Just Lynn

One woman. One name. One hell of an attitude!

a rough introduction

Written By: witchypo - Apr• 26•15

Okay! For the past week or so I’ve been stressing because I’ve not only had to worry about that former roommate coming back to cause trouble, but working hard to clean the mess he left and find another roomy before my ‘good’ roommate leaves the country in a month or two. After all, without roommates, I could potentially lose my house!

Yesterday, though, I got a call from a friend who said they had a potential roomy for me, and I rushed to meet them. The whole way there, of course, I worried about repeating mistakes and such, but as soon as I saw ‘who’ we were talking about, I was relieved, because the ‘kid’ (he’s probably in his mid 30’s, but still a ‘kid’ to us) is someone I’ve sort of known for months, and while we’ve never really had a conversation, I’ve seen that he tends to be quiet, respectful, and polite.

Still, I couldn’t help worrying whether it would be a ‘mistake’ or not.

As soon as we got a moment to chat, though, my worry became less for me and more for him because our mutual friends started stepping in to ‘help’, and warned him that if there were any problems he’d be answering to them as well as me. In fact, they were so firm in their language and such that I, actually, felt sorry for the guy and started wondering if they’d scare him off completely!

Hopefully, however, he’ll understand as I did that they truly wanted this to work for both of us, and we’ll be able to work out a deal. Wish me luck!

trouble in da’ house

Written By: witchypo - Apr• 18•15

I’m so upset!

You see, for the past 6 years, I’ve been working low-end customer service jobs and taking in roommates to help keep the bills and mortgage paid, which has often led to more trouble and stress than its worth.

Last month, for example, a guy named Joe applied for the room, claiming he was working on a major construction project in the area and would be busy or away a good deal of the time, and that he was quiet, respectful, and willing to follow house rules. During our initial meetings, I explained the situation, rules, expectations, and offerings, and advised him of some of the troubles I’ve had, asking that he not cause more of the same.

Even as he moved his things in, though, I began finding holes in his stories, and feeling uncomfortable around him. He also, quickly, revealed that he was unemployed, started laying around the house watching television all hours of the day, and claiming that while he could work any time he wanted to, he was simply taking some down-time before starting the next venture.

When rent was due, he was short, although he did pay the balance by the next day. When he did, though, he admitted he’d been taking some of my food, and had put an extra $10 in to cover the cost.

Upset, I explained to him that if people ask for things, I’ll usually give, but that taking things without asking wasn’t ‘cool’. He didn’t apologize, but said that he often fails to consider how others will take things, and I thought he understood.

Unfortunately, he didn’t, and continued to pilfer from me, but by then it’d become clear that he had nothing, and I turned a blind eye to it out of pity. After all, I couldn’t allow someone to starve under my roof!

The next problem arose when I explained that his constant use of the shared internet connection was potentially going to cause ‘overages’, and he stated that he wasn’t willing to pay them, while refusing to reduce his usage. Of course, I explained how the shared internet worked, and the unfairness of expecting others to pay for his portion, but he didn’t want to hear it, and suddenly claimed I’d misrepresented the situation. Then, apparently unwilling to be ‘taken advantage of’, he gave notice, and began demanding I prorate and return all the money I ‘owed’ him.

For days, he pestered me at work and home with demands, and each time I tried explaining or talking to him, he refused to listen and tried telling me how I ‘owed’ him. Naturally, I was upset and wanted him out, but I’d also begun to suspect that he wasn’t ‘well’ mentally or emotionally, and I became frightened of the damage he might do me or my home.

So, because I couldn’t throw another human being out into the street without giving him a fair shot, I agreed to return his money if he simply got out quickly and didn’t cause me any more trouble. Joe didn’t ‘get it’, though, and continued to cause me grief.

On his last night in the house, though, when I discovered that he was intending to move out without cleaning up behind himself, I decided I couldn’t stay quiet any more, and explained that I wasn’t about to be left to do the work myself. Rather than understanding and doing the work, though, he actually argued that no one cleans when they move, and that landlords expect this and build it into their budgets.

Once again, I tried explaining the situation, advising him that I did so because it was clear he was going to have trouble like this in the future, and that his listening might help avoid it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to listen, and became agitated enough that I worried for my safety.

