Domestic Geek

It's long been known that pet owners have less stress in general that non-pet owners. There's something therapeutic in stroking a big, fuzzy creature.

I want another dog. While we still have bunnies, it's just not the same as having a dog, you know?

I've been reading a fellow 'thonner and Colorado resident over at Tucker Talks Back (blogging for Max Fund). Tucker is a Siberian Husky. Made me think of my old beloved dog Ursa that was an Alaskan Malamute.

EDIT: If you haven't been around the last few years, I wanted to share a picture of my beloved dogs. We lost Skippy this last January (the brown Shepherd mutt). We lost Ursa (the Alaskan Malamute) back in August 2002. I miss them.

So, Mike has rib contusions I think he said. He's on Vicodin and acting rather goofy. I wonder if I was acting that weird when I was on it. I know I certainly didn't like the feeling. He and Marcus stopped by for a short bit to bring me my nuggets and to get his credit card so they could go buy stuff. I know they're going to Oak Express and CompUsa.

I hope he heals up soon. They've got a Pikes Peak hike scheduled for August 11th.

One of my online friends, Bug from An Indian Summer, is currently hosting a few of hours of Blogathon radio over at KMRL Mojo Radio. There's a link to the player on the left sidebar of the KMRL Mojo Radio blogathon blog. If you see me dancing or singing in the cam, that's what I'm listening to.

She's blogging for the American Cancer Society. Head over to her blog to sponser her if you're so inclined.

Whoops, this one's a little late. I got busy reading other blogathon sites.

We have different kinds of stress to deal with today that people in days gone by didn't have to deal with. They could also relieve some of that stress they did have through hard, physical labor. I'm convinced that part of the reason we have such high levels of insomnia and other health-related issues is our bodies inability to deal with stress.

One way to deal with stress, as Marsia suggested to me, is to meditate or pray. I've been doing a lot of reading lately about how that internal chatter that is always going on in our heads is so detrimental to our well-being. It's so difficult to turn all that off, but it's definitely something I've been working on.

The fact is that when we're under stress, our bodies go into a kind of panic mode and hang onto fat stores. We also manifest diseases and hinder our bodies ability to heal itself.

We live in interesting times, for sure. We've got the benefits from so many cool technological advances. It's hard to believe that just a few short years ago we didn't have the Internet, yet now just about everybody I know functions both at work and home in some capacity by using computers and the Internet (mail, surfing, etc). Then there are big screen TVs that turn your home into a movie theater and video game systems and all of it leads to us spending quite a bit of time on our butts.

We also live in dangerous times. Parents don't dare turn their kids out into the streets to play unsupervised. I remember as a child leaving the house in the morning and wandering around to different neighbor kids' houses. Except for a couple of meal breaks, we stayed outside playing until it got too dark to see.

It's definitely having negative effects on our health.