Friday Again?

YUP, Bad Grandma has survived another week, and here's wot she's discovered.  Used to be, the hardest part of meditating for her was keeping her eyes shut for 20 minutes at a time, 2x a day.  Since she can't hear, she always wanted to keep at least one eye partly open so she could see if anyone else came in  the room (remnant of a childhood fright that has lingered waaaay too long).  So the wise woman at TM said, "Find a safe place." Easy enough--there' a lock on her bedroom door, so she goes in there, locks the door behind her,  sits for 20 minutes with her eyes shut,  saying a made-up mantra
to herself, and she has been doing this for the past week or more by way of practicing for the formal TM.  Enjoys it hugely.  It feels so restful!  After a couple of days of this, she noticed there are a number of 20-minute stretches on the metro and the bus between when she gets on, and when she reaches her stop.  So she started closing her eyes and thinking of the made-up mantra.  Piece of cake!
Now she can "meditate" before bedtime and use travel time to do it. 
Has she noticed any results from this?  Well, not really.  It's fun while she's "meditating," but once she opens her eyes after 20 minutes, she's back in her life circus, which does tend to go on and on.  The point of all this was to bring down her high blood pressure without PILLZ.  And yes, her BP is down,
and although her doctor wants it lower, it hasn't gone back up to scary levels.  AND she has started dreaming again.  Frequently--and long dreams, too. AND this morning she remembered the most effective diet she has ever been on.  She got it almost 40 years ago and lost a pile of weight.  It's not difficult--she just eats regular food--things like lettuce, spinach, celery are free--she can eat as much of those as she
wants.  She's allowed 5 servings of fat/day, but this is another piece of cake.  1 serving of fat usually means 1T of butter or oil or mayonnaise.  But it also can mean 1 strip of bacon or 5 nuts.  In her inimitable way, she figured that 5 peanuts actually meant 10 peanuts after the shell is gone, since there are two nuts per shell--sometimes 3! And she also started using all of her fat quota for peanuts.  So 5 fat things in peanuts is equal to 50 peanuts!!!  An excellent serving.

Anyway, Bad Grandma does love keeping her eyes shut for 20 minutes 2xevery day.