Pleiades

Well, sisters. Elaine figured out how to respond to this thing, but nobody else has. I hope the rest of you can join us.

The big news here is that we finally got a treadmill. I think it might be just the thing for us. Already I'm putting in the time on it.

Unfortunately, it came right about the same time as a lot of Valentine's Day Candy. So, hopefully, we will see better health results in the near future.

I get up every morning and do floor exercises to warm up, and then the treadmill. So far, I've only done 15 minutes at a time, but I'm increasing slowly.

Today I gave platelets at the blood center. There, they have little televisions that you can watch while you are donating. On the TV was a news segment about aspirin, the miracle drug. Aspirin will help you avoid heart attacks because it keeps the platelets from clotting and cloging the veins.

So....I'm wondering. I can't take aspirin if I'm giving platelets (within three days) because platelet recipients want platlets that do stick together (I think?). But I want platelets that don't stick together.

So, I decided that maybe I'll take some aspirin during the month, and then stop taking aspirin a week before donating.

I'll have to think about that.

I successfully donated today. My blood level was 12.9, just barely over the 12.6 minimum. The "draw" needle was quite painful in the beginning. It didn't look like it was going to work at first, but the head nurse came over and repositioned it so that it fit more nicely in the vein. Then I was fine. One thing I've learned---suggest that they lower your arms. It's So-o-o-o much nicer. I don't have those aching and painful arms when they bend them back up after taking out the needles. Also, when your arms are lower, they don't fall asleep as often. For me, at least.

Well, it's another chilly day out here in the northeast.
The snow thaws just enough to freeze overnight and form sheets of ice. Not good weather for exercising outdoors, so I just keep putting it off.

I wish I could get in a good eating mode. This week I'm listening to the health segments about heart disease. Laura Bush is speaking out about it. Much of it could be controled with one simple thing...loose weight. Why is it so hard to do?

I'm ready to go up and have a cookie now, just thinking about it.

We Pleiades are all getting old enough that our weight is going to start taking a toll of us if we don't get control. How could we do it? Could we have a group hug or something?

It seems as if some of you are having a little trouble getting into this site. I am just a beginner doing this, so I don't know what to tell you. Just keep trying, I guess. Yesterday I took some photos of family members sledding down the hill outside. I brought them in to put them on the computer, and somehow got them in bmp instead of jpg---so now I can't get them to go in the e-mail. Do I have any idea what I'm doing. No! I think it's my computer playing tricks on me. I'm serious about this. It's getting a little unstable, and one of the ways it manifests this is by whimsically changing all the settings. Very frustrating.

Why do you think anyone came up with the dumbest holiday ever---GROUNDHOG DAY? It isn't as if February needs another holiday. There are plenty of good holidays around this time of year. Why don't we just forget about GROUNDHOG DAY! It doesn't mean anything! The groundhog doesn't really do anything. In fact, it's a pet groundhog they use to predict the weather on this day, not even a real wild groundhog. So stupid! If I was teaching school, I would throw away all my groundhog stuff (except the book called, "The Big Snow') and never mention it again.

That's my tirade for the day.