Unwinding

What an amazing weekend!

SG and I have not been away on our own together just to relax in...well, let me think. Probably since our trip to Italy in the summer of 2010. And I am not going to knock that, but time spent running errands of visiting family or celebrating holidays is just not the same as time spent- just being, and enjoying each others company.

We usually have the dogs to worry about as well- while they are good travelers, it is stressful to stay with family, because well, they are dogs. Putting them in a kennel up here runs about $200 plus for a weekend, which is pricey! We eventually decided to try entrusting the neighbor's kid with our house keys, and while the doggies were evidently upset initially, there was no destruction or suspicious staining when we got back. And judging by the amount left in the bag of grain-free doggie biscuits, they got pretty spoiled in our absence!

We went all over the place: As soon as we got out of the gloomy Bay and the sun came out, the top came down on the convertible, and it was like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where everything turns to color. Zooming towards the Central Coast playing 80's music was an amazing feeling of freedom- something I don't think either of us have felt in a long time.

When we got to Carmel, we caught up with my parents- they had plans all weekend, so we only checked in with them at intervals. We made our dinner reservations well in advance, and meandered down to a great Greek restaurant, Dametra Cafe on Ocean Ave. for lunch. We just spent the whole afternoon walking around, and headed down to the beach in time to do a circuit before the tide came rolling in. SG took tons of pictures, and I took the opportunity to do my best Karate Kid impersonation on a stump.

By the time we made it back up the hill, it was time to get cleaned up for dinner. Bistro Giovanni is within walking distance. it's not super-fancy, but the food is amazing. We spent a few hours talking and eating, tucked into our cozy corner.

We had a lot to talk about. Our lives are changing remarkably quickly. If all goes well, we will be moving and starting a family relatively soon. Everything is still in the planning stages, but things seem to be moving amazingly quickly. I feel so blessed and lucky. As long as we don't freak out, we will be fine!

After a leisurely jaunt home, we checked out some of the footage from the opening night of the Olympics.

The rest of the weekend was similarly relaxing- lots of eating at amazing places, and wandering around. We checked out Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row, and of course, the Monterey Bay Aquarium. SG is rediscovering his love of photography, and we got some amazing shots of the octopus and jellyfish.

Sunday, we packed up and hit the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Both SG and I had gone waaaay in the past- and I have to admit, we were disappointed with it this time around. It was hot, and sweaty, and crowded, and the food was pretty much not "easy" for us to eat. We ended up leaving pretty quickly, without trying any of the garlicky delicacies. The decision was to "salvage" the day by heading to the Gilroy Outlets, which was a pretty good decision. We'd actually discussed the things that we needed to round out our respective wardrobes, so I got a pair of black slide wedges, a silver peacock feather necklace, a black leather wristlet purse, a cute summer-weight denim jacket, and one impulse buy- a magenta cotton shrug. SG found a pullover and a deep forest green shirt- I was thrilled to see they have "tall" sizes at Eddie Bauer, because it is hard to find stuff that fits him otherwise! And he got two wallets at the leather place, which was long overdue.

So we got home in plenty of time- which is good, because I had two appointments today (more on that later). I admit, neither of us really wanted to come back, but it was wonderful to come home to a clean house, and two dogs who were very VERY glad to see us.

All in all, it was a seriously awesome 10th anniversary weekend, and I feel like my batteries are recharged for the first time in longer than I care to admit!

Snickerdoodle Alert

Yes, I wish I had a Viking range!

I tend to make a lot of similar meals. Roasting something (chicken, large chunk of animal protein) is the basis for many of my meals, simply because it's easy, and doesn't destroy the kitchen night after night, due to the magic of Leftovers. Oh leftovers, I love you so! I do enjoy cooking, but NOT having to cook is even better.

I finally got the news today (after six days of torture) that what I was worried about, healthwise, will not be an issue. Knowing I will be able to move forward is a huge weight off my shoulders.
Spending the week waiting for answers has been nerve wracking, and my routine went out the window. The result? There have been a few experiments this week.


The first one? Snickerdoodles.

I rarely try to make Primal/Paleo treats, because of course, I eat them. But after the last pizza experiment, I have a big shipment of coconut flour from amazon.com. And I read a nice-looking Snickerdoodle recipe I thought I would try on one of the Facebook Paleo sites I visit.

Here is the recipe I followed:

2 sticks butter
4 eggs
1/2 c. coconut flour
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla

bake at 325 for 20min.

Easy peasy, right?  

I have no "sugar" in my house. I do have a baking blend of sugar, stevia, and inulin. I used 1/8 c. of that, mixed all the ingredients, and loaded up the cookie scoop.

The results looked pretty awesome!

