Thanks to sitting up with my younger brother last evening and operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, my bedtime was well into the midnight hour.
I am doing so poorly at sleeping for any length of time. I doubt that it was much after 3:00 a.m. when I got up to continue laying the foundation of a new post at one of my six hosted websites ─ I began that project yesterday.
This work seems to take me two days now; and then I spend another 15 or more days adding content into such posts.
The only way I can double up and perform better would be by forsaking afternoon blogging, and instead continue working on whatever post I have in progress at one of my websites.
That may well be ahead ─ these Blogger (or Blogspot) posts draw scant attention. There is simply no profit for me to keep wasting so many hours on a daily basis doing this.
I cannot recall just what time it was when I returned to bed after finishing the post foundation work, but it was definitely past 7:00 a.m.
What sleep I got was typically broken, and it came to an end when I was roused by my cellphone around 9: 20 a.m. at latest.
Initially I was so dopey that I did not realize the phone was ringing ─ I thought maybe it was the cellphone's alarm, or maybe someone had texted me.
When I checked, I believe that I recognized the missed call as having come from the bank I reported about yesterday.
Nigh a decade ago, I opened up a joint account at it with my wife, but I never used the account. The debit card expired, and a new one sent to me never got activated because I just did not require it.
However, my wife merrily began racking up credit debt with the bank, and that has badly escalated over the past five months alone.
As a result, the bank keeps trying to contact me to have a conversation about the debt, but I have had nothing to do with its build-up.
They even began E-mailing me as of yesterday.
I have no intention of dealing with them.
But I most certainly do not appreciate the unwanted phone calls ─ especially when one of them pulls me from essential sleep. I sleep badly ─ it is robbery to have any that I do manage to achieve, snatched from me by an annoying phone call like this.
I didn't actually emerge from my bedroom until after 9:30 a.m., fully expecting that my younger brother was going to be downstairs watching T.V.
But he had not yet come out of his bedroom!
He did by around 9:50 a.m., however. And by then I had gotten a head start on the location of a documentary that I wanted to tune in via the YouTube application that is downloaded into our Android TV Box.
I can have quite a fuss from him when it comes to me choosing to select a documentary for us to watch instead of a movie or an episode of one of the T.V. series we follow.
The documentary wasn't particularly 'in depth,' and was well under a half-hour in duration, but I feel he needs exposure to this sort of material ─ he does not know how to use a computer, so he only reads mainstream media such as an occasional newspaper.
The documentary was Unbroken Ground.
Since it was so short, I opted to watch yet another ─ the first of a four-episode documentary series by the BBC titled the Lost Highway. The episode itself was titled Down from the Mountain.
At one point I found myself spiritually and emotionally responding to a segment in that episode that detailed how the backwoods folk were so community- and church-based. One woman being interviewed claimed that it was common for families to gather at church on Sundays and spend the entire day fellowshipping together with singing, eating, and everything else that would have gone with that degree of isolated rural life.
I feel very isolated. Outside of the four people living here with me, I have no personal social contacts ─ other than occasional E-mails, and the sort of detached connection I may feel exists through my online presence with my websites and my blogging.
Anyway, my brother didn't seem to mind either of the documentaries, but I won't subject him to any further documentaries for a few more days. I'll of course continue with the Lost Highway series.
We watched some further T.V. into the noon-hour, and then he sought some bedrest ere he left for the afternoon.
I also felt in need of more sleep, so I was back into my own bed by just after 1:00 p.m.
I did nap, but was back out of bed not too much over an hour later. My brother was gone by then.
We've had a sunny day, so I hope he opted to have a good walk somewhere in a park or someplace similar before he begins his usual beer-drinking.
I had eaten nothing yet today, so I first had some exercise with my 43½-pound dumbbell. My meal was not large, but it was nevertheless quite substantial.
I wanted to take advantage of some of the sunshine, so I changed into cut-offs and went out to the backyard. And at 3:22 p.m., I began just over 40 minutes of sunning as I sat slouched into a lawn- or deck-chair with my face directed at the Sun, my torso uncovered, and my bared feet on the lawn.
About midway through that sunning, I began hearing some very busy kitchen activity in the house. It was too busy to be either of my stepsons, for I could hear some serious chopping going on, and also the unmistakable sounds of a mortar and pestle.
Thus, I was not at all surprised when I finished my sunning and came into the house to find my wife in the kitchen.
She clearly must have not worked this morning at her friend's Thai restaurant, but she was expected there for later in the afternoon ─ I think the restaurant opens at 5:00 p.m. after a daily short afternoon closure.
My wife had bought a lot of produce on behalf of the restaurant ─ she is better situated for making many of these purchases than is her friend or other employees, since the restaurant is located somewhat more distant than we are from any markets with an Asian focus.
She did some cooking for all of us here; and then she was away on her fairly long drive. Only her youngest son was home all this while, and she left, telling us she mightn't be back until maybe Monday.
