the latter. I used to do O&I (office and industrial) moving for a big local company. DS's father goaded me into it. It was after I had my Class 1 license (in those days, meaning that I could drive big rigs, but I usually mostly drove big bobtail trucks with an automatic transmission). I was also pregnant with DS. The point is that I know how to use leverage to move heavy objects and I used that knowledge today. In fact, it was some dandy exercise! I just made sure that I was VERY, VERY careful not to fall!!!

For the last several days my feet and ankles are a LOT less swollen and walking is WAY less painful and easier to do. I need to find my new tire inflator and pump up my tires on...my dog stroller, my wheel barrow, and even my recumbent trike! This will get a LOT of use around here! I usually just get the 'no more flats" sort of tire, but I will have use for the inflator.

============(Saturday wee hours)

Waiting for DS to return. Just had a very profound thought re: MD. I'm almost feeling sorry for her and what she had to go through. She was fearful all that time. She had an imperfect husband that she was terrified to lose AND didn't feel (deep down) that she deserved PLUS she had rock bottom LOW self esteem problems with herself. All had to appear perfect, and as we all know, life is anything but perfect!

You like someone because
You love someone although

I think she truly liked and then eventually loved my father, according to her world view and demands. I know some things about my father that I won't even share on here. Both he and MD were OCD to a point, MD being MUCH more OCD than he, but I either copied those behaviors or they can be inherited. I know that I was a bitter disappointment to her, none of which was my fault. I just happened to be in her way and not at all what she had "ordered". The trouble is that little kids don't understand that. I know I held MD up on a pedestal. When she screwed up her face in the most frighteningly angry way and hissed at me, "LOOK AT YOU!!!! LOOK HOW UGLY YOU ARE!!! YOUR EYES ARE YOUR ONLY GOOD FEATURE!!!!" She did this every day, usually with me standing on a chair, usually in the morning, usually with intermittent slaps in the face, with me between the ages of 1½-5 - and I absolutely believed her!! There were no mirrors at my level, so I'd stand on my tiptoes to peer into the dresser mirror. I'd see my reflection for a few seconds and think, "Oh. That's what I look like.", and then have to come down again. Instantly I'd forget what I'd just seen. What do I look like??

My Grandma gave me some framed, professional baby pictures of myself for my 16th birthday which at the time I thought very odd. But my Grandma KNEW what she was doing! Those pictures now (yes, RIGHT NOW) hang in my bedroom behind me as a constant reminder of just how adorable I was...not a bit "UGLY" at all!!

But for MD to do that to me was more of a reflection of HER than it ever was of ME. SHE felt bad about HERSELF, even though throughout our lives together she would deny that, instead stating, "Why can't you be pretty like ME??" Well, pretty is as pretty does, so who was the ugly one really? And she was brown eyed, brunette, and I was towheaded with true green eyes. I think that there was some envy on her part there, but she was my parent of the same sex, so I accepted her VERY negative opinion of me without question.

Still, really putting myself in her psychotic, narcissistic shoes, trying to understand the WHY behind her hatred of me, and seeing the BIG LIE of who she was and how she came to be this way and how she HAD TO keep it all covered up ALL THE TIME, I'm beginning to feel sorry for her. Not feeling sorry her and for what she did to me, but just how she got there, still enraged over her own rough childhood, never really delving into it herself and healing, for that wasn't an option back in the 1940s or 1950s. It just didn't exist in those days. People who had survived the Great Depression and WWII were just grateful to be alive. So many weren't.

Hmm...it's getting late. My girls are in season right now, and are in my room with me, happily sleeping on their throw rugs on the floor. DS is home from his dangerous worksite 100 miles away, and I'm relieved. Now I can sleep. I FOUND my tire inflator, so airing up the tires on the dog stroller is first up in the "morning". I believe that I'll introduce the pups to it in my room, aka a SAFE PLACE for them, including treats and praise, then walks in the backyard and eventually out to the street. I'll need the counterbalance of them in the stroller to help me walk. I have two really nice dog blankets (VERY plush!!) also in blue to go inside the stroller. Mainly it's for me to have something to hold on to as I take myself (and the pups) on a walk, like a walker without the stigma. So it's time to get my beauty sleep.

