excited about a thing

For like almost 4 years now I’ve been making a morning protein health drink for me and my mom. It had to evolve a bit when we decided to quit buying fresh fruits and veggies from local stores (too many recalls and nobody around here isn’t disgusting), but my mom and I love it.

Almost 2-1/2 years of that time I’ve also been making one for my dad. But he’s such an ass that he complains about everything to the point where I had to start making his first and separate from ours with the ingredients he’d allow.

• “those probiotics hurt my stomach!”
• “the white powder gave me the runs!” -- a second protein powder
• “the blueberries have little seeds in them that make me choke!“ -- it’s powdered blueberries
• “the MCT oil made me queasy!”
• “the coffee is what gave me atrial-fibrillation” -- it was 1oz so about 10 mg vs the 40mg he regularly consumed with each Pepsi he drank
• “DID YOU PUT CHALK IN MY DRINK?!” -- powdered peanut butter

The probiotics that were evil and hurt his stomach? He now takes the capsules. The same ones I used to dump out into the drink. He claims the capsules don’t hurt his stomach but he also doesn’t know they’re the same thing 😤

And if you’ve been following me, you’ll realize ALL the other stuff he was doing including messing with his own meds is what caused atrial-fibrillation flare-ups.

This protein drink wasn’t something I went into lightly. I’ve done tons of research and tweaked it over the years to make it fit my mom’s cancer and all the things we need because we don’t eat some things other people eat.

Anyway I finally realized how many Boost dad was drinking a day -- between 2-5 -- so I was like okay you gotta choose between my drink, Boost only twice a day, or all the vitamins I spent a TON of time researching for you (that once we took out of his room we realized he had only taken a couple times and stopped).

He chose Boost. Expensive, but whatever. I don’t have to buy vitamins for him and I DON’T HAVE TO MAKE HIS STUPID DRINK.

It used to take me 25 minutes to make our morning drink. Making it for just my mom and I, it only takes me 10 minutes including clean-up time.

It’s quick. It’s easy. I swear it tastes better.

It might taste better just because it’s less stressful, but also I’d have to put things into about five different glasses to get all of our stuff in the right proportions without him getting any of the stuff that he said was evil.

I just put all the ingredients into the blender together now. No extra glasses.

You know, like a normal person would do who doesn’t have my father as a father.

Oh and also because my dad is still battling ringworm, he’s been quaran/tined to his room, so my mom and I get to have breakfast in peace. That probably makes it taste better too 🥰

spend time where it counts

For years my mom has been trying to get me to put my efforts behind things that do good instead of allowing people to monopolize my time when they don’t even appreciate it.

The problem is I’m terrible at figuring out who is actually going to appreciate something and use it and what’s best to focus my efforts on.

I’m not the type of person who half-asses things. If you ask me to do something, it’s getting overdone.

Which is great for things that need a lot of research like the business I’m in, which would’ve failed miserably if I wasn’t the way I am. And it’s great for people like my mom who appreciate and use the things I find. But for a lot of things it just works out to be for nothing.

Like with my dad.

Every time my mom has been diagnosed with something or has a problem, I learn as much as I can about it. Between the two of us, we came up with a food list of dos and don’ts and changed our entire way of eating for her cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.

The result was that her cancer doc and her dermatologist were both blown away by how fast she recovers from every spot of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma she develops.

It never shows up in her lab work, unlike almost every other patient with the disease.

The spots clear up so quick that both of her docs go on and on with “keep up the good work!” and “maybe you should do a seminar to help others” and they give her the lowest and second lowest doses of cream that usually aren’t strong enough to treat this disease well, but they work for her because she just needs a little help.

(lowest dose cream for mild spots and second lowest if the other cream doesn’t work fast enough)

Anyway, I’ve been working harder at putting my efforts where they’re needed and appreciated.

So yesterday when my mom came out of my dad’s room and said “Paul (dad’s best friend) told him that he did some research and found that low B12 can make ringworm worse” I nodded, said something about how yeah that might have a connection since my dad’s side of the family has B12 deficiency -- I’ve got it too and it’s part of what I had to work with for our diet.

When I followed that up with, “But I’m not going to put my time and energy into researching that when he’s not going to follow through,” she paused for a moment, seemed a little surprised, but then nodded and smiled.

The fact that we found all those nearly untouched vitamins in his room a few days ago definitely helped me realize quicker that I shouldn’t bother with the B12 thing, but I’m also hoping I’m doing better with the whole spending time where it counts thing 🥳