Such is my marriage. But that is talk reserved for my older and private blog.
I want now to bring up various discussions of three different plants with diverse health-related properties.
The first plant is indigenous to Southeast Asia ─ I was quite chuffed to learn that Thailand is one of the countries where it is found in any abundance. I can't help but wonder if my wife's family is aware of the tree and the special product that it produces?
The tree ─ and there are a limited few species in the genus of Aquilaria capable of producing the valued resin known as agarwood or oud ─ most commonly used commercially today is Aquilaria crassna.
So what is so very special about this agarwood resin?
Well, anyone who has cancer should at least be aware of the claims being made concerning it:
HSIonline.com
There seem to be quite a few studies concerning its properties in this context.
An article at PlantationsInternational.com provides some illumination into how rapidly the originally renowned wild species Aquilaria malaccensis became so rare and valuable: Liquid Gold Rush Endangers Agarwood Trees.
And here are a couple of other articles on the strengths of agarwood or oud essential oil:
- TopHealthJournal.com: Agarwood oil to treat colorectal cancer naturally, research reports
- Cancer.news: Agarwood essential oil demonstrates promising anti-cancer properties, researchers find
You may have noticed the results I obtained at the top of this post just using the term "agarwood" in a search at Amazon.
You could try searching further using your own terms, but I didn't find the non-perfume-related products to be anything like inexpensive.
However, if someone does have cancer, desperation will undoubtedly figure into any purchasing considerations.
The second plant I shall now bring into focus is one reputed to be of remedial benefit for sufferers of kidney stones. The plant is yellow bedstraw (Gallium verum).
According to that Wikipedia article:
It is widespread across most of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia from Israel and Turkey to Japan and Kamchatka. It is naturalized in Tasmania, New Zealand, Canada, and the northern half of the United States. It is considered a noxious weed in some places.
Yet I am unfamiliar with it.
I was going to link to an article at the same website that introduced agarwood, but I now see that it has not been published there ─ quite odd.
Well, I still have the article sent to me via E-mail on March 19, so I will reproduce it here in full:
Some places consider it a pesky weed...
Trust me -- it's ANYTHING but a nuisance.
This sweet-smelling, cleansing herb can ease your "pee problems"... and ERASE the pain of kidney (and bladder) stones.
An ancient 'sleep trick' for the bathroom
Dried bunches of yellow bedstraw (Galium verum) were once used to stuff mattresses and pillows.
It's said that in Bethlehem, the Virgin Mary lined Jesus's manger with it, earning it the nickname "Our Lady's Bedstraw."
It smells sweet AND repels fleas -- and that makes it good to sleep on.
But what makes yellow bedstraw your "cup of tea" is how it can turn your urinary health around.
Not only is it a diuretic, which helps to relieve everything from swollen ankles to full-blown cases of edema...
It's a detoxifying superhero.
Scientists have identified yellow bedstraw as a "lithontriptic"...
That's a fancy way of saying it can DISSOLVE kidney stones and other painful mineral deposits throughout your urinary tract.
It doesn't make them disappear completely, but it can make them MUCH more passable.
But yellow bedstraw doesn't stop there...
It can even help break up the excruciating uric acid crystals that form when you've got gout.
As if that weren't enough, this purifying plant also contains compounds that can support your overall urinary and kidney health, including:
- flavonoids, which act as antioxidants, and
- iridoid glycosides like asperuloside, which are anti-inflammatory.
And if you you're not eliminating all the toxins in your body through your pee, yellow bedstraw can help you sweat them out.
Sleeping on yellow bedstraw in your bedding won't do a thing for your urinary tract... so drink it as a tea instead.
Note that its pigments, called anthraquinones, are known for their laxative properties.
Tread lightly so you don't develop a DIFFERENT kind of problem in the bathroom.
Once more, there are quite a few studies out there involving the plant, but here are a couple of other easier-to-read articles:
- FrannsAltHealth.com: Lady’s Bedstraw health benefits: vegan rennet and kidney stone treatment
- ElmaSkinCare.com: Yellow Bedstraw
An Amazon search I made using the botanical name Galium verum is at the bottom of this post ─ it's definitely affordable, unlike agarwood.
I see that there is actually an instrumental titled "Galium Verum" being attributed to a Swedish jazz saxophonist (Lars Gullin) who died in 1976 at the age of 48.
Well, I hadn't counted on needing to reproduce in full that second article, so I think that I will save discussion of the third plant until tomorrow (perhaps).
Yesterday I finished up that day's post with some wedding photos that were taken on February 25, 2018 ─ quite likely in the city of Udon Thani.
The bride was my wife's niece; and the daughter of one (Lumpoon) of my wife's two sisters.
I only have time for five photos today, and unfortunately I cannot identify anyone in the first four:
In that fifth and final photo, Lumpoon is the standing woman who is bending over, and wearing what appears to be a red flower near her left shoulder.
No comments:
Post a Comment