Oh, I'm going to be fetching my vacuum out of the garage, too - the $500 Bissell Crosswave that sweeps, vacuums (even big pieces), and steams floors at the same time! And it's CORDLESS, too!!! I'm finally opening up all my "Xmas gifts" to myself! And I'm about to order some of those Weathertech floor mats (anti-fatigue) for my kitchen area and the hobby room sink (gardening). Will I get to all of these things in one day? Probably not, but I'll keep at it. So much to do, so little time!

At least I'm not bored to tears! That is WORSE!

Honeybera♥

[honeybera]

I forgot to send the last post, so it got sent today (4/11/23 - just in case I go on for days on this post).

I am DEPRESSED: laid in bed, slept most of the day away AGAIN, but to be honest, I lay in bed even if it's a bright sunny April day outside and ignore...no, that's not right...KNOW that the day is passing, but like I'm glued to the bed, unable to get up and do the weedeating that I KNOW needs to be done FIRST out there! I actually repotted my 3 tomato plants from their 3" pots into nice big one gallon pots yesterday...BUT they're still sitting INSIDE in the hobby room. If they're not moved outside in the warm, sparkling sunshine, they will DIE. But first I need to do the weedeating in the backyard. DS blessedly mowed down the weeds over the last few days in the front yard UNASKED to do so!! That's a miracle in and of itself!! Was it done to cheer me and motivate me to do the back? It actually did...and then the bed and my depression enveloped me. My blackout curtains work so well, plunging my room into perfect darkness 24/7 unless I pull them back on my WOW (Window on the World), my bed is so comfortable and inviting..."and I am a bit sleepy yet", so I climb back into bed after a slow trip to my master bathroom adjoining my master bedroom. "I'll get up in a bit. I really will." Zzzz!!

So I finally rolled out of bed today, sat in my chair, watched a couple of hours of TV instead, un-showered in days, but PLANNING to do so "immediately". Then I fired up my computer and looked up the word DEPRESSION. I found one site, PsychCentral dot com, and followed the rabbit hole from depression symptoms for women to types of depression, and one type caught my eye: PROCRASTINATION DEPRESSION! OMG! I'd like to share some of this with all of you: so far it is telling me that it's a form of perfectionism!! PERFECTIONISM!! May I share please?

Procrastination Is Really Perfectionism

Are you prone to delaying the start of a task? Is there a project you know you should start, but you can’t seem to motivate yourself to begin? Are you delaying work that really needs to be done for work or for school? Or do you start something, but can’t seem to finish it?

Perhaps you have that nagging voice in the back of your head that you really should be working on a task or project, but you can’t seem to motivate yourself. Even though that voice telling you to get going is LOUD, you ignore it, sometimes so much so that you feel anxious about your procrastination. And even though that voice may be screaming at you to get busy, you ignore it and you don’t understand why. Why can’t you just seem to get yourself going?

"UH...YEAH!!!!", I said out loud before I began to cry with relief! I was suddenly right back there in that little cottage in the back yard of my grandparent's house with maniacal teenager MD, waking and shaking little toddler me up on the blue couch in the front room first thing in the morning. "C'mon _____. GET UP!! DON'T BE SO LAZY!" She'd ridicule me for "having sleepers in my eyes" like it was something indescribably ugly and offensive (yes, EVERY DAY!), and she'd get REALLY UPSET with me if I didn't leap off the couch, fully awake!! Sometimes she'd begin hitting me right then, maybe when she dressed me, or just before she sat me at the tiny kitchen table, but the ANGER always came over her for something. (I reread this and began to cry again.)

