Last night I splurged. Real dinner. Real restaurant. No substitutions or "can I get it without the butter, sugar and anything with flavor, please?" Alcohol, for the first time in almost a month! To explain a little further (am I this afraid of being judged?) I was asked out to dinner, and refused to be the girl who eats lettuce ungratefully and asks if she can substitute tofu for the meat. So instead I ate myself silly...and my joints into rebellion. Within about two hours of dinner I felt one wrist start to get sore. Then a foot. Then an elbow. I have no way of pinpointing what did the trick, of course, but that's okay. It was the best meal I've had in weeks. And now...I'm back to the foods I know don't cause problems (sweet potatoes are in the oven!) and will start testing new foods again in a few days. To be honest though, I'd have been more upset if I'd had a big, bad meal and then felt totally fine today. This at least serves as confirmation that what I eat and how my joints feel are related in some (albeit ill-defined) way.
As a side note, Bailey's, coffee, milk and butterscotch schnapps make one heck of a drink.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
How to make rice pudding.
Yesterday I was craving something sweet, had run out of grapes, apples and pears, and had already eaten three bananas. I hadn't tested cane sugar yet, but since honey, rice and milk are on the okay list, I decided to make rice pudding. Here's the simple three-ingredient version.
some milk (a little less than 2 cups)Boil the milk and the rice, stirring often to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. It doesn't have to be boiling like crazy, just a nice simmer to keep it cooking. About 15 or 20 minutes. The rice will start to leak starch into the milk and it'll get thicker and creamier, like a risotto. Taste the rice at this point to make sure it's as cooked as you want it - soft and a little chewy.
between 1/3 and 1/4 cup of arborio rice
honey!!
Err on the side of less milk, rather than less rice. If it gets thick before the rice is fully cooked, you can just add more milk to the pan.
You can also add a pinch of salt, which make it less cloyingly sweet.
And if you're not into honey's flavor, you can use white sugar instead. Or a little white sugar and a little honey.
And if you aren't presently in the midst of attempting to determine the affect of different foodstuffs on your unexplained rheumatism, you could add vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, orange zest, or anything else flavory.
Once the texture is what you want, stir honey into the rice by the spoonful, tasting as you go. I went crazy and unleashed a good quarter cup into mine the first time - this was a little overly sweet.
The rice pudding in the photo below is done. I only made about half the recipe, which is why it doesn't look like very much. If you want it a little creamier than this, just add more milk.
Monday, January 24, 2011
A bittersweet tale of bread.
Last night I made bread. The plan was to make the bread last night, wake up this morning, evaluate how I felt after two days plain wheat (i.e. without yeast), and then assuming I felt good and with that data safely tucked away, embark on my bread trial. I knew this would mean baking the bread and not eating it immediately, but for some reason I thought that would work. I'm not sure at what point I realized this was NOT going to happen on quite that time line... I think it was when I started eating the bread dough off my fingers.
Because all-purpose and bread flours typically have barley in them (I had never noticed this), and I was trying to control variables by testing only wheat PLUS yeast, I used 100% whole wheat flour. Most bread recipes call for some mix, because 100% whole wheat is heavy and grainy and kind of abrasive. Okay, so I was trying to control variables, but kind of failed. I omitted the molasses called for in the recipe (because I hadn't tested it), but I didn't have enough sunflower oil to substitute for the olive oil, so I went ahead and used the olive oil. It just seems like such a benign ingredient, right? (The recipe as at the bottom of the post.)
So, cheat number one: using olive oil. Cheat number two: the bread looked so damn good there was no way I could not eat it right then while it was hot.
At first I said I wasn't going to put butter on it, since I hadn't tested butter specifically (although I tested milk without any problems). So I poured honey all over it instead. It was incredible.
The bread turned out wonderfully soft and fluffy, although the whole grain graininess of it kind of made my tongue feel a little bit roughed up.
The honey was so good, and the bread was so steamy and hot, that cheat number three just became inevitable: I slathered butter all over it too.
So - poor experimental design, but amazing baked good that tasted like heaven. I was okay with that.
But...this morning the back of my left hand was sore when I woke up. Nothing extreme, and no sign of the infamous lump, but still enough to be noticeable and make me think, "Crap, I guess I cut out wheat again."
If I had WAITED until today to try the bread, and my hand had NOT been sore this morning, and then it had become sore only AFTER the bread, I'd have been able to say "Oh, okay, it was just the yeast" (or olive oil, I guess). However, because I couldn't wait, now I don't know if my hand is sore because of the wheat I'd been eating for two days already, or the bread I ate last night. Or the olive oil. Or, I suppose, the butter (although that seems unlikely as butter is typically less allergenic than milk). Which means that now I have to re-eliminate them all for at least five days before testing any of them again.
So, because the bread test requires you eat it for three meals for one day, I ate bread all today, loved every minute of it, and will see if my hand is still sore tomorrow. But the extra loaf is, tragically, being relegated to the freezer until such time as it seems logical to test it again.
Frustrating, sure, but not so terrible really, as I've learned to eat quite nicely without wheat by now. Still, I'm annoyed at myself for not being more precise and thorough. And there is still the nagging worry that nothing I'm eating is having any effect on anything and I'm tilting at windmills.
What really DID suck was that our TFA group leader tonight made these amazing, gooey, caramel-filled brownies that were still warm when our meeting started. Everyone got up and helped themselves. The bastards got seconds. Every time they peeled back the tinfoil the room smelled like fudgy brownie. And I sat there sipping on my tea and trying not to drool sadly. THAT'S when I think, "Is this completely bogus? Am I controlling my diet as some kind of control-freak proxy for not being able to control my symptoms? Am I going to turn into a crazy(er) hypochondriac who freaks out about everything I eat?"