So, I called friends, asking that they come help me deal with Joe, and he warned me that if they came, he might become violent. Then, despite not wanting to have to, I called the police for help.

Amazingly, despite the police officers having advised Joe that I was completely within my rights to keep every penny he’d given me and that he really did have to leave, he argued with them and continued to claim he was being taken advantage of. Despite all this, I still gave him his last month’s rent back, hoping that would give him a fighting chance at finding a new home, and his last words to me were to ask if he ‘needed to count it(?)’

Naturally, I was upset, but not nearly so much as I was later, when everyone was gone and I was finally able to look at his room and such. (I never go into roommate’s rooms unless invited.) Then, I discovered that Joe had not only broken my rule against smoking in the house, but had obviously fallen asleep while doing so and burned a whole in the mattress.

‘He could have killed us both!’ I thought, and suddenly regretted having returned his money.

How could he stand in my house and argue the ‘principal of the thing’, when he’d done what he’d done(?!), I thought, and tears welled in my eyes as it sank in that… once again… I’d been taken advantage of.

Now, the only thing I can hope is that the ‘karma’ he claimed would come back to me will, and that my generosity in the face of such mistreatment will lead to my getting a better roommate quickly.

In the meantime, I suppose, that the best I can say of the situation is that its acted as a reminder that I should follow my ‘gut’ when it comes to potential roommates, and that it might make it a little easier to keep what’s owed me in the future instead of letting generosity hurt me in the end.

I did it! I read Tarot!

Written By: witchypo - Feb• 04•15

Okay, for almost a year, now, I’ve been playing with the idea of getting back into the Tarot… looking for someone else- who’s into it too so we can practice, exchange skills and readings… but, while a few people have said they’re interested, none were willing to put in the effort of showing up.

Some time before the Xmas, though, I found out that this chick I sorta’ know and respect was interested, and I put the offer out. Took a while but she finally showed up the other night and I was thrilled! I was also nervous, because its been ages and my self-doubt was running high, but I simply forced myself to pick up the cards and see what happened.

Not knowing her well, I opted to start with a ‘horoscope’ spread… just to kinda’ get a snap shot of who she is… and, while I had no idea of ‘what’ I was reading about, I did the best I could. Didn’t take long before I started feeling some of the old flow… kinda getting into it… but, of course, I doubted myself the whole time. Am I even in the same zip code as ‘close'(?) I wondered, and couldn’t tell because she played her cards close to her chest, so to speak.

Anyways, that spread took a lot longer than I expected. Heck! I barely remembered what the various placements meant… but when the last card was lain and I asked if she had any questions or comments, she told me that I was bang on!

Apparently, she’s gotten a lot of readings done and by many psychics, including some quasi-famous locals, and she shocked me by saying that my accuracy and amount of detail was up there with the best of them. Even more surprising was that she felt that I delivered it with an ‘innocent honesty’ she said she’s never seen before, and that I brought her what she called ‘validation’.

How the heck I did that, I don’t know, especially because I felt so rusty and out of touch. But, I’ve got to admit that hearing I was accurate and had talked about issues in her life that I had no way of knowing about made me think that maybe I’ve still got it in me. Encouraging!

Now, I just hope that she’ll give me the chance to work with her again, so maybe I can get my hand back in and get comfy with the cards again.

a message from Dad

Written By: witchypo - Jan• 18•15

Today, my daughter called to tell me that she had something of a message for me.

She’d been cooking, she said. She and her daughter herd the phone ring, and my daughter thought, ‘someone’s trying to get hold of me’. As she moved to answer, though, she realized that she didn’t have a phone (because someone else had her cell for the day), and that the one they’d just herd sounded ‘old fashioned’.

A short while later, she said, her toddler son was playing with a musical toy when it played a song that wasn’t part of its limited repertoire, and that she said sounded vaguely familiar and ‘Spanish’.

At that point, apparently, she realized that whoever was trying to reach her might not be able to use usual methods, and dug out a pendulum I’d made for her years ago. (A pendulum is a tool used in divination.) Between it, and her intuition, my daughter said, the best she could figure was that it was my deceased father… who’d played guitar and often picked in a classical Spanish style… and that he wanted me to know that he’s still around.

