Hanging in there, February.

The weather's up and down, raining, snow flurrying, warm, then cold, etc.   Typical February stuff.  It kind of makes it hard to stay in a good mood, at least for me.  But, I'm hanging in here with work and home and preparing for knee surgery (mostly mental prep at this point, but also doing my physical therapy exercises) and I'm sticking to the diet and starting to be a bit more creative with the recipes.  That's giving me something to focus on besides my fear of surgery and my distress at having to spend all the money for surgery and miss all the work and pay while I'm off for a couple of months.

The basics (for me) of this diet, broccoli ... 

On the personalized diet I'm on (LEAP protocol) I have 50 foods that I can eat.  Some of them I haven't even considered eating, mostly the fish.  I'm doing well though.  I think this weekend, I'm going to make bread and cake and try to figure out a salad dressing.  I have made a couple of personal sized microwave cakes this week and it has helped a lot with the feeling of deprivation.  Because sugar ended up on my list this time, I'm not suffering from any carb flu or sugar withdrawal, which helps.   Despite being able to eat sugar, I've lost 7 or 8 pounds and I want that to continue.  I eat a lot of broccoli, cabbage and meat, so I guess that's helping with the weight loss but I definitely need to be careful with the amount of cake I eat.

navy beans ... 

I'm also going to make plans for my 2 months of recuperation.  I plan to try and finally work on the book about homeschooling/parenting I've been planning for a long time, maybe work on my Spanish with Duolingo and maybe I'll even work on the afghan I started about 3 years ago.  I'll have to do something to keep from going crazy!

and beef. 

Made it one week.

Okay, it will be a week this afternoon that I've been on this diet.  Some of my cooking, of course, has been hit and miss as I learn to bake without eggs and with buckwheat flour and goats milk.  I made some passable buckwheat bread and some mediocre cream of broccoli soup.   I'm keeping a food journal and a symptom log.  I think that my sleep quality is improving.  A couple of my joints, my shoulder, and elbow, are not as sore this morning.  Of course, my knees are still horrible and I'm going to have a total knee replacement on the left side (makes me feel so old!) in April, and then on the right knee sometime in the nebulous future.  (I'm going to try to be brave and actually schedule it).   I've been having a lot of nasal congestion this week.  The nutritionist said that some of my symptoms would get worse the first week and then at the end of the second week, I should feel a lot better.  We'll see.

Broccoli soup, made with goats milk, thickened with buckwheat, with buckwheat bread on the side.  It's not really very good, but I can get it down.   One more week and I get to add in more foods.  

No other real news here, other than the surgery news, which I'm still trying to come to terms with.

Trying to keep busy.

While it's cold and my knee is out of whack, I kept busy yesterday doing a little housework and a little needlework.  I didn't have a pattern and it was my first time doing French knots but I like it.  I may do another today. :-)

Dieting and other things.

I'm doing the food allergies diet.  I'm a little more than 24 hours in.  I survived all day yesterday without dairy, corn, nightshades (potatoes!) and all kinds of other things.  I ate beef, onions, spinach, avocado, turkey, broccoli, cauliflower, a banana, oats, sugar and peanut butter.  I am really glad that those last 3 showed up on my list of things I can have because I made no-bake cookies out of them and it helped a lot with the feelings of deprivation.   (1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup oats, 1/4 cup water, boil sugar and water for 1 minute (full boil), stir in peanut butter and oats, drop on foil or waxed paper).  I sat and drank black coffee at a co-worker's birthday party, but that's not new to me, since I've been gluten free for 9 years.  I couldn't have had any of the treats they served anyway.  I'm used to it and fortunately, now, my co-workers are used to it and don't worry about me going hungry.  I'll be fine.  Maybe I'll be more fine than I ever have been.  Let's hope so.

In other news, youngest son is now well-entrenched in his last semester of college.  (He's getting an associate degree in business management).   He has the same professor that he had trouble with last semester, for 2 classes this semester, but so far, the prof seems to be behaving himself.  That's the trouble with a really small college, there's not a large variety of professors, especially once you are in your classes for your major.  Youngest son had to drop chorus to fit his classes in and he's had to shuffle a D&D session to later in the evening, but he's working it all out.

Yesterdays's sunrise, taken from the car, while driving.  Still pretty, but a bit crooked.  

Oldest son and his wife are back in Mississippi and it seems like forever since we've seen them.  I guess we had better get used to that feeling.  :-(

Daughter and I are getting ready to take advantage of my lower than usual work schedule right now and get some things done around the house; painting the countertops and the baseboards and trim.  Neither one of which we want to do, but both of which, I want done.

Freckles has been freed from her crate, since her wound is finally healing.  She's still wearing the cone, but she's reveling in her freedom quite a bit.  It's cute.

A non-whining post.