PLUS the arch of my foot has been sore and a little swollen the past week; I have not been recording it or relating it to my arthritis symptoms because it's done this before when I've worn bad shoes or started running after a long hiatus (both of which I've been doing recently), and it feels like soft-tissue and not a joint. Back in Chicago I had a podiatrist make me custom orthotics for the same issue. But now I'm thinking, "Crap, what if it's somehow related and I've been ignoring it all week and thus have rendered this whole venture quite useless?" Not to mention the more obvious fact that it's aggravating because I'm trying to get back into shape and be able to run a few miles and I'm just getting into a good routine and I don't want to hurt myself MORE by overdoing it.
Sigh. So, I pray that this experience will help me in some way, and that my arthritis will, perhaps, just magically vanish forever, and I'll finish out the next three weeks of food testing and see what happens I guess. I got Dr. Mansfield's book from Amazon finally, and it's helped to reassure me that this whole idea isn't complete hokum. Still, it's a little frustrating to feel like I'm on my own trying to figure out something that might not be figurable.
Because all-purpose and bread flours typically have barley in them (I had never noticed this), and I was trying to control variables by testing only wheat PLUS yeast, I used 100% whole wheat flour. Most bread recipes call for some mix, because 100% whole wheat is heavy and grainy and kind of abrasive. Okay, so I was trying to control variables, but kind of failed. I omitted the molasses called for in the recipe (because I hadn't tested it), but I didn't have enough sunflower oil to substitute for the olive oil, so I went ahead and used the olive oil. It just seems like such a benign ingredient, right? (The recipe as at the bottom of the post.)
So, cheat number one: using olive oil. Cheat number two: the bread looked so damn good there was no way I could not eat it right then while it was hot.
At first I said I wasn't going to put butter on it, since I hadn't tested butter specifically (although I tested milk without any problems). So I poured honey all over it instead. It was incredible.
The bread turned out wonderfully soft and fluffy, although the whole grain graininess of it kind of made my tongue feel a little bit roughed up.The honey was so good, and the bread was so steamy and hot, that cheat number three just became inevitable: I slathered butter all over it too.
So - poor experimental design, but amazing baked good that tasted like heaven. I was okay with that.
But...this morning the back of my left hand was sore when I woke up. Nothing extreme, and no sign of the infamous lump, but still enough to be noticeable and make me think, "Crap, I guess I cut out wheat again."
If I had WAITED until today to try the bread, and my hand had NOT been sore this morning, and then it had become sore only AFTER the bread, I'd have been able to say "Oh, okay, it was just the yeast" (or olive oil, I guess). However, because I couldn't wait, now I don't know if my hand is sore because of the wheat I'd been eating for two days already, or the bread I ate last night. Or the olive oil. Or, I suppose, the butter (although that seems unlikely as butter is typically less allergenic than milk). Which means that now I have to re-eliminate them all for at least five days before testing any of them again.
So, because the bread test requires you eat it for three meals for one day, I ate bread all today, loved every minute of it, and will see if my hand is still sore tomorrow. But the extra loaf is, tragically, being relegated to the freezer until such time as it seems logical to test it again.
Frustrating, sure, but not so terrible really, as I've learned to eat quite nicely without wheat by now. Still, I'm annoyed at myself for not being more precise and thorough. And there is still the nagging worry that nothing I'm eating is having any effect on anything and I'm tilting at windmills.
What really DID suck was that our TFA group leader tonight made these amazing, gooey, caramel-filled brownies that were still warm when our meeting started. Everyone got up and helped themselves. The bastards got seconds. Every time they peeled back the tinfoil the room smelled like fudgy brownie. And I sat there sipping on my tea and trying not to drool sadly. THAT'S when I think, "Is this completely bogus? Am I controlling my diet as some kind of control-freak proxy for not being able to control my symptoms? Am I going to turn into a crazy(er) hypochondriac who freaks out about everything I eat?"
PLUS the arch of my foot has been sore and a little swollen the past week; I have not been recording it or relating it to my arthritis symptoms because it's done this before when I've worn bad shoes or started running after a long hiatus (both of which I've been doing recently), and it feels like soft-tissue and not a joint. Back in Chicago I had a podiatrist make me custom orthotics for the same issue. But now I'm thinking, "Crap, what if it's somehow related and I've been ignoring it all week and thus have rendered this whole venture quite useless?" Not to mention the more obvious fact that it's aggravating because I'm trying to get back into shape and be able to run a few miles and I'm just getting into a good routine and I don't want to hurt myself MORE by overdoing it.
Sigh. So, I pray that this experience will help me in some way, and that my arthritis will, perhaps, just magically vanish forever, and I'll finish out the next three weeks of food testing and see what happens I guess. I got Dr. Mansfield's book from Amazon finally, and it's helped to reassure me that this whole idea isn't complete hokum. Still, it's a little frustrating to feel like I'm on my own trying to figure out something that might not be figurable.
100% Whole Wheat Bread - Two Loaves
2 3/4 cup hot water (just from the tap)
1/3 cup oil (olive or anything else)
1/3 cup honey
1 TB salt
7 cups whole wheat flour (max - I probably used closer to 6 1/2)
(2 TB molasses - I didn't use it, but it'd probably make it better)
2 TB dry active yeast (this was a little more than two packets)
Put the water, oil, honey, molasses and salt in a bowl and stir to mix. Add 2 cups of flour, and stir to mix. Then add the yeast (two packets, plus a pinch or two, although you could probably get away with just two packets.) Stir to mix in the yeast.
Add another 4 cups of flour. Stir it in until it starts to look like consistently sticky dough. Don't stir any more than you have to to mix it evenly. Add another 1/2 cup of flour and stir it in. Your goal is to use as little additional flour as possible to get the dough to stay in an even ball like dough, and not stick all over the sides of the bowl. I didn't use much more than 6 1/2 cups. Don't mix any more than you have to.
Once your dough looks like dough, cover it with a towel and leave it someplace warm. (I stuck it on top of the stove and pre-heated the oven early - 350). It should rise a lot (almost double) in about 30-40 minutes.
Grease your two bread pans (or one bread pan and a baking sheet for mini-loaves).
Divide up your dough into whatever pieces you're baking - half the dough is one loaf.
