Stormy Weather

I've been a bit absent lately and I have decided that I will blame my absence on last week's stormy weather. True, it played a large part in keeping me busy over the past week, but it is also true that this has been one very hectic holiday season!

So back to that big storm. It arrived on December 14th, with winds gusting to 90 mph or higher in the Portland area. Over 1.5 million people in western Oregon and Washington were left with no power - some for days on end.

Our lights did little but send us flickering signals of the chaos on other parts of the electricity grid. And so while many of my neighbors around the county were sitting in darkness, my Christmas lights were cheerfully coloring my corner of the world.

Long Live Clark Griswold

Watching Christmas Vacation has long been a part of my holiday tradition. I can recite the whole movie line for line, much to the annoyance of my friends and family.

One of my favorite things about Clark Griswold is his love of Christmas lights. Several years ago I lived in Longview, and I had this adorable little cottage that looked just perfect all decked out in Christmas lights.

Now we live in more of a ranch style home, but we still do our best to deck it out for the holidays. This year, with DH in school and me not feeling well, we haven't gotten quite as much accomplished. But it still looks pretty darned good!

Burnin' Down the House

My dog tried to burn my house down!

Rick and I let the hoodlums roam free for an hour the other night while we went out and grabbed a bite. When we returned, I headed into the bedroom to re-arrange the dog beds so there would be room for all of us to sleep and walk around. Next thing I knew, the chewed up end of an electrical cord was hopping and sparking and snaking about next to me!

Apparently Mac thought it would be fun to eat through the cord for our floor lamp. Fortunately, it was plugged into a switched outlet and the switch was off, so there was no power to the lamp when he ate it. When I got home and flipped the switch, things got exciting.

I'm just glad we found it before we had an electrical fire, and that nobody got electrocuted!

Mac Man

I received an email yesterday from someone considering purchasing a dog from the same breeder who grew our Mac. Did we have a good experience with the breeder and did we like our dog?

I said YES on both accounts and sent them a couple of photos of our boy. He has a great personality - happy and calm and friendly just about all the time, and always willing to fetch a ball or a toy or a stick.

Good boy, Mac!

That's not for eating!

I went to Costco yesterday with Mom C. They had these cute little gingerbread house kits, so I bought one to decorate. I asked Mom if I should buy kits for her two granddaughters, who will be coming to cookie baking day. She said they didn't need any more sweets to eat.

What? Gingerbread houses aren't for eating! They are for decorating and leaving on the kitchen table for a month or so, and if you package them carefully, perhaps displaying again next year!

Holiday Challenge Progress Report - Day 4

Short and sweet today:

B - Oatmeal, blueberries, pecans, grapefruit

L - Green salad, caesar dressing, garbanzo beans

D - Steamed veggies, shrimp skewer

E - About an hour of walking

Verdict: Broccoli, since I forgot to take my flax.
Tab: $5

Holiday Challenge Progress Report - Day 3

Libby's Progress Report - Day 3
"Why is everything fighting me!!!"

Friday was apparently payback day for all of the inanimate objects I have ever cursed. It was my friend's 50th birthday, and along with her mom, her hubby and her sister, I was putting on a big party for her at the local Elks Club, which is the only gathering space there is in my town.

I was responsible for the "life in pictures" show, which I have been working on for a week. This was the big suprise and was supposed to be the highlight of the evening - the part where everyone watches together and oohs and aaahs and the birthday girl is so happy she cries and everyone hugs and smiles.

I knew up front it would be a busy day, so I ate a breakfast that would keep me going for a few hours:

Breakfast:
Steel cut oats
Banana
Clementine

Lunch wasn't too bad either.

Lunch:
Green salad
More cauliflower soup
Cashews

Then all heck broke loose. We needed one of those machines that would project the picture show on the wall. The guy who I thought was bringing one for us to use didn't bring it, and so at 3:30 I was left to find one in my small town. The local rental shop had one but wanted $200 to rent it for one night! My hubby and a friend of his sprang into action and tried every combination of computer and television and cable that they could come up with, but couldn't get anything to work. (They are both IT guys, we just didn't have the right cables.)

Luckily, at 4:45 we found out that the electronics store in town just happened to have a used machine that we could rent for $100. We ran down and got it, took it to the Elks, set everything up, and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the show was up and running at 5:30. We finished setting up, then ran off to grab a quick bite at the restaurant before the party.