 SG ate these happily, three to four at a time. Since the recipe makes somewhere between 16 and 18 cookies, they didn't last long.

He really liked them- I was less thrilled. I will probably make a version of them again, closer to Christmas time, and with some tweaks.

1. I'll use less butter. At least 2 TB less, possibly as much as 1/2 stick.  There was melted butter running all over the baking sheets when these were done.

2. I'll sub out the "sugar" for maple syrup.

3. I'll press out the cookies a little, so they look more like cookies. These really hold their shape while baking, and I would like them to look less like biscuits or pucks. ;)

The texture on these was interesting: a little more cakey than I would like, but most "paleo" cookies do that.  I am thinking a thinner cookie would eradicate that issue. The exterior had a nice crunch and crumble. SG seemed unaffected by eating huge quantities, but I only wanted one or two. That Coconut flour is pretty filling.

Let me know if you decide to try 'em out!

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

So....It's been a crazy, crazy, CRAZY couple of months. As you may have surmised, that new job I talked about? Got insanely busy overnight, and just sort of dropped the ball on a lot of things. In addition, I seem to have figured out (trial and error people!) that the Very Low Carb version of myself? Doesn't play well with others. To add insult to injury- my weight loss didn't happen. I kept gaining and losing the same three pounds for a few months, and taking involuntary naps.

I kept beating myself up about it, and somehow emerged on the other side with the realization that my health is the most important thing, and losing weight was just going to have to take a backseat to Things That Are Important To Me Right Now. (TTAITMRN.)

So I decided to write down all the crap I have been through, in order to accentuate the positive when I get down in the dumps about the freaking scale. And at the end of it, I thought, "You know- I am a success. I feel better than I ever have in my life, I am healthier, stronger, and happier, and- well, to hell with the "After" pic in the bikini."

I sent it in to Mark's Daily Apple.  And nobody was more surprised than I was when I heard back from Mark himself within a day or so, asking me to sign a release. The reaction to my story is still something I find amazing. I am still not at the end of my journey (Far from it!) but am thrilled that my experience rang true and seems to be helping other people. And there were so many kind compliments about my writing, it has made me want to get to work on this blog again- and maybe even take it to the next level! We will see.

In the meantime, I have tweaked my eating habits yet again. Not super low carb- a serving of fruit daily, and some starchy vegetables (squash and jicama are faves), along with limiting dairy to cheese and butter, plus working on cleaning up my food sources. Everything is organic, and if it's meat, at least 80% is pastured and locally raised.  So it's actually closer to standard PB protocol, and I am cautiously optimistic! Because the scale appears to finally be shifting a bit.

While it is within PB parameters, the general guidelines come from an endocrinologist, Diana Schwarzbein, and her book, "The Schwarzbein Principle".  Dr. Schwarzbein has worked with many people who have damaged their metabolisms with low-fat and low calorie yo-yo dieting: something of which I am definitely guilty. She explains in detail how such dieting messes up your hormones, and how you have to get your hormones back into balance before you can get your body into a state where it is willing to lose weight. It made sense to me, so I am going to continue down this path, as it really isn't a big change for me!

Whirlwind

So in my old life, I fell in love (somewhat inappropriately) with Trader Joe's brand Sunflower seed butter. To be fair, I thought the Sunbutter was a good idea at the time, and unfortunately, sampled it before checking the ingredients. Isn't that always the way? Because of course, I discovered it to be even more glorious than the now verboten peanut butter (OUT, damned legumes!) and it wasn't until I read the label that I realized why: it was chock full of sugar. Some hippie sugar: evaporated cane juice or agave or something similar. Crap.

So, I used up the two jars in my pantry, using it as an ingredient in recipes. As opposed to what I would have liked to do, which is eat it by the spoonful out of the container. And when the stash finally ran out, I bought raw sunflower seeds. And they have been sitting for awhile.

I don't know why, but I have been in a "nut buttery" mood today, and I ended up throwing unsweetened coconut in the blender, and the aforementioned sunflower seeds in the food processor, and basically beating the heck out of them. In both cases, I think the key is adding enough liquified coconut oil to make the fine particles pasty enough to stick together. The coconut butter was simple: just unsweetened coconut shreds and some coconut oil whirled into coconut butter before too long. The Sunbutter required more oil, as well as flavoring as I went with sea salt and some stevia. It's not the delicious nectar that the TJ's stuff was, but it's still lovely. And I suspect it will be a lot more obvious, since I will continue using it as an ingredient, as opposed to spooning it out of the jar and calling it "lunch."


