Baywatch babe battles bellicose butterfly

I've discovered a new place to go for the latest celebrity pics and articles, and found this one last night about "Baywatch" actress Gina Lee  Nolin.  Turns out she has been battling thyroid disease since her teen years.

Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth Gina Lee Nolin

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2020557/Baywatch-actress-Gena-Lee-Nolin-tells-diagnosis-took-years-I-battled-thyroid-illness-Baywatch-bathing-suit.html

I was never a fan of "Baywatch", and I don't think I ever watched one episode.  However, I did see pics of the skimpy red bathing suits over the years, and I now think this woman should be given a gigantic medal of honor.  She was battling an underactive thyroid and Hashimoto's,  and had to get into that bathing suit every day, and go on film??  How she did not have a massive mental breakdown is beyond me.  Just the thoughts of putting on a bathing suit invokes a PTSD response in me at the start of every summer or winter vacation that involves heat and sun.  (See February posts before we went on our cruise.)  And I have figured out which brands, in my mind, seem to hide a multitude of sins, bulges and rolls.  That "Baywatch" suit doesn't hide much of anything.  I don't know why she's coming out with the story now, but I'm glad she did.  Seeing someone like her and actress Sofia Vergara give me a little hope that it might just be possible to keep the weight issues under control.  Some of the details that Nolin gives seem strange to me, like she felt better three days after starting thyroid hormone replacement meds--no, it takes 4-6 weeks for that.  And that she was able to get pregnant and carry to term with an underactive thyroid.  Still, I could relate to her description of symptoms and responses from doctors.

And I'm making progress!  I have done some form of exercise EVERY DAY (except for one) out of the last 18 days.  Every day!!  I've walked, ridden the stationary bike, used my little weights...and I've been using caloriecount.about.com to keep me fairly honest about food intake.  That has made a difference.  But even better is that I am starting to feel a difference in some of my clothes, and that is huge.  I think my bathing suit that I bought in February was a little gappy in places.  Even if it is in my mind, it feels a hell of a lot better than before.

Also, Good Housekeeping apparently published an article about a woman with thyroid difficulties, and all of the thyroid support websites are up in arms that the article was full of misinformation and a  "blame the patient" viewpoint.  I haven't read the actual article yet because I don't buy Good Housekeeping (why?  I'm an excellent housekeeper, better than good.  Ha. ) and I couldn't find it on their website.  The DearThyroid site had some info and responses to it on their site.

I'm back home to tackle the two condos after a nice break with Sis in NH.  We went to the beach, ate lots of farm food and hung out.  It was really nice to spend time with her in her corner of NH paradise.  She says her garden isn't doing as well as last year, but it looks pretty good to me.  She planted all kinds of red flowers, so there were hummingbirds all over the place.  I didn't see any bears, but I did see a fox running through the backyard with a chipmunk dangling from his mouth.

Can't believe today is the last day of July.  Mr. Wonderful is off playing with his fire truck for the day, so I'm on my own to clean out more stuff.  Have to go pedal for a half hour first.  Busy reading "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz--loving it!  

Lake girl

Back in the 603 for a few days to hang out with Sis....I came up on Monday in the rain.  The heat wave has finally broken, so things are much more bearable.  Today I'm headed for the beach for most of the day  with the goal of getting rid of some of my pasty glowing white pale Irish skin.  Which means I will be lobster red by the end of the day even if I use sunblock.  Not my fault that my ancestors came from a cold, dank rainy climate.  But I am neon white and apparently looking a little on the unhealthy side, so...I've already had cancer, right?  Sis is really tanned.  Mom would be proud of her.

Yesterday was my first swim in the lake of the season--I forget from summer to summer how much I love that feeling of the first dive under.  The water was beautiful.  I even dove off the diving board and raft.  Somehow I don't feel like I'm 42 once I get in the water--I'll feel it afterwards when all my unused muscles start screaming.  I really would love to work swimming into my routine, like either lap swimming or water aerobics, but I can never seem to find something that fits with my schedule.  Plus it's not nearly as pleasant in January when it's 10 below and the air has turned artic.  Anyway, it didn't last long since some nasty thunderstorms moved in and we had to go back indoors.  But, I'll go back today.

The other highlight of last week was watching a childhood friend take over command of the USS Constitution for the next two years.  Sis, Mr. Wonderful and I were invited to the change of command ceremony--it was so neat to be part of it!  Unfortunately it was about 105 degrees on the deck of the ship, so we basically baked in the hot sun for about 90 minutes.  The crew had it much worse--the commanders and officers had to wear uniforms from 1813, made of wool. And the uniforms were multilayered complete with large hats.  I don't know how they managed to make it through the day.  We went to a reception afterwards with neighbors from the NH community, and then later that night went to another party in town.  It was a good day, and and so cool to watch someone you know step into a position like that.  Here's to two years of clear sailing!