You don't really need to knead it, just shape each piece into a nice ball by stretching it back around itself, so all the seams wind up on the bottom of the ball and the top surface is nice and smooth and stretched.
Put the dough in your pans, and let it rise for another 30-40, or until almost doubled.
Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes, or until it's nice and golden brown on top.
When you take it out, you can rub butter over the crust to make it nice and shiny.
Eat it with massive amounts of honey. Or just with butter.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Greenville and Wheat.
Yesterday was the first day of the two-day wheat test, in which I'm supposed to eat wheat (shredded wheat cereal or whole-wheat pasta) at every meal for two days. If I don't run into any problems with the wheat by the end of the second day (today), I can try whole wheat bread tomorrow. Shredded wheat cereal is about as boring as cereals get, but as someone for whom cold cereal is a go-to comfort/convenience/snack food, sitting down to two giant bowls of the stuff yesterday morning felt pretty great. Coupled with the fact that I've been drinking tea for a few days - it felt like a real breakfast.
I decided to visit my sister yesterday, two hours south in Greenville where she's in school. Through the wonder of facebook, I found out that an old friend from my freshman hall at Wake also lives in Greenville, and so I caught up with Ms. Jess Held (now Martin) for lunch! For all the creepiness of facebook, and the immense drain on productive time that it can be, I have it to thank for an increasing number of real-life reunions with old friends, for the ability to keep in touch with people I would probably not have kept in touch with, and even for becoming good, real-life friends with people I knew casually from years ago. Hannah and I had a lovely afternoon in Greenville, and although eating in restaurants proved a bit of a challenge for me still (I had steamed vegetables and plain baked sweet potatoes at one place, and a very boring build-your-own salad at Mellow Mushroom) I was able to enjoy an Oolong and milk and honey drink at a little tea bar. Post-tea, we realized we had not taken any photographs to document our sisterly weekend, and so we quickly took a slew of awkward self-shots on the way to the car.
Today's agenda includes a long overdue trip to the laundromat and, barring any sudden onset of symptoms, baking bread for tomorrow. I haven't baked anything in ages, so that prospect is pretty exciting. I figured, for the full experience of enjoying bread, nothing beats baking it at home, where the oven heats up the kitchen and the bread smell fills up the apartment. Mmmm... Minus my brief encounter with my wrist bump, I have continued to be essentially symptom-free, which is really nice after spending most of November and December wrapping my wrist up in an Ace bandage and taking NSAIDs. I still have no evidence to tell me whether feeling great is a result of the diet, or whether my on-again-off-again arthritis was just about to start an off-again period that happened to coincide with my diet experiment. I keep introducing new foods until February 16, after which point I just keep careful track of what I eat and how I feel going forward. I guess we'll see.
Dinner tonight will likely be sweet potatoes roasted in the cast iron skillet with chicken, which has proven incredibly delicious in the past. Plus whole wheat pasta, I guess, since I'm supposed to have it at every meal. I'd never really known how to do savory sweet potatoes, but roasting them in an oven in a skillet of chicken fat makes them kind of extraordinary.
I decided to visit my sister yesterday, two hours south in Greenville where she's in school. Through the wonder of facebook, I found out that an old friend from my freshman hall at Wake also lives in Greenville, and so I caught up with Ms. Jess Held (now Martin) for lunch! For all the creepiness of facebook, and the immense drain on productive time that it can be, I have it to thank for an increasing number of real-life reunions with old friends, for the ability to keep in touch with people I would probably not have kept in touch with, and even for becoming good, real-life friends with people I knew casually from years ago. Hannah and I had a lovely afternoon in Greenville, and although eating in restaurants proved a bit of a challenge for me still (I had steamed vegetables and plain baked sweet potatoes at one place, and a very boring build-your-own salad at Mellow Mushroom) I was able to enjoy an Oolong and milk and honey drink at a little tea bar. Post-tea, we realized we had not taken any photographs to document our sisterly weekend, and so we quickly took a slew of awkward self-shots on the way to the car.
Today's agenda includes a long overdue trip to the laundromat and, barring any sudden onset of symptoms, baking bread for tomorrow. I haven't baked anything in ages, so that prospect is pretty exciting. I figured, for the full experience of enjoying bread, nothing beats baking it at home, where the oven heats up the kitchen and the bread smell fills up the apartment. Mmmm... Minus my brief encounter with my wrist bump, I have continued to be essentially symptom-free, which is really nice after spending most of November and December wrapping my wrist up in an Ace bandage and taking NSAIDs. I still have no evidence to tell me whether feeling great is a result of the diet, or whether my on-again-off-again arthritis was just about to start an off-again period that happened to coincide with my diet experiment. I keep introducing new foods until February 16, after which point I just keep careful track of what I eat and how I feel going forward. I guess we'll see.
Dinner tonight will likely be sweet potatoes roasted in the cast iron skillet with chicken, which has proven incredibly delicious in the past. Plus whole wheat pasta, I guess, since I'm supposed to have it at every meal. I'd never really known how to do savory sweet potatoes, but roasting them in an oven in a skillet of chicken fat makes them kind of extraordinary.
You need:
Bone-in, skin-on chicken quarters/thighs/drumsticks
Sweet potatoes
Oil (I used sunflower)
a little salt for the chicken once it's done
Brown the chicken in a skillet with oil. Add peeled, cut up sweet potatoes, turning in the oil and chicken fat so they're coated. Cook until the chicken is browned on both sides, and the sweet potatoes are starting to look slightly cooked/brown on the edges. Throw the whole skillet in the oven at about 375. Cook for another 30-40, or until the chicken is done and the sweet potatoes are soft. (If you use thighs it'll take less time as they'll cook quicker. If you use big-ass quarters like I did below, it'll take closer to 40-50 minutes.)
Thursday, January 20, 2011
"That's why you're so small, Ms. Andersen."
