Sensational Haiku Wednesday

Welcome to “Sensational Haiku Wednesday!”

Click here for info and background on this weekly event!

The basics:

Haiku is simple! It is 3 non-rhyming lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively (a great way to use your fingers!)

This week’s theme is: Health

Years; a toll taken
Shifting, drifting, wearing… parts
Youth; a fleeting gift

Carefree and blissful
Seasons, moons, tides, pass, wane, flow
Careful and wiser

Secret to long life;
Less stress, fat, couch, and excess?
Nope; just keep breathing!

Regrets? Have a few
Then again, few to mention
Sinatra gets it

Folks, a quick note about comments: I do visit everyone, but a few of you don’t have Name/URL enabled on your blogs, and I CAN’T comment in that case. Take a moment to enable that, will you? There are other ways to combat spam and still allow people with their own domains to leave their homage to your greatness ;)

Next week’s theme: Fortitude (Definition)

Note: Nothing makes me happier than to see new people getting “hooked on haiku”! Keep it going to make it to the Hooked on Haiku List (if you’re not listed and should be, please let me know!)

To participate in this week’s event, please use the following code in your post on your own blog (if you don’t have a blog, post your Haiku as a comment):

<a href="http://youknowthatblog.com/tag/haiku-wednesday"><img src="http://youknowthatblog.com/images/youknowthatblog-haiku2.jpg" width="250" height="160" alt="Join the fun!" title="Join the fun!"></a>

(Oh, and before I get going on this, I just want to assure people that I am not pregnant. Really, I’m not. I didn’t cheat on my husband, either. It was an April Fools joke. Relax!)

I’m getting quite alarmed at the amount of people I know who are developing a pronounced stoop to their shoulders. Even a hump-back, in a couple extreme cases. My voice coach is one of them, and it’s alarming because he’s still quite a young man. Another is someone we sing with who I’ve mentioned on here before (an extremely obnoxious someone who I’m not terribly fond of). She’s 60 or 61 now, so I can only imagine how crippled she’ll be as an old woman if she’s already getting a hump at her age.

What I’m really worried about is our youth, though! Can you look at a crowd of kids and find a single one who stands erect, with good posture? Hard to find. The Teen is in cadets, so they stand at attention quite a bit, and know good posture. I’m hoping that she keeps that in mind as she ages. I have been known to come up behind my kids (and the Hubby) and poke them in the spine as a reminder to sit up straight. It bothers me! Don’t even get me started on too-heavy back packs. Go through your kids’ backpacks and make sure they’re only carrying what they absolutely need to have in there.

My neck is aching from a pinched nerve as I write this, which probably was the reason I got to thinking about the subject. I have a great office chair, and on it I have a firm, round, bolster-shaped support cushion that I set at just below my shoulder blades to force me to sit up straight. Without it I find myself slumping as I work, and my shoulders and the middle of my back get quite sore. I also stretch and move around quite a bit because I sit here far too many hours a day most of the time.

Do I need to worry about you too? When you started reading this post, did you find yourself suddenly straightening up? I hope so.

How can you tell if you or someone you love has bad posture? Here are some signs:

Protruding abdomen
Hyperextended knees
Rounded or uneven shoulders
Curved spine
Sunken chest
Unusually flat back
Swayed back
Uneven hips
Neck craned too far forward
Chin thrust out

Now here are some disturbing facts about how bad posture can affect your health:

Limited flexibility and range of motion
Loss of vital lung capacity
Distorted skeletal alignment
Headaches
Joint stiffness and pain
Jaw pain
Reduction of blood and oxygen to the brain
Muscular tension
Wear and tear on connective tissue
Predisposition to injury

I’d be willing to bet that more than one of you suffers from at least a couple of those symptoms.

Meanwhile, good posture makes you look taller, thinner, and more self-assured. It makes your clothes fit – and look – better on you. It reduces headaches and gives you more energy. And hello… if slumping actually takes away vital blood and oxygen to your brain, don’t you think you’ll think better too??

So… what do you do?

Why is it that it always comes back to that dreaded should-be-four-letters-but-isn’t word? You got it; Exercise.

Yeah, but it’s not as simple as that, either. First and foremost, you need to actually be aware of your body, and how it’s positioned. Keep that awareness, and make adjustments to your normal movements and resting positions during the day. Stretch your back and neck muscles, and work on toning those supporting muscles – you need them to be strong in order to hold you in the right position. Too often those under-used muscles are the reason for the poor posture in the first place. Google has tons of posture-friendly exercises just waiting for you to find them.

