Just like the Magic 8 Ball

This blog is kinda like the Magic Eight Ball. You never know what answer will float up to the top. It's because that's how my brain works. It doesn't work in a linear way. It works at random. Things I know will just pop up so when they do, I plan on writing them here. Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Psalm 25 4&5 NLT

This is my thought for the day
Psalm 25
4  Show me the path where I should walk, 

   O Lord; point out the right road for me to follow.
5 Lead me by your truth and teach me, 

   for you are the God who saves me. 
  All day long I put my hope in you. 


Search Amazon.com for new living translation bible

Psalm 25 4&5 NLT

This is my thought for the day
Psalm 25
4  Show me the path where I should walk, 

   O Lord; point out the right road for me to follow.
5 Lead me by your truth and teach me, 

   for you are the God who saves me. 
  All day long I put my hope in you. 


Search Amazon.com for new living translation bible

Psalm 25 4&5 NLT

This is my thought for the day
Psalm 25
4  Show me the path where I should walk, 

   O Lord; point out the right road for me to follow.
5 Lead me by your truth and teach me, 

   for you are the God who saves me. 
  All day long I put my hope in you. 


Search Amazon.com for new living translation bible

Friday, February 19, 2010

Hit in the Head by a Brick.

I will never figure out how my old brain works.  Linking it to the functioning of the Magic Eight Ball is really quite accurate.  For the last few years, even before the worst day of my life, January 6th 2009, I was not my usual busy self.  I just seemed to mope around with no particualr direction.  Not like me at all.  I was usually working on one project or another.

The other day while walking Blade, I was feeling particular glum.  Feeling sorry for myself because of the fact that a portion of my life was coming to an end.  I was out of work, selling my beloved house.  You get the picture.  It was a beautiful winter's day.  The sun was shining, the snow was sparkling, and the temperture was just right.  I was mulling over the fact that I was particularly glum.  How could a person be glum on such a gorgeous day.  I felt useless, my life felt like it was over, I was not looking forward to anything. 

"What is wrong with Me?" I asked myself.  I have always looked forward to the future.  Seeing how life unfolded as time went on always made me feel hopeful and happy.  When had my view of life changed?
A brick hit me in the head.  Not a real one but a mental one.  The light bulb came on and I knew.

Many years ago, I had asked God for a favor.  I was 37 when my youngest son was born.  By the time he was old enough to take care of himself, I would be almost 60.  One night while rocking him to sleep, I asked God for a favor.  "Dear Lord," I asked "Please let me live long enough for to see my son reach adulthood and able to take care of himself.  Once that is done, you can take me home anytime.  That's all I ask, let me live long enough to see Jacob on his own."

Unbeknownst to me, I had limited my life span.  Not unlike a cancer patient who is told how long he has to live. Somewhere in my self conscious, I had pre-programmed the end of my life.  When Jake reached 18, something inside of me, turned me off.  I wasn't dead but I had ceased to really live. 

A great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.  The tiny flame of what had been Carol Elgie became a little brighter.  And so the journey begins.  With God's help, that flame will get brighter and brighter as I reclaim the person that I was.  Someone who faced what ever life threw at her as a challange to be overcome.  Someone for whom the idea of someone else taking care of her was distasteful. 

Time will tell whether I can jump start my life.  Whether I leave my beloved home and start a new life in Georgia in not the issue.  The issue is can I begin to participate in living again.  My physical and mental self have become weak with lack of use.  It will be like going to the gym.  I need to get my soul back to where I left off.  And that is exactly what I did.  I left my soul and retired from this life because somewhere in the back of my mind, when Jake turned 18, I retired. 

WELL, WORLD, CAROL IS COMING OUT OF RETIREMENT.

It will be interesting to see how my life changes, now that I realize it is not over.
.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

It'a official

I really thought I was going to grow old in this house of mine.  It is no longer a possibility.  Tomorrow my friend Doris, a realtor is stopping by.  My house is going to be up for sale.  The last few years have not been all that great.  After being fired from a job had done for 25 years and loved, nothing has been the same.  Just as I thought I was finally getting back to who I really was, THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED.  And the job I have been doing for the last five years has evaporated.

It's not all bad.  My oldest daughter is expecting her second child and wants me to come and give her a hand with the kids and the house.  That is wonderful as I love my grandson and like taking care of him.  I would also do anything to help my children.  It just that when you think you have things settled, something happens.

I am realizing how much my life will change.  It is scary and I don't know if I can keep my sanity.  This old house had been my anchor.  It is my safe haven from the storms of life and soon it will be gone.  When I was younger facing a change in course simply meant that I would just have to figure out what to do and then do it.  Now I feel that I am stepping into a black hole.  I am afraid I won't come out the other end.