By now, my nerves were jangled from all the last minute hustling. Hubby asked me to have a glass of wine, and I obliged. Then we shared this for dinner:

Dinner:
Green salad (I ate this, he had soup)
Baked potato
Small piece of grilled mahi - I had a couple of ounces
The afforementioned glass of merlot

With 10 minutes to spare we headed back to the party. And guess what? The projector wouldn't turn on! We worked on it for about a half an hour while people filled the room, and everyone was watching us and talking about how we couldn't make it work and trying to give us advice.

Meantime, I have one very disappointed birthday girl, and also a disappointed birthday girl mother and birthday girl husband.

We never did get the darn thing to work. People just sat down two at a time and watched the show on my laptop computer.

I sat in the corner and drank two bottles of Mike's hard lemonade and ate:
A little smokie (which tasted very strange)
Some raw veggies with ranch dip
Some crackers with cheese and summer sausage (which also tasted strange)
Two bites of bad white cake with lemon filling.

(I did redeem myself later in the evening by getting some great shots of the birthday girl with her family, and of her blowing out all 50 candles on the cake, which she *almost* did in one breath!)

Verdict:
No exercise
Good breakfast
Good lunch
Bad rest of the day

I'm calling it a Potato
Tab: $5

Holiday Challenge Progress Report - Day 2

Breakfast:
One slice of wholegrain toast with nut butter and all fruit spread (I went wheat free for about three weeks. I didn't feel any better, so I had some whole wheat bread, and I didn't feel any worse. So now I'm going back and forth on whether to go wheat free or not. All I really know for sure that it's HARD to go wheat free!)
Vitamins and Medicines and DHA
A pear
A small handful of walnuts

Lunch:
I deliver Meals on Wheels on Thursdays, which means I am not around at lunchtime. So, I ate a lara bar and a clementine before I went, and then after I got back I had a big bowl of spinach and some more of the Golden Australian Cauliflower Carrot Cream Soup.

Dinner:
Three bean salad
Chocolate cherry smoothie with flax
Exercise:
30 minutes on the treadmill, marching uphill

Verdict: Kale

Tab: $0

Bath Day for the Babies

It was bath day for the canines today. Now they're all shiny and clean and happy and they are romping throughout the house. Maisy's favorite trick is to race out of the bathroom after the bath and leap onto our bed. She even knows how to open the door to the bedroom so she can let herself in.

When she's really in trouble, she gives us the Maisy smile because she knows we can't enforce the house rules when she grins at us.

Trust me, it's really hard to punish a smiling dog.

Holiday Challenge Progress Report - Day 1

Breakfast:
Golden Australian Cauliflower Cream Soup with lentils and mushrooms
A banana
A few walnuts
A mandarin orange

Lunch:
Three bean salad
Hummus with cucumbers
Leftover steamed greens from last night
A few more walnuts

Dinner:
Green salad
Steamed spinach
Chocolate cherry smoothie with SPINACH and pomegranate juice (Yes, I did it! This is the first time I've ever put spinach in a smoothie. My hubby thinks I'm officially nuts. The smoothies without it are better... but it's still a good drink!)

Exercise:
30 minutes on the treadmill, marching uphill

Verdict: Kale!
Tab: $0

The challenge is on!

Nicole is in, so we are officially having a Christmas challenge!

This is the general idea. Each person goes about their day and records what they eat on their blog. When you don't have a perfect day, you have to pay the piper.

Your "days" can be measured according to Nicole's "Fuhrmometer". A Kale day is a perfect ETL day. A cookie day is a day filled totally with junk.

• Kale days cost nothing
• Broccoli days cost $1
• Eggplant days - $2
• Lentil days - $3
• Blueberry days - $4
• Potato days - $5
• Brown rice - $6
• Cashew - $7
• Cheese - $8
• Cookie - $9

On any given day, for each 30 minutes of exercise, you can earn back $1. (In other words, if you had a lentil day but exercised for a half hour, it would only cost you $2)

Each person would have to post on their own blog (or on this thread) what they ate. We'll just keep a tally of who has what kind of day, and then add up the totals and figure out who owes the most money.

I think the person who does the best should get to name the charity that everyone else has to donate their fines to, but we could also pair up, and then the winner of each pair could either keep the other person's fines, or send it to their favorite charity.

We're starting TODAY!

I need a challenge

I need an ETL challenge between now and the holidays. I'm going to see if I can get one of the ETLers to join me, maybe even Nicole from Full of Veggies. She has this daily rating system called the Fuhrmometer. We could use that to rate our days.

I love kale

I made braised greens for dinner again tonight. My recipe is getting more simple each time I make it. This time I just chopped up an onion, steamed it in some veggie broth, then added chopped kale and let it cook for a bit, then added chopped swiss chard. When it was done I poured a little leftover cashew caesar dressing on it. It was heavenly! I was very happy that my hubby didn't want any. That means I get it for breakfast tomorrow. YAAAY!

