I’ve started violin lessons.  I love them.  I love to practice but more than that… I simply love the sound the violin creates.  If a violin was a liquor…it would be the finest French champagne.  More on this later.

It is hard to believe this year, on April 18, I will turn 50 years old.  Mentally, I don’t feel it; however, physically I do feel it sometimes.  As I am becoming more aware of my mortality, I know that I need to take better care of myself.  This past November I had an endoscopy and they found lots of gastric erosion and scarring in my stomach; thus, indicating I have severe GERD.  Cholesterol is up but fortunately the HDLs are higher than the LDLs (this is good!).  After some contemplative thinking, I decided as part of some life reshaping decisions (not New Year’s Resolutions), I am going to enhance my life and make myself a healther, better and enlightened person.  

First step will be to analze what I am eating.  I will start to do away with processed food and start with more whole grains.  I have to avoid tomatoes, orange  and citrus fruits, chocolate (OH THE HORROR), and caffeine as starters.  These food items are big time irritants for people who have GERD.  I started removing them from my diet this week.  I must admit.. chocolate has been difficult.  The Dr. has added Nexium and I am feeling better in the stomach department.  I am now drinking decaf tea and soda, drinking more water.

For breakfast:  Cereal with skim milk——-Fiber One

Snack:  1 -2 Tablespoons of raisins

Lunch: 1/2 sandwich ham and cheese on oatmeal bread

Afternoon snack:   Dannon Non-fat Yogurt 6 oz

Today:     YAY….YAY…YAY  I was on the Treadmill for 30 minutes at walking rate of 3.5 miles per hour with an incline of .5 to 1.0.  Then a 5.0 minute cooldown.

I will continue to blog about my health.

Being a Christian, I know that Advent is the first season of the Christian calendar year.  Moreover, Advent is the season of preparation and anticipation of the birth of Jesus.  Now I am not an educated thelogian…far from it.  Educated as a nurse with a BSN, and having worked in Labor & Delivery and also in Pediatrics, this time of year my thoughts wander to Mary & Joseph as they made their trek to Bethlehem.  As a mother of 1 child ( a 13 year old daughter to be exact), the memory of pregnancy, laboring and delivering a child is very poignant.  It is believed Mary and Joseph had to travel 80 miles.  Eighty miles!  Eighty miles on a donkey when you are getting ready to deliver a baby.  Was it Mary’s faith that gave her the strength to make it those 80 miles?  Was Joseph equally frightened not knowing what was to happen when he found out there was no place to stay when they arrived?  Holy cow!  ”Lord God, I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ babies.”  In the New Testament, Luke and Matthew speak of the birth of Jesus and proclaim “That with God, Nothing is impossible.”  Mary & Joseph had the courage,strength and faith of an army of thousands in what the angel Gabriel told to Mary was God’s plan for the coming of The Messiah.