Having herd what she had to say, I thanked my daughter, and told her it was ironic that she’d called when she had because I’d been thinking about my father. The day before, it’d kind of ‘hit’ me that it was January… the month of both his birth and death and one that’s usually difficult for me… but that I’d been so wrapped up in life that I hadn’t bothered to mark it, and felt a little guilty.

Of course, we talked a while about similar experiences from our past, I mentioned my belief that spirits use songs, movies, words people speak, and other such ‘signs’ to communicate, and I ended the conversation by asking her to let me know if anything else like this happened.

Then, I finished some chores and, while its not my habit lately, decided to put some tv on and do a little yoga before bed. I chose ‘Borgia’ on Netflix (S3E8) and was only paying partial attention to it when I thought ‘better pay attention’, and put my glasses back on.

As I did, the scene changed to a moment after Lucretia Borgia’s wedding, and focused on a conversation between her and her father, Rodrigo (the Pope). In it, he tells her how much he loves her and wants her to live her dreams, and he swears that whether he’s alive or dead, he will always do anything in his power to support and protect her. ‘Go…’ he says, ‘and don’t look back…’

Was it a ‘coincidence, I wondered(?) After all, it wasn’t like I didn’t normally watch the show. But, even as I thought that, I knew that that scene could have been written quite differently, with Rodrigo and Lucretia talking about her brother’s involvement in her most recent husband’s death, or about her father’s incestuous desires for her. Yet, Rodrigo was saying exactly the sort of thing my father might have said to me…

My mind shot back to the months before my father passed away, and to the conversations we had about his inevitable death. I remembered him telling me the same sort of thing Rodrigo was telling Lucretia… that he loved me and wanted nothing but the best for me… that, alive or dead, he would always be with me… and that, if there were a way, he would communicate with me from beyond the grave.

Then, Rodrigo told Lucretia to ‘go’ again, and not to ‘look back’. She turned and, fighting tears, said ‘I’ll always look back, papa’…and I cried.

A few moments later, however, I was calm again and had decided that, coincidence or not, I would accept the odd events of my day as a ‘message’. Dad still loved me. He was still with me. And… gosh darn it!… he had found a way to ‘communicate’… again!

mushroom madness

Written By: witchypo - Dec• 05•14

Okay. This is a little weird even for me, but…

Recently, I wrote that the tendinitis pain I’ve been dealing with for years had, suddenly, begun to disappear, and that I’m not sure whether or not its the Turkey Tail mushroom tea I’ve been drinking or not, but I’m thrilled(!) This week, though, I also realized that the other problems I’ve been having… headaches, burning sensations in my skin, pain in my major joints (neck, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, etc), sleep issues, and more have suddenly disappeared too. Even the wickedly sore throat and roughness on the back of my tongue that I’ve had for days has just suddenly and completely disappeared!

The only thing is that I feel as though there’s something going on in my head… not sure how to describe it… like a feeling of fullness and a tingling or creeping sensation as though, periodically, my brain’s releasing something in the system and its flowing around in there.

Of course, with my family’s history with strokes and aneurysms, I can’t help being a little worried and if it keeps happening I may go back to Dr. Dreamy, ‘just in case’, but I wonder if perhaps the mushrooms are cleaning things out… maybe allowing a change in the flow of energy that I’m able to feel, if not ‘understand'(?)

Anyways, just wanted to share and sort of track this in case it becomes important or maybe someone else who’s using these mushrooms cares to know <|: )

almost painless

Written By: witchypo - Nov• 27•14

Something’s happened that I don’t want to forget.

Around the cusp of October and November, a couple of things were going on. I’d been forcing myself to take it easy for my body’s sake and my boss finally assigned a couple of guys to help with one of the nastiest (heaviest) chores of my day. I also started using Votaren Emugel on anything that hurt and drinking mushroom tea. The big one, though, was that I passed out while shopping, likely because I hadn’t eaten enough that day and my blood sugar dropped.