Let the Holidays Begin!

The holiday season has officially begun! We drove up the gorge to Mom and Dad's this weekend to have a second Thanksgiving meal. My Mom's Christmas Cactuses were in full bloom and were quite spectacular.

I'm such a spoiled duck when it comes to Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. My mom and grandma and I would spend an entire day in the kitchen together preparing the meal for somewhere between 10 and 20 people, depending on the year. The men would all hang out in the living room eating snacks and watching football. We just don't get to do it that way anymore.

R's mom always has her big meal on Thursday, which means we wind up with my parents on the weekend. My sister winds up with her hubby's family on the big day and there's about a 50/50 chance that we'll see them on the weekend. (We didn't see them this year.)

This year, on Thursday my parents joined my dad's side of the family for a big family meal at my grandma's, and we didn't even know about it! It was a last-minute event and they didn't call us because they knew we were already committed otherwise, but I am not very happy about missing an opportunity to see some of my family members whom I haven't seen for two or three years.

Nonetheless, my mom and I got to spend Saturday puttering around her kitchen together, making all of our family's traditional Thanksgiving dishes - turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, bread stuffing, cornbread stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie, gravy, pineapple dip, etc. etc. And it was a gooood meal! My grandma even brought her special pickled beets.

Next year I think I will try to put together a family dinner like the old days. I would like that a lot better. I should get to do that once in a while!

Funky Toadstools

Look what popped up in our yard!

Things that go bump on your side

Well, I suppose if I'm going to write about mood lights and dogs wearing cones, I may as well write about the lump.

It all began a couple of months ago when I noticed that if I slouched in my office chair and leaned on its arm, my side would hurt. I didn't think much of it. I reported it to my doc during my annual, and she said to quit slouching. Good answer!

Then a couple of weeks ago, my breast became quite sore. (This, I determined, was just another good reason to avoid underwire! )

And then last week I discovered a lump in my breast. Maybe the size of a grape. And if I poke it, it HURTS. (actually, by the time I found the lump, my whole left side hurt even when I was standing still.)

So I called my doc, who very kindly made room for me that afternoon, and then poked and prodded while talking about the virtues of goldendoodles. She figures it's fibrocystic and tells me to avoid underwires and things that make it hurt, and to come back in a month or so when things aren't so sore.

And so it did settle down a bit and now I can poke and prod the lump, which feels smaller, without gasping.

But I still have a very sore spot on my side. It's only a few inches from where the lump was, so I am guessing they are somehow related.

It's mornings like these...

This is one of those days when I am certain that my happy light can work magic. I woke up to the sound of the rain pounding on the skylights. It's still pitch black outside and it will be for at least another hour.

But here I sit with my mood light. It's bright! I have used it every day since it arrived.

I don't know if it's just coincidence, but since I began sitting with it, I am back to sleeping through the night with no trouble.

My boss at work was teasing me about using a mood light. I told him he should be happy that I purchased a $150 light with my own funds, instead of spending $150 a month of the company's money on drugs to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder. I also explained how the studies have shown that light therapy is equally as effective as prescriptions in treating SAD. So there!

Chana Dal

I made chana dal for the first time today. It was good!

First, take two cups of chana dal and soak them for a few hours. Then rinse them well.

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add the dal, then cover and simmer over low heat for a half hour or so.

Meanwhile, chop a small yellow onion and steam saute it until translucent. Add two cloves of garlic and a tablespoon each of turmeric, cumin, coriander, black mustard seeds and garam masala, and 1/2 a tsp of cayenne. Stir until fragrant, then stir into the dal and let simmer, uncovered, until it reaches the desired consistency.

We ate it over a mixture of roasted red potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes.

The End of the Stillness

Maisy is very happy to be rid of the Cone of Stillness.

Her surgery spot hasn't healed yet (this dog takes forever to heal) but she is leaving it alone and so we're letting her spend longer and longer periods of time sans cone.

Black Bean Soup

I made a Fuhrman-esque Black Bean Soup for dinner tonight.

Here's how to do it:

In the morning:
Put three cups of black beans in a crock pot with plenty of water and let them cook all day.

