More Fall

The question occurred, should i stop at 200 or keep going? I don't think i've a choice. I have to write. Why not here?

I wanted to comment, i'm a phantom on a lot of blogs. I read quite a number (& am "anonymous follower" on most) but i don't often comment as i don't usually feel i've anything significant to share/add.

These are pics of our peach harvest. Since i like the peaches fresh i'll be eating quite a number & giving them to friends & family. I'm cutting back on sugar-sweetened things & don't want to make a peach preserve or anything that would require sugar. Besides, while i love peaches fresh, i'm much less enthusiastic about peaches in other form.

I might try making a peach shrub, tho. Wish i could remember the instructions i saw recently on a blog that told how. I need to create a list of what i see where. I might not need the info right now, but i tuck it into my head for later. The problem is, later i think, "I know i saw that recently. Now i wonder where . . . ?" I miss my brain.

The other pics are mostly squirrels. I sat on the front porch swing for a while after picking peaches & took pics of the squirrels.

Our apples, (the first pic at the top) which my mother said are McIntosh, seem to be ripe. Friend David was here today for a massage, & he said that they can be left on the tree for some time yet, that they only get sweeter. The problem is, however, the longer they are on the tree the more the birds get. From what i can tell, the birds have been at about 50% of them already. So maybe next weekend we'll pic the rest.

I get a massage tonight & i'm quite excited. I did a "trade" with another therapist, Daniel. I worked on him a couple of weeks ago, so now it is my turn. I am so looking forward to it.

I had the fiasco with the Splenda last week. And, of course because i used meds i had those poisons in me, too. The hosp staff told me that having the meds IM would make them stay in my system "four times longer!" than having them IV. They made it sound like a good thing! Problem is, of course, that i don't clear things very well at all, & four times longer is not good at all for me.

Because i want to keep a record for myself, i'm posting what i wrote to some friends last May about Splenda.

Almost a week ago we bought some homemade cookies from some neighborhood kids at their lemonade stand. The cookies were for Duane . . . but Kathryn snagged one. Yep, i know.

Within a short time my lips started feeling tingly & swollen. I waited a bit to see if i was having a severe allergic reaction, but it seemed to be only my lips. It felt like when i've had thrush before, but it hasn't developed, & was only my lips not the rest of my mouth, & seemed to be rapid onset. ???

I have tried every home remedy i can find for chapped lips & nothing has helped. They've peeled twice. I've also used some lip balms i have at home, high quality stuff, but they almost seem to make it worse. I have lanolin too. Nothing is helping. Yesterday i was snacking on a pear & some junk food (but good stuff! no chemicals in it). My lips got hugely swollen. I checked the label on the Trader Joe's cheese puffs & there is nothing in them i haven't had before & again, no chemicals. The swelling subsided quite a bit within an hour. But last night i had a salad with organic dressing & my lips swelled with that as well, & stayed swollen until bedtime. I mean really puffy so that my front teeth were forming impressions. I've decided they are just raw & reacting to everything - food, lip balms, etc.

I remember this clearly as i wondered, as we were walking away, if the lemonade was made with Splenda for it had an "off" taste to me. I don't think i'd ever had Splenda before (i don't trust artifical sweeteners) but i thought, at the time, that having it once wouldn't hurt me. I think i was wrong.

Anyway, no more Splenda for me, or any other chemical "food"/food additive that i can avoid.

But, a couple of days ago i also had some very tart black berries. I decided to sugar sweeten them, & i rather over-did the sugar. It was "good stuff" - meaning organic & minimally processed. I recognize that sugar is never very healthy. But within a short time i didn't feel very well. And i've been achy ever since. I know that dear friend Cindy has said that she can't do sugar any more. I think i'm going to have to be very careful about any type of added sugar.

Health Begins with Mom recently posted 76 Reasons to Avoid Sugar. I don't know about the veracity of these, having not researched it myself, but if even 1/4 of it is true, sugar is something to avoid most of the time.

(I just love this last pic of the squirrel, looking down at me sitting on the swing, wondering what the human was up to.)

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