Eating has become substantially more enjoyable. I had honey yesterday. Something actually, truly sweet. Milk didn't seem to cause any problems, and neither did tea, so this afternoon I made myself a tea-ish sort of latte. Earl grey tea, hot milk and honey. It was glorious. I tested ground pork at dinner tonight, and soy (edamame) for lunch. One of my students came in to say hi today while I was eating my edamame at my desk. When he noticed the soybeans, he was perplexed. "Whoa, Ms. Andersen! What is that!?" I explained it was soy beans. "What's that go with?" he wanted to know. "Like, what meat?" I said I wasn't really sure, but that you get it at sushi restaurants sometimes. He looked skeptical. "That's why you're so small, Ms. Andersen. You eat beans for lunch." Fair enough.
My kids often make fun of my lunches, usually by insisting that it's white people food. It's funny - I can't tell you how many times I've been asked either what I'm having for dinner, or whether I like a certain food (one kid was legitimately surprised that I, a white person, like fried chicken). This morning, one girl explained: "White people be eatin' like, salads and fruit and stuff. Black people eat macaroni and cheese." Maybe black people don't eat edamame?
Tomorrow is a teacher workday, which means I can sleep in until seven, make scrambled eggs for breakfast (!!) and drive to school in the daylight.
Also! Liver enzymes, alk phos, everything is nice and normal again. ALT = 15, AST = 19, AlkPhos = 84. As there is now nothing diagnostically interesting about my blood, I guess it'll be a while before I see Dr. Nami again. Which is fine by me, because last appointment I waited an hour before seeing him for about five minutes, after which they quickly drew four tubes of my blood and sent me home. Sixty dollar co-pay to top it off. I'm just praying that this silly diet reveals something useful and that my joints remain as generally healthy-feeling as they have been. I even went for a run yesterday! (I'm tentatively thinking of running a 5k in March. This would be quite a feat, given that I am still pretty well out of shape and have never run in any kind of race ever...but it doesn't seem un-doable.)
My kids often make fun of my lunches, usually by insisting that it's white people food. It's funny - I can't tell you how many times I've been asked either what I'm having for dinner, or whether I like a certain food (one kid was legitimately surprised that I, a white person, like fried chicken). This morning, one girl explained: "White people be eatin' like, salads and fruit and stuff. Black people eat macaroni and cheese." Maybe black people don't eat edamame?
Tomorrow is a teacher workday, which means I can sleep in until seven, make scrambled eggs for breakfast (!!) and drive to school in the daylight.
Also! Liver enzymes, alk phos, everything is nice and normal again. ALT = 15, AST = 19, AlkPhos = 84. As there is now nothing diagnostically interesting about my blood, I guess it'll be a while before I see Dr. Nami again. Which is fine by me, because last appointment I waited an hour before seeing him for about five minutes, after which they quickly drew four tubes of my blood and sent me home. Sixty dollar co-pay to top it off. I'm just praying that this silly diet reveals something useful and that my joints remain as generally healthy-feeling as they have been. I even went for a run yesterday! (I'm tentatively thinking of running a 5k in March. This would be quite a feat, given that I am still pretty well out of shape and have never run in any kind of race ever...but it doesn't seem un-doable.)
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
And as quickly as it came...
As quickly as it came, the lump of hideous swollen-ness disappeared. When I woke up this morning I was greeted by the little monster, and it had reached almost its previous record size (small peanut? large lima bean?) but then, suddenly, by noon it was basically gone, with just a little soft mushy spot in its place. If it hadn't gone away, I would have probably been very tempted to throw in the towel on the whole diet experiment, to be honest. Given that the whole idea is to see what effect eating different foods has on my symptoms, if I have a symptom that refuses to go away, it'd be hard to know if what I'm eating is making it stay around, making it get worse, or if it was just doing that on its own. So I'm glad my wrist is fine again today. But, as I'm essentially symptom-free again today, I tried milk when I got home from work. Milk!! I hadn't had any dairy product in almost eleven days!!
And...my CRP is down! C-reactive Protein is something your liver releases when you have inflammation in your body, and it responds pretty quickly to anything that's going on. The internet says CRP looks like this. Deceptively pretty, huh?
People who have consistently high CRP numbers are at more of a risk for heart disease and other bad stuff, and it because it's a indication of inflammation, it can clue you in to arthritis-type stuff going on too (as in yours truly). Normal range is like 0 - 4.9, and right before Christmas mine was 7.3. In fact, the day after I had that particular batch of blood drawn my hands and wrists went haywire and were worse than they'd been in a while. Makes sense to me...higher number, inflammation, pain! However, my blood from Friday (at which point I'd been eating sweet potatoes and fish for the entire past week) showed a CRP level of 0.4. So that's encouraging, at least inasmuch as it means something changed for the better. Whether that change is meaningful or lasting, I don't know. But I'll take what I can get.
Tomorrow I can have tea again!!! For the first time in almost two weeks! Going into this I thought tea would be the hardest thing to give up, because it is such a comforting habit for me, and such a part of how I relax when I get home from teaching all day. But surprisingly, once I kicked the chemical dependence on caffeine, a mug of hot water has been a curiously passable substitute. It's hot, steamy, warm to hold, and gives me something to sip on while I read. I mean, okay, it's a pretty lame substitute, but I haven't been as desperate as I had expected. Nonetheless, it will be really, really good to have a cup of tea tomorrow. Or several. Of different kinds. Mmm.
And...my CRP is down! C-reactive Protein is something your liver releases when you have inflammation in your body, and it responds pretty quickly to anything that's going on. The internet says CRP looks like this. Deceptively pretty, huh?
People who have consistently high CRP numbers are at more of a risk for heart disease and other bad stuff, and it because it's a indication of inflammation, it can clue you in to arthritis-type stuff going on too (as in yours truly). Normal range is like 0 - 4.9, and right before Christmas mine was 7.3. In fact, the day after I had that particular batch of blood drawn my hands and wrists went haywire and were worse than they'd been in a while. Makes sense to me...higher number, inflammation, pain! However, my blood from Friday (at which point I'd been eating sweet potatoes and fish for the entire past week) showed a CRP level of 0.4. So that's encouraging, at least inasmuch as it means something changed for the better. Whether that change is meaningful or lasting, I don't know. But I'll take what I can get.