I really just feel that I should not leave that whininess at the top of my blog page, so I'm posting again, for that reason.   I'm back to work.  My knee is somewhat better (thank goodness).  I had my first night, last night of not attending the board game group and it was pretty nice.  I stayed in and watched a couple of movies while my son and daughter went, talked to their friends and played some games.  As it should be.  I felt a twinge of sadness that my last homeschooling activity is gone but only a tiny twinge.   It's way past time.   I still wish I had more kids and was still homeschooling, but I think I will always have that.  Homeschooling and raising kids was so much fun.  I've decided that my husband and I probably need to start our own board game group and hang out with our friends.  We do have some great friends we don't spend enough time with.

Today's news is that I'm going to see a nutritionist about my food intolerances and she is going to give me a diet to follow that will hopefully tame down some of my autoimmune symptoms and make me feel overall better.  Here's the list of the foods I reacted to on my test.

Some of these, I don't know what they are.  I'm kind of in shock that the worst intolerance that I have is pinto beans.  I figured I would react strongly to gluten, coffee, tea, dairy and nightshades, but I did not test at all intolerant of gluten.  I wonder if that's because I have been gluten free so long?  I also didn't react to coffee or tea on this test, but both have proven through much testing to cause me significant pain in the past, so I'm still going to leave those alone.  I'm thrilled that I didn't test "red" to dairy and nightshades because I feel like that means maybe I can have some of those in the future.  We'll see what the nutritionist says today about all of this.  I just hope that I can feel better.  I've been in one of my "pain storms" as I call them for a couple of weeks. Everything hurts.

This years word for me is "heal" because that's what I need to do.

Post Holiday Blahs.

     

WARNING - WHINING AHEAD!!!

It always happens.  I get the blahs in January.   I am so there.  I just get to the point that I'm fed up with everything.   Right now, I'm fed up with the fact that my dog had surgery 3 weeks ago and hasn't healed up and is still having to be in a crate all the time because of drainage.  It's gross, it's pitiful.  I feel so bad for her.  :-(

I'm fed up with the fact that my knee is getting worse and worse and I'm probably going to have to have it replaced.  I missed work because of it on Monday and I almost never miss work for my own ailments.  I drag myself in there no matter what.  It's very painful.  :-(

I'm also a bit sad (and a bit relieved) at the thought of giving up my board game group.  It's not ending, I'm just going to extract myself and put my young adult offspring in charge.  They can come up with their own places to meet, own times to meet, their own rules of conduct and everything else.  I started running it as a homeschool group 3-4 years ago and it's been fun, but my time to step down was a while back and I just haven't done it yet.  There are a couple of kids whose parents may pull them out if there's not any mom-type supervision, but I just can't feel responsible for them anymore.  Their own moms can come, sit in the restaurant and supervise them if they want them supervised.  I'm just done.  It has become more and more clear.

I guess that's all.

I ran out of steam pretty quickly. 

Now I need to get busy, focus on the positive and try and find an orthopedic surgeon that's in -network.

Fun times.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with homeschooling, other than the ending of my homeschooling board game group.

Back to normal.

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Years, celebrating all last week, eating all the junk.  My son said that everything we'd eaten tasted like either, chocolate, peppermint or cheese.   My daughter-in-law makes awesome fettucini and mac and cheese, so we had both this week.  We got a lot of visiting in, played a ton of games, watched movies and videos,shopped, went to family parties and church and generally had a great time.  Today it's back to work or school for most of us and back into the board games and D&D routines.   I want to set up a get-together with my friends, because we don't get together during the busy Christmas season and haven't seen each other for at least a month, but other than that, it's back to normal.  It seems kind of nice, really.  Both routines and breaks from them are important.  :-)

Holidaying!

We've celebrated Christmas and New Years in quick succession this week, Christmas on Saturday night and Sunday morning and New Year's Eve on Monday, which was actually New Year's Eve, coincidentally.  :-)  Today is New Year's Day, of course, for real, and I'm not sure what we are going to do.  So far, we have no plans.  We're going to hang out and catch up on TV shows and movies, cook something for ourselves and talk.   It's great to have my son and daughter-in-law here again.  We've been trying out all the new board games we got.

We got them a couple and they got us one and we got ourselves 5, so it's a big bunch of gaming goodness.  So far, we've played Pandemic, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Kodama, and Coup Rebellion, and have still to play The Resistance Hidden Agenda and Hanabi.  The other board game that we got my son and his wife was Saboteur, one of our previously owned favorites, so we haven't done that one yet.  We also played Splendor last night which was previously owned, but we just felt like playing it.  I'm enjoying myself immensely having everyone here.

Freckles is doing okay.  She's being a diva and demanding a lot of treats, because last time she had surgery and had to wear the cone, she also had teeth pulled and needed soft food.  She doesn't understand that getting a surgery on your tail doesn't require the same dietary changes.  Nevertheless, I am headed to town in a few minutes to get her some soft food.  Of course.  And yes, I know why my dog is spoiled.  I'm just not sure how to reason with a chihuahua.  :-)