Then she would keep hitting me "until I stopped crying"! I tried and tried to do so, but at that age it's really, REALLY hard to do. But I knew that if I didn't, she'd keep hitting me, HARD, and maybe by this time she'd have "broken a blood vessel in her hands" and picked up a "weapon" like the wire coat hangers or a hair brush. Our kitchen was a cheerful white and yellow, with white chintz curtains. My unchanging breakfast menu: one soft boiled TWO MINUTE egg (yes, VERY runny!!) and a tiny 4 oz. glass of SunSweet prune juice. Every single day!! I was ALWAYS constipated ("She's such a nervous child.") , and if I'd been good, she'd give me Feen-A-Mint (laxative gum) to chew or maybe ExLax (laxative Choc.), but if not, if I had done ANYTHING to upset her, she'd break out the Milk of Magnesia. UGH! These medications went on throughout my childhood.

And then the PsychCentral people equated the word "laziness" and procrastination with perfectionism. (Say what??) How on earth does THAT work??

Are you wondering why you procrastinate, especially if this has been a life-long issue for you? When we procrastinate, often the surprising underlying reason is perfectionism.You may have a lot of guilt associated with the procrastination and your “inner critic” may be chastising you because of the procrastination. Yet, even though there may be guilt and you may be internally beating yourself up over the procrastination that may not be enough to get motivated to actually do the thing already!

You may have heard the expression “Do it right or don’t do it at all.” Well, oftentimes, perfectionists are opting to “not do it at all.” Perfectionists hold themselves to incredibly high standards, accepting nothing but the best from themselves. Since they are putting such pressure on themselves, perfectionists will often procrastinate and not start a project or task because of the fear they have of not being able to achieve perfection. If it can’t be done perfectly, they would rather just not start at all. In their subconscious mind, they would rather not do something than do it and getting results that don’t add up to their very high standards. They don’t want to risk the chance of having the outcome wind up imperfect. In the perfectionist’s mind, it is a better alternative to not do something than to do something and have the result or outcome be of a lower quality or standard than they set for themselves.

This makes perfect sense to me. (No pun intended!) It explains so much! At first I thought, "ME??!! A PERFECTIONIST??!!" But I went again to that little girl, that toddler, sitting on the couch with her cruel mother, being rudely awakened by a nut who was about to beat the crap out of her at any moment for something ridiculous and frivolous, knowing that she was completely NOT in control of the situation, blocked from running up to protection by her grandfather by a fence MD had my father build...terrified in the knowledge that there was NO ESCAPE from her. "A NERVOUS child!" You're damned right I was 'NERVOUS'!! Nervous enough to be chronically and painfully constipated most of my life. (No longer, thank God!) She really did shape my personality at that young age...and she was ALLOWED to! I was also plagued by nightmares where something, like a monster, or someone just out of sight was chasing me and I could not run fast enough to get away.

THE SOLUTION?

Determine what the “bare minimum” is for success on a task or project you’ve been procrastinating. Then, start that task or project and get to the bare minimum for success as quickly as you can. Tell yourself repeatedly while working “This doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be just good enough.”

If you work this way often enough, you will find that your procrastination tendencies will slowly slip away. You’re breaking your entrenched perfectionistic tendencies every time you do a task or project “good enough.”

You’ll realize you were spending way too much time and energy on projects and tasks and that, by spending less time, you’re actually more motivated to start and finish your goals. And you’ll no longer be a procrastinating perfectionist, but will instead be far more motivated and happy.

To whoever is reading this: Did you know that I proof read and possibly rewrite each and every one of my posts on here? I DO! This article recommends that I don't, even just once. I can see the logic in that. And I AM a perfectionist! And I AM one who gets so caught up in it being perfect, whatever it is, that I choose to NOT do it. Hey, I'm game. Let's see if this works. I know that just thinking about sending one of these posts off without rereading and correcting it makes me very uncomfortable, which only proves that point.

