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Veronica, thanks for sharing a positive experience of Christmas. I could envision you sitting in the glassed in room, gazing contemplatively out onto a snow covered landscape (or maybe just grass).
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My favorite thing is this very Christmas. We are at eldest daughters new home and it is so peaceful and relaxing. Even hubby has mellowed out and relaxed. The grandkids have all matured and are getting along and much quieter. I have spent the day in my recliner in daughters glassed in office on the back of the house overlooking the horse pastures and the new barn under construction. People come in to talk and offer food as the mood takes them and hubby has come to sit and be companionable rather than hiding some where. Wishing such peace to everyone and a much better New Year. I want everyone of my friends to know how your good wishes and thoughts carried me through my illness. In the darkest hours i could feel loving hands lifting me up and everyone along with the nurses saying "Don't give up" in my ear. The Drs just wanted to know if i would like a DNR and would like to be done with all this treatment. How much resuscitation would I like. Well you can give me a couple of shocks then hubby will decide. I don't want my ribs broken or become a vegetable So many blessings
Love Veronica
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Jingle, Merry Christmas to you too! Welcome here!
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Garden, I have an inhaler for reactive airways, so I am still good with the chocolate.
When feeling bad, I just put one chocolate chip inside each compartment of my pill box instead of pills, then I get well!
Really! My physician is still laughing! He had the audacity to suggest raisins instead, what is wrong with doctors today? They are just not getting it!
Even if I try a gluten-free diet in 2016, dark chocolate will still be on my plate, or in my pill box. Don't worry, I only use the inhaler 3X per year.
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Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all my new friends and acquaintances. So nice to have a place to vent, or just express an opinion. AC is my new favourite!

My favourite movie line of all time is ""You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and ... blow", from To Have And To Have Not. Love LB.
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GA, I just can't eat dairy in any form, but only the yogurt makes me wheeze. Tried organic Liberty yogurt and moved on to Greek yogurt -- all the same. Too much cheese upsets my stomach, and I stopped drinking milk a long time ago, after reading "The China Study", about how Big Dairy suppressed all the studies in the '40s and '50s that said milk isn't good for you. Maybe the refined sugar is the the fly in the ointment -- but I sure can't give up ice cream ...

Maybe the refined sugar in chocolate is what's doing it?? Did you know that only cocoa is good for you -- not chocolate? Chocolate has very little cocoa in it; cocoa has antioxidants and is loaded with minerals -- magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, potassium, and manganese. So have a cup of cocoa and not a chocolate bar. You can search for chocolate hoax and that may give you some results.
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CentralMassach, thanks for your kind greetings, and the same back to you!
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Jinglebts, I don't think so as I don't eat yogurt. My mother used to make what we called mahdzoon, which was real yogurt w/o all the fruit, but I never could eat it.

I'm wondering what's in the yogurt that causes you to wheeze? Maybe some preservatives? Does this happen with any brand of yogurt?

I suspected the refined flour and sugar because of the inflammatory nature of refined products. Chocolate - that's a mystery. Everyone knows chocolate is the best food of all, so how can it be bad for me and cause wheezing?

Seriously, I suspect one of the additives, flavorings or preservatives. But since I've been off refined flour and sugar, no more wheezing. Chocolate is still an issue. I may have to make the supreme sacrifice after all!
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GA, yogurt causes me to wheeze. Could it be that??
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Send, I'm giving up chocolate because it's causing wheezing, like asthma, and shortness of breath b/c of the breathing difficulties. I've narrowed the causes down to chocolate, refined flour and sugar. I'm giving up them all, but chocolate is fighting its banishment so that's a harder battle.
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Hi Everyone! I just want to wish everyone a happy holiday season - Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Joy Noel, Happy Hanukkah, etc. I just love all the topics and humor on this site! Sometimes things are sad, but there is almost always a bright side, and everyone on this site is so willing to share their stories and advice. Thanks to you all, and God bless us everyone!
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Gershun: There is a sphincter at the top of the esophagus. From Wikipedia: The upper esophageal sphincter (UES) is a bundle of muscles at the top of the esophagus.

