Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Nature Pictures are Online (Finally!)

Last weekend, I finally did one of my goals, which is to get my nature photography on my site so that you can see all of it.

Now, there is a photography section to my online book: http://www.blueginger.org/.

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Beach Pictures NEW
Cloud Pictures NEW
Lake Pictures NEW
Rock, Mountain, and Sand Pictures NEW
Tree Pictures NEW
Optics and Other Pictures NEW


In other news, Fred Thompson dropped out of the race today, so, for those of you following along, I'm now supporting Mitt Romney, who has been my second choice this past year.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

January Pictures

Here are some more pictures for those of you who like nature pics for your computer background:


Winter Moon


Early Blooms

Winter Pecans

And from the family file: Sam and his Lego ship. The yellow shirt is his Homeschooler P.E. shirt.

Alex reading for school.
I also added a lot of info to my "Doing Now" column on your right, so read that as well to get caught up. :-)

Friday, January 04, 2008

I won the Geology quiz! :-)

I don't usually win things, but when it's a Geology quiz, my odds go up dramatically. :-)
Look, my name is listed first: :-)
http://geology.com/quiz/answers.shtml
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I've been watching this quiz since they were on #13. The only other quiz from this webpage that I've answered was #17, but I said "meteorite" instead of "iron meteorite", so that's what I did wrong on that one.
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Anna, you'd be proud... they're actually mailing me a gift for winning. :-) So, yes, I frequent Geology.com on a daily basis. I love it.
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Speaking of webpages, and since I'm already tooting my own horn: Cricket and I finally finished preparing the new Aspies of Austin bulletin board for her group AspiesofAustin.com. It's so much prettier and more functional than the last board.
We just can't seem to get anyone to use the thing just yet. They just keep using mass email to hold conversations. But it's early, we'll see how it goes. I'm happy that I did my part to help the group. :-)
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My sister Krysten just moved into her first house! I'm so happy for her and her family. It's a beautiful house too. They're not quite unpacked yet, which is totally normal, especially when the mom has a broken leg. My dad put pictures of it here: http://www.mikeoverstreet.com/. You can see that my nephews are enjoying it as well. Too bad she has a broken ankle throughout this whole move, but I know people in Tucson have been taking care of her. Congratulations Sissy!
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I mentioned on the side bar, upper right of this webpage, that I'm learning how to eat. This is because I've been sick my whole life, I mean really sick; and I think now, at almost age 34, I've finally figured out why. I've been actively searching for how to get healthy for about 9 years now, and this is the first thing that makes sense and that explains everything.
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Turns out, my body is even more autistic than my mind is. For seven weeks now I've been on the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free diet, and it's changing my life. I'm learning more and more, and now am starting to add the Feingold diet. I'm not just trying to be picky, or ultra healthy or anything. I just can't digest this stuff. It's called food intolerance, which is different than allergies. I've listed lots of links for information on this on the aspiesofaustin.com website, in case you want to know more.
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Don't worry, most people do not need to be on a crazy diet like this. Only people on the Autistic spectrum and sometimes their close family members. It will take me several months to a year to clean all the wheat and dairy out of my system, but I'm already feeling MUCH better.
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I'm sleeping, which is amazing; my head's getting clearer and I can think better; and Brian says my eye contact is much better. I didn't think anything of it at first, even when he said that, till I realized two days ago that I've spent the past two weeks being fascinated with the details and color varieties in everyone's eye color. There are so many details in the color, and so many beautiful patterns in the iris of everyone I see, I've never seen this before in my life! Even my own eyes are amazing to me. I never saw how clear blue they are. It's like no one had eyes before, and I'm just noticing it for the first time.
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I haven't really lost weight yet, only one pound. But, I should point out that I've never lost even one pound since Sam finished breastfeeding. No matter how much or how little or how good or how bad I eat, or if I walked 21 miles a week or none, I always gained weight at the same exact rate. In the past 7 weeks, I should've gained about 10 pounds. That's just how it's been for the past five years, there was nothing I could do to alter it. So, to not have gained 10 pounds this past 7 weeks is truly a miracle.
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Also, my blood sugar rarely drops now. It was dropping every 1.5 hours, to below 70 mg/dl, which is serious, and crazy. No one should have to eat that often. Doctors from a few months ago found that my metabolism was ultra-fast. They also learned that I was malnourished. Not things they commonly tell highly-overweight people. Now that I know I should be eating this different diet, I know that I my blood sugar drops and my symptoms of malnourishment resulted from the fact that I was only digesting a small portion of what I was eating.
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I love food now too, that's also a first for me in my life. I've never liked food. I hated eating, I
found no joy in it, and I got no energy from the food. That's all changed now. Now, at the end of a grocery shopping trip (if I'm shopping just for me), I look at the cart, and I love what I see. I get excited about the wonderful food in there that I'll get to eat in the coming days. I've never felt that way about food before! It's truly a wonderful blessing to me.