Moderation....

Today at church the pastor talked about Biblical principles of healthy living as regards physical, emotional, relational and spiritual health. At one point he made the comment that bacon is yummy, but eating it all the time can cause health problems (like high cholesterol). (The point was that God's dietary restrictions for the Israelites as outlined in Leviticus 11 was to help them live long healthy lives, not because He wanted to deny them something yummy.) So anyway, the Pastor mentioned that too much of anything (like yummy bacon) can be a bad thing. I chuckled as I thought of the pound of bacon thawing in my fridge.......

My mother's family does a pretty good job of making get-togethers and reunions a priority. Her siblings and their families have two main reunions a year, and if there's a special event (like a high school graduation) everyone shows up. It's just what you do. Every year on Labor Day (tomorrow!) my grandfather's siblings (there were lots of them! but only a couple are still alive) and their decedents have a picnic near the ol' homestead (in Washington Boro, PA).

This afternoon I started making my food for the picnic - BLT Bites (hence the bacon) that a girlfriend made for a recent party and Apple Crumb Pie (I confess - it's from the freezer). I was about 2/3 done scooping the guts out of 2 pints of cherry tomatoes, when Aaron and I had a tough conversation...

I've been doing less well lately (energy-wise). The doctor thinks it might because my liver is being adversely affected by one of the drugs I take for my PH. I've been swelling again, and getting short-of-breath again with activity. While the doctor watches me another month or two (by blood work and symptoms), I'm going to increase the strength of my iv a little. So I'm doing an increase tonight. These increases put me "out-of-commission" for the better part of a day, so tonight makes sense since Aaron will be around tomorrow to take main responsibility of the boys.

But this means that I'm not going to be feeling up to going to the family picnic tomorrow. Sigh - no family picnic for us. Well, rather than waste the yummy BLT Bites ... WE ATE THEM ...

... ALL FORTY-TWO!

Normally we really try to take sermons to heart - and today's was a good one. Moderation is a very important aspect of any healthy lifestyle (it's like setting up healthy boundaries). But I guess when it comes to bacon we've got some more growing to do. (smile!) I'm already starting to swell from the insane amount of salt I ingested this afternoon. But - oh my - it was so yummy!

So, sorry family - we're not going to be there tomorrow. Hope y'all have a great time. I'm sure you will. It looks like it's gonna be fabulous weather! But since we've already eaten half of what I was planning to bring, I'd feel kinda bad showing up empty-handed. No food and no smiles ('cause I won't feel like socializing) means no going.

Moderation ... I guess we gotta work on that one some more!