Homework

This weekend has been really hectic. I have been busy, busy, busy! I have neglected my blog today.....Sorry! The daughter of one of my friends needed help on a school project. It seems that my circle of friends have discovered that I am great with school projects....and when I help their kids...they always get A's! So.....being the nice person that I am....get suckered into helping yet another child of a good friend for a project.

She had to complete a project about a disease that is associated with the muscular system. My first thought......Pride of the Yankees...Lou Gehrig. Lou Gehrig's disease. So we work together and get some information together about Lou Gehrig's disease.



I was shocked about the history, signs, and symptoms of ALS. I knew there was still no cure for this disease.....but I did not realize that ALS was first diagnosed back in the late 1800's! I also did not realize how many people this disease affected.



I hope Tiffany learned as much about ALS as I did. I did not realize that approximately 5,600 people in the U.S.are diagnosed with ALS each year. The incidence of ALS (two per 100,000 people) is five times higher than Huntington's disease and about equal to multiple sclerosis. It is estimated that as many as 30,000 Americans may have the disease at any given time. I plan to donate some money this year to the ALS Association. Most of our research was conducted at their web site: http://www.alsa.org/ I would suggest that you check out their web site and consider making a small donation.

Tiffany and I created a Powerpoint presentation using a clip from Lou Gehrig's farewell speech at Yankee Stadium, facts from the ALS Association web site, and other useful information we learned. She had never used Powerpoint before, so I was glad to assist.

It made me feel thankful for my good health. I don't have high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease. I could lose a few pounds, but I am in great health. I am very lucky. I need to eat a more healthy diet. I wish I could be a vegetarian, but I love meat too much. I have lost about 30 pounds since this summer by only eating beef or pork once a week. I eat chicken, fish, and turkey any time I want.....but I try to only eat beef and pork once a week. I need to eat more fruit and vegetables. It sure is hard to eat vegetables this time of the year.....When you have the choice between a salad and a piece of pumpkin pie, Pumpkin Pie wins every time! If I have the choice between a vegetable medley and Thanksgiving stuffing, I will choose the stuffing! I am so bad!

Still no word about the odd posts on the Trinity of Terror web sites. I have decided that they must be involved in some MMAA initation rite and that the person in the picture is their cult leader. To be honest, I am uninterested in what they are doing at this point. I am refocusing my inner self....and I hope to be more positive....to be more thankful....to be more with it.

To the individual thus enlightened it appears as a vivid and overwhelming certainty that the universe, precisely as it is at this moment, as a whole and in every one of its parts, is so completely right as to need no explanation or justification beyond what it simply is....the mind is so wonder-struck at the self-evident and self-sufficient fitness of things as they are, including what would ordinarily be thought the very worst, that it cannot find any word strong enough to express the perfection and beauty of the experience...The central core of the experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living.