Small things make me happy

Today I found something I thought I had lost. There's a group of people that knit, crochet or sew hand made caps to give away to cancer patients. Since I also like to knit and crochet, and have made hats and other items on the knifty knitter, I'm hoping to join up with this organization. I was able to get a handmade knitted hat, for my own balding head. Since I have a passion for knitting and crocheting, I'd like to help out in this area towards other people struggling with cancer.

I thought I had lost the piece of paper with the contact info on it, so I was very happy to find it sitting near my computer. Guess that means I should get on my old PC more often then I have been. I never know what I'll find sitting nearby.

If you're a knitter, crocheter, or a sewer, or a knifty knitter item creator, and you'd be interested in this site here's the link: http://www.nwilliniosheadhuggers.org or you can send an email to inquire about it to: nwilliniheadhuggers @mac.com. I haven't looked at the web site yet, but am glad I found something to make good use of my various yarn balls, that seem to grow like rabbits.

Shopping

I don't generally like to shop that much. When I do go shopping, I tend to want to do a lot of it all at the same time, so then I don't have to do it again for quite awhile. I was lucky to find out about shopping for clothes where all the money collected for items, benefits the Jewish Child and Family Services.

So I found great bargains of $5.00 blue jeans and tops, belts, and two piece tops, and a matching top and sweatpants. I came home quite pleased with all the things I had bought for $80.00. And it benefits others too. That's the way I like to go shopping.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Oprah Winfrey and others often talk about getting an attitude of gratitude, or finding things to feel grateful about. Facing a life threatening illness as I have been, I'm finding all kinds of big and small things to feel grateful about. That's also a direction I hope this blog will head towards from time to time.

I'm grateful that the Doctors are willing to let me stay overnight in the hospital to get my chemo treatment, so I don't have to take an ambulet or taxi home. I'm grateful to have that extra day to sleep and chill out, so I can drive myself home afterwards. After having 3 hours of chemo on May 20th, I only had to stay one extra day. Last time I had to stay two extra days. So I view that as an improvement. And I grab on to any improvements I can find no matter how small or insignificant they might be.

So far this time around I'm not feeling nauseousness or like I need to vomit, as I have before. And that indeed is something to be grateful about, and also an improvement I'm adding to my list.

They are spoiling me, and making it difficult to leave to go home!

While staying in the hospital isn't always ideal, still I get fed pretty good meals there, Better than what I would cook for myself. I probably sleep better then I do at home. And I get visited by the nurses and other caring medical people, when I'm starved for attention. Plus I get to watch TV and eat in bed at the same time. Who could ask for more? Whether it's watching Oprah, The View, or classic TV like Ponderosa or Leave it To Beaver. I can play with the hospital bed settings, raising and lowering my head or my feet as need be.

Now if only I could persuade them that their hospital gowns need a fashion upgrade. Has anyone seen my pajamas with the enclosed footies, and you know the ones, they have the back door covering, that buttons and unbuttons for easy access? Snug and warm and comfortable. I'll opt for Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang for my footsie, back trap door pjs that are warm and wonderful.

Blog Interupted

I didn't see the movie Girl Interupted, so I don't know if that can compare at all to my Blog being interupted the way it has been. But with cancer illness, hospitalizations, needing to stay in a rehab nursing home type facility for a few weeks, doctors appointments, overnight stays in the hospital for chemo treatments, sometimes needing to sleep for 12 hours at a time, I guess it's no big surprise that my blog is feeling quite neglected and ignored.

Maybe I should just start all over again. Nah. It'll take me too long to figure out how to set it all up again. So now that I probably have no readers whatsoever well here I am again. So if you want to learn how NOT to build a successful money making blog, try reading this one! :-)

Two months later, I'm finally getting back to putting a blog post up. I've missed my blog! Hope I can remember everything else that goes with it. Still it's nice to know my blog is calmly sitting here waiting for me, when I do get back to it. My blog is far more patient than I am! Well hopefully I can build up my reader relationship, if I had any readers to begin with by starting all over again. Who knows what I'll be blogging about this time around.

The Secret Ingredients Please!

So what exactly is in them? Exactly what kind of ingredients, chemicals, tars and nicotines, and addictive substances do cigarettes actually contain that I've been inhaling into my body for over 30 years? I'm sure I could do extensive research, to actually find out, those ingredients, but humor me here. Go take a look at a pack or carton of cigarrettes.

