I wrote on Facebook that a friend mentioned in casual conversation that she spends 45 minutes each morning in the bathroom to eliminate. She said she thought that was the normal time for a bowel movement. I thought a quick 1-2 minutes was normal. Get in quick, get out quick, no one gets hurt. She’s a savvy, health conscious person and fairly healthy. I was surprised her thinking that was normal.  I asked on Facebook, “what do you think normal is?”  The general consensus of the comments below is between 2-5 minutes, and that the solution is to drink a lot more water, exercise and add fiber to the diet.  The comments are below, but first:
BEST LAXATIVE: Mix 2 oz of milk of magnesia into 4 ounces of warmed prune juice. Nurses call this “a black and white.” Follow with 8 oz warm water (essential to success). Expect a bowel movement within 30 minutes to 6 hours. Milk of Magnesia is a saline laxative which means it acts by drawing water into the intestine to help gently pass the bowel movement.

Here are the Facebook comments about “what do you think normal is:” Continue reading →

I’ve been getting more sleep lately and it feels good to do that.  I went to bed about 7:00pm and woke a few times to think about how neat it felt to just lie in bed and feel sleepy and know that it’s still early and that I’m getting a lot of good sleep and have hours more of nice darkness to sleep in before I get up to start my day.  I woke up about 2am from a typical dream I have a time or two a year. This was last night’s dream: I’m somewhere with a friend and neither of us has our i.d. on us.  I am concerned we are going to be caught without it. We get separated.  I don’t have my phone with me, my friend has it.  I ask strangers if I can use their phone and no one wants to let me use theirs. I think it has something to do with how I am dressed.  They are very professionally dressed and I am in casual wear.  I go into a large building, an institute or campus of some sort and and I go into the kitchen of the restaurant.  I know they won’t care how I’m dressed.   Continue reading →

Driving home on I-95 south, I returned a call to Domino today.  I’d gotten psychic impressions while listening to her voice mail but I didn’t want to blurt them out without knowing how she felt about that stuff.  I also felt the message might be a little vague except for it being connected to my birthday.  It was one of those “I love you, I’m proud of the new business” messages, old struggles having been left behind when she dropped the body.  I told Domino it was an older woman and I got the distinct impression that she had my birthday.  She could think of no one with an April 10 birthday.  Her mother’s was March 27, her father’s was April 14th.  I told her it was definitely a woman, not a man, then a man (in spirit) said it would be an anniversary.  Who has an anniversary of April 10th?  She could think of nothing and the man said it’s not an anniversary yet.  Remember I am driving and I have Domino on the headset and the man’s voice in my inner ear.  I don’t have time to ask what he means.  Then she remembered her mother died on April 10th this year.   Continue reading →

A couple of days ago, I managed to rip the sleeve of my favorite nightshirt. It’s been on its last legs for several years but it’s a favorite so I continue to wear it. It looks like a long buttondown shirt. At 38″ long, it’s a dark plaid flannel and it hits just above the knee.  It has a shirt tail hem, which means it is curved higher on the sides and longer in front and back. I thought it’d be as easy as looking online to find another one. Not so! Even the men’s flannel shirts in an extra tall were only 35″ long and most had a straight hem. That’s a crucial 3″ when I’m wearing it out in the yard and bending over the garden. I began Googling “night shirts” and “sleep shirts” and came upon many that were nice and long, but not buttoned all the way down the front. Phooey.  I had to look at mostly mens’ shirts or plus sizes due to bust size. I went to WalMart and even their longest men’s flannel shirt was just 35″, with a straight hem. Drat. I’d have to go to a real store.    Continue reading →

Last month my friend Morgana Starr told me that she’s collecting angel stories for a new book she’s writing.  She didn’t want it to be a book just about her own experiences, but wanted to include other people’s stories as well.  She knows what healing comes from someone telling their story, especially when there is someone to point out the symbolism of it.  I did a post on my Facebook wall for friends to contact her if they have an angel story to share.  I later thought that I have an angel story of my own, so I emailed it to her. It was the first time I’d typed it out from my notes. I began with an intro and short bio.  Since it was my first writing of it, I wanted to tell the entire story. I knew if she wanted to use it, she’d want the word count edited down and I’d do that later. Here’s my angel story:   Continue reading →

Last night I had a very vivid dream, which I attribute to having begun taking ferrous sulfate the day before, and also eating two lean sirloin patties, the first beef in five years. I’d also seen Anthony Bourdain on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the night before. Here’s the dream.  I find myself away from home without a car and Izzy has followed me. I go up to a house that ends up being like a hospital where my galpal Trish is in room 7 or 8 but I can’t find my way back to it. I find a room with my former bff Suzie Miller and others in it, kind of like a sorority place she is the boss of. We say hi as if we never had a falling out years ago. I continue wandering through halls looking for Trish’s room and can’t find it.  Then I am somewhere else. Izzy the cat has wandered away and I follow to find him. I come to a big office building where a music festival had gone on in the lot next door the night before. It’s all empty now with equipment and stuff all over. I ask the woman behind the desk for a phone to call a cab. She said they thought I was coming in to borrow. I have money I just need a ride back to Palm Bay.   Continue reading →

Yesterday I began taking ferrous sulfate elixir, an iron supplement.  I wrote about it here.  That night I had a good sleep and also complex dreams.  When I woke up, I Googled “ferrous sulfate” and “sleep” and found that indeed people report sleeping better when they begin taking it for iron insufficiency.  I also found that it’s a good remedy for Restless Leg Syndrome in people who need iron.  While I don’t have that, I know people who do.  A good article is below.   Continue reading →

I’ve been a little low energy lately and wanted to find out why.  I go to Wuesthoff Reference Labs every few months to get blood work done. I love Wuesthoff, it’s cheap, they’re fast and there’s a lab just down the street. Best of all, no doctors needed! I do it several few times a year to make sure my cholesterol is nice and low. When I eat in restaurants, I can’t be sure how much fats I’m getting.  When I ate egg drop soup every day for a month earlier this year, my triglycerides doubled to 138. No more egg drop soup for me!  I learned from the lab tech that the easier arm to draw blood from is usually your non-dominant one. Being right handed, my right arm may have more musculature covering the veins, so they like to draw from the left. That’s good to know – I knew one was better than the other but always forget which. Now I’ll remember.  My test results showed that my iron is not its usual 77-ish but only 47.  I began drinking hot water with blackstrap molasses and ordered some ferrous sulfate liquid to pick up at Palm Bay Pharmacy tomorrow. That should perk me right up. My iron was abnormally (for me) highest (127) on July 30th when I was eating eggplant and hummus every day for a month before — wow, the body knows what it needs.    Continue reading →

Last night I watched an episode of Medium. In the popular show, Allison DuBois, played by Patricia Arquette, is a strong-willed mother of three, a devoted wife who can talk to dead people and see the future in her dreams. The tv guide described the night’s episode as, “While investigating a rash of murders, Allison sees floating symbols above people’s heads, signs that she thinks could match them with their perfect mate. “  I’d seen the show a few times before and thought, “Neat, this is how it really happens,” and was anxious to see how they portrayed it in the show.  It turns out they used a cartoon heart symbol floating at the actors’ foreheads.  The idea was that the man with the heart symbol would notice the woman’s heart symbol and they would know they were meant to be together.  Now wouldn’t that make it easy, when you’re trying to find your soul mate?  Continue reading →