In the evening:

1 medium yellow onion
3 stalks of celery
2 carrots
1 red bell pepper
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups of carrot juice
2 cups of low sodium veggie broth
1 can of no salt diced tomatoes
1/2 cup of no salt tomato paste
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of chili powder
1 tablespoon of Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest
1 tablespoon of Dr. Fuhrman's Cocoa Powder
fresh cracked black pepper
fresh cilantro and limes

Chop the veggies and steam saute them in a little of the broth until translucent. Add the garlic and spices and stir and cook a few seconds, until fragrant. Add the rest of the broth, the carrot juice, the tomatoes and paste, and the beans from the crockpot. Let simmer 15 minutes or so, adjust the seasonings and serve with fresh cilantro and limes.

I have no idea how many servings this is... maybe 8?

Mac got a haircut

Here's Mr. Handsome with his new haircut. We are hoping that this shorter cut will mean less dirt gets dragged into the house. Mac also thinks the bandana will help him with the ladies. :-)

We have mood lighting!

Our fancy mood light showed up today. It is definitely big and bright. I was going to set it up next to the treadmill but now I'm wondering if that would be close enough. Getting walking and light time out of the way at once would be very cool.

It's all good :-)

What a great day.

First, I found out that my mood light really is going to appear on my doorstep any day now. Wahoo!

Second, Dr. Fuhrman's new radio show on Voice America started today. I didn't get to listen to it "live", but I did get an opportunity to listen tonight. It was a great program! Ruth Heidrich was his first guest. She had a great quote:

"You can choose to love what's good for you."

Third, I had a great dinner out with my mom in law at a new Hawaiian restaurant in town. I had a big plate of steamed veggies. She had a big bowl of ramen soup. We talked for an hour about investments and family gossip and all sorts of other fun things.

Lastly, I finished my meal with a fantastic chocolate cherry smoothie:
1 cup of soymilk
1/2 cup of pomegranate juice
1/2 a bag of frozen cherries
1 heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder

Life is good!

Four down!

Well I'm officially BACK to eating ETL style. And you know what? It works!

I have lost four of the six pounds I gained during my days of indescretion. I've also found a couple of great new soup recipes. One for cauliflower cream soup, and one for creamy tomato soup. The weather has been icky here and good soups are just the ticket.

I also decided I love Whole Foods Market. They sell braising greens, in bulk! I tried some this week and they were soooooooo good. I can't wait to go back and get more.

My Mood Light is still NOT here. It has now been 38 days since I ordered it. That seems plenty long enough to me. (Actually, it seems rediculous and I am quite irritated about it.) I may call tomorrow and cancel my order.

Mac is a druggie!

Mac ate Maisy's bottle of Rimadyl today. I think there were about six pills left. Not only did he eat the pills, he at the bottle, too...

He doesn't appear to be any worse for wear, so we're just watching him closely.

He does look a little drugged, doesn't he!

The Cone of Stillness

Miss Maisy's blue donut was not sufficient to keep her from bothering her wounds. She figured out nearly immediately that she could still itch them with a rear paw, so we put a sock on her paw. Then she figured out she could reach the sock while still wearing the donut, so she has graduated to the dreaded Cone of Stillness.

In many parts of the world, this unique torture device goes by the name "Elizabethan Collar". Not so much in our house, for it has a function far more interesting than fashion. When Maisy wears it, she is rendered utterly immobile! When we pull it over her head she freezes, and stays in the same exact position until we remove the device.

Today, in addition to the fashionable Cone, she is also sporting a sock with pink Vet Wrap and a bandage over her holes where the tumors used to be. She finds this whole arrangement quite demeaning. I hope it isn't required for long.

I hope she heals quickly.

Soy Egg Nog!

I could be the happiest person in the world right now. I love egg nog. I drink lots of it during the holidays. Except that now I'm not doing dairy products...

Today I found soy egg nog at Whole Foods Market and it is just wonderful! R doesn't like regular soy milk, but even he admitted this soy nog is top notch.

Back On the Bandwagon

Well, I'm back from San Antonio... although I did well eating at breakfast and lunch, I pretty much did what I wanted at dinner. The end result? I am now SIX POUNDS heavier than I was three weeks ago.

So I'm back on the wagon again. I'm going as perfectly ETL as I can now.

Today I had stir fried vegetables for lunch and some lettuce wraps with guacamole and a little taco meat for dinner.

Tomorrow morning will be a challenge because beakfast is at grandmas and she's making sausage! I'm bringing a big fruit salad.

Nuts, Nuts and More Nuts!

We drove out to Jossy Farms yesterday and picked up 50 pounds of fresh walnuts and 25 pounds of fresh hazlenuts, still in the shell but cracked. So now I have an excuse for watching TV in the evenings... they all need to be separated from the shells and bagged for the freezer.