I am guessing the reason that I am nesting is because it is pouring down rain over here. It's been a dry winter so far, and this is the first major rain we have had. So going outside isn't appealing. Also, the roof in our bedroom started leaking last night (NOOOOO at around 1AM, which led to a lot of cursing and throwing pillows around and husbandly leak detecting. We went back to bed around 2. And then, a neighbor went to work at 6 AM and locked her wretched dogs outside in the pouring rain. I know this because I woke up after dreams of fox hunting because those dogs we baying, barking, and pretty much furious at their predicament. I can't really blame them.

Luckily, I am still briefly in the position to sleep in, because when the alarm went off at 8, I hit snooze. I finally crawled out of bed at 11. And I didn't have a particularly productive day house-wise because....I had a job interview yesterday, and had a classroom observation today, and they asked me to come in for training on Monday. I start a new job next week! Holy smokes!!! And it is basically the BEST. JOB. EVER. 

Before we moved to the Bay Area, I left the Fresno branch of this business, and there was no branch up here, and I was devastated. So I did my best to find something similar, but nothing was ever quiiiite the same. I actually looked into buying the area franchise, but it included San Francisco, which was a major dealbreaker for me: this is a kid-activity/teaching franchise, so you go into schools and teach about science. S.F. has a lot of rules and regulations, and unless you are a nonprofit, you can't get into over half the schools there. In addition to parking and bridge tolls and other potential nightmares, I abandoned the idea.

Sometimes, fate just intervenes. I randomly did a search for the name of the company, and got a hit on a franchise in my area. I called, they were hiring, I sent in my resume, and got an immediate email, saying, "Can you come in tomorrow?" And two days later, I am once again among the ranks of the employed. Doing what I know I love. Hooray!!!!  

6,415 and Counting...

My Fitbit needs a name: perhaps Francine?

I survived.
After Day One, the cleanse was relatively painless. I did have sudden nausea on Day Three, and ended up yacking into the kitchen sink. This is unusual behavior for me, as I usually have the sort of stomach described as "iron clad". Love is someone who comes running when they hear you retching uncontrollably from the other end of the house, and makes sure to hold your hair (and jewelry!) back out of the way. Mad Props to SG. 

The good news: my sugar cravings are still happily gone, and while I didn't lose weight, I didn't lose ground either. I was very happy to get on with the regularly scheduled program yesterday morning. I swear, when I saw my morning eggs and chicken 50grams of protein breakfast and took the first bite: I felt crazy strength and happiness flood my body.

If I need any further corroboration to know I am doing the right thing: I remember looking at my tongue on Tuesday night, and it was a horrible grayish shade. A few hours after breakfast on Wednesday, I checked in the mirror again, and it was normal around the edges, but still gray in the middle. My acupuncturist pronounced it "gross." and I concur. After peeking again today, it's back to a much more human-looking all-over pink. Hooray!!!


I should also say that I finally found a "real" doctor, and had my first consult with her. What a positive experience that was! She looked me over, agreed that I needed to keep eating right and working on my weight, gently suggested that I maybe bump up the exercise, but pretty much said I seem "ridiculously healthy." Obviously, she is a genius. ;) She wants me to do more labs, and I explained the situation, so I will have three months for my body to acclimate, then I will retest.

Speaking of genius:   I love my standing workstation. For some reason (probably my dismal steps on the Fitbit) I had a brainwave: maybe I could put my tiny elliptical stepper in front of my workstation? And it works like a charm. I do stop occasionally, and I cannot type while on it, but otherwise, I am happy as a clam, reading MDA and the Hairpin and checking Facebook, while doggedly stepping away.

Welcome 2012!!!

   I spent a large portion of the last year just waiting, WAITING, for 2011 to be over and done with. Last year kicked off with news that a gang of teens had broken into what used to be my grandmother's house for an illicit New Year's celebration, and caused $20,000 worth of damage. Talk about a harbinger of doom! Luckily, they weren't geniuses. It's definitely a mindbender to see a picture of some teenaged guy in front of your grandma's cabinets. In his underwear. Which he's used as his Facebook profile picture. Oops!

The rest of the year involved a lot of familial strife: nothing too horrible, just incredibly stressful. A lot of people I know and love are struggling financially, fighting lawsuits (these things are often linked) or just otherwise in limbo. My husband and I tend to procrastinate: both of us. I know it's human nature to avoid the unpleasant stuff on the list, but we both tend to take it to extremes. Last year served as a reminder that when you put off the unpleasant stuff, it will still eventually have to be dealt with- and in our case, all at once.  I am just glad we have gotten most of the way through it, and I see 2012 as a grand opportunity for all the legwork and struggle and waiting of the last year to finally come to fruition.

So Happy New Year to you and yours! I have my resolutions made (one of them has to do with blogging), and I am feeling pretty good about what's coming up next!