Getting shit done

So I’m back in home in the Chicago area in order to address medical stuff (my docs and medical insurance are here), and do other things that needed doing.

Regarding the computer failure noted in my last post: with the help of a good friend who is a mac expert (he writes books about and teaches mac techs how to be mac techs) both my computers are now back up and running. For one where we decided the logic board had failed, he oh so kindly transplanted my hard drive into an old 2009 macbook he had lying around, which I’ll borrow till Apple FINALLY releases the new macbooks later this year. For the other we just swapped out the ram and that seemed to have done the trick. Am now waiting with baited breath for the new macbook to be released — according to friends in the know, Intel was late delivering the chips which set back production, but they should be out soon.

In other news:

In May I was diagnosed with liver disease (my penchant for all things fried — note the trend in the food reviews — coming back to bite my ass). The doctor said my liver looked like an alcoholics, which is ironic considering I’ve been a teetotaler (or as close to it as  never-mind) for most of my life. I don’t like the taste of the stuff, and don’t enjoy being drunk… and get HORRIBLE HORRIBLE hangovers. In fact I would try to force myself to drink the occasional glass of wine with dinner after all those studies came out saying it was as bad to be a teetotaler as to be a heavy drinker, health wise…

Anyway, the doctors told me what to do, diet wise, for the liver…  and I did it.

For the last three months I’ve eaten mostly seafood, and kept the diet fairly oil free, with the goal of eating LESS than the daily recommended amount of oil every day — NOT the easiest thing to pull off when you eat almost every night in restaurants … and considering I’ve been eating low-carb anyway for the last few years, and gaining weight anyways — because I was eating a LOT of cheese and fried food  … well, really, you take away the oil and the carbs… what’s left for a girl to eat?

So … the good news is I lost 23 lb in three months. Was 180 lb back in May (after dad died I sort of ate my pain), and am now down to 153 lb — some of you may have noticed from my pictures that I’ve been shrinking; I’ve gone down from a 38 waist in January to almost fitting into my 32 waist pants — still a tad tight … and dropped from a 36 bra to a 32. From the health standpoint, the most recent blood test found my liver numbers have also dropped by quite a bit, so now all the doctors are very happy with me. They’re going to run one more test in a mid October (first time we could schedule it), a kind of specialized ultrasound of my liver to verify that there’s no cirrhosis (but they don’t think there will be — fingers crossed, no evil eye, etc.).

If I test clean, then pretty much all I need to do is loose another 10 lb according to the doctor — but I’d like to get back to the weight I was before heading out to South Korea 4.5 years ago, 130 lb. and able to wear my 30 waist pants again.

Next item on the agenda: the car needed its 12,000 mile test way back in July (I just purchased the thing in mid January — 12K miles in six month) but the US warranty didn’t extend to Canada. So, I had a choice, pay for it from my own pocket and hope to get reimbursed by the American warranty company after filling an insane amount of paperwork… or wait…  so I waited till I got back to the US — at which point I had driven a full 14,500 miles in 8 months of ownership.

The next major issue is I HAD all my clothes stored in the attic of a very old friend in Florida, but that was proving inconvenient. Florida is in no way central, and he is having personal issues that made it no longer viable… so… another old friend, Gina — the one who has comes to visit me during my travels, who has just finished renovating her home  suggested I move it all into her newly expanded, ner I say massive (too much Shakespeare?) and utterly empty attic, here back in Chicago. Seriously the thing is so massive I could live in it… my apartment in S. Korea was way smaller.

So.. after paying to move it all down to Florida a year ago, I’m now moving it all back up here to Chicago .. wonder if my entire wardrobe is actually worth the $3,250 I’ve spent in the last two years moving it around the country. Once it’s up I have to upload most of my clothes into storage and trade them out for the smaller sized stuff I haven’t been able to wear in a few years… Leather here I come (I have a LOT of cool leather jackets)

So other than that, I’m finally catching up with old friends and old blog posts. The intent is to hit the road again after the November elections assuming the doctors allow it.