thisendoftheswamp

For years, I have been complaining abouy my feet swelling and turning blue. Because my legs were not hot or painful, nobody got excited about it but the VietNamese woman who does my monthly pedicure. At least somebody worried about my black toenails.

Finally I convinced my GP that it really needed to be looked into, and he gave me a referral to a vascular surgeon. After two different rounds of testing, that good man determined that the problem is not with my blood, but my lymph system – a bit of medical nit-picking – but the results look the same. At any rate, it did finally shake up some action.

So, now I spend an hour, twice a day, sitting with my feet propped up, imitating the Michelin Tire Man. I slide each leg into a pneumotic “garment”, attach the hose and control box, and let the machine work its magic. I do have to stay put, but I have darned two of The Squire’s socks, sewn on a multitude of buttons, and am now trying my hand at knitting. Last time I did this, we shall simply say it wasn’t a success, and leave it at that. I got a loom at the local thrift shop, and we’re going to try doing that again. I did go to the library and grabbed some books, The author I chose isn’t very good, in my opinion.

I don’t like a lot of blood-and-guts. I’m not a Patricia Cornwell fan, but I do like a bit of action in a book, especially if it is “off-stage”. Mary Ellen Hughes writes a lot of books about Maryland, which are fun.

Laura Lippman was a reporter with the Baltimore Sun and wrote some terrific mysteries, loosely based on events in the news – changed a bit to “protect the innocent”. A Baltimorean could tell exactly where the story took place, which made them fun to read, but after a while, her writing got too “dark” for me.

Well, I only got one suggestion for cleaning my cookie sheets and decided to give it a shot.

I made a paste of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide and smeared it over the offending cookies sheets. I was supposed to let it sit for two hours but I fell asleep, so it was left overnight. This morning I rinsed off the pans, gave one or two spots a bit of a scrub with a nylon pad, and there you are. Worked like a charm.

Almost as good as new!

Other than insane amounts of elbow grease and Brill-o, is there any way to remove years of Christmas Past from cookie sheets?

I have a lot more cookies sheets than I’ll ever use again, so I want to take four of them around to the thrift store. To the untrained eye, they look pretty ratty, but all I see is years and years of love and good food. I spent an hour on one single sheet yesterday, and it really doesn’t look all that wonderful.

There has to be an easier way. Any suggestions?

As is the case wtih most women, I am constantly trying to lose weight. About ten years ago I started some medicine which caused me to gain ten pounds a month and spiked my blood pressure. I’m no longer on that med, but still have both problems. What’s really annoying is that I, of all people, should have read the PDR. To top if off, The Squire takes the same pills with no ill-effects.

(Amitriptyline, in case you are wondering. It is used for nerve pain and spasms, as well as being an antidepressant. It worked well for my Restless Leg Syndrom, but the weight gain certainly didn’t help my frustration.)

I’ve been hearing about the “Jello Trick” to drop a few pounds, but never paid much attentiooon to it, until I saw an ad on the internet claiming Dr. Gupta would Explain It All. He said the recipe as it was being pressented was useless. “Jello-O” has a lot of sugar and very little protein. What you need is plain geletin and a “few other ingredients” that most people already have in their kitchens. Tumeric, ginger, and green tea extract. I have the first two and can probably find the green tea extract at Mom’s or someplace. Lots of photos of people – including actress Kathy Bates – eating little tan cubes of gelatin.

And then, somehow, he switched to a discussion of how a Japanese lab was able to extract the oils from these products and produce a formula that worked even better than the gelatin. You just put five drops under your tongue every morning, and – voila! – you started dropping those excess pounds. There were quite a few shots of women staring down at these bottles of drops with an expression of adoration usually saved for your first born child.

And then the clincher. These miracle drop were yours for the low, low price of $69 a month! And the recommeneded plan was to use them for six months. If I spent $400 on this stuff, I’d drop weight because I couldn’t afford to buy groceries.

So this “short video” ran for almost an hour and was a big nothing burger. As I said, I have most of the ingredients, so I’m going to experiement a bit and see what I can come up with. It won’t cost me $69 and if it works, fine. If not, big deal.