Oh sure, I’m a fine one to talk, sitting here with pain radiating down my arm (the right one, and yes I’m sure I’m not having a heart attack). Even with my groovy chair and supporting cushion I know I spend far too much time in this position, and it takes a toll on me. I’m also under a lot of stress usually with my businesses and personal obligations, and that isn’t good for the tension in my neck and shoulders either. (Plus email from a certain someone who really should just call me from now on and not mess with my head, dammit! You know who you are. And yes, I still love you and you well know it.) And that “E” word… well, I don’t get enough of that either. So maybe I’m talking about it today to motivate all of us into getting more aware of our posture, and to actually do something about it.

Ok, so do something about it!

Atten-SHUN!

We all know there’s no “miracle cure” for colds. But I do have a sure-fire way of fighting them head-on!

When Main Street was getting busy last year and heading into Christmas-gig craziness, I started getting panicky. Not because I was nervous about our up-coming gigs, but because I always get sick around this time of year. And face it, you know I never do anything half way. When I got sick, it wasn’t just with a stuffy nose or sore throat. No, every year I would get something horrific, like full blown pneumonia, or massive sinus and throat infections, where I’d be begging people to just put the pillow over my face and put me out of my misery.

I’m not a good patient, so you have to know they were sorely tempted.

Last year I put out a distressed profile update on Facebook saying I was getting sick, probably blaming my kids (since that’s what I do), and one of my friends who is the principal conductor of a symphony orchestra east of Toronto immediately told me to go and get some oil of oregano.

He’s told me about it before, but frankly it sounded like more herbal nonsense to me, and I’d ignored him. Echinacea never worked for me – at all – so I wasn’t big on trying anything else. Until then – I was desperate! I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it, so off I went to Wal-Mart to get me some.

Did he warn me about how absolutely vile it tastes? No, he did not.

Did he warn me that I would belch oregano for an hour after taking it? He did not.

Did he tell me it works and would stop the cold in it’s tracks? Yes he did, and he was right!

So… maybe he thought I could handle the oil on it’s own, and didn’t bother to tell me that you could get it in soft gel form (much more expensive though). Turns out I’m a bit of a pansy, so I couldn’t. Well, wouldn’t. Whatever. What I did was seek out a health food store and buy some empty gel caps.

Put 4 drops of the oil in, swallow it happily since there’s no wretched, lingering, burning after taste when you do it that way, and wait for the oregano burps. A very small price to pay to avoid getting sick, let me tell you.

Here’s what I do: Take 7 empty gel caps, and put 4 drops of undiluted Oil of Oregano into each. Put ‘em in a baggie, keep them where you’ll remember to take one every morning, and take one every day. Don’t take it for more than a week. You don’t need to.

I’ve become a supplier for our group – well, ShaMoo bought her own, so I guess I’m just a supplier for the guys. I look very much like a drug dealer when I hand J-B his little baggie, and I make sure I take a guilty look around in all directions before I slip it to him, just to complete that image. It’s all very clandestine.

Folks, I haven’t been sick since I started doing this. I’m not kidding! Every time I feel a sore throat or sniffle coming on, I take OoO (J-B’s nickname for it, which is awesome) for a week, and I never get a full blown cold. Never mind that though – I haven’t had pneumonia or a sinus/throat infection either!

ShaMoo’s husband explained it to me one day last winter. He’s a geneticist and knows what he’s talking about, so I tend to listen when he speaks about stuff like this… oil of oregano acts to slow down cell growth in your body, which allows your natural immune system to step up and combat whatever is trying to take hold. Simple and straightforward – no mystery involved. However, because it slows down ALL cell growth in your body – both good and bad – you shouldn’t take it for longer than a week. Oh, you’ll find people doing just that, and so-called experts touting the benefits of doing so. Simple fact is, you really just need to take it when you start to feel like you’re coming down with something (or your spouse/kids are sick), and then only for a week. And of course, I’m talking about people who are otherwise healthy – if you’re not, you should ask your doctor about it, and do some research yourself. Common sense, right?

Because little ones can’t take it orally, that sort of leaves them out of the benefits, doesn’t it? Nope – spend some quality time after their bath at night and rub a couple drops into each foot. It will absorb into their skin, and still work the same way – and because you’re doing the rubbing, you’ll get the benefits to some degree too. I tried this on Wee One a couple weeks ago when she was sneezing up a storm, and the sneezing lasted all of a day and a half, and required no other cold meds! I rubbed her feet every night for almost a week, which she absolutely LOVED by the way, and she was right as rain and felt great. It absorbs well, doesn’t leave an oily residue, and really doesn’t smell too bad. After the first night, Wee One started asking for it, and even offered to go to bed early to get her foot rubs. Holy smokes… I’m a child-whisperer!!

You can get oil of oregano pretty much anywhere that sells organic and health products – I’ve seen it in our local Super Store, at Wal-Mart, and all drugstores. Haven’t seen it at Costco yet.