Okay, whine whine whine.  Get it together Carol, life will go on and you will be better when it's all done.
I started out on a mission this week but any change in my daily routing seems to throw me off.  My step son and kids were in town and it was great to see them but they threw me off.  I forgot to exercise yesterday and forgot my meds today.  Blade did get his walk and so did I.  I did cook real food, baked spaghetti.  I have made enough to either feed an army or me for about two weeks.  Not cooking for 6 people, something I can't get used to.

Mr. Belvedere. remember that TV show, that housekeeper that the family couldn't live without?  I have to practice that.  The one problem is that I hate housework.  I was a great mother and a fair cook but house work...has one of my more well honed talents.  Okay time to quit whining.  I feel better to just get it out.  The only thing is I hope I can take Blade with me.  Walking him tonight, I remembered I may not be able to take him with me.  How he would be missed.  He is my constant companion and best friend.  I would be lost without him.

My options right now are move to Georgia and stay
Go to Georgia temporarily to help while my daughter is on maternity leave and then go where?
Get a job her and don't go to Georgia for any reason
I guess I just don't know, I just don't know

The Hardest thing I Ever Did

Well, I did it.  Putting my house up for sale was a heart wrenching decision, I truly love my house.  I raised all my kids here, planted my gardens and feed my birds.  I really thought I would die in this house.  Life has not turned out like I thought it would.

  I know I made the right decision.  All the kids are grown with the last one a sophomore in college.  None have any desire to return and work in the town where they were born.  It's just me, Blade my dog, and the three cats. The house is too big, it needs to much work that I can't do anymore and I am out of work for the second time in 25 years.  I have the opportunity to give my oldest daughter a hand with her son and with another one due in June, she will need it.  The idea of being a full time granny is an idea that I truly love. But the idea of the changes to get there are unsettling.

It's not just the house.  IT'S MY STUFF!  I love my stuff.  I can remember where I found it and why I liked it.  I don't collect anything in particular, I just collect.  No, I am not one of those people who's house can't be walked through but....

There is my vintage linens, I even have two linen bed sheets.  Did you know that at one time sheets were made of linen.  I have damask table cloths, one of them is over 100 years old.  There's dresser scarves, table cloths, hankies and napkins.  I started collecting them I realized that I could buy beautifully embroidered linens for a fraction of what it cost me to embroider badly. 

There is my collection of California pottery from the sixties.  I am especially fond of my chip and dip set as well as my ourderve server.  There is my 10 place setting of china.  It is complete with every thing but cups.  I had wanted a china set to use on holidays for years.  Thats the only time I use it because well, its about the only time I cook.  Now mind you, it's not that I can't cook.  It's that I don't cook.

I have dozens of miss-matched floral cups and saucers.  It's a same to let a beautiful cup or saucer go to waste because it doesn't have a mate.  So I pick up a cup here and a saucer there and then when I sit down to drink my tea, I just pick a pair.  I even have a mustache cup, that's because my mother used to collect them and it reminds me of her.  I even have a couple of cups and saucers that match, imagine that.  A cup and saucer that have come down through the ages (well they are really not that old) and never got seperated.

  Then there is my aprons.  I have all kinds, bib aprons, cobblers aprons, even some fancy lacy aprons. Again there is one that was my mother's.  It was actually made for her by Seminole Indians when we lived in Naples, Florida.

Now it's on to my hats.  I love hats and I have a lot of them.  Feather one, organza ones, big ones, little ones, summer ones and winter ones.  I like to wear them to church or when I go out for a fancy dinner.

I have salt dips and spoons that go with them that I have collected since I was a teenager. There are books by the score.  I love to read and they are such a steal at the resale shops.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

IT SMELLS LIKE SPRING!!!!!!!!! I LOVE FEBRUARY.  IT'S A SHORT MONTH SO IT IS A QUICK SLIDE INTO MARCH.