Tomorrow I can have tea again!!! For the first time in almost two weeks! Going into this I thought tea would be the hardest thing to give up, because it is such a comforting habit for me, and such a part of how I relax when I get home from teaching all day. But surprisingly, once I kicked the chemical dependence on caffeine, a mug of hot water has been a curiously passable substitute. It's hot, steamy, warm to hold, and gives me something to sip on while I read. I mean, okay, it's a pretty lame substitute, but I haven't been as desperate as I had expected. Nonetheless, it will be really, really good to have a cup of tea tomorrow. Or several. Of different kinds. Mmm.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Return of the bump.
So my freaky, fluid-filled swollen wrist bump has returned. Gross!! Thankfully, it has kind of done a half-ass job of showing up...nothing like the lumpy, squishy alien-incubating freak show that was the back of my hand a month ago. I don't have to wrap it up in an ace bandage and it's not really that entertaining to look at. But still, it's just enough to be uncomfortable.
There are several possible explanations for this unwelcome come back show. Listed in order of my preference:
a) I have rheumatoid arthritis (or some variation thereof) and diet has nothing to do with my symptoms at all leaving me doomed for a future of immunosuppresants and joint erosion.
b) I have rheumatoid arthritis (or some variation thereof) and diet DOES have an effect on my symptoms but I have somehow messed up the diet or not done it properly and will never know why it didn't work but am doomed to a future...etc.
c) I have some completely different malady, like a freaky recurring virus, or chronic infection, or some mysterious metabolic disorder which neither I nor my doctor has thought of or tested for yet and which will continue to go undiagnosed until I suffer from irreversible liver damage, or something.
d) I have rheumatoid arthritis (or some variation thereof) and diet is the ultimate cause of my symptoms and my unfortunately uncomfortable wrist is a result of one of the foods I tested in the 24 hours before my wrist got swollen and so if I eliminate those foods going forward I'll feel fine again.
e) I have some completely different and easily curable malady that will show up on the lab results I expect to get back tomorrow.
So, given those options, I looked at what I ate yesterday and the day before, and I am re-eliminating tomatoes (plants in the nightshade family cause problems for some arthritis patients) and rice (because it's not all that healthy anyway and I ate it yesterday) and beef (bummer). I rarely eat avocados anyway, so I'm not worrying about that one.
To be honest, I'm annoyed. This could be a complete waste of my time and a total exercise in futility. I get that. But if I quit now, I'll never know. And regardless of whatever theories I read about RA's etiology, eating less processed foods and more fruits and vegetables is hardly going to make me any worse, and might make the non-joint parts of me healthier anyway.
Soy was supposed to be today's big test, as it is a more common allergen than, say, the Boston lettuce I had for lunch. But I'm putting it off until tomorrow and hoping my wrist will be better then. If I have some reaction to soy I don't want it to be masked by my sore wrist. I guess if I feel fine tomorrow, and then have my edamame for dinner and my wrist swells up again, I'll count out soy. This is kind of an incredible hassle, and I really and truly would love for my doctor to call tomorrow and say, "Hey! Looks like you have parvovirus!" Problem solved. Unlikely maybe, but would be nice.
There are several possible explanations for this unwelcome come back show. Listed in order of my preference:
a) I have rheumatoid arthritis (or some variation thereof) and diet has nothing to do with my symptoms at all leaving me doomed for a future of immunosuppresants and joint erosion.
b) I have rheumatoid arthritis (or some variation thereof) and diet DOES have an effect on my symptoms but I have somehow messed up the diet or not done it properly and will never know why it didn't work but am doomed to a future...etc.
c) I have some completely different malady, like a freaky recurring virus, or chronic infection, or some mysterious metabolic disorder which neither I nor my doctor has thought of or tested for yet and which will continue to go undiagnosed until I suffer from irreversible liver damage, or something.
d) I have rheumatoid arthritis (or some variation thereof) and diet is the ultimate cause of my symptoms and my unfortunately uncomfortable wrist is a result of one of the foods I tested in the 24 hours before my wrist got swollen and so if I eliminate those foods going forward I'll feel fine again.
e) I have some completely different and easily curable malady that will show up on the lab results I expect to get back tomorrow.
So, given those options, I looked at what I ate yesterday and the day before, and I am re-eliminating tomatoes (plants in the nightshade family cause problems for some arthritis patients) and rice (because it's not all that healthy anyway and I ate it yesterday) and beef (bummer). I rarely eat avocados anyway, so I'm not worrying about that one.
To be honest, I'm annoyed. This could be a complete waste of my time and a total exercise in futility. I get that. But if I quit now, I'll never know. And regardless of whatever theories I read about RA's etiology, eating less processed foods and more fruits and vegetables is hardly going to make me any worse, and might make the non-joint parts of me healthier anyway.
Soy was supposed to be today's big test, as it is a more common allergen than, say, the Boston lettuce I had for lunch. But I'm putting it off until tomorrow and hoping my wrist will be better then. If I have some reaction to soy I don't want it to be masked by my sore wrist. I guess if I feel fine tomorrow, and then have my edamame for dinner and my wrist swells up again, I'll count out soy. This is kind of an incredible hassle, and I really and truly would love for my doctor to call tomorrow and say, "Hey! Looks like you have parvovirus!" Problem solved. Unlikely maybe, but would be nice.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Dreams of carbs....
I was going through my folder of photos and came across some pictures of food I took over Christmas. Food made out of lots of sugar and flour and things I can't eat yet. I'm going to post these photos so that in a month, or a few weeks or whenever I establish I can eat things like this again (hopefully that's what happens, anyway), I can look back at this post and feel especially grateful and inspired.
My dad always makes Norwegian Christmas cookies. These are Smultringer (basically, lard rings). They're little fried donuts.
Although not the best photo, I made this trifle for Christmas dinner. I soaked the ladyfingers in cointreau, and used mandarin oranges, made the custard from scratch and dumped whipped cream on top. And then doused the whole thing in cointreau again. It was amazing, and better the next day after chilling/settling in the fridge.
