Friday, January 17, 2025

Home A1C Test

If you have diabetes, then you have to regularly have your A1C tested. This is a blood test that measures the level of blood glucose (or blood sugar) you've had over the last three months. Up until this year I always had to depend on the local lab to give me the test, until I found a way online via a video by Beat Diabetes to test it myself using my blood glucose meter and some math.

First, some disclaimers: I have not worked in the medical profession since the 1980's, and I cannot give you medical advice; this is just something I do myself to stay on top of my diabetes. Also, this is an averaged A1C and should not be used as a substitute for a lab test ordered by your physician. Finally, you should compare your results to your lab-tested A1C to assure you're getting the right readings from your meter.

You do five glucose tests in one day to get your averaged A1C. Here's the schedule of when to test:

1. Just after waking up
2. One hour after lunch
3. Three hours after lunch
4. One hour after dinner
5. Just before you go to sleep

Once you have all five numbers, here's the formula to average your blood glucose: Add the five numbers together. Divide the total by 5. Add 46.7. Divide by 28.7, and the answer you get is your home A1C.

Here are the ranges for A1C results:

Normal level: 5.7 or below
Prediabetes: 5.7 to 6.4
Diabetes: 6.5 or above.

As my diabetes is controlled with diet and exercise as well as meds I perform my home A1C test about once a month. My results are almost always on target, but it's simply reasssuring to me to know I'm on track with controlling my blood glucose. Remember to keep a record of your home A1C tests to track how you're doing with managing your diabetes, and give a copy of your results to your physician when you go in for your checkup.

Image credit: Tesa Robbins from Pixabay

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Fin

I have been thinking about when I will stop writing for income, which I had planned to do at 67, the age I'm eligible for full social security benefits (or was. They've changed it again so I might have to wait until 68.) Up until this year it seemed like a fuzzy, not very important deadline, but with my limitations increasing I may need to adjust my finish line to 65, the age I qualify for Medicare. That's about a year and nine months from now.

Before I say anything else I know that (if I can) I will keep on writing professionally for as long as I can, and after that until the very end of my life. This is the thing I do; I can't imagine a life where I don't write. I'll either post it online or leave it for my heirs along with all my other unpublished writing. That said, it is possible that I will not be able to do what I want to if I end up with diabetes stage three: dementia, which also made my mom incapable of writing in her final years. Alzheimer's disease, a form of dementia, destroyed my dad's mind almost entirely before he died. There may be other conditions that prevent me from writing, too. It hasn't happened to me, but the strong possibility that it will is an unhappy, ugly truth.

During my first pro career as a writer for various reasons I was not able to finish several series. Readers have often asked that I go back and write the books that were left behind and self-publish them. If it were a year or two past I probably could, but I am very different from the writer who 24 years ago had her first series shut down by NY (that one I was able to complete a few years later after they got some confidence in me.) Also, while I'm sympathetic to the readers, I have no interest in revisiting those universes. When they told me to stop and do something else, I dealt with the ego blow and did, so I've moved on.

Here's another ugly truth: I put up with a lot of crap when I worked for NY (they better hope I never write my memoir.) Any continuation I self-published would possibly help to pour more money into their pockets. After all my years of dedicated work those people kicked me to the curb without hesitation. Readers also moved on, as they should. That's why the hard, cold side of of me thinks "You had your chance." Now I write for my amazing partner and our business, which I would like to do as long as I can.

I've also thought about when I'll shut down this blog and finally step away from social media for good. I didn't realize until I checked the archive that I started Valerean 5 years ago. Before that I wrote on Tumblr for a few years, and then had the other infamous blog (that shall remain nameless so no one tracks me here) that I wrote for 14 years. Believe it or not before that blog there were two others dating back to when I turned pro. I also have a social media account and another blog that is a 95% dupe of this one minus all the names and personal identifiers. I use those for online acquaintances in the quilting community who don't know who I was (so I can keep it that way.) I don't know when to stop blogging, but I probably should shut it down at the same time I stop writing for income.

It's a bit depressing to think about this stuff, but I've written a lot of stories since the first one 55 years ago. Yes, I've been writing that long. :) For the last 25 years I've written pretty much daily. Writing is so much a part of my life I generally schedule everything else around it. My family does come first, but even when I'm working for them I'm thinking about the writing I need to do. Anyway, the point is that I have written enough to satisfy basically anyone's expectations of what a writer should produce. Anyone but me, I guess.

If I can, however, I will write until I take my last breath. If there is a heaven for me, it will be a place where I can write forever.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Colors of the Year

When Pantone announced Mocha Mousse as their color of the year for 2025, I was not just underwhelmed again, as you can see from my rename. Baby poop brown, okay. Guess calling it a dessert makes it more palatable. Kona will save me with their choice, right?

Nope. They picked Mom's favorite shade of purple for 2025.

So that I'm not always thinking about changing diapers or tearing up and missing my mom, I am picking my own color of the year: Beachcombing Magazine's sea foam.

Image credit: The third image in the post was copied from Beachcombing Magazine's article about sea foam colored sea glass, which is linked (and super interesting.)

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Dietary Tweaks

Over the spring and summer I tried intermittant fasting, but it just didn't work for me. I was hungry all morning (my most active time of day) and tired, which is never a good thing. It did help my blood glucose numbers, but not significantly. I also gained weight rather than losing it because I ate too much during the time I was allowed to eat, which I think is mainly why fasting didn't work for me. So I started tinkering on my diet plan again.

All diabetics have special concerns with foods, and since I'm trying to control my disease with diet and exercise I can't eat like most people do. I don't use sugar, and avoid products that have it added. I limit myself to a max of 25 grams of carbs per day, which eliminates most bread and other baked products. I also have to abstain from eating potatoes, which jack up my blood glucose like crazy. I don't have the same problem with rice, but I still limit that and other grains. Tracking the food I eat and its effect on me is a daily task.