L. L. Bean, the Best Boots Ever




Best Boots Ever

I have to put this in before I forget.  Just like the Magic Eight Ball, ideas quickly surface and then just a quickly sink into the great abyss.
  I was in desperate need for new winter boots.  Although the ones I had had lasted for many years they were starting to leak.  Not a good thing when you live in Michigan.  Now you have to understand, unlike my children who like nothing better than to buy new shoes, I hate it.  Have  you seen the cost of shoes? 
So, what kind of boot to get.  I know what I wanted.  They needed to be warm,water proof, come in wide and not to high.  We ladies with healthy calves have to be careful about tall boots.  After searching through my stack of catalogs, I found them.  They were perfect, they met all my requirements and one more, they were made in America (can you believe that).  I cringed at the price, $100.00.  I took a deep breath, went on line and ordered them.  These L.L. Bean boots are the best I have ever had.  So if you are looking for a good, sturdy pair of boots but don't need the "I climb mountains in my spare time kind of boot"L.L.Bean Women's New 8"Gore-Tex/Thinsulate Bean BootL.L.Bean Shearling Bean Boot Gumshoe Men's, I highly recommend them.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

After Posting the 73rd Psalm its time for Baking Soda

Have another use for baking soda.  It is a great deodorizer.  Put it in the laundry with those towels that sat in damp pile too long.  Use it with those smelly, smelly practice jerseys and socks.  Put it in to tennis shoes or any shoe that are smelly.  And if a pinch it makes a perfectly good personal deodorant and if you can stand the taste as a toothpaste

Psalm 73

It's funny how God sends you just what you need when you need it.
I ran across Psalm73 (new living translation) and it was asking the same questions I have been asking myself lately.  It helped me leave my resentment of others and their success behind.  I will take it with me as I turn over a new page in my life.

Truly God is goo to Israel,
to those whose hearts are pure

But as for me, I came so clost the the edge of the cliff
My feet were slipping  and I was almost gone.

For I envied the proud when I say them prosper
despite their wickedness.

They seemed to live such a painless life;
their bodies are so healthy and strong

They aren't troubled by like other people
or plagued with the problems like everyon else.

T;hey wear pride like a jeweled necklace,
and their clothing is woven of cruelty

Tese fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for

They scoff and speak only evil
in their pride they seek to crush others.

They boast against the very heavens
and their words strut throughout the earth.

and so the people are dismayed and confused,
drinking in all their words.

"Does God realize what is going on?" they ask.
"Is the Most High even aware of what is happening?"

Look at thses arrogant people--
enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.

Was it for no;thing that I kept my heart pure
and kept myself from doing wrong?

All I get is trouble all day long,
every morning brings me pain

If I had reall spoken this way,
I would have been a traitor to your people.

So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper.
Bur what a difficult task it is!

Then one day I went into your sanctuary, O God,
and I thought about the destiny of the wicked.

Truly, you put them on a slippery path
and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction

In an instant they are destroyed swept away by terrors.

Teir prsent life is only a dream
that is gone when they awake.

When ;you arise, O Lord
you will make them vanish from this life.

Then I realized how bitter I had become,
how pained I had been by all I had seen

I was so foolish and ignorant-
I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you

Yet I still belong to you;
you are holding my right hand

You will keep on guiding me with your counsel,
leading me to a glorious destiny.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
I desire you more than anything on earth.

My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever

But those who desert him will perish,
for you destroy those who abandon you.

But as for me, how good it is to be near God!
I have made the Sovereigh Lord my shelter,
and I will tell everyone about
the wonderful things you do

All, I can say is AMEN to that. 

I am going thru a really rough time right now.  The struggle is what to do, how to do it, and will it succeed.  I have lost a job I was counting on and having nothing appearing on the horizon.  I look around me and see others prosper and begrudge them their easy life.  But then God sends me 73 Psalm and it makes me realize that a life well lived is worth more than all the gold in the world.  That my reward is not of this earth but of heaven.  That even at my age, my life can blossom and be a comfort to those around me.

Herb Medicine After the Fall of Rome



The Golden Age of Islam


Europe in Transition

The Dark Ages of Western Europe began after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE to Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain.. This era is considered by historians as a transitional period between the ending of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the High Middle Ages. It is characterized by the lack of Latin literature, limited building activity combined with a lack of material evidence of cultural and historical achievements. It was also characterized by a decline the population, especially in urban areas with an accompanied deterioration of trade.This time of cultural stagnation ended with the beginning of the Renaissance in the 14tn century.

Arabic Translation of Greek Scholar Discorides
Arabic Translation of Greek Scholar Discorides

Greek and Roman Treatises Lost

During these dark ages when European culture came to a standstill, the monasteries did their best to preserve the libraries of both the ancient Greeks and Romans. There were too many to save and too few who were able to do the work need to preserve these libraries.  Many of the works of the most learned people of the ancient world would have been lost forever except for the rise of the Golden Age of Islam.



The Golden Age of Islam

Islamic Scholars: Keepers of the Flame

During this golden age, knowledge and learning flourished in the lands united under Islamic rule.Universities were established throughout the Arab world.  Medical schools or Bimaristans began to appear in by the 9th century. Damascus, Bagdad and Cairo were all important centers for the study of medicine, herbs and pharmacology. The Arab scholars of the time valued and respected what the Greeks and Romans left.  Much of what was written was preserved in Arabic to be rediscovered later in history.