CM: You can even by flypaper in new-fashioned hardware stores. Our local Canadian Tire has it.
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Sendme the sphincter?..............really????? Oh, you mean the esophagus .....
Ahhhhh.
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Garden, giving up chocolate? Please explain, do you need some money or something? Are you sick? Is it really true that chocolate allows the sphincter at the esophagus to open? For that, I just eat less, and earlier in the day. Give up chocolate??? Noooooo!
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Yeah, I'm the original party girl. Half a glass of champagne or wine and I fall asleep in 1/2 an hour. That's my big indulgence! Oh, well, there was chocolate, but I'm having to give that up..
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A glass of champagne every few years? Party on girl!
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Outside was cold and kinda grey, stormy clouds look beautiful and ominous. There were no visible ants, must be hibernating.
Aired out the whole house with open windows, fans, central fan, for 30 minutes.
Has anyone read that the inside air can be more toxic than outdoors?
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Windy, that reminds me that every few years or so I have a little glass of champagne or cold duck while watching a New Years Eve ball broadcast from Vienna....in the comfort of my house, wrapped up in quilts and big thick socks.
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I think all youse guys have been breathing too much bug spray. Try vodka or Valium. Probably healthier.
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Garden, instead of reading, get yourself up and outside! Look for ants if you want, but everyone, get outside! Open all the windows, clear out the toxic indoor air,
get up, get out!
Breathe deep.
Me too, going now. Really, really I am.
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Now I'm having visions of scenes from some of those cheap horror flicks of angry ants on the move, maybe singing "Onward, angry ants, marching off to war!" Disgusting but fascinating species in their highly regulated and caste-driven societies.

That could certainly describe those miserable fire ants or whatever they're called that attack in formation and wipe out crops and whatever else is in their way.

Maybe they're the ones that trained the ISIS nuts.

And no, like Gershun I haven't been drinking, not watching bug spray commercials, but for some reason remembering some of more graphic horror movies over the years.

Time to read some more gardening magazines and get normal again.
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I've not been drinking......just probably seen too many Raid bug spray commercials:)
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This is becoming humorous - CM with her graphic descriptions of a Bosch purgatory crawling with ants instead of pathetic humans (I never could look at his paintings for more than a few seconds - they were ghastly), Gershun with her description of an ant brigade on the offensive (I'm visualizing Delacroix's Liberty Leading the Ants), and CWillie with her insight into Gershun's nips at the holiday drinks.

Keep it up - I'm in a much better mood just from having visualized your graphic descriptions!
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Gershun, isn't it a little early out there to be into the holiday punch....an ant counter attack? smh
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It always sucks when the ants mount a counter attack. You know, with their shields at the ready. Guns ablazing! Screaming Viva la ants!
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You can still get fly papers in old-fashioned hardware stores. They do nothing for your décor, but they are the only completely safe and non-toxic control - assuming you can get over the shivers once they've been in action for a week or so and look like a Hieronymus Bosch depiction of insect purgatory. In the olden days they were laced with arsenic, but the modern ones are just very sticky and apparently contain some kind of irresistible fly pheromone to attract the little brutes.

With ants, the only really effective answer is to trace and destroy the nest - if it's accessible, boiling water in large quantities and try not to think about karma; if it isn't, use powder on their main traffic routes - individuals track the poison back into the nest and it will eventually reach the queen, which is the key goal. Tricky if it's under the foundations, of course...
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Send, I remember fly strips. I believe there were also flea traps with sticky paper that would trap the fleas when they got onto it.

I think they could work for ants, but the ants would have to be channeled (rather, "tempted") onto the strips. My experience with ants is that they like to travel, all over, wherever they want to go in search of either water or food.

That's a good idea though. I think I'll try it by putting some water in a small tin or tuna fish can and let the ants get trapped on the sticky stuff. You could also make a trap of duct tape overlapped to create a solid border.

I've had ant problems periodically and have one now since the weather has been so warm. They also seem to come inside when the neighbor cuts branches and piles them up on the side of her yard, fairly close to the setback line of my property.

The best method I've found for eradicating ants is the mixture of 20 mule team borax (I think the invisible mules stomp on the ants), sugar and water. I can't find the specific proportions right now because McAfee is on holiday break and isn't advising which googled sites are safe (I don't visit any websites that aren't marked safe).

What I found worked best was to use 2 throw-away dishes, one with a borax and sugar "moat", with a smaller can or dish in the center, containing the water. The ants had to cross the moat in order to get to the water, tracking through the borax and taking it back to the nests.

I used it one day on the tiny kitchen ants. Put it out, next day there must have been 70 or 80 or more little tiny ants crawling around an area of about 14" by 14". Next day, even less. That was a few years ago and no little ants have been in that area since.
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I'd never heard of Chad Prather, very amusing, I'll have to watch a few more of his videos! I also spent time this morning shopping on amazon trying to find something useful that ships to Canada for under $25, all in all not a bad way to waste time ;)
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I was suppose to sleep early tonight. I'm not a Chad Prather hardcore fan. I do like most of his videos. And I will admit, he is very, very easy to the eyes (as in handsome) ... before he started growing the facial hair. Tonight, I watched several of his new videos, laughed on some, Yes! On others, etc...

He's a straight shooter... when it comes to political correctness, disciplining children, etc... I rewatched it....
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Have yourselves a Merry little Christmas!
Let it snow, baby...let it reindeer.
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