There is NO ingredient list whatsoever on them! I've searched and searched. There's the surgeon generals different health warnings. There's a UPC code, there's the location where they are produced in West Virginia. There's some small stamps on the plastic outer wrapper, thanking me for the monetary contributions I've been making to my state and counties taxes by my buying cigarettes.

There's even a description, that one pack contains 20 Class A Cigarettes. Well thank God for small favors. I sure wouldn't have wanted to have been spending all those years smoking some kind of inferior Class B or Class C addictive substances, now would I?

There's even a description that tells me what smooth rich taste these cigarettes have, and a polite request asking me not to litter. But I can't find an ingredients list anywhere!

Doesn't that seem kind of odd to begin with? No ingredients listed whatsoever? Cigarettes have to contain something don't they?

A box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, a can of soup, all list some kind of list of ingredients on their labels. Many of those might be some kind of preservative. Many I might not have ever heard of, or know what they are or what they're supposed to do or not be doing for me.

I might not ever make those kind of radical eating life changes where I will never again put emulsifier soy lecithin into my mouth, but at least I know that pack of hard candies, I've been substituting for cigarettes contains that emulsifier soy lecithin, whatever that is. But at least I can still choose not to ever have a butterscotch hard candy again, knowing, that emulsifier soy lecithin, is included on the ingredients label. I might not have a clue what emulsifier soy lecithin actually is or what it's doing or not doing for me, but at least I know they're part of those butterscotch candies, and hopefully emulifier soy lecithin adds to the taste and flavor of those hard candies, I'm enjoying.

I have to wonder how did the makers of Cigarettes get away with listing no ingredients whatsoever on their packaging for so long? Even things that aren't supposed to be swallowed or ingested contain a list of ingredients or poisen control centers or places to contact or things to do if someone swallows that diswashing detergent by mistake.

But Cigarettes have no ingredients listed at all. None, nada, zero, nothing. So you don't even have any idea at all what you've been inhaling, or even if you've been been inhaling the same things over time. Those chemicals could have been removed, replaced, revamped, remade, revoked, reoffered, and I wouldn't know what was in my cigarettes from 10 or 20 years ago, anymore then I know what ingredients there are in cigarettes today.

I know good cooks have their secret ingredients, they might not ever reveal in their recipes, but how is it, that every single ingredient in a pack of cigarette appears to be a secret ingredient? What's up with that?

That original cook, must be some high up official or something, with a whole army of security and intelligence people, hanging around them all the time. All those cigarette ingredients must fall under some sort of category like, "Stricktly Classified Ingredients". You don't have high enough clearance for a "need to know basis", or maybe it's just the tobacco industry's way of saying, "You really don't want to know... what we put in our products. So stop looking for silly things like a list of ingredients on the side of the pack or carton. We aren't about to tell you anyway!"

I haven't ever researched this either but I wonder if any politician in history has ever just flatly refused to accept political monetary sponsorship from tobacco companies, simply because there are no ingredients listed whatsoever on their packages? Or for other areas that produce things of questionable value, such as alcohol, tobacco, or guns.

I'm sounding too much like my late father. Tobacco, alcohol, guns, big money industries, that politicians badly need to fund their political campaigns. But as this old former hippie of 55 years of age, I might not ever get another chance in my life to protest these kinds of things, so I'm taking this blogging opportunity to protest them now!

Even a cleaning product that isn't supposed to be be swallowed, inhaled, or consumed by anybody, contains a list of ingredients, in case that mistakenly happens to somebody. But Cigarettes somehow remain exempt from having to list any kind of ingredient list at all? How did that ever happen, through history, and why does it stilll happen today?

I hope that alone, might give someone something to think about the next time that temptation sneaks up on them to light up a cigarette. So what kind of ingredients did you say are in a cigarette? Oh yeah that's right, you didn't say, did you?

It's not like cigarettes are like a box of cracker jack with a toy surprise inside of them or something. Some unknown surprises we would all be better off living without, especially when we don't have a clue exactly what kind of wonderful chemical surprises that pack or carton of cigarettes contains?

Hope that makes somebody pause for a second, while it's becoming harder for me not to preach from the pulpit about cigarette smoking.