How many nuts does one family need? I did a little calculating... an ounce a day for two people is a pound every eight days... 10 pounds every eighty days... or about 45 pounds in a year.

Miss Maisy - Infirmed Again

Miss Maisy had surgery today to remove two small tumors from her left front leg. We had spotted one of them a few weeks ago and were watching to see what it did. Then Maisy found it, too, and wouldn't leave it alone, so the Good Doctor recommended removal. While he was removing the first one, he found the second one and removed it, too.

Now Maisy is sporting her blue donut again, and is not too pleased about that.

The Good Doctor suggested that the tumors may be histocytomas, but we won't know until the pathology comes back.

San Antonio Adventures

I'm on day three of my San Antonio adventure, and things have taken a definite upswing.

First, I found three vegetarian restaurants to try. Last night I had a giant plate of grilled vegetables for dinner! The veggies, which included tomatoes, tomatillos, zuchinni, mushrooms, peppers, onions, broccoli and cauliflower, clearly had some olive oil and pesto on them, but it was a lot better than some of the other options on the Riverwalk, like enchiladas and fettucini alfredo.

Second, I took a cab ride to Whole Foods Market. $40 round trip for $50 worth of groceries, but I'm glad I did it. I bought fresh fruit, veggies, salad fixings and Lara Bars. I'm so happy to have food I can eat! The cab driver was very funny, telling us stories about San Antonio's past and about how the Alamo is haunted.

Tonight is a "dinner with friends" event at the conference. We decided to go back to Boudro's, which is where we ate on Saturday. (I'm just now realizing how lucky we were... we got there at the prime dinner hour, and while everyone else was waiting an hour and a half, we got seated immediately and we were served some fantastic, wonderful, amazing food by a very skilled and charming waiter.) Tonight there are about 25 people going. I can't wait to have guacamole again! It was fantastic. I will probably try the vegetable enchiladas tonight, if I can get them to hold the cheese for me.

I didn't get much sleep last night. There was an impressive thunder and lightning storm at around 3:00 a.m. that lasted for an hour. I couldn't see the lightning bolts from my room, but the whole sky would flash a brilliant white and the thunder would sound almost immediately. It was really wild for this Oregon girl!

A SAD State of Affairs

I have food issues.

Over the past week, as I have been trying to fight off a bug, the topic of nutritional healing has been a popular one in our house. I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about and talking about what I shouldn't eat... and a little bit of time on what I should eat.

The end result? Two days of SAD binging (think burgers and candy bars) and a weight gain of FOUR POUNDS!!!

And now... I'm sitting in a hotel in San Antonio for five days of training.

So I will be doing my best, but I don't have nearly as much control over my diet as I would like. I brought fruit and raw veggies and nuts on the plane with me, so for most of the day things went ok. Dinner? Not so good... it's hard when you're with other people who love food like you do and you're trying to remain sane.

Tomorrow I hope to find a grocery.

The Ideal Me

This is the ideal me:
This is the actual me, at least according to My Virtual Model.


Talk about motivation!

The after effects of brussels sprouts

I made brussels sprouts yesterday. And then I ate them all. Today, every time I even so much as thought about vegetables, my stomach would rumble. So I didn't eat very many.

It probably didn't help that we didn't have any vegetables at home. It's amazing how many vegetables you have to buy when you do ETL.

It's also amazing how much you have to cook! I'm doing two loads of dishes a day! Last night I tried to make butternut squash soup. It was so terrible that we just threw it out. All that cooking for nothing!

Food Diary, November 1

Breakfast -
Oatmeal with soy milk and goji berries
Fresh pineapple

Lunch -
One small slice of vegetarian pizza
Black bean soup with baked blue corn chips

Dinner -
Cobb salad with cashew caesar dressing
One rum ball

Happy Halloween Everybody!

Oh what a fun Halloween it's been.

We carved pumkins. We dressed like punk rockers. I mean, who hasn't wanted to be a punk rocker at some point in their life? It was fun!

Food Diary, October 31st

Happy Halloween!

Breakfast:
Fruit salad with pineapple, apples, blueberries and mandarins
whole wheat toast with cashew butter

Lunch:
A giant green salad with cashew caesar dressing
One teeny, tiny slice of veggie pizza

Snack:
One rum ball at all-employee birthday dessert day. Oh what the heck. It's halloween!

Dinner:
Hummus with baked corn chips
Black bean soup

Brussels sprouts with basil and garlic, from Fat Free Vegan. This was my first attempt - ever - at cooking brussels sprouts. They were wonderful!

