Whenever there's good news/bad news I always want the bad news first preferring to end the revelation on an up note. So, the not so good news first.
I had my annual yesterday with the results of my blood work and yes, my cholesterol is still a little high which I don't take meds for, my blood pressure was a little high (it fluctuates) and I don't take meds for that either and my PCP is fine with that, we just keep an eye on those things, thyroid levels good and I do take meds for that, however, my blood sugar level was 120 and anything over 100 is considered pre-diabetic. Last time I had blood work done it was 86, the time before that 108. A blood sugar level of 126 is considered diabetic. Yay me.
Diabetes runs in my family. My maternal grandfather was diabetic and his brothers all died from diabetes related health issues. My maternal aunt was diabetic. It seemed to have skipped my generation until a couple of years ago when my brother achieved the level of pre-diabetes and both my children have high blood sugar and now me. My sister is holding her own.
So dietary changes are in order. Since I don't use sugar, I drink my coffee black, don't drink soda, don't drink sweet tea, don't snack, only have desert in the house less than a fourth of the time, that leaves carbs. Now no more than a half cup serving at a time of corn, potatoes, rice, bread, tortillas, and pasta. Fruit should be limited to berries which have less sugar than tree fruit though I can still have tree fruit, just not a whole peach or banana etc. at one time. I can still have my evening cocktail with vodka and tequila being the best choices as they have the least sugar (so that's good cause that's what I drink) but no more orange juice as a mixer and I have to switch to diet tonic (actually the tonic I use does have a 'light' version but still uses sugar instead of chemical sweeteners, just not as much).
Oh, and I have a vitamin D deficiency which I surely don't understand as I'm outside nearly every day and I don't use sunscreen so she wants me to take a supplement. And of course vitamin D is essential for absorption of calcium so she scheduled a bone density test to see if my osteoporosis (something else I refuse to take a med for) is progressing or what.
Great. Just great. I turned 70 and started falling apart.
So, now, the good stuff.
As I mentioned previously, not one of our 4 pecan trees produced any nuts this year but my neighbor Leonard, who also has several trees, some of which produced, shared some of his with me
And my other neighbor Gary who knows a guy who manages a small pecan orchard and blah blah blah story and he's got a lot that got cracked by the picker (I assume that's a machine that gets them off the ground) and was happy to get rid of some and I came home to find this by my garage door.
More good stuff...Mary Moon sent me some roots of her pine cone lilies that I've been pining for (see what I did there?) and also included in the box was this sweet little feather and...
cookies! Her oatmeal, pecan, raisin, chocolate chip cookies and yes, I am going to eat them, pre-diabetic or not. They aren't that sweet so perfect for me.
And the last bit of good stuff is that I found the jeans I want, Levi's women's 505 straight leg size 6 S, on-line and ordered them and they'll be here Thursday. This style and size is almost impossible to find in stores. Not the style so much as the preferred color and size. And of all the places that came up from my internet search, only Amazon had the style, the preferred color, and my size. The last time I thought I ordered what I wanted, they turned out to be Levi's classic straight leg. Sounds the same right? Wrong. Classic straight leg are stretchy. So now I'll have two pair of intact jeans. My other two are torn out at the knee or just above and while people pay good money to buy jeans already torn out at the knee or just above, I'm not one of them. I get my torn out jeans the old fashioned way, by wearing them out.