I've made these cheddar biscuits a bunch of times, and they're always easy and turn out great. The colder you can keep all the ingredients (especially the butter) before mixing and kneading, the better. They're flaky and wonderful and I'd give my firstborn child for one about now.
The recipe is from Ina Garten, here. I never have buttermilk, so I put a little vinegar in milk to substitute and it works just fine.
The last few years, since all the Andersen kids are now adults who don't need to open presents at the crack of dawn, we've enjoyed having a long breakfast on Christmas morning. This year I made sour-cream blueberry muffins (recipe here) and a leek and cheese frittata. We had smoked salmon too, which I love, but the only salmon I can have right now is fresh, which I'm absolutely sick to death of.
Sigh. I do get to eat rice today, although without butter or cheese or black pepper or spices it will be a pretty unexciting affair. Still, it'll be good to eat something truly starchy. I had two bananas for breakfast today, and they've never tasted so good. I've been surprised at how much I've started craving fruit, because it's the only source of sugar I have right now. I dropped eight bucks on a damn sack of grapes and I'll probably eat them all within 48 hours.
My dad always makes Norwegian Christmas cookies. These are Smultringer (basically, lard rings). They're little fried donuts.
Although not the best photo, I made this trifle for Christmas dinner. I soaked the ladyfingers in cointreau, and used mandarin oranges, made the custard from scratch and dumped whipped cream on top. And then doused the whole thing in cointreau again. It was amazing, and better the next day after chilling/settling in the fridge.
I've made these cheddar biscuits a bunch of times, and they're always easy and turn out great. The colder you can keep all the ingredients (especially the butter) before mixing and kneading, the better. They're flaky and wonderful and I'd give my firstborn child for one about now.The recipe is from Ina Garten, here. I never have buttermilk, so I put a little vinegar in milk to substitute and it works just fine.
The last few years, since all the Andersen kids are now adults who don't need to open presents at the crack of dawn, we've enjoyed having a long breakfast on Christmas morning. This year I made sour-cream blueberry muffins (recipe here) and a leek and cheese frittata. We had smoked salmon too, which I love, but the only salmon I can have right now is fresh, which I'm absolutely sick to death of.
Sigh. I do get to eat rice today, although without butter or cheese or black pepper or spices it will be a pretty unexciting affair. Still, it'll be good to eat something truly starchy. I had two bananas for breakfast today, and they've never tasted so good. I've been surprised at how much I've started craving fruit, because it's the only source of sugar I have right now. I dropped eight bucks on a damn sack of grapes and I'll probably eat them all within 48 hours.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Mugshots
One of the vague New Years quasi-resolutions I made this year was to force myself to spend more time making art. I spent three days before Christmas making a couple paintings for my family as gifts, but other than that I haven't really painted anything since I left Chicago. This is in large part simply because at my old Chicago job, I got off at 5 every day, was home by 5:15, and didn't have to think about/do work until the next morning at 8:30. And my weekends were entirely mine, not cluttered up with grading, and planning. But, no excuses. I want to spend some more time painting. And I want to get good at painting people.
So, I was skimming through the Charlotte Observer's online mugshot collection yesterday, looking for my student (who showed me his picture in the hardcopy version), and I found myself scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of faces. Arrests from the whole week, I guess, or whatever they have up the their website. But they were the most fascinating, scary, sad, beautiful, interesting faces. I suppose when you photograph someone right after they've been arrested, there's going to be a whole range of emotions expressed on their faces, and they're not going to look all done up and pretty. But it occurred to me that I could draw them, and maybe paint some of them. It'd be good practice drawing a whole bunch of very different looking people with very different facial expressions.
This is Maddie Ruth Grigley, charged with 'communicating threats.'
I feel a little weird drawing someone's portrait without their knowledge, like it's an invasion of privacy in some way. Their photographs, names, height, weight and criminal charges are all online for anyone to see, and I'm not making money off of them, but it still feels odd in some way. Although you wouldn't know it was a mugshot from the drawing, necessarily. It's just a portrait of an old woman. Which I guess is the point - regardless of what she's done, she's a woman just like I am, a human being just like anybody else.
So, I was skimming through the Charlotte Observer's online mugshot collection yesterday, looking for my student (who showed me his picture in the hardcopy version), and I found myself scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of faces. Arrests from the whole week, I guess, or whatever they have up the their website. But they were the most fascinating, scary, sad, beautiful, interesting faces. I suppose when you photograph someone right after they've been arrested, there's going to be a whole range of emotions expressed on their faces, and they're not going to look all done up and pretty. But it occurred to me that I could draw them, and maybe paint some of them. It'd be good practice drawing a whole bunch of very different looking people with very different facial expressions.
This is Maddie Ruth Grigley, charged with 'communicating threats.'I feel a little weird drawing someone's portrait without their knowledge, like it's an invasion of privacy in some way. Their photographs, names, height, weight and criminal charges are all online for anyone to see, and I'm not making money off of them, but it still feels odd in some way. Although you wouldn't know it was a mugshot from the drawing, necessarily. It's just a portrait of an old woman. Which I guess is the point - regardless of what she's done, she's a woman just like I am, a human being just like anybody else.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Chicken Skins
Chicken skin has never tasted so good. I don't even usually eat the skin off my chicken, but yesterday was my first day of introducing new foods back into my diet, and chicken was on the list. Man, did that crispy skin taste good. Gross, right? But when all you've eaten for a week is fish, sweet potatoes, carrots and pears, bone-in, skin-on, roasted-in-their-own-juice chicken thighs taste like heaven. So do grapes, which I was also able to eat yesterday, but somehow they don't quite compare to the roast chicken.
I ate both chicken and grapes with no apparent aggravation of symptoms or adverse reaction, so they're on the safe list. After today (assuming I don't start feeling terrible in the next few hours) so are green beans and broccoli. It's amazing how four simple ingredients make me feel so much more excited to have a meal.