Bimaristan in Bahgdad
The Golden Age of Islam

Only A Few of the Islamic Scholars and What They Learned

Bimaristan in Bahgdad


inner page of Kitb al-nabt  Ābu Ḥanīfah Āḥmad ibn Dawūd Dīnawarī (828 – 896)


was a mathematician, astronomer, metalurgest, agriculturest as well as a botanist. He is the author of Kitab al-Nabat  or in English, the Book of Plants.  In this treatise he described over 637 different plants and their medicinal uses.  Ibn Dawūd Dīnawarī is the father of Arabic botany.

                                                           inner page of Kitb al-nabt    

Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi(936 – 1013)

Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi
Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi(936 – 1013) anglicanized to Abulcasis was born near Cordoba Spain.  He wrote a thirty chapter medical treatise, Kitab al-Tasrif, completed in the year 1000.  This treatise covered a broad range of medical topics.  A part of this tome, Liber Servitoris, gave specific instructions on the preparation of distillates and sublimations of herbs for medicinal use.

Bukari-Ibn Sina

Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Sina (980-1027)


Bukari-Ibn Sinaknow in Europe as Avicenna, was born in Bukhara (today’s Uzbekistan). He wrote Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb in 1025.  It’s name was later  anglicanizedto The Cannon of MedicineAl-Qanun fila-Tibb was a codification of all medical knowledge of the time and included the first pharmacopoeia. Ibn Sina’s treatise is considered the first pharmacopoeia and lists over 800 tested drugs plants and minerals. This book was used as a reference book in Europe well into the 15 century.

Stained Glass Window
Stained Glass Window

Abu Abbas Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Mufarraj, often called al-Nabatî, (1165-1171 approx)

botanist and teacher of  Ibn-al-Baitar (1197-1248) was born in Seville Spain. He is considered the father of the scientific method.  He is responsible for introducing the scientific method into the study of plants as medicine. This 13th century scholar introduced into plant studies the use of empirical testing.  Not only did his materia medicas include the identification and descriptions of plants but the  observed and recorded proof of their effectiveness as medicine.  From these studies the science of pharmacology evolved.

Ibn al Baytar
Ibn al BaytarKitab al-jami fi al-adwiya al-mufrada or as The Corpus of Simples

Abu Muhammad Abdallah Ibn Ahmad Ibn al-Baitar Dhiya al-Din al-Malaqi(1188-1248)

Kitab al-jami fi al-adwiya al-mufrada or as The Corpus of Simples of Malaga, Spain was a student of al-Nabati. In 1219 he embarked on an expedition across the North African coast. His travels clear across northern Africa into Egypt. In 1224 al-Kamil, governor of Egypt appointed him chief physician. When Egypt’s conquest of Syria, al-Baitar was able to include collect new plant speciments to add to his collection. In all his works included over 1400 different herbs and medications, 200 of which were his original discoveries. Some of his discoveries included tamarind, aconite and nux vomica. He published his research into herbs and herbal medicine in his book Kitab al-jami fi al-adwiya al-mufrada or as The Corpus of Simples anglicanized. This book became one of the most complete herbals ever written and was used well into the 18th  century.

In researching herbs and the Middle Ages, I discovered the wealth of knowledge contributed by the Islamic scholars of those times. I felt I could not write about herbal medicine without mentioning some of these great scientist of this era.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

ATTENTION: CHESTNUT HILLS APARTMENTS KALAMAZOO ARE AWFUL

THIS IS FOR ANYONE LOOKING FOR AN APARTMENT IN KALAMAZOO, DO NOT AND I MEAN DO NOT LOOK INTO CHESTNUT HILLS.  THEIR LEASING AGENT, DAWN IS A REAL B AND I DON'T USE THAT WORK VERY OFTEN BUT WHEW SHE IS.

THEY ARE NOT WELL MAINTAINED.  THEY ARE CHEAPLY MADE AND NOT WELL KEPT. WHEN I WAS THERE YESTERDAY THERE WHERE LIQUOR BOTTLES IN THE DRIVEWAY AND TRASH ON THE SIDE WALKS. THE TILE FLOOR IN THE BATHROOM OF THE APARTMENT I WAS IN WHERE ALL ASKEW, THERE WERE HOLES IN THE SCREENS AND THE SCREEN IN THE SLIDING GLASS DOOR WAS BROKEN AND THERE WAS A BIG HOLE IN THE CUPBOARD UNDER THE SINK.  SO RENTERS BEWARE.