I only WISH this were a paid endorsement of the stuff – I completely swear by it.

I had about a dozen vials of blood taken on Monday in anticipation of a visit with my doctor today. Foremost on my mind was the extreme levels of cholesterol I was harboring at the last visit, and what that could mean in the long run, given my family history of cardiovascular disease.

Imagine my surprise then, when I went in today expecting to be smacked and medicated, to find that my levels are actually very close to normal now! All except my HDL (good) cholesterol level, which is extremely low. It’s hereditary though, so there may not be too much I can do about that.

Everything else came back sterling – I am one very healthy gal! My doctor was suitably impressed too, and asked what I’d been doing differently. The only thing I could come up with was the group, and how happy I’ve been this past year, singing shoulder to shoulder with the finest people I know. Laughter and happiness makes you healthy – did you know?

I’m relieved. The only thing I have to worry about is the acid reflux thing, which I am taking new meds for (that appear to be working! YAY!).

Oh, and Thom? I also had hormone levels tested… and I’m nowhere near menopausal. So [and even though I think the world of you, I mean this sincerely] shut up, will you??? ;)

P.S. Sensational Haiku Wednesday isn’t over – find today’s here!

It’s been a while since I posted anything that was just about ME. Mostly it’s because… well, while I do adore talking (and writing) and sometimes I wonder if it’s just to see/hear myself do it, I don’t talk about myself all that much. Probably a good thing, since you’d all get very bored and never visit me again. That said, this one post will be a bit of a ramble about me, so if you’re interested, grab a coffee and settle in. If not, I have a fabulous list of blogs in my previous post – I highly recommend each and every one.

The last few months since I started blogging again have been both terrible and great. I get such joy from writing and creating. It’s therapeutic to be able to put your thoughts down digitally or on paper, working out frustrations, worries, joys. I kept a journal throughout Jr. and Sr. high school, college, and into the early years of marriage before kids came along and life got in the way. I remember laying in bed writing pages and pages on the things going on in my life, wanting to capture every nuance, and knowing that as I wrote, I’d be able to figure out how I wanted to deal with a problem, or approach something new. It definitely probably kept me from murdering my bratty little brother in his sleep doing a few things that crossed my mind more than once. Blogging is certainly a more public way of doing the same thing. I’ve enjoyed sharing ideas and events, and have made some truly diverse and interesting friends recently!

'Stolen' from the sites of the many bloggers who have made my days brighter! Can you find what I took from your site?

You might be wondering what I meant by terrible though… I have a bit of an OCD where things that I love are concerned. Being overweight fluffy and having a few health concerns (PCOS, Hypothyroidism, high Cholesterol [all very much related to being fluffy], and a few other minor issues) means I should be far more active than I am. I’ve chosen career paths that mean I spend long hours sitting in this chair here though, ostensibly so I could be home with my kids as they grew up, whilst still bringing in a paycheque (“check”, for my Merkin friends!). While I know full well I’m hurting myself by doing so, I can’t seem to help it. Work must be done, and oh yeah, Facebook and the Blog can be done at the same time! “Wow, it’s midnight already?”

So while I do work 12+ hour days more often than not, it’s really only my fingers and my eyes that get a solid workout on a regular basis. Blogging has not helped that out at all, even though I have loved every solid minute of it!

I know what I need to do, it’s just a matter of getting off my butt to do it. Other women have no trouble getting in lots of exercise, so why can’t I?? I’ve been a member of the Goodlife gym for 8 years now! They haven’t seen me in about 4 years a while though.

Past the fact that I will never, ever be seen in a bikini again, and I’m ok with that, I really think I just need to get active to be healthy. With this birthday anniversary looming over me next week, it only drives home that I’m no longer in the blush of youth, and time isn’t going to wait for me. My kids deserve a healthy mom who cares enough about herself to work at enjoying “real life” with them.

So look what this random, rambling rant has done! I do believe I’ve decided to finally jump into action and get off this chair more often. The summer time makes it easier, definitely – play dates to keep the Wee One entertained mean that I’ll be chasing after her and her friends with my camera glued to my face.

I did buy an annual pass to the Toronto Zoo – one of the most fabulous zoos on the planet. Can’t be sedentary there – the place is massive. I think I’ll head out and get an annual pass to the provincial parks in our area too – they have some of the most gorgeous hiking trails and beaches in Ontario.

I’m going to need your help and encouragement to get off this chair more often though. It’s like training a dog, really. The more positive reinforcement I get, the better at it I’ll be! So leave me a comment every so often, and ask me what I’ve done recently… maybe I’ll have some great tales to tell, and pictures to share!