My calorie-counting/exercise obsession continues...I've only missed one day of some kind of exercise in the last 16!  I've been walking since I got to NH, and the swimming will be like an extra bonus.  Last night Sis gave me back a shirt I gave her last month because it was too small for me, and when I tried it on, it fit!  Woo hoo!  When I say it didn't fit before, I meant that I could barely get it on and off.  No problem last night.  Still a little snug, so I wouldn't wear it out in public, but I could put it on and not feel like a squeezed sausage.  How's that for a motivating factor?  Amazing how that portion control combined with exercise really works (typed sarcastically with a snicker)!  My jeans felt a little looser too, but that could have been my imagination.

Off to the beach for a bit.

Goals for 2011? Update....

I decided to look back on the goals I set for this year and see how I've done....results are mixed, but I still have four and a half months to meet some of them.  Here they are, updates in red.

I need to set out some goals for 2011...
1.  I will make time to exercise.  Even though I hate it and the thoughts of it make me depressed. Making some serious progress in this department.  Ok, so it's only been in the past 6 days, but I'm managing 30-60 minutes a day using the stationary bike, weights, salsa music, walking and 6 flights of stairs.  If nothing else, I will try to keep walking when I can. 
2.  I will drag Mr. Wonderful to some kind of concert/play/performance/movie once a month. Not good on this one, unless you count a couple of car shows and a fire truck muster. 
3.  I will take my daily vitamins.  Daily. I'd say I'm consistent 75% of the time?  Adding fish oil capsules has thrown me off again.   
4.  I will not, not, not stay at school every night til 6pm. I didn't stay every night, but probably 3 out of 5...sigh. 
5.  I will clean my house more often. Ha ha ha.  Good one. 
6.  I will travel somewhere relaxing.  Preferably with a beach.  February cruise to the Bahamas!  
7.  I will not freak out about my thyca bloodwork.  It's part of the routine of life, so deal with it. Getting better, especially after Dr. N told me that she wasn't worried about the cancer since my hormones were such a mess.  Now I stress out about them....
8.  I will get a mammogram and get all my other medical stuff back on track. Mammogram done yesterday!  Ouch.  And Dr. N is now my primary care doc, and I have a physical scheduled for October. 
9.  I will continue to chat with St. Peregrine. Sporadic, need to do better at keeping in touch. 
10. I will make time to read, do cross stitch and scrapbook. And maybe sing.   Not enough creative outlets in 2010. Definitely reading more.  Just finished "The Known World" (wow, makes you feel wicked uncomfortable and blows you away at the same time), am now working on "Reading Lolita in Tehran".  No singing except for in my own company, not much cross stitching and only one scrapbooking weekend with Jules in January.  Still need to do some more artsy stuff. 

Keep on moving (again)

Progress is progress, right? 

I've been dutifully logging my food intake and activity output for the past 5 days, and it's been pretty revealing.  It's motivating me to actually do some exercise every day, such as 30 minutes on the stationary bike--got up to 5.25 miles today--, walking, weights (so what if they are only 5 lbs. on each arm--I'm sore!), and using the stairs to go to and from my condo on the 5th floor. 

The thing that has caught my attention is the amount of sodium in my daily consumption!  And I don't add salt to anything...hard to avoid it in anything processed, but this just seems ridiculous.

Go to countcalories.about.com if you want to check it out.  Not sure if I like this method or counting Weight Watcher points better.  Whatever works at this point.  The problem will be once I go to NH and change my routine...or get back to school in the fall and start losing hours to correcting, planning and tyring to keep up with it all.  I don't have a scale, so I don't know just how much progress I'm making.  It's probably too soon to tell since my body is most likely in shock from being made to actually do exercise instead of just thinking about it. 

Highlight of today:  emptying more boxes!  Mr. Wonderful is more of a packrat than I am, and today I piled his magazines on the bookshelves and in thingies to hide them and yet organize them at the same time--brilliant, thank you Ikea.  The categories were interesting and reminded me of an afternoon with Sis-in-law and brother-in-law of Mr. Wonderful a few years ago when he was cleaning out his place to move to mine and so we could redo his place for his mom to move in.  Siblings are hysterical, and his show no mercy.  We were divvying up the magazine stash then, and came up with three main catetgories of interest:  fire, trucks and military.  Things were going fine until bro-in-law came across a periodical titled, "Military Trucks"--that ruined our whole system and had the three of us on the floor with tears rolling down our faces because we were laughing so hard...Mr. W was not amused, but we had a good run with it.  So, if you want to know anything about naval history, sea history, classic cars, military surplus trucks, vintage trucks, double clutch trucks and of course, all sorts of fire trucks, you can come see me.  And, if you have any interest at all in World War II or aircraft, this would be the place to visit.  I think Mr. W was a soldier in a previous life....

