Alright, folks. I just wanted to give everyone a quick update so no one will wonder if I've found the edge of the planet and fallen off. Other than fighting a car that won't start all week, life is still pretty hu-hum. ( I do hate that car. I really, really do.) Hubby got the promotion needed so he, I mean she, can transition and start her one year of full-time living as a female. She's ecstatic, and I'm happy for her, but it's not so easy for me. I know that I won't see him anymore, except for a brief few minutes a day. To prove the point, she boxed up all her 'guy clothes' as she put it. Guess that truly marks the end of an era.
After some long talks, we both decided that once I have stable employment and tution safely set back, we will have seperate homes. I'm actually excited about that because I've never lived on my own. I know, at 31 and I say that but i had to live at home to take care of my mother until I was 22, then stupid me moved in with a guy and well, when that ended badly, I moved in with a friend (that friend turned out to be my hubby, but we were friends for quite a while before it got romantic.) So, on my own. It's proably for the best, especially since we will still be friends. I need the space, I guess. And the best part is that I will only be responsible for me. Eat what i want, do the laundry when I want, whatever. Don't get me wrong, hubby isn't demanding of all this, but after being the housewife for all these years, I am a little tired of doing everything around the house, including getting the tires put on the car or getting it serviced. (And it's not even mine. His car, may I add.) Maybe I'm just being bitchy, but even when I am working full-time, I still end up doing all that. Cooking, cleaning, checkbook. Another sore spot. I keep the checkbook for the household account and pay all the bills out of it. Granted, he is usually the one putting more into it, basically because he makes more, but he's never fussed about that. But it sort of rubs me the wrong way the he chides me for not knowing how much is in there when I'm doing everything else around the house. Sorry, but as long as all the bills are covered and I know roughly what's in there, (i.e. no rubber checks) what's the deal? Don't like the way I'm doing it? Well, you're more than welcome to start doing some of this stuff! But, here in a few months, it will not be an issue unless I complain about myself! ( Just wait, I proably will...lol)
Guess I need to go. Hubby/roommate just called to tell me I need to find a wrecker to haul his car to the shop. *Rolling eyes and gritting teeth* Thank you everyone for tolerating my rant. I really am not this bitching all the time. Really.
It's one thing for me to tell you that being a vegetarian makes you smart - but what if the researchers in the UK say so?
It's true. A study at England's Southampton University found people who adopted a vegetarian lifestyle before they turned 30 had been recorded as having an IQ score that was an average of five points higher than average when they were ten years old.
The study, which was reported in the British Medical Journal, looked at 8,179 people who had their IQs tested in 1970. Twenty years later, researchers examined the IQ scores of the 366 participants who said they were vegetarian. Vegetarian had an IQ score of 106, compared with 101 for non-vegetarians; while female vegetarians averaged 104, compared with 99 for non-vegetarians.
It's been found that people with higher IQs are generally healthier, with lower heart disease and obesity rates. The researchers think that while the findings of this study are partly related to better education and higher occupational social class, the difference in IQ is so great that it's far more significant than just schooling and finances.
The study's lead researcher, Catharine Gale, said: "The finding that children with greater intelligence are more likely to report being vegetarian as adults, together with the evidence on the potential benefits of a vegetarian diet on heart health, may help to explain why higher IQ in childhood or adolescence is linked with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease in adult life."
Of course, it's always possible that smart people just take care of themselves better - they know that they need to exercise, avoid fast food, and get the supplements they need. But it's important to note that the link between IQ and vegetarianism means that it's healthy and intelligent.
In response to the study's findings, Liz O'Neill, of the Vegetarian Society, said: "We've always known that vegetarianism is an intelligent, compassionate choice benefiting animals, people and the environment. Now we've got the scientific evidence to prove it. Maybe that explains why many meat-reducers are keen to call themselves vegetarians when even they must know that vegetarians don't eat chicken, turkey or fish."
There were some other interesting facts that came out of the study. The researchers found that vegetarians were more likely to be female, to be in a white-collar profession, to be better educated and to have better job qualifications than non-vegetarians.
Yet none of these were reflected in income, which was about the same as the non-vegetarians in the study. So while being a vegetarian won't make you rich, it means that you're probably smarter than people who eat meat. Whether veggies make you smart or you eat veggies because you're intelligent - well, that's still up in the air. Dr Frankie Phillips, of the British Dietetic Association, said:""It is like the chicken and the egg. Do people become vegetarian because they have a very high IQ or is it just that they tend to be more aware of health issues?"
