by Karen Creamer | Jul 19, 2023 | Clarity, Crystals, health, Spiritual Practice
Over the years, I have had an on-again, off-again relationship with meditation.
I like the idea of it, but I don’t always like to make time to do it.
There are just so many other things that I have to do every day … although I do feel calmer if I start my day by sitting for a while without my phone or other distractions clamoring for my attention every minute.
My meditation practice was definitely languishing recently …
and then I found this cool hour glass at a thrift shop!
See the cool hourglass with pink sand is on the right!
I also came upon some new crystals (one was given to me by a friend, and one I had already and rediscovered). I found this great Solar Plexus/Purpose candle at my favorite place to get crystals, Zen and Company. And, of course, Owl. Keep reading
by Karen Creamer | Jan 24, 2023 | (it's all about the) food, Clarity, health
“I’d like a side of lead and cadmium with my dark chocolate”–
said nobody, ever.
I was paging through the February 2023 issue of Consumer Reports and discovered that these heavy metals are apparently exactly what I have been unknowingly getting. You know, in dark chocolate? The kind that is supposed to be “better for you” (p. 34)?
I think of the couple of bars of Green & Black’s that I have sitting in my desk drawer that are now going into the trash instead of my body. Before throwing them out, I looked at the Nutrition Facts label. Shockingly, lead and cadmium are missing from the list! I looked at the list of ingredients and once again, lead and cadmium are omitted. I wonder what other foods and products contain toxic ingredients that somehow never made it on the packages ingredients list. Keep reading
by Karen Creamer | Jun 6, 2022 | (it's all about the) food, #getoutside, Connection, family, health
Have you ever eaten dandelions?
When I was little, my grandmother would send me out to the yard to pick dandelion leaves. After I brought them in, we’d put them in a large bowl and soak them in salt water, rinse, and then soak them again, and then soak them again (because third time is the charm), and then rinse well, making sure to get all the grit out.
When foraging outside, it’s important to pay attention to where the greens are located. For example: are they close to the road where car exhaust could adversely affect them? This time, I only had to venture to the back porch because this year, my husband made a planter with dandelions for me. Keep reading
by Karen Creamer | Dec 30, 2020 | health
Before the event that sent me to the ER in the middle of the night (read about that here), I was seeing the same number series over and over: 123.
And the night it happened, at one point I looked at the clock and there it was: 1:23AM.
I have always noticed numbers, patterns, and sequences [Full disclosure: I was in the math honor society in high school and I took Calculus in college for fun] so this was nothing new for me. For weeks, I saw 123 on clocks, on license plates, on TV … and of course I had to look up a meaning for this.
I like to go to Sacred Scribes Angel Numbers website for this. Keep reading
by Karen Creamer | Dec 27, 2020 | family, health
The week before I woke my husband up in the middle of the night to take me to the ER, my brother and I had been comparing blood pressure readings via text, just for fun.
We would take turns texting our numbers to each other, joking about which one of us ‘won’ that round (the winner was the one with the highest numbers).
I won a LOT.
And then he had a heart attack.
As the saying goes: “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.”
He is home from the hospital now and recovering nicely, but there is nothing like a heart attack, whether your own or your brother’s, to get your attention.
When someone has a significant health event, I always think it pays to look at what you were doing leading up to it happening. What were you eating and drinking? How were you spending your time? How were you feeling overall on any given day? What supplements were you taking? Have you introduced anything new or different in the few months? After all, everything has led up to this point. What will you do differently now to create a different outcome? Keep reading
by Karen Creamer | Dec 23, 2020 | health
When I got to the ER, the irregular heart rhythm had stopped but my blood pressure was very high.
Impressively high. Higher than I have ever seen in real life.
I am an overachiever. 🙂
My question was: Why was it so high?
I was questioned and johnny’d and hooked up to monitors and IV’d and tested by the staff and hours (many, many hours) later, we had a potential answer:
Electrolyte imbalance: low potassium level.
Whew! Now that the cause was known, it could be corrected and I would be fine, right?
I was given potassium 40 mEq to take in the ER to begin to correct the imbalance. Potassium 40 mEq was delivered as two giant 20 mEq pills. I have given them to others many times but this was the first time I had to choke them down myself. The pill starts to dissolve almost as soon as you put it in your mouth, and forms a chalky mass that is no fun at all to try to swallow. At one point I had to decide whether to keep trying to get it to go down or try to regurgitate it and start over. There was a second round of this to take after I got home, but the nurse asked (thank you, thank you) for it to be dispensed as four coated 10mEq tablets (which turned out to be infinitely easier to swallow). Keep reading
Karen Creamer
