Back on Rubber!

This week I've been on a bit of a hiatus from doing fiction... My novella needs eyes other than my own to edit it and I got jumped by several other projects that I will talk about in this post. Typically if I put in a video it's at the end of the post (or close to it...) but, this time it's going at the top because it kind of describes the week.

So a big thank you to... well, this one has been attributed to three different people besides the makers of House and The Dandy Warhols (who own the song...). So thank you to Dutchie88, Spoenk, ZdenekLU, the makers of House, the Dandy Warhols, and the people who actually read this blog (you deserve thanks too...). And here we go...



First off this week... a bit of actual medical science! I'm down to three units of the long acting insulin and zero (0) units of the short acting on a daily basis. If I can bring the sugar numbers down a little bit (and not very much!) I can skip the insulin completely. So I've been figuring out how to do that. Fortunately I have several weapons I haven't dragged out yet!

Words N' Stuff!

I'm currently engaged in two different diabetes related writing projects (which I won't talk too much about here because I don't want to give away details that could cost me). One is filling a niche that no one seems to have noticed and the other is an improvement on already existing stuff. The second one is pretty close to being released so I'll talk about it more when it hits the market. Yep... me making money with my words... scary ain't it?

Food!

Two myths I would like to dispel right away 1) diabetes means you have to avoid sugar... No, you have to control your intake of carbohydrates including sugars and starches. And I can still have them I just need to watch how much. 2) you can't eat Asian food if you're trying to control carbs...

This is fried rice. I made it. I ate it. I lived to tell the tale. The reality is there are a lot of things in Asian (particularly Chinese) cooking that you do have to watch. There tends to be a lot of corn starch and sugar in that stuff. But, if you cook at home you can control the sugar and starch levels and you actually know how much is in there so you can know how much you (or the diabetic you love...) can eat. and in this case I've cut down the rice and upped the protein and non starchy veggies so people watching carbs can have more than they think they can. And, because I use good spices it tastes good too.

Metal!

On the subject of making stuff I've also been working chainmaille. This week I finished the son of the chainmaille belt. This time it is lighter and went together faster because I used about 55% rubber rings, which are lighter, faster to work with, and stretch to fit the buckle without having to pull out rings. The belt will also stretch to fit waist lines (or so I thought...). The son of a belt looks great, but the rubber rings stretched more than I thought. When the belt is actually tight enough to wear it's got even more left over belt than the original (which I made when my waste was 4-6 inches bigger....). So that one is not exactly a complete success (but I did make a cool thing...). The mark 3 belt is already in the planning stage (more steel, less problems (I hope!)) and the mark 2 will live on as part of another project.

Specifically the Mark 2 belt will live on as a component of a chainmaille scabbard for a cane. No pictures yet because it isn't done, but soon. Why would I want such a silly thing? Well that will be revealed even sooner than the pictures.

Words and metal!

Another of the writing projects is that I'm writing up (and will soon be selling) patterns for chainmaille projects. I'm only going to make a buck or two per copy on these, but hey that's a buck or two I didn't have.

Why I want that scabbard...

This actually ties in everything above (except the rice...)
I've been working on one of my biggest weapons to fight the blood sugar, and get rid of that last three units of insulin. This is also the $15.00 project Lisa talked about last week... I recently went down to the DI store and bought a BSO (Bike Shaped Object) which I have been working on...

It was a BSO because the shifters, the brakes, the chain, the tires... they all didn't work.
Well, the tires were actually good, but one of the tubes needed to be fixed. The chain was recoverable and now works fine. The shifters... well... the front shifter and derailleur work just fine (with a little adjusting maybe). The rear shifter lever needs to be replaced (but the derailleur seems to work just fine...).

And then there were the brakes! Some nearly intellectually gifted person tried to fix them and messed them up... The fact that I was able to figure out how to fix them with a minimum of swearing suggests that the previous person wasn't quite as smart as he/she thought.

I do need to fix that rear shifter, but the bike is a bike again! And now I'm coming up on the level two issues; like the fact that the handle bars need to be better aligned with the front wheel, it needs a rack, I'm really out of shape...

Actually that last one is how the defeating the blood sugar levels (getting of insulin) and the cane scabbard fit into this... Two of my big weapons for dropping these last three units of insulin are losing weight (they tell me that a 5-10% weight loss can have a major impact) and getting more exercise (which helps the body use glucose in spite of insulin resistance...). Unfortunately I'm me and and sometimes my knee or back hurts (this is where the video fits in...). Dr House has a cane mount on his motorcycle... I couldn't figure out how to mount the cane to the bike conveniently so I decided to mount it to me (in the scabbard).

The bike (now dubbed 'Alley Hawk' (why must I name everything?)) is a part of my diabetes fighting regimen, a project, a story, and something to have fun with (and occasionally swear at...). It kind of ties everything from the post together and brings us back to the start.

So... One more video. This one is by Ghost Dog and the song is by Sabaton. In addition to being literally about one of my favorite WW2 battles it describes where I feel I'm at with the fight with my diabetes.



You can guess for yourself how this fits in. I've actually found several ways it symbolically fits. One that helps it tie the post together... let the Japanies (who eat a lot of rice) stand in for the high blood sugar. And the Americans, well that would be telling wouldn't it.

That's it for this one (more to say but I've said too much).
Till next time. Make, do, just don't get into too much trouble (I'd hate to miss the fun!)