I thought, since my diet has changed so drastically this last week (and will continue to look very different for a while) it would be interesting to see what, in the past, I've actually been EATING in a day. I went back through my food diary starting at the beginning of December, and nerded out on Excel after I got home from my doctor's appointment this afternoon.
This is based just on servings per day. So the 33% represents an average of 2.8 servings of grains in a day, and the 17% vegetables equals about an average of 1.4 servings of vegetables in a day. Far from the "five-a-day" we're always being told to get, huh? For comparison, here's a snazzy graphic showing you what you SHOULD be eating.
Cute, right? And I didn't even make a category for "foods containing fat and sugar." Point being, since last Friday, I've been eating about 75% fruits and vegetables, and 25% fish. Now I can have chicken, too. But I'm kind of amazed at how wild a shift that really is, compared to my usual eating habits. I mean, I LOVE carbs. And sugar, and fat. Because I've always been kind of scrawny, I've taken that as license to eat, entirely without guilt, giant meals at Bojangles, or huge servings of goopy desserts at restaurants, or like, 15 Christmas cookies in a sitting. Yeah, well, I'm just waiting for my karmic payback to be that all that flour and sugar has made my joints achey. We'll see. I had a dream last night that I ate pizza and pasta by accident and wrecked all my hard, self-denial-y work. Argh!! Rice is Sunday, milk is Tuesday, tea(!!) is Wednesday, butter is Thursday, and then next weekend I spend eating wheat three times a day for two days. I can't wait!!!!
Oh, and I still feel great, which is nice. Doc took some more blood today and is doing my liver enzymes again (they were a little elevated before) and my alkaline phosphatase (also related to liver/gallbladder), along with a few others, including an test they run to diagnose celiac disease, and a test for parvovirus - both of which I'm thinking are unlikely, but heck - I've got plenty of blood, so they can just go to town. My primary care guy warned me that rheumatologists are like vampires...they just want your blood.
ohn mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
I ate both chicken and grapes with no apparent aggravation of symptoms or adverse reaction, so they're on the safe list. After today (assuming I don't start feeling terrible in the next few hours) so are green beans and broccoli. It's amazing how four simple ingredients make me feel so much more excited to have a meal.
I thought, since my diet has changed so drastically this last week (and will continue to look very different for a while) it would be interesting to see what, in the past, I've actually been EATING in a day. I went back through my food diary starting at the beginning of December, and nerded out on Excel after I got home from my doctor's appointment this afternoon.
This is based just on servings per day. So the 33% represents an average of 2.8 servings of grains in a day, and the 17% vegetables equals about an average of 1.4 servings of vegetables in a day. Far from the "five-a-day" we're always being told to get, huh? For comparison, here's a snazzy graphic showing you what you SHOULD be eating.
Cute, right? And I didn't even make a category for "foods containing fat and sugar." Point being, since last Friday, I've been eating about 75% fruits and vegetables, and 25% fish. Now I can have chicken, too. But I'm kind of amazed at how wild a shift that really is, compared to my usual eating habits. I mean, I LOVE carbs. And sugar, and fat. Because I've always been kind of scrawny, I've taken that as license to eat, entirely without guilt, giant meals at Bojangles, or huge servings of goopy desserts at restaurants, or like, 15 Christmas cookies in a sitting. Yeah, well, I'm just waiting for my karmic payback to be that all that flour and sugar has made my joints achey. We'll see. I had a dream last night that I ate pizza and pasta by accident and wrecked all my hard, self-denial-y work. Argh!! Rice is Sunday, milk is Tuesday, tea(!!) is Wednesday, butter is Thursday, and then next weekend I spend eating wheat three times a day for two days. I can't wait!!!!Oh, and I still feel great, which is nice. Doc took some more blood today and is doing my liver enzymes again (they were a little elevated before) and my alkaline phosphatase (also related to liver/gallbladder), along with a few others, including an test they run to diagnose celiac disease, and a test for parvovirus - both of which I'm thinking are unlikely, but heck - I've got plenty of blood, so they can just go to town. My primary care guy warned me that rheumatologists are like vampires...they just want your blood.
ohn mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
Thursday, January 13, 2011
"I'm in the paper!!"
A few fun snippets from my classroom...
Before the bell rang this morning, one of my kids (who I don't have until third period) came bounding into my room waving a newspaper, with a big grin on his face.
"Ms. Andersen! Ms. Andersen! Look! Look! I got my picture in the paper!"
He had the paper open, plopped it down on top of my overhead, and jabbed his finger at his mugshot, lined up with a bunch of other mugshots under the heading "Arrests This Week."
"They put me in the motherfuckin' paper, man! Check this out! And look man, that's my uncle!"
This kid was so excited, he had to come tell me before class even started. I wasn't entirely sure what to say in such a situation. Like, what's the etiquette?
"Um, I'm not sure what to tell you, Reggie. I mean, do I say congratulations?"(Not his real name, of course.)
"I know, right?!" And then he bounced, laughing, out of the classroom to go show his friends.
The last time I saw this kid this excited was last week when he suddenly called out in the middle of class, "Oh! Hold up! Lookit this!" He started reaching around in his pockets (which were down around his knees somewhere) and pulled out a penny and jumped up to come show it to me.
"Ms. Andersen! Lookit this! I got this crazy penny!" (It was one of the new ones, with the little crest on the back.) "It says, right here, look! E pluribus unum! Out of many one! It don't say that on other pennies! That's one special penny, man!"
Despite the fact that it does actually say that on other pennies, I was proud of him for noticing, for saving the penny, and for being so excited he knew what e pluribus unum meant that he had to show the whole class.
I'm not sure what to think about the fact that he was equally excited to be featured in the Charlotte police report section, but I guess everybody wants to see their face in the paper?
Before the bell rang this morning, one of my kids (who I don't have until third period) came bounding into my room waving a newspaper, with a big grin on his face.
"Ms. Andersen! Ms. Andersen! Look! Look! I got my picture in the paper!"
He had the paper open, plopped it down on top of my overhead, and jabbed his finger at his mugshot, lined up with a bunch of other mugshots under the heading "Arrests This Week."