KASSETT from Ikea

Tomorrow I actually have to go back to Ikea for more magazine organizer thingies, because I don't want to leave it half done with a mishmash of designs, and I can't order them online.  Time for Swedish meatballs?

I can see clearly now....

I feel like I'm coming out of a fog.  A dense, heavy, pea-soup-like fog.  Damn I hate the end of the school year and start of the summer.

I posted about it last year.  I think I've finally scraped myself up off the pavement that I splatted on after I slammed head-first into the end-of-the-year brick wall.  Sigh.

I actually met with the physician's assistant at my endo's office for a blood pressure check, and it was my first time meeting her.  Now that Dr. N has agreed to take me on as a primary care patient instead of just endo stuff, I get to meet the PA.  And it was as if I had known her for years.  I really liked her.  We talked about my suitcase of issues, and she pointed me to a website where I can keep track of what I eat along with exercise...so far I'm loving it and amazed at my diet.  Not as healthy as I previously thought.  Parts of it are, but not all of it.  Plus it has given me the oomph needed to get off my ass and get moving.  I have to admit--it feels good.   It helped a ton too when I got on the scale and was 5 pounds lighter than I was in May.  (insert smiley face here) She also told me how lucky I was that Dr. N agreed to move me into a primary care slot since her patient panel is closed.  Woo hoo!  My blood pressure was ok at 120/82, so no changes for now.

That was a big boost since I had a meltdown the night before over the chaos that is our condo.  It's getting better, but something set me flying and off I ranted and raved.  I was a Bitch with a capital B and eventually came back to sanity after sitting by myself on the balcony staring at the full moon.  I was better in the morning. &^%$## hormones.

Sis was here and we spent a couple of days shopping for stuff she can't get out in the boonies--we spent hours at Trader Joe's, Target, and she even went to TJ Maxx.  We hit our favorite breakfast place (so she could get banana chocolate chip pancakes), had bimbimbop from Trader Joe's and hung out for a couple of days.  She came down for her TB test for the fall.  Happy to say that she was negative.

I ran into a former student from about 7 years ago who works at Trader Joe's, and last year she told me that she was going to spend a semester in Spain.  She did, she's graduated, and now she's going back to Spain to teach English in Galicia for a year!  I love it when I hear stories like those.  I'm so excited for her.  Makes me want to get on  a plane....

So today I went to Ikea and had fun buying stuff to go with our new bookcases--boxes and magazine files for Mr. W's gigantic periodical collection that he insists he has to keep in case he has to "refer" to them in the future.  Um, can you say "internet"?  I would love to pitch them, but at least I think I found a way to organize them neatly.  And I bought a file cabinet.  It will be great to empty out the last of the boxes piled in the corner.

Progress I guess.

Duh.

Forgetful Jones and Luis from Sesame Street.  I could be Forgetful Jones lately....

If I had a brain that fully functioned, I'd be sooooo dangerous.  Like, world-domination-potential dangerous....ok, maybe not that brilliant or even smart, but a girl can dream, can't she?  I mean, it would be such an improvement over my current state.  Today was a processing nightmare, and I can't really remember what I had for breakfast.

But, I have a partial answer to why things haven't been firing on all cylinders lately.
One:  no structure since school is out!  And I have no desire to really structure things at this point, but it would probably help.  The few days spent doing the family research were great since I stayed in pjs till late afternoon.
Two: due to the lack of structure mentioned above, my meds schedule has been seriously derailed.  I'm supposed to take the levoxyl early am and wait an hour before eating.  No problem during the school year, and I take it when I hit the shower around 6:15; but now that I'm on my summer schedule I'm taking it when I get up, as in a few hours later than the schedule I've been on.  As a result, my ass is dragging lately and Sis, who is visiting the city for a couple of days, told me I looked pretty tired and crappy.  Sigh.  I just thought it was my overgrown mushroom head that is finally getting colored and cut on Wednesday that was making me look frightful.
Three:  I struggle to remember to take my vitamins daily.  Stupid I know, but I keep forgetting them.  I can't take them within 4 hours of the levoxyl.

I guess that is more than a partial answer.

I've been walking the past few days, and once I get started again it always feels good.  Tonight we went to Castle Island and walked around for about an hour.  I was surprised we managed to find a parking place.  It was nice....

So, I will now put the levoxyl bottle next to my bed and take it when Mr. Wonderful gets up.  And take the vitamins with dinner.  You'd think that I'd be able to figure this out on my own, but Mr. W pointed out the schedule change to me tonight.  Duh.

Summer schedule is kicking in.