I love Whole Foods Market

WOW. I got to go grocery shopping today at Whole Foods Market. What a wonderful place! I won't give you the entire list of things that I bought, but here are the things I that I picked up that are not available at my local grocery stores:

Lara Bars (I've never tried these. YUM!)
Red Lentils
French Green Lentils
Chana Dal
Yellow Split Peas
Adzuki Beans
Goji Berries
Baby Bok Choi
Patty Pan Squash
Broccoli Rab
Broccolini
Chicken Chorizo
Jalapeno Hummus
100% Whole Wheat French Bread

Did I mention that I LOVE Whole Foods Market?

Food Diary, October 29

This was not exactly a good day, food-wise. This was what I would call a JUNK day. But you know what? Even at that rate, it was better than 99% of my pre-ETL food days! I still consider this progress!

Here's the problem: Sunday is family breakfast day at my MIL's. She cooks what she wants and we eat it. And she's very concerned about me since I've been sick with this cold all week, and she's convinced that what I need is to stop eating just fruits and veggies and eat some REAL food. I have had a long week and I'm tired and I just didn't feel like arguing about it, so I ate breakfast.

Breakfast:
Eggo waffle (plain!)
Fruit salad with blueberries, mango, pineapple, apple and mandarin (I brought this)
Coffee with soy milk and Carolan's
What I didn't eat: bacon and eggs

Lunch:
Guiltless Gourmet baked torilla chips and jalapeno hummus
Roasted red pepper and tomato soup
More coffee and soy milk
My first ever Lara bar. WOW.
Portland French Bakery 100% whole wheat bread

Dinner:
Green salad
Black bean soup
One bite of carrot cake
A fun size snicker's bar

Do I HAVE to get in the bath?

(Yes Maisy, you do.)

ETL T-Shirt Idea

This is pretty goofy, but I've always liked H = N/C.

So why not put it on a t-shirt?

Food Diary, October 28th

Today was the annual Children's Fair in St. Helens. I manned the company booth all day and lost my voice doing presentations. It was fun.

Food wise, not too bad. Still haven't been to the grocery so I'm running short on vegetables. I did plan ahead well enough to pack my own lunch, which was a good thing: the only thing they had to offer at the fair was hot dogs, carrot cake and popcorn. (Oh, and TONS of candy.)

Breakfast:
Fruit salad with fresh pineapple, banana, orange and apple
A soy milk latte on the way to the children's fair

Lunch:
Carrots, celery and cucumber with hummus
A little bit more pineapple
A handful of walnuts

Dinner:
Hot and sour spicy vegetable soup with beef at Kuy's
A rice paper vegetable roll
Some hot tea
I passed on the fortune cookie (first time for everything!) and had a coconut date roll at home instead.

Water: four or five glasses
The scale was down a pound this morning!

Miss Maisy, my cow-hocked canine

Miss Maisy went to visit the good doctor yesterday.

Maisy has allergies. She is allergic to many foods and also weeds, dust, mold, yeast, and many other things. She has to take steroids to keep her allergies under control. Steroids are bad, but a miserable, itchy dog covered in a rash and hot spots is worse.

Within the past several weeks we have noticed that Maisy's left hind leg twists out with each step. And she's lethargic, and she limps sometimes (not always on the left hind leg, sometimes it's the right one). Most concerning is the fact that she seems to be less sure-footed - we have seen her jump off the couch and do the splits on a few occasions.

Dr. K said her hip and knee joints feel stable, but after watching her walk he wrinkled his brow. Something ain't right, we just don't know what. So he's going to do some research and get back with us.

Time will tell!

Food Diary - October 27th

Why do I let that number on the scale sabotage my good eating? I got up this morning to see the same number I saw yesterday morning. And for whatever reason, I decided that was the perfect excuse to eat poorly today. What a stupid thing to do!

Breakfast:
Grapefruit, apple, banana
Trail mix at 10:00 because I was really, really nauseous from my cold medicine, and food is the only thing that helps, and trail mix was the best thing I could find.

Lunch:
A giant green salad with some chicken, peas and a little bit of dressing on the side.

Dinner:
I made up for my bad lunchtime behavior by eating pretty darned well at dinner, considering that I was at our favorite local steak and pasta joint. We decided to go out because I am still fighting this cold and we have no food and home and I'm too tired to cook anyway. I tried to talk hubby into the thai place, where I could get hot & sour spicy veggie soup for my cold, but he wanted spaghetti and meatballs. So I had a giant green salad and some steamed vegetables in marinara, and one small piece of garlic bread. Not bad, all things considered.