Of course, I’d had a similar incident back in the early ’90’s before I found out I’m hypoglycemic, but I still checked in with Dr. Dreamy – just in case – and then started keeping a close eye on my body for a bit.

At first, all I noticed was that I was particularly tired all the time, but a week or so after passing out I noticed that the ever present pain I’ve dealt with for the last couple of years seemed suddenly to have diminished. Then, over the next week or two, it kept lessening and lessening to the point that I’m now only getting the odd cramp or ache.

Was it the mushroom tea? The Voltaren? The rest? I’m not sure, but the burning sensations I was getting in my arms and legs seems to have almost disappeared and I’m sleeping better than I have in ages. In fact, its almost like my whole body’s been ‘reset’, and I don’t know if it had anything to do with passing out or not, but it feels like that event was like a computer reboot.

Now, I’m getting through my days with the normal aches and pains of a 48 year old woman and I couldn’t be happier! May sound odd, but I’m so grateful I feel like telling the world.

Turkey Tail Mushroom Kit

Written By: witchypo - Nov• 12•14

Lately, I’ve talked quite a bit about my health and while my BF doesn’t want to hear it, my buddy Mike the Mushroom Guy apparently did. In fact, he surprised me a couple of weeks ago by giving me a bag of Turkey Tail mushrooms he collected and telling me I should make tea with them and that it’d help me with my health problems.

‘Wow! Thanks!’ I told him, although I’ve got to admit that when I saw them I wasn’t sure I wanted to use them because they looked kind of nasty. Since he’d been kind enough to go to the effort, though, I popped online to see what I could learn about them. To my great surprise, I quickly learned that these humble mushrooms have some amazing healing properties and that they’ve been used to treat a variety of illnesses for thousands of years.

So, I asked Mike about preparation and he suggested I make a tea with them, which I did, and found it had a very mild and neutral flavor that wasn’t ‘nasty’ at all. The only thing is that if I’m going to be taking this tea on a regular, I figured I should probably buy a few tools to make it easier to make, so tonight I stopped by a 2nd hand shop and picked a few things up.

mushroom processing kit

mushroom processing kit

Since I need to make sure the dosage is right, I grabbed a small kitchen scale, along with a food grinder and a tea bell and for a grand total of $6 I was set. Now, its just a matter of getting into the habit of taking it on a daily and we’ll see if it makes a difference to my health.

2nd hand store finds

Written By: witchypo - Nov• 12•14

You know, it never ceases to amaze me that you can spend so little at 2nd hand stores and get so much! This afternoon, I got a kitchen scale, a tea ball, a grinder, a tea bell, and a skirt for just $12.00 : )

2nd hand finds

2nd hand finds

a recipe for success

Written By: witchypo - Oct• 03•14

For years, I’ve used diet as my main health management tool, but the only way I’ve had to gauge how well or poorly I’ve done has been to monitor my own weight, energy levels, and such, and to take advantage of information about blood pressure, cholesterol, iron levels, and such that I get from any blood work my doctors have ordered. Most times, however, its a matter of keeping my ears open for tips on healthy foods, reading, and mucking about with recipes and ingredients to see what trial and error teach me.

Remarkably, its worked well enough for me that I’ve not only been able to avoid having to take medications by correcting imbalances this way, but I’ve also been able to help my BF reduce the medications he’s on and to lose weight. Since this process is so subjective, though, I’ve often wished there were a way to get the same sort of nutritional breakdown of my recipes that one sees on commercially prepared foods, which would better help me to ‘tweak’ my recipes for both  ‘taste’ and ‘purpose’.

Then, my massage therapist blew my little mind by telling me that ‘there’s an app for that’ and, as soon as I had a few minutes to play with, I went looking online.

So far, the best I’ve been able to find has been eaTracker.ca, a site that’s been developed by the Dietitians of Canada (DC) – the ‘national professional association for dietitians’ – to ‘help consumers better understand their eating and activity choices’.

Some of the most attractive features of the site are its simple interface and clear navigation, as well as the lack of need to give a great deal of personal information or to connect it to devices and services I don’t want it connecting to. I also found that, while other sites limited the number of ingredients they’d allow users to input, this site allowed a seemingly limitless number of ‘includes’. While other sites seem to focus mainly on weight loss and caloric content, this site’s recipe analysis provided a much broader range of information to be produced and recorded.