My personal experience : I think much faster and easier since I became a vegetarian. I used to find it hard to think and I was also so lazy to think before I am a vegetarian.
Here's a quote from Henry Ford :
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it."
And I'm glad it helps me to do this hardest work in the world !
The Doctor. You are clever, funny, and upbeat. You have foiled many alien attempts to overthrow the Earth, and although people call you mad, you only partially agree. Take this quiz!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007, 02:57 PM AKST [General]
Okay, finally, Christmas is over. Finals are done. Now my tired little brain can start back on the seemingly oppressive ordeal at hand. The general state of my life. Lovely.
To be fair, they're days when I handle it with unnatural grace, but today isn't one of those. Now, I could ramble on on here about what's going on, without cluing everyone in to the details that make this a very strange and unusual situation. It's taken some time to ponder doing just that, but I have made up my mind to be very open about this, partly in case someone else that's going thru this may read my postings and may help them. A second reason is that while my husband has a pretty good support group of friends at work, my online friends are about it for me.
My husband is transgendered. He came to this realization about a year ago. What all this means is that he is male in body only. His mind and soul are female. I know it has been incredibly hard on him to admit this to himself and to me and I don't envy him, at all. But I can't even begin to explain what this does to me. Since he is going thru his (at this point, I should be getting used to saying 'her') transition, I have to find out within myself, how this will affect our relationship. He (er, I mean she) is very understanding of my position, to the point of openly saying that he/she will not hold any ill feelings for me if I can't 'hang'. Just as long as we remain friends, at least.
Now, we have spent alot of long nights talking this thru and we have both decided that we will remain roommates, at least until I finish with college. If I want to date, that's fine with, er, her. In fact she's encouraging it, since I've always been, well, a bit of a wallflower. And I agree. What makes this so hard, is that we had a good marriage, never a cross word between us, despite my shifting moods (A cancer here. Crabby and moods that change with the tides.) And a still love him. I know that the soul will remain the same and, ultimately, that's what I feel in love with. But, I don't think I can deal with this, not to the point of remaining in a committed relationship. It's not that the thought of, in essence, being lesbian, but I don't think I can adjust to being the 'male' of the house, for one. It's very evident that she is very 'girly', the diva, as I call her, far more than I am.
It's just hard some days to know and have to accept that 'he' is slowly disappearing, never to be seen again. The man that I feel in love with, the one that kept me from becoming another statistic because of a violent boyfriend. The perfect gentleman that stole my heart. My shining knight in a shining black pickup truck. Now, I have a great friend, but I don't know if it'll ever be more than that between us. It's sort of funny. So many people, men and women alike, have marveled that I didn't pack my bags and bug out when he told me. That's just not my style, I'm too darn stubborn to give up on me or anybody else. In some ways, I wish I could, just walk out and leave all this behind and get on with healing the pain, but I won't give up on her. She needs me, someone there when she goes thru all this, all the emotion and issues that will arise from this. Maybe, after her transition is complete, then I can think about me.
Meanwhile, life goes on. As soon as I can get someone in this one-horse town to hire me, we'll move into a bigger place, mainly so we can then have separate bedrooms and I can start adjusting to being single. Maybe part of what makes this so hard is that it pretty much forces me to look at myself. Not the outward appearance that everyone sees, but the person that stares back at me from the mirror. It's bone chilling to ask who she is, what does she stand for and you don't really know the answer. All my life, I've seen to everyone else, from my family (The very ones who cast me off like yesterday's newspaper, simply because I wouldn't bend to their rules) to the friends that ended up stabbing me in the back, to my husband. I've gladly been a housewife since we've been married, putting myself on the back burner in the name of his career and family. But now, who else can I put ahead of me? The dogs, maybe? For the first time in my 31 years, I can make decisions based on what's best for me, the devil with what anyone else wants or thinks best for them. I think that scares me as much as the thought of losing my husband in this. I've always been the support for so many, but I'm not needed in that role, not anymore. I guess the best why to describe my feelings, is that I feel like I live in one of those snowglobes. Life has turned it upside down and shook it, violently. Now, all that remains is to wait and see where all the snow falls to.
Okay, I've rambled on long enough and to say the least, this has drained me. So, I think it's time to put in a Docter Who DVD and get lost in the TARDIS...