Now I have to decide whether to start a new five day challenge tomorrow, when I'm spending my day at the children's fair and finding good for you food will be a challenge and there will be junk everywhere. Or, do I wait until I'm past this cold and feeling better, and I have the energy to shop and cook?

Food Diary, October 26th

Day two of the 5DC. I'm also still fighting this bug, and today was a big retirement party for two of my co-workers. I helped organize it but since I have been sick all week I didn't get to help out as much as I would have liked. My head is really pounding today!

Breakfast:
Fruit salad with banana, grapefruit, blueberries and apples

Lunch: (at the retirement party)
Romaine, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms and a little tiny bit of thousand island (it was the only dressing there was and I haven't learned to eat salad without dressing yet)
Fruit salad with oranges, grapes, pineapple, honeydew and strawberries
I did NOT eat any retirement cake or sandwich fixings. Willpower!

Dinner:
Carrot and beet salad
Green Machine (steamed kale and collards with onions, tomatoes and garlic)
Fresh pineapple

Dessert:
Coconut date roll

Water: Four or five glasses

Exercise: None, except for fighting a headache.

Food Diary - October 25th

It would have been a good idea to start the 5DC after going grocery shopping... instead I am stuck eating all the food I bought that I thought I would be eating before I knew I was doing it. So you will see that my food choices are a bit different, but I'm still following the same basic principals, so I think it counts.

Breakfast:
One orange
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup strawberries (Frozen strawberries are icky and mushy!)

Lunch:
Healthy Slaw made with 1 apple, 1 carrot, 1/4 head of cabbage, rice vinegar, orange juice, currants and celery seed. (I shared this with Rick. It was ok, but it made me miss "real" coleslaw.)
Mixed greens with balsamic.
3/4 of a banana (Mac and Maisy split the rest of it)

Dinner:
Steamed greens (kale and collards) with onion, tomato and garlic, and a little low-sodium veggie broth because it kept sticking. This was much yummier than I anticipated! I ate a portion, then had seconds, then after everyone else had their fill I stood over the skillet with chopsticks and ate the rest. Did I say yum?
Asparagus with orange sauce (minus the olive oil) from my new "The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen" cookbook
Mixed greens with balsamic and sesame seeds
A few hazlenuts and cashews
And for dessert - a date roll. YUM!

Water: Five glasses so far
Exercise: One very slow walk with three wild dogs. They hadn't been out all day and they needed the exercise.

You've come a long way, baby!

This past weekend I did something that I've been meaning to do for a long time: I sent a thank you letter to the Oregon Humane Society.

Our girl Suzie came to us from OHS. She was one of over 500 dogs rescued from an animal hoarder in eastern Oregon in January of 2003. OHS was one of several shelters that took some of the dogs, and Suzie was one of their worst cases. She was emaciated, completely feral and utterly terrified, and not afraid to use her teeth to defend herself. She was sent home with a very capable foster family and lived with them for several months. In the meantime, I just couldn’t stop looking at the photo on their website of the cute little brown Suzie dog, who looked so much like Sadie, the dog I had as a child.

In August of 2003 I finally emailed Suzie's foster mom, D, for details. She cautioned me that Suzie was a special case and would probably never be a dog you could take for a walk or a car ride, much less share a couch with. I assured her my whole goal would be to provide Suzie with food and shelter, but that I really didn't expect anything in return. Once D was certain I understood what I was in for, we brought her home. When we turned her loose in the back yard, she immediately crawled under the garden shed and stayed there - for a week. I think she snuck out at night for food and water, but we didn't see her.

Gradually, over time, Suzie started to explore her new surroundings. We left the back door to the house open and just went about our business. If we so much as looked in her direction, Suzie would panic and head for the furthest corner of the yard, so we just ignored her. By Christmas time, she was even venturing into our living room, where she determined that the couch was the best place to hang out when no one was looking.

About a year after we adopted Suzie, we moved. The new house had a tall cedar privacy fence around the yard, which we thought would be sufficient, but Suzie had a very hard time adjusting to the new digs. Whenever we would leave, even though she had our other dog to keep her company, she would panic and either eat a hole through the fence, or just jump it. (Both of these are pretty amazing accomplishments for a 25 pound little brown dog!) I spoke with the OHS animal behaviorist on a couple of occasions... we weren't sure we would ever get her settled in, but we built a new, taller, less chewable fence and just kept hoping, and it finally happened.