I think that I need to get out there in the yard tomorrow (it's dark right now) and ponder this idea slowly as I weed eat FIRST and THEN scatter my old straw bales around (weed control) and find a home for the 3 new tomato plants, even if it may be temporary. Some of those weeds are waist to shoulder high by now! And my composter hasn't been touched since DB delivered it! Touch it. Introduce myself to it...and remind myself that it's all about decomposition. How hard can that be? It's nature's way! And it's a 2::1 ratio, Nitrogen (green) to Carbon (browns) + air (tumble the bin) + water as needed, not too wet, not too dry. If it's too much one way or another, JUST ADD MORE OF THE OTHER THINGS until a balance is reached. I do see it as more of an art than a science, but how will I ever get good if I don't even try!? My God, what an epiphany!! It has to just be "good enough" and NOT PERFECT! And NO ONE will yell at me or smack me with a hairbrush if it's NOT! MD is dead.

THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!! EVERYTHING from the broken shelves in the kitchen (fell down a couple of months back; got the 120 new supports in metal rather than flimsy plastic to do all the shelves in the house so nothing falls again) to my new vacuum to my cheap-o cardboard planter boxes and rat baits to the mystery boxes in the garage...AND the clearing of the shelves themselves...and on and on and on. AH! PRUNING too!! My fear of using yeast for the first time! It's unraveling like an old sweater! DS got the business card of the cement contractor from next door when he put in a nice side parking area. We are going to call him + research several others for bids to put in a sidewalk leading to my backyard and around my a/c unit. (Never put one in in 20 years.) AND I need to call my electrician for the dedicated 20amp circuit for the freeze dryer!!! I'm feeling better already.

I think that I'll just send this <gulp!> without rereading this and correcting and go take a shower instead of worrying about it.

♥Love to you all!!♥

Honeybera

[joyagain]

Great in-sight on procrastination depression and how your poor DM conditioned you (boy she was cruel) towards perfectionism but you seeing this and seizing your freedom and using this tool of "good enough."

You are and so much more than the minimum even if and when you procrastinate. I know you know but feel to say it anyways.

Lots of wisdom in this for me too! Thank you

joyagain

[honeybera]

Hey JoyAgain! <wave!> I love that name you've chosen!

It 9am and still a bit too chilly to go outside right yet, but I feel like I may have this "up all night, sleep all day" problem doing ok (improving). But I am up, it's 9am, and I'm not nearly as depressed as I was last night! The day before I sent a text to my DB. He had reminded me when he did all that work for me ASSEMBLING EVERYTHING that Wed. would have been my father's 100th birthday, so I sent him a "Happy Birthday to our Dad" text. DB went bowling later that night in remembrance, which I thought was perfect and said so to DB in the brief text. For all the work that DB put in to the assembly of EVERYTHING that I threw his way, I have touched NOTHING since. It's still all out in the garage gathering dust. NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD AT ALL!

On Monday or Tuesday, I actually took pity enough on my struggling "window sill" tomatoes that I had shipped to me clear back in early March and PLANTED THEM in enriched potting soil (seed starter, worm castings, some Xtreme Mykos Pure Mycorrhizal Inoculum, and a few other things) in nice big one gallon plastic pots. I pulled the leaves off the bottom of the now leggy plants and set the root ball DEEP inside the pot and filled it up. And there they sat, two in the sink and one up on my work space as extreme depression began to overtake me. I finally asked DS to please pick up the 3 pots and move them to in front of my bedroom door since I no longer was coming out of my room for anything other than filling up my drinking jug with ice water or going to the kitchen for something to eat. He did so. (Thank God! - or they would've sat there withering away from a lack of sunshine until they died!) The next day I moved them - more like scooted them with my foot - so I could leave my room, but there they sat AGAIN - this time in the darkened hallway. UGH!

I finally decided to "break my complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks" (a quote from my beloved Mark Twain), and to me what that involved was to put on my shoes, bring in the dogs to my room, give them a "treat", and go grab ONE TOMATO PLANT! I set it on my tiny round eating table in my room, walked outside, and began to clear a space on my large outside table. In finally going outside, I realized that my poor Purple Collard Trees, once perky and lively, were BONE DRY and almost limp due to a lack of water. OMG. I felt SO BAD!! One had even fallen off a small table and was on the ground!! I remember that the light breeze and the fresh air felt great. I've been inside and sedentary for so long!!! This was about 9pm last night, pitch black out there, but my back porch light was on. I rearranged everything and came back in and one by one got the other two. And I was SO PROUD of myself for doing that. Then I watered everything (in the lighted area) very well. Today the tomatoes got some weak early morning sun, but depending on what I do today with the weedeating of the nearly waist-high weeds, I'd like to move them into full sunlight ASAP. They should thrive!

