Cherokee Mental Health Institute, August 30, 2004 _______________________________________ I keep promising myself that I will complete Memoir Madness and get it ready for publication. Slowly, this is happening. I have completed the final proofreading and acknowledgement list (credit for sources). I tried to be thorough in verifying local and national events of the time, not always an easy task. Internet sources for 1968-1969 events can be problematic and potentially inaccurate. But if a source matches up with my memory and/or letters, then I figure that the source and my memory are accurate. The problem occurs when I can't find verification for a locale or event, such as the Mission Hotel or the tear gas attack there on New Year's Eve (1968) . This was a major event in my life, and it's like it never existed (except in my mind)! But this is one memory that is vivid, so I know it happened. Still, I can't help but have doubts. So I plan to admit (in the acknowledgements)...

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. --Winston Churchill Today on Facebook, Weight Watchers posted the following: “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” Over 200 people commented, some agreeing with the comment and others having difficulties getting back to the program. It doesn't matter what diet program one is on--it isn't easy staying the course every single day, day after day. Some days are just plain crazy busy, and yet others are filled with food traps, sometimes ones we set ourselves. Yesterday, I was hungry all day; eating healthy snacks didn't seem to help. I wanted something with carbs and fat, so, at Ruby Tuesday's, I ordered the cheddar mashed potatoes as a side. It wasn't a wrong choice, per se, but it wasn't a wise choice because I know that mashed potatoes, my Achilles Heel, kicks up the old nasty hunger meter. I ended up using 11 extra points--again, not wrong, but possibly unwise, given the upc...

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. --Mitchell Kapor I am on my way to Scranton (PA) for a meeting, so I have no real thoughts for today. My smart phone is really quite useless because the screen is too small for my old eyes, so I rarely surf on it. My next device will be an ipad. NOTE: I always post my away messages after I return; I would hate for my mailbox place to get robbed because I was away. LOL See you later!

Lile Ordev and Jennifer Semple Siegel Skopje, Macedonia, an awesome outing on Kale, a fortress March 2010 ______________________________ In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. --Graham Greene Dear Friends, Be kind to your former self. Love her, love him. Don't be so hard on that person who decided to take matters seriously and lose weight and gain a healthier body. Remember, it was that brave person who made an important decision to spend a significant amount of money and admit publicly that he or she needed help. Do you remember that day so many months ago, how tentative you felt about going to the center and how it all seemed so difficult and impossible? Do you remember hiding in the back of the room, trying not to be noticed? Well, you came back the next week, and the next week, and the next week... You have made it this far and it was because of your strong fatter self that you are still here. So instead of dissing him or ...

Physiological Impact of Obesity Image from Drexel University College of Medicine _____________________ I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America. --Morgan Spurlock, Supersize Me Obesity: Pandemic or Nonsense? Out of curiosity, I did a search on the term "Obesity Problem," just to see what is being said in the media and medical sites. Here is what I discovered : Obesity defined: An obese person has accumulated so much body fat that it might have a negative effect on their health. If a person's body weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he or she is considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese. -- Medical News Today Are YOU obese? Use this handy CDC widget to find out: BMI For Adults Widget According to the Nati...

"Sorry, my flock, you must go back to earth. No room in the cloud." --God ______________________ Well, with prophecy you got to see what happens. --George Noory It's dangerous to base predictions on The Bible, which is basically a good book with good intentions, but it's a divine-inspired text transcribed and filtered by humans, who often have their own viewpoints and agendas, no matter how holy and pious they may be. I'm not sure why some people take the Good Book so literally. But the truth is, some day, the world, as a living thing, will end, so the prophets of doom are right about the event but wrong about the time. I think we'll have some warning, perhaps thousands and even millions of years lead time; the laws of physics will dictate when and how the world will end. Today is a new day. Enjoy!

I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, "Wanted, dead or alive." --George W. Bush But it was during Barack Obama's presidency that bin Laden was found and killed, not GWB's. As I write this, President Obama has just confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden, brought about by special operations forces in Pakistan. Normally, I would not find joy in someone's death, but this man was pure evil, a mass murderer, and the world is better without him--although an alive bin Laden on trial might have been satisfying to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. Let us hope that the international and political situation changes for the better and not for the worse. A new world order? No doubt, May Day--May 1, 2011--will conjure up that age-old historical question, "Where were you when..."

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth. --George Canning Yesterday , I wrote about worry and hurry; today's subject is closely related: obsession with numbers and stats, particularly when it comes to weight and weighing. I must confess: I am number obsessed; the number on the scale can make or break my day. I'm working on this fault, but I'm not there yet, so this post is for me as much as it is for others. As I have said in an earlier post, we don't gain weight overnight. In fact, it often takes years to pack on 20 pounds, slowly sneaking up on us, until one day, we look in the mirror or at a photograph and exclaim, EGAD! When we're slowly gaining weight, we don't jump on the scale six times a day and fret over every 1/2 ounce we gain in the course of a day, and we don't allow the scale to define our day. If anything, we're in a complete state of denial regarding our reality. But when we're trying to lose, we get this idea that we shoul...

The lovely tomato is the mascot of this site (it was a close call between the apple and the tomato, but the tomato ultimately won out, LOL), so I thought you might enjoy Pablo Neruda's poem about tomatoes: The street filled with tomatoes midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato, its juice runs through the streets. In December, unabated, the tomato invades the kitchen, it enters at lunchtime, takes its ease on countertops, among glasses, butter dishes, blue saltcellars. It sheds its own light, benign majesty. Unfortunately, we must murder it: the knife sinks into living flesh, red viscera, a cool sun, profound, inexhaustible, populates the salads of Chile, happily, it is wed to the clear onion, and to celebrate the union we pour oil, essential child of the olive, onto its halved hemispheres, pepper adds its fragrance, salt, its magnetism; it is the wedding of the day, parsley hoists its flag, potatoes bubble vigorously, the aroma of the roast knocks at the door, it's time!...

A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden, swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air. --Henry Ward Beecher The versatile orange is not only perfumy, tasty, and sweet, but it may also help keep your appetite in check. For the last few days, I have been eating an orange with my regular breakfast (flatbread, lean ham, egg white omelet, a slice of non-fat cheese), and I have noticed that I am able to go longer (over 4 hours!) before getting hungry for lunch. I'm usually hungry within 3 hours, so this is major! I had heard that citrus fruits were good appetite suppressants, but I never really believed it before. Of course, other factors may be in play, such as my insulin resistance working itself out, so I'm not ready to assert definitively that oranges have been responsible for this positive change. But it's certainly worth a try! Eat oranges, my cyber friends.