Sunday, 06/18/23

Good morning !! I have not been to church for a Sunday service since Covid. I love contemporary services with lots of music and real world messages. I am going to go with a friend today. Church feels like something I am missing in my spiritual life, although I believe my God is available 24/7.

I loved San Francisco ten years ago, but haven't been there since. I agree about taking the beauty around us for granted. Sometimes I'll realize I haven't walked the beach in a while, even though I see the ocean and inlet every day.

With my stomach bug, I bounced from 158 to 152 to 154 and now I'm 152 again. It's time to get back into that 144-149 safety zone. Short of plastic surgery, can anybody recommend a product to tighten and firm loose skin ?

I grew up as a very "churched" person, 2 services on Sunday, and youth group and choir practice on Wednesdays. I became Catholic when I married, and we went to Mass regularly. I wanted my kids to have a tradition and they could decide when they were adults if they wanted to continue it. DS follows some spiritual tenants of Buddhism, DD still attends Mass, but is a radical reformer :) She had a Spotify playlist called Catholic Bangers, which is probably the kind of music you like, modern hymns. We too stopped attending during Covid. In those years, our Church has moved from being very social justice focused to being more conservative and pushing some of the culture wars agenda. We think we need a new place for Mass. Your post reminds me that I need to make this happen. I believe there are many, many roads to God, for me, the ritual of the Mass calms my mind, and I can find my road in that moment. But certainly not the only way.

Gentle rain this morning, much needed! I made "hot dish" to bring to my parents house, along with a few other things. My BFF and my nephew and his family will join us, so party for my Dad!

Interesting points about religion. My exposure as a child was colored by the fact that I was friends with our minister's daughter and he was an absolute tyrant at home. The fact that his assistant had an affair with another friend's mother didn't help my feelings about organized religion.

I believe that trying to be a good person and appreciating the beauty of nature and the joy of our connections with family, friends and animals is the best way to worship.

The order of Jesuits agrees with you. They believe appreciation of nature and other good things is a form of prayer.

No creams or lotions have ever worked for me unfortunately. Though keeping my skin hydrated as much as possible seems to help it look a bit better?

Lucky you (not really though) to have a head start on losing (and not much to lose). Somehow I don't think being in Aruba counts as a head start, nor does the eggs Benedict I had for breakfast even though I only ate 1/2 of the English muffin.

We already had our walk and then a nice Father's Day breakfast at our resort on the outside deck. Time to read and reflect. Mike is a great Dad as his children and grandchildren can attest to. His feelings for his family was one of the first things about him that attracted me.

Have a sunny Sunday!

It's an attractive quality for sure!

Happy Father's Day, ladies! Couldn't help myself.

Ron has been all over me the past few days about planning for my dad's father's day. He forgets that my family has never been a big Hallmark Card moment family. Birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day have always been very low key in my family. In his family those annual holidays are monumental ordeals. Every January there is the January B'day celebration (Ron, his sister, and now deceased Step Mother). April brings on the April B'day celebration and then there is another one in September. There was also the get together over Memorial Day for Ron's father's b'day for several years after Ron's dad passed away. I am happy that tradition did not stick. It was a bit morose. Anyhow, I'm thinking we will visit my dad around dinner time and have dinner with him in the dining room at his assisted living place. He's still not really mobile enough to go our for dinner.

I am beginning to notice a new phase of dementia in Dad. He is beginning to be more child like in his reactions and his thinking. He had a panic attack the other night. He has never, ever had such an episode - stoicism and puritanical repression have been his middle names his entire life. His hip/leg was hurting for over doing it a bit and having PT that same day. He starting thinking that the blood flow to his hip was compromised. He started to panic and the pain seemed to increase to an unmanageable level so he had a full blown emotional breakdown with crying and apparently even some screaming in pain.... 911 was called and he was taken to the ER. Luckily, his leg was fine and the docs and my brother were able to calm him down. I am thinking Dad has passed through stage 4 and is now entering stage 5 of vascular dementia. It's not pretty.

Thank you CC for posting that article link yesterday. It's really triggered some thinking!

After reading the article CC linked yesterday, I have been thinking about DD's comment about a "semi glutide treatment". I'm thinking now that given what the study showed, it's not unreasonable to take a med for the long term. How is treating a brain disfunction any different than treating say hypertension or high cholesterol?

I thought back to my own early post VSG days. While my hunger was pretty much non existent for quite some time, I NEVER felt satisfied after meals. I remember feeling "cheated" early on because I never felt that "full" feeling so many people talked about. The only way i knew I was full was when I ate too much and could feel the food up against my esophageal sphincter. I also didn't feel emotionally satisfied with my meals and I wonder now if that is because my receptors were not working as the study showed. All really interesting stuff to consider. But I am feeling a little "damned if I do, and damned if I don't" about obesity this morning.

This sh*t ain't easy!

What I thought was genius about the study was using feeding tubes to bypass the mouth/chewing/pleasure-of-eating mechanisms. I have always considered my issues a product of my emotions, using food to soothe, cope, and reward, and lack of willpower.

But to study the brain strictly as it reacts to what is placed in the stomach without any of the pleasure and ritual of getting it there was fascinating and made me for the first time feel like maybe I'm not just a product weak will and over self-indulgence...

Bless your Dad. And you and your brother for helping him through this hard time as much as you can.

Ocean, if you are looking for a facial tightener, there are several that work temporarily. They work for the day basically. The best are the eye skin firmers. You can find them in all price ranges, but the two key ingredients are Hyaluronic acid and caffeine. As far as body firmers, there is only one thing that works to my knowledge - building muscle to fill the loose skin.

I woke up at 6am to three balloons firing their burners and about 30 feet over my backyard. Surprising and noisy! my neighbor texted to ask me to walk at 7. So I hauled my carcass out to meet her. We had a nice, albeit hot walk.

I got in the pool, but it was hot rather than refreshing. I think i will leave the cover off tonight.

The Milky Way was so clear last night! I took pictures and posted online, but if you look at the pictures in the light, they are harder to see than at night. So look at night if you want to really see it. It looks like a cloud, but it's the sky itself.

Chore day. I changed the hummingbird feeders, the water filters, and reset some of the smoke detectors that never got updated from the previous owner's wifi. So I can't fix them through the alp (they are Nest ones). A few I am going to have to have someone not afraid of very tall ladders reset. What got me thinking is there was a loud voice through the house telling me the smoke detectors were going to go off and be loud. I wonder if there was dust or a bug or something in one. It never went off, but scared the crap out of me as I didn't know they talked and didn't know how to reset them (turns out I can't without the app).

I think that covers my day. Hope you all had nice ones!