Some diabetic trivia: Did you know that corn is a grain, not a vegetable? It's used to make the much-dreaded high fructose corn syrup, which is 100% glucose. But boiled corn is just 52 on the glycemic index, so if you're fairly stable like me it's okay to have a little now and then (always check with your diabetes doctor or nutritionist to be sure.)

Since stopping intermittant fasting I try to eat smarter and get in three small meals a day versus skipping one and eating too much. Here's what I ate for breakfast this morning: scrambled egg beaters = 2 eggs, two links of chicken sausage, two slices of almond flour bread that I baked myself, and a small glass of low-sugar cranberry-grape juice. It looks like a lot of food, but it's only 422 calories, which I can work off when I walk my dogs. Here are the nutritional details for each ingredient:

Egg beaters: 6 tablespoons, 50 calories total, 5 grams protein, no carbs, no cholesterol, no sugar.
Chicken Sausage: 2 links, 50 calories total, 30 mg cholesterol (10% of RDR), 4 grams of protein, no carbs, no sugar.
Homemade almond bread (recipe here): 2 small slices, 262 calories total, 6 grams carbs, 5 grams protein, 12 grams unspecified fat, no sugar.
Cranberry-grape juice: 10 calories, 1 gram carb, 1 gram sugar.
Not pictured: 1 tablespoon of plant-based margarine that I put on the almond bread: 50 calories, no carbs, no sugar, no cholesterol.

The whole meal has just 7 grams of carbs and 1 gram of sugar, with 14 grams of protein (protein is really important for a healthy body, but for diabetics we need to stay in the 14 to 21 grams per meal range.) After I eat this breakfast my blood glucose level usually drops, too, so it's a very good breakfast option for me. I'm also full after eating it and not tempted to snack before lunch. That's half the battle with any diet, avoiding snacking.

Monday, January 13, 2025

Art for Cheap

Back in November I came across a lot of art supplies with a set of paint I wanted, and won it for the minimum bid with no challengers. Let's see how I made out.

It's an eclectic mix of painting, sewing and stenciling items that are even more intriguing unboxed.

The project bin was full of painting and embroidery stencils, sports stickers and some miscellaneous things.

The 72 watercolor paints set was never used, as the tubes are still sealed. It retails for $20 to $30. It had a lot of colors, which is why I was okay bidding on this lot.

There's a Fons & Porter wool table rug kit with no instructions (evidently they were in an issue of their magazine) from 2002 marked $25.00.

It's completely intact, so if I can find the instructions online somewhere I'll make it.

I also got seven yards of this brand-new cotton cheater cloth.

Altogether the lot is easily worth $150.00 retail. I paid $20.00 for everything. Savings $130.00.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Choosing Your Fam

South Korea finally did something to get back in my good graces: they remade Go Ahead, one of the first Chinese dramas I ever watched (and loved) into their romantic drama Family By Choice, starring one of my favorite actors Hwang In-youp (who was brilliant as always), Jung Chae-yeon (a very luminous and talented young lady) and Bae Hyun-sung (another inspired choice) as the two brothers and sister who are not blood related but via tragedy are brought up together as siblings with two fathers (Choi Won-young, one of my favorite older male South Korean actors, and Choi Moo-sung, who stole every scene he was in.)

The drama stays faithful to the story for the most part, although it tidies it up and condenses it so that it can be told in 16 episodes. It's done beautifully, and the trio of actors who play the brothers and sister worked so well together and in their roles that they floored me. Hwang In-youp was absolutely perfect as San-ha, the tortured and abused son of an evil narcissistic controlling bitch of a woman who blames him for all her mistakes before she abandons him and his father. Bae Hyun-sung is a new-to-me actor, but he was so perfect Hae-jun I can't think of anyone else who could have portrayed a troubled, terrified little boy abandoned by his mother, who shortly thereafter goes to prison, forcing her son to be raised by strangers. Between the two boys is Ju-Won, the motherless little girl who just wants a brother and is everyone's ray of sunshine.

I cried through this drama so many times my eyes are still red. It's that good. I knew the story so there weren't any surprises for me and still I held my breath at the crises points. This is a wonderful, emotional, wildly romantic drama. but most of all it reminded me of how fortunate I am that I was able to rid myself of all the toxic narcissistic people who just used and abused me in the name of family. Building a new family and surrounding myself with people who genuinely love me is the best present I ever gave myself.

Family by Choice is, hands down, the best drama I've seen in a couple of years -- maybe since Happiness. Available on Viki.com.

Saturday, January 11, 2025

15 and Then Some

A friend asked me to source fifteen yards of thrifted fabric for a beginner quilting class she's teaching at her community center. Any type of fabric will do, she said, if I can stay within her tiny budget, which resulted in a new round of wannabuts (thrifts I want but only at the minimum price.) Whatever is left over will be gifted to the students.

Here's the first fabric lot, which includes what looks like some vintage embroidered pieces. It's 11 lbs., which is roughly 33 yards, so there should be plenty for her to work with in the class.

The second lot is more quilting cottons, with obviously new pieces judging by the tags. This lot is 6 lbs., or approximately 18 yards.

I already know I probably won't get this 12 lbs. box of quilting cottons, but I thought I'd give it a try. There are probably 36 yards of fabric in there. Stay tuned to the blog to find out if I win any!

All the images in this post came from the original auction listings at ShopGoodwill.com.

Home A1C Test

If you have diabetes, then you have to regularly have your A1C tested. This is a blood test that measures the level of blood glucose (or ...