ldleeuw

When I was little, I imagined a perfect life. I picked careers, pretended to make life-changing decisions and pictured my future. Nothing was affected by realistic needs and the facts of my life. I could be anything and never worry about discrimination in the workplace. I could live anywhere and not stress over medical access or insurance. My mind was limitless.

Now I make these life-changing decisions for real: I pick future careers, places to live and potential spouses. Now I have limits. My decisions factor in my diabetes and my future with diabetes. I look at things like job requirements, insurance benefits and personal reactions to my diabetes. Everything is affected by it. (READ MORE)

There is a lot going on today. A lot. I guess I'm not very happy, but I am trying my darndest to be. I am dealing with more emotions today than I can ever remember having. I have a lot of personal stuff happening and I have been trying to share as much of that with you all as I can. As you know, I am in the middle of a life changing experience with my career. Just last night I sent my resume, cover letter, and references off to what I hope to be my next, and potentially last employer. Also, so much is going on in the world with people suffering, hurting, and being sick. And last but not least, I wasn't able to train martial arts today, and instead I ate a freaking pizza.
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Today, Monday, I start a new job. To supplement my personal training business and this blogging job, I have decided to do some work landscaping. I love to work outside. I have done some work with this company before. When I was 18, my good friend and I worked there for a summer job. It was very hard and physically taxing work. I spent a lot of 8 hour shifts shoveling dirt, rocks, and mulch. A lot of time was spent bending over or on my knees planting, sweating, and working with my hands and body. (READ MORE)

Somewhere between work and sewing the overgown for my most recent renaissance-faire visit, I managed to miss Friday's Blog Action Day. It's not something I feel I must participate in, but it's an occasional source of inspiration -- especially when it's a topic that can be turned on its ear.

This year the topic was water -- in particular, access to clean drinking water. Washing water. Safe, parasite-free water. Something that is lacking in many parts of the world. (At least one episode of Bobby G, Adventure Capitalist showed the eponymous individual playing a major role in bringing safe drinking water to a Nicaraguan community.)

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One of the issues that many of my Type 1 compatriots are often confronted with is the idea that "juvenile diabetes" is restricted to, well, juveniles. That once you turn 18 -- or 21, in some jurisdictions -- your diabetes automatically transmogrifies into Type 2 and you can be cured by exercising three hours a day, losing 10 pounds, and avoiding any food that isn't pure protein. And maybe, taking a cinnamon pill, a bitter melon pill, or whatever the herbal cure du jour might be.

As we all know, that popular myth has about as much truth to it as, umm, the belief that Princess Anastasia is still alive and well and living in the same body she had in 1917. Let me rephrase. The probability that Rasputin is alive and well and living in the same body he had in 1917. (READ MORE)

If I've been a bit incommunicado during the early part of the month, a chunk of it can be attributed to the pre-Christmas time crunch of cookie baking and working retail. I actually had several ideas sketched out — two of them even drafted — but no time to sit and get them posted. Finally, I had some time over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day — but for some still-undetermined reason, every time I tried to access my page to post, I got a 404 File Not Found error. Worse yet, I got this error for everything under Blogabetes — so I missed Carey's posts on Charlie's Christmas and all but the first paragraph of "Prickings" as well. (READ MORE)