November Happenings

The last few months have been riddled with anxiety for me. I made the mistake of following the current political climate here in the US and it has worn me down mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Sorry for the graphics, but I feel like someone has skinned me and poured gasoline on my open wounds. Yes, it has been that bad. I desperately need some love, light, laughter and joy back in my life.

So, beginning tomorrow, for the entire month of November, I will be doing a spiritual reboot, which I am calling Inspired! This may come in the form of a video, cartoon, picture, poem, quote or an inspirational story that I discover somewhere on the web. It is my hopes that what inspires me, may inspire you as well.

I am also going to try to catch up with Calen’s Sandbox Writing Challenge. I am way way way behind, but hopefully if I do one challenge per day, I will eventually catch up.

So, those are my plans for November here on this blog. How about you, dear readers? Do you have any month long plans on your blogs? Anyone doing NaNoWriMo? I’d love to hear about your plans! Drop me a comment.

Thoughts on an Apple

for KoolKosherKitchen’s Apple Challenge

I’ve never given apples much consideration. Well, not serious consideration. I’ve enjoyed a nice crisp apple now and again, love the flavor – sort of sweet and tangy all in one savory bite – and I love the texture too. I know of their health benefits, but as a diabetic, I also know of their harm – fructose.

Back as a teenager, there was a craze going on for diabetics. Fructose, sold in a bag of little crystals. My mom, ever the one to seek out new crazes to help her diabetes, was sold on this new sugar that was supposed to be good for diabetic use, an alternative to regular table sugar, saccharine and the latest artificial sweetener, aspartame. What she didn’t know then was that it was perhaps the worst thing she could have been consuming. And she consumed a lot of it too as her diabetes became more and more out of control.

Fructose doesn’t digest well in the body. It cannot be used in the same way as glucose (table sugar) because it cannot cross the barrier wall of our cells and pass into the blood stream to be used for energy. Instead, it goes straight to the liver and gets flushed through our body that way. And it is one of the main factors in fatty liver disease. What researches have discovered is that High Fructose Syrup (derived from corn, not fruit) is what has caused the obesity dilemma we are faced with today and is the catalyst to diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Although it is a highly concentrated form of fructose, it is still fructose. Once you have become so insulin resistant, any amount of fructose (and anything that can be transformed into glucose – sugar, starches, and other carbohydrates) becomes a problem for a diabetic.

So should we be avoiding apples and all fruit as a diabetic? The experts say not necessarily. The one good thing about most fruit is fiber and our bodies need fiber. Apples, pears and berries are the best fruit for diabetics because they have the highest fiber content, and fiber slows down the fructose absorption into the liver, therefore preventing sugar spikes. But you have to eat the whole fruit. No juices. And you can only have them in small quantities.

So while I can no longer indulge in one or two apples a day, I can share an apple with my father now and again (he too is diabetic). One small to medium apple provides both of us with its sweet and tangy goodness. And in Autumn, when the leaves are changing and the air is crisp and cool, I always find myself craving apples. And being able to have and share one – well, that’s a good thing!

Family and Politics

I think I’ve said it before, but will repeat it: my family is filled with right-wing, ultra-conservative, rednecks. I think I am the only progressive, bleeding-heart liberal in the whole lot of ’em. And it has become even more evident during this political election cycle. I am currently “at war” with these family members on Facebook. Yes, I post left-leaning articles and posts on my Facebook timeline. Yes, I am extremely anti-Trump. I am not pushing my agenda on anyone (i.e. I don’t go to their posts and scream and berate them for their right-wing, Trump-loving posts), but they delight in coming to my posts and spilling their hate-filled rhetoric – and I do mean FULL OF HATE. I’ve asked them to please stop, but they cannot grasp that I have the right to my opinion on MY Facebook without being harassed by them. They are family. I don’t want to have to delete them, but I am getting  close to that very action.

One of my cousins tonight called me a “nut case” because I don’t fall in line with her way of thinking. Well yes, dear cousin, I am a certified “nut case” but not because my heart is hardened and all I can spew is hate. But I would rather be a “nut case” than to just blindly believe that Trump and Trump alone will solve all of this country’s woes (and apparently in his first hour as President!) while filling people’s heads with hate, destruction, and doom.

There’s no talking to them. No amount of “please stop” seems to sink in. They think they deserve their opinions, but apparently I am not entitled to my own. If it isn’t an ultra-right opinion, then it isn’t warranted. It’s like free speech only runs in one vein with my family. But then, that is the atmosphere of this entire election cycle.

I get it. I really do. None of the candidates this year are worthy of the Presidency. Donald Trump is a misogynistic, narcissistic bigot who used to be a Democrat and still has a lot of liberal-leaning ideals (he’s just good at turning himself into whoever he needs to be at any given time – a good Con man). Hillary Clinton is a lying career politician. Gary Johnson is a pot-smoking idiot (not to be confused with my intelligent pot-smoking friends) who has no clue where Aleppo is nor can he name one foreign leader that he admires. And Jill Stein, well… I don’t know enough about her, but what I’ve seen and read rubs me the wrong way. And although I supported Bernie Sanders, even he is flawed and far too angry a man for my taste. There is not one single honorable candidate in the bunch. No one to get enthusiastic about and respect. (Oh how I wish there was a Bobby Kennedy in the bunch!) And, because of all of this, this election is ripping families apart.

And so the battle will continue with my family, probably long after November the 8th. I will never see eye to eye with the majority of them. They will probably continue to view me as a “nut case” for it. But I will say this, if it gets any worse, I will start deleting and blocking them on Facebook. It’s not as though they’ve made any effort my entire life to actually get to know me, and with their hate-filled rhetoric, I don’t want to know them.