It's 11:30pm, and I'm still up.  I will probably stay up for a couple more hours and then sleep in until 9am or 10am with no problem.  I think this is my body's natural clock if I let it set itself--bed by 2am, up by 10am.  Works for me!  Mr. Wonderful schlepped off to bed before 9, looked at me like light dawns on Marblehead and said, 'Your summer schedule is kicking in now, right?", meaning he can doze off on his own without me poking him for snoring--by the time I get there, he'll be out cold. 

So, my night-owl-ness is officially up and running.  For the past two days I have been glued to the computer despite beautiful summer weather--yesterday was the annual College Board crashfest while I sat most of the day hitting the refresh button trying to get my kids' AP scores.  This happened last year too.  You'd think that they would have used the past year to improve the system, but noooo.  I finally got my scores around 2am, and I was pretty happy with my lot.  34 out of 50 kids passed with a 3, 4 or 5, and 22 of them were 4s and 5s.  I could have predicted most of the 2s and 1s, but there were a couple of surprises in there--either they didn't read things closely enough to complete the tasks, or they psyched themselves out and panicked.  And then there were a few who still didn't "get it" by May, but I did what I could...at some point, it falls back on the student too to do the work and learn the material.  I can lead them to water, but I can't force them to drink no matter how long I hold their heads under....

While I was waiting, I decided to pull out the family history binders and see what needed to be updated.  It's been a couple of years since I've looked at the stuff, and now I can't remember what threads I was chasing down on all the little scraps of papers stuffed inside the inner binder pocket!  The Sullivan line is still driving me crazy after all these years--I've managed to link different branches, but still not enough to get me back to a defininitive area in Ireland.  I did some more work on the Kelleys, and got a ton of new info.  The Mormons have a website, familysearch.org, that used to have the US, Canadian and British census records for 1880, and not much else.  I haven't checked in a few years, but went back to it and wow--sooooo much stuff!  All the US census records, MA state census records, MA births, deaths and marriages....score!  Some of the records have the original documents that you can see and print, and they did a great job cross-indexing names with spouses and parents.  Makes it much easier to hunt down names like Sullivan, Murphy and Kelley.  And I was looking for combinations of all three.  Why oh why couldn't they have easier names to trace? 

I sat here all day today as well, trying to organize the scraps with the new info. 

Apparently my great great grandfather Jeremiah Sullivan did come from County Limerick.  Now I just have to figure out a way to trace him back there. 

As I'm typing now, Mookie is lying on the desk in front of the keyboard. 

The 4th was fun and low key--we had food and fireworks at our place since we have a great view from the balcony.  This year the wind moved in the right direction so we could see it all, and the show was fantastic.  Sis-in-law and mom-in-law came along with a childhood friend and his wife.  He's taking over command of the USS Constitution in a couple of weeks, and they were in town for the turnaround.  We are going to the change of command--it will be so cool to watch him take over on the ship that I used to play on when I was younger, and just because I've known him as a NH summer friend my whole life. 

What else?  I'm still in wind-down mode from the end of the school year.  Now that the AP scores are in, I can zone out until the end of August.

And try to get my act together because I can't remember for the life of me to take my damn fish oil supplements and multivitamins and calcium supplements.  Grrr. 

Found this cartoon and thought it was appropos...
On a happy note (at least it sounds happy), one of my best friends from high school emailed to say that she has officially finished 16 rounds of chemo!!  Woo hoo!  She's battling what sounds like a really nasty aggressive breast cancer, and it's been a long haul for her as she's had to do two different rounds of chemo.  Surgery is up next, then radiation.  We've had lots of lengthy chats on the phone, laughing and railing about cancer.  Her sense of humor and overall attitude  is astounding, and I keep telling her she should write.  We've all been telling her that for years.  Frustrating thing for me is that she lives in California, and I wish I could just drop by to see her.  Maybe in the fall?  I'll keep sending positive vibes westward and talking to St. Peregrine.  Makes my bout with thyroid cancer look like a walk in the park.  She's amazing, and I'm in awe. 

So that's all from here at the moment.  Not feeling too crappy, still forgetting stuff and dropping stuff all the time.  Just wishing that I felt a little bit more normal so I would have the motivation to get out and do more stuff....I have polished off a couple of novels in the past week, so that's a huge improvement over last summer.  I couldn't concentrate to save my life last summer and basically stuck to magazines and newspapers, which was depressing because there's nothing like curling up or lying out in the sun with a book you can't put down.  Just finished  "The Namesake".  Not sure what's on tap next. 

Closing in on midnight, so I might actually go to bed instead of staying up longer.  Besides, my back and arms are sore from sitting in the same position all day, and Mookie wants to go sleep on a soft bed.  Hasta luego...