Last Christmas, we went on a week-long ski trip and left Suzie and our other dog home with a house sitter. Suzie took that opportunity to eat an entire wad of used Swiffer cleaning cloths, which were covered in dust and dog hair. Unfortunately, since she's such a stoic little thing and she always goes on a hunger strike when we are gone, we didn't realize for several days that she had a problem. When we returned home and she still refused to eat, we took her to the vet. I knew she was very, very sick when she didn't try to escape when I picked her up, and then she rode on my lap for a half an hour in the car without complaint. She had never tolerated any handling before, much less that much attention.

Suzie went a total of 17 days without food before her blockage was diagnosed and she had emergency surgery to remove it. Her weight dropped by almost 11 pounds. She then started having grand mal seizures and had five of them in two days. We really thought we were going to lose her! Fortunately, the very capable doctors at Dove Lewis Animal Hospital and Scappoose Animal Hospital were able to nurse her back to health. After her near-death experience, Suzie is a new dog. Wherever we go, she goes with us. She is friendly and talkative and always up for a chin scratch, a walk through the neighborhood or a car ride. She loves to go to the beach with us, and on our last trip there she took it upon herself to greet everyone else we passed. The dog who once hid under our shed is now off getting back scratches from strangers! She is funny and clever and sassy and far too smart... probably the smartest dog I've ever known. I swear the dog can speak English!

When we first brought Suzie home after we adopted her, my whole goal was to keep her safe and well fed. Nobody really expected that she would ever be a "happy" dog. But thanks to the good people at OHS, and one fantastic foster mom who put up with a crazy brown dog for months, and also to the very capable staff at Dove Lewis and Scappoose Animal Hospital, we have a happy, healthy brown dog to share our days with. She still has her moments and her little quirks, but I wouldn't trade her for the world.

Day One, Dr Fuhrman's Five Day Diet Challenge

The beautiful and talented Bree over at veggilicious has decided to take on Dr. Fuhrmans Five-Day Super-Diet Cleans Challenge. Considering that I have been sick since last Friday, and I was supposed to be eating nothing but fruits and vegetables to feel btter, but I've been eating whatever I damn well please and I don't feel better, it seems like a good idea.

So here's The Plan:

Breakfast: One grapefruit or two oranges, blueberries and strawberries

Lunch: Baby greens with one orange and lemon juice, Healthy Slaw made from cabbage, beets, carrots, apple and raisins

Dinner: Salad made from spinach, red onion, sesame seeds, flax seeds, blackberries and flavored vinegar; the Green Machine with kale, box choy, broccoli rab, tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms and onion; and Apple Stuffed Bell Pepper

Obviously this is more food than I need for six days, but at least I won't be hungry.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Are you ready for this?

Do you have a home emergency preparedness kit?

You should!

Boring topic, I know. But really, you should have one. No matter who you are or where you live. And you should have an abbreviated version in the trunk of your car.

You could start one right now... go find an old blanket, some old warm clothes and shoes, and put a big plastic tote on your shopping list. Go! Now! Read this blog later!

Here are the Red Cross recommendations on what you need to keep.

Food Diary - October 24th

Breakfast: Frozen cherries and blueberries, kiwi and orange in soy milk, with a cup of coffee with soy milk.
Lunch: Vegetable Vegetable Vegetable Beef Barley Soup, a piece of toast. Kung pao chicken and veggies over rice.
Snack: More of the same fruit and a little soy milk. And then a pumpkin cranberry cookie.
Dinner: Roasted red pepper & tomato soup, a piece of toast.

Water: 4 big glasses
Mood: Irritable. I'm tired of being sick with this damned cold!
Exercise: None at all, unless blowing your nose repeatedly counts :-(

Mood Lighting

Did you know that sometimes the sun shines in Oregon? This is a fact, and I have the photos to prove it.

Then again, this phenomenon occurs most frequently in the summer months, and it is now the end of October. And the beginning of The Rainy Season. I get a little cranky sometimes during The Rainy Season.

So I recently invested in Mood Lighting! I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new "Major Depressive Disorder Therapeutic Mood Light". (Who does the marketing for these people? What a depressing name!) For $175 and 30 minutes a day, I aim to be freed from my winter of discontent.

You can read more about it here.

The other thing I am planning to do is to exercise more this winter. I wonder if I can do my 30 minutes of light therapy on a treadmill? How efficient that would be!

Everyone else is doing it...

So here it is - my very first blog entry in my shiny new blog. Why, you ask? I'll give you three reasons:

• I needed a better way to track my diet. I've used Diet Power for some time and I like it, but I'm too obsessive about calories. I need to pay more attention to what my body needs, instead of what the graphs says.
• All the cool people have links to their blogs in their signatures.
• I like to ramble.