My two little Purple Wonder strawberries are still on the window sill in their 4" pots, but are doing fine (temporarily) and have tiny little strawberries on them. Nature is amazing!! And blessedly is also amazingly tolerant and forgiving of me. I am so grateful. I have more Albion strawberries on their way to replace the ones I killed with procrastination. They're due in any day now. So right after the weedeating I need to get busy and set up their planters (get rid of the weeds, enrich the soil, and BE READY for their arrival)! Doesn't have to be perfect, but does need to be done...well enough. I'd also like to make my first attempt at making compost <GULP!> - and I'm going to do it even if it doesn't turn out perfectly...the FIRST time I'm ever trying this! But first off - I need to weed eat the "amber fields of grain" atmosphere out there! The weeds are so tall that the dogs disappear into them in paths that they've made. Too funny!! So in about an hour I'm going out there armed with my handy-dandy old weed eater and do as much as possible today. It's supposed to be 70ºF out there today. HEAVENLY WEATHER to do my weedeating task!! And I'll leave the weeds on the ground to act as a sort of straw weed control.

I'm also studying up on Sulforaphane, an amazing newly discovered compound made when eating broccoli sprouts that are well chewed up and that are between 3-5 days old ideally.

Sulforaphane is a nutrient found in cruciferous vegetables and supplements. It is known for its antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory properties. Some people take sulforaphane for health reasons, including to lower their risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and to treat moderate to severe autism symptoms. - verywellhealth dot com

I began growing my own broccoli sprouts in my bathroom several weeks ago. I'm using it in lieu of taking the cancer "treatments" to avoid recurrence of the cancer, but this fantastic enzyme (?) is also helpful with SO MANY things: avoidance of Alzheimer's, autism (no kidding!), spinal cord ailments, and definitely several very important cancers, including breast, lung, bladder, and colon cancers. Right up my alley! I just add a big clump of the freshly grown broccoli sprouts raw to my kefir/yogurt based smoothie along with some other fresh organic veggies (celery, carrots) and fruits (especially frozen blueberries, strawberries, apples, bananas, red or black grapes), cinnamon and other tasty things and whisk it all up in my Blendtec. It ends up tasting really good and fruity and is thick like a milkshake. YUM! Sometimes I even add 1T. of unsweetened cocoa powder (Hershey's) if I want a chocolate shake. What a delicious way to fight cancer recurrence or even as its prevention, even of dementia!

This morning I found a youtube video Q&A with Dr. Jed Fahey on Sulforaphane, Moringa, and Chemoprotection. I haven't finished watching it yet (it's 2 hrs. long!), but I'm getting some real insights on this and learning how this all works! It's complicated! Dr. Fahey is a biochemist who has studied broccoli sprouts and the resulting sulforaphane in the gut microbiome at Johns Hopkins for years and has recently retired. Truly fascinating stuff! I will be watching it all over again, though. I need more than one pass at this to get the entire benefit. But what I began as an alternative to a dreadful and painful and quite dangerous process of medications, radiation, and chemotherapy (and overkill!! ) that lasts for up to 5 or 10 yrs., my sulforaphane smoothies have turned out to be a real fountain of youth with a myriad of surprising benefits with no side effects! In my case, I no longer search in vain for a particular word that has escaped me. I'm not feeling waves of lightheadedness when I lay down and my breathing has improved tremendously. MY GOUT IS GONE and I walk with no crippling pain anymore. Now if I just get some exercise in daily (gardening, housework), get plenty of sleep, and have my smoothie every day, I think I'll be just fine.

I need to get outside now. I'm not even going to think about what I'm going to do. I'm just going to put on my shoes and get out there. What I need to do will become very apparent to me. Wish me luck!

Honeybera