For example, when I entered the information about a borscht I made last weekend, it gave me the ingredient list…

a beefy borscht recipe ingredients

a beefy borscht recipe ingredients

… the ability to add ‘instructions’ (although in this case I used it to add ingredients that weren’t available in the database)…

beefy borsch tinstructions/add-ins

beefy borscht instructions/add-ins

 

… and a breakdown of nutritional values…

beefy borscht analysis

beefy borscht analysis

Unfortunately, I did find the recipe analyzer interface a little ‘clunky’, the database is limited in the measurement and ingredient options it offers, and it would be nice to have a way to enter ‘notes’ about each recipe (as well as ‘instructions’) but, generally speaking, it was pretty ‘dummy proof’ and gave informative output.

Of course, it’ll take some ‘playing with’ to see how useful it is in the long run, but the important point is that I now have a functional tool that’ll help me judge which ingredients to use for which benefits, and to better understand the affect diet is having on my health.

By the way, if anyone knows of a ‘better’ tool, I’d love to hear about it, and I’m curious about how useful others find the ‘apps’ for mobile phones to be : )

Dr. Dreamy’s assumption

Written By: witchypo - Sep• 09•14

Damn! I’m disappointed in my doctor!

Last month, I booked an appointment for a shoulder injury and, when nothing could be done for that, tried asking about some other problems I’ve got.

Briefly, I let him know these problems had accumulated over a number of years, that I’d reported most of them to him (or my former GP) and that, since some were odd and appeared without other symptoms to help diagnose them, I’d been told that all I could do was ‘wait and see’. I also let him know that for the past year or more they’d, together, affected most aspects of my life, so I’d decided to ask about them together on the off-chance it’ help figure things out.

I reminded him, too, of a couple of prior visits: one, for a burning sensation in the skin of my left wrist, and another for pain in the same arm that he’d diagnosed as ‘tendinitis’. Then, I asked if the two issues could be connected, and whether or not tendinitis could spread(?)

When he said that the pain it causes could feel like a ‘burning’, but that tendinitis does not ‘spread’, I confessed to being confused. ‘You see, I’ve got painful, tendinitis-like cramps everywhere… neck, arms, legs, feet… My joints hurt as badly as when I was cleaning hotel rooms.’ I told him. ‘I’ve had an on-again-off-again headache for about a year. I’m still not sleeping, and I’m constantly exhausted and can’t focus…’

‘Okay, drop the tendinitis crap,’ he told me, sternly, ‘I think I see where you’re going with this now…’ and ‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to or what you’ve been looking up, but we’re going to get to the bottom of this.’

Shocked, I almost questioned that, but I needed his help. So, I kept my trap shut, submitted to the tests he ordered and, when I went back for the results, he announced that he had ‘good news’. ‘Its not what you thought it was,’ he said, smugly, and informed me that an active Epstein-Barr virus was the cause of all my problems.

The problem as I saw it, however, was that he’d quite clearly recognized my problems as matching the symptom set of a particular disease. Rather than saying ‘that sounds like…’ and checking me for it, though, he’d simply assumed that I was misrepresenting information and that I didn’t have it. Then, he’d used his tests to find the first plausible diagnosis, so he could prove himself ‘right’.

That’s not to say that I don’t have EBV but, according to what I’ve read, close to 95% of all North Americans have it by the time they’re in kindergarten, and the symptoms are such that they could easily be confused with other problems. I also read that EBV often manifests as ‘mono’, which I’ve never had, and usually affect a host for 6 to 8 months, while many of my problems have been with me for years.

Of course, once he’d given his diagnosis, Dr. Deamy said that we could still address my individual problems but I’ve, since, gone back to discuss the test results and he made it clear that his verdict wasn’t to be questioned.

So, it seems the only option I’ve got is to wait 6 to 8 months and if the symptoms haven’t cleared up, go back to him to see if he’s willing to re-think his decision. In the mean time, though, that means I’ve got to live with almost constant pain and the fear that something else might be causing my problems.

No freakin’ wonder I’m disappointed!