"They put me in the motherfuckin' paper, man! Check this out! And look man, that's my uncle!"
This kid was so excited, he had to come tell me before class even started. I wasn't entirely sure what to say in such a situation. Like, what's the etiquette?
"Um, I'm not sure what to tell you, Reggie. I mean, do I say congratulations?"(Not his real name, of course.)
"I know, right?!" And then he bounced, laughing, out of the classroom to go show his friends.
The last time I saw this kid this excited was last week when he suddenly called out in the middle of class, "Oh! Hold up! Lookit this!" He started reaching around in his pockets (which were down around his knees somewhere) and pulled out a penny and jumped up to come show it to me.
"Ms. Andersen! Lookit this! I got this crazy penny!" (It was one of the new ones, with the little crest on the back.) "It says, right here, look! E pluribus unum! Out of many one! It don't say that on other pennies! That's one special penny, man!"
Despite the fact that it does actually say that on other pennies, I was proud of him for noticing, for saving the penny, and for being so excited he knew what e pluribus unum meant that he had to show the whole class.
I'm not sure what to think about the fact that he was equally excited to be featured in the Charlotte police report section, but I guess everybody wants to see their face in the paper?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Last day of complete food boredom
Tomorrow I can test out avocado and chicken. I'm really, really, really excited. The next day is grapes! And green beans!! And then Saturday is beef, and tomatoes!
I'm starting to worry though about whether this is worth it or not, and whether I'll really get an obvious reaction to something or not. What's supposed to happen is that I keep track of how I feel after eating each new food, and supposedly something will eventually cause my symptoms to flare up, or me to feel like crap, or something. And then I eliminate that from my diet completely for six months, and then try it again. Theoretically, if I eliminate the foods that cause a reaction, I should be able to control my symptoms by just not eating those things. And then potentially reintroducing them later in moderation after my body's gotten its act together.
But, today one finger and one toe were the usual stiff-and-sore in the morning. Nothing I can't ignore, and they'll be fine in an hour, and it's certainly a WHOLE lot better than waking up with all my fingers stiff, or with weird swollen lumps on my wrists, or with my knees making me feel like I'm 80, but since my symptoms have always come in waves, and then subsided for a period (weeks or months), and then showed up again, and then gone away, I'm worried that November through December was just another bad phase, and now they're kind of on the ebb naturally, and I'll just go through the next four weeks of this, testing new food every day, and nothing will become any clearer.
Even with that possibility in mind though, I'm not about to give up after just spending five days (today will be number six) eating nothing but orange food and pears. I'm also realizing that I'm going to appreciate so much more the amazing VARIETY of food we actually have. I'm limiting my food choices because I want to, but so many people around the world have no choice, or wouldn't even know what to do with an American grocery store if they saw one. And even though I've been eating more sweet potatoes than I ever thought possible, I can eat as many of them as I want. For 89 cents a pound. Unlimited food! I guess it's made me grateful, is all.
I've also realized how much of my time at home I spend entertaining myself by cooking. Not that this is a bad thing at all - I love cooking and I love food and I love getting better at cooking food. But it's just been interesting to realize what an easy escape it is for me from doing anything else.
And as a final positive to this infinitely frustrating way of eating, limiting my choice of ingredients has forced me to get more creative. And now that I'll have more options, increasing every day, I think it's actually going to be a fun sort of creative challenge to see what I can make with relatively limited ingredients. For instance, I probably never would have bothered making sweet potato fries, or perfecting sweet potato chips (I can make them so perfectly crispy now!!) because it's a lot easier to throw a sweet potato in the oven and then cover it in sugar and butter as soon as it's done. I wouldn't have tried drying pears in my oven, but now I know it's super easy and I can probably do it with other fruit and I'll have something to snack on at school besides salted cashews.
I'm venturing out today, to poke around Plaza Midwood with my friend Sarah and hope that some shops are open. I'll be really glad in a week, when I can venture out with some possibility of buying food at a restaurant. I'll also be really glad when my breakfasts can be things like eggs or cereal or bacon, and not pears and sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes and pears. john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
I'm starting to worry though about whether this is worth it or not, and whether I'll really get an obvious reaction to something or not. What's supposed to happen is that I keep track of how I feel after eating each new food, and supposedly something will eventually cause my symptoms to flare up, or me to feel like crap, or something. And then I eliminate that from my diet completely for six months, and then try it again. Theoretically, if I eliminate the foods that cause a reaction, I should be able to control my symptoms by just not eating those things. And then potentially reintroducing them later in moderation after my body's gotten its act together.
But, today one finger and one toe were the usual stiff-and-sore in the morning. Nothing I can't ignore, and they'll be fine in an hour, and it's certainly a WHOLE lot better than waking up with all my fingers stiff, or with weird swollen lumps on my wrists, or with my knees making me feel like I'm 80, but since my symptoms have always come in waves, and then subsided for a period (weeks or months), and then showed up again, and then gone away, I'm worried that November through December was just another bad phase, and now they're kind of on the ebb naturally, and I'll just go through the next four weeks of this, testing new food every day, and nothing will become any clearer.
Even with that possibility in mind though, I'm not about to give up after just spending five days (today will be number six) eating nothing but orange food and pears. I'm also realizing that I'm going to appreciate so much more the amazing VARIETY of food we actually have. I'm limiting my food choices because I want to, but so many people around the world have no choice, or wouldn't even know what to do with an American grocery store if they saw one. And even though I've been eating more sweet potatoes than I ever thought possible, I can eat as many of them as I want. For 89 cents a pound. Unlimited food! I guess it's made me grateful, is all.
I've also realized how much of my time at home I spend entertaining myself by cooking. Not that this is a bad thing at all - I love cooking and I love food and I love getting better at cooking food. But it's just been interesting to realize what an easy escape it is for me from doing anything else.
And as a final positive to this infinitely frustrating way of eating, limiting my choice of ingredients has forced me to get more creative. And now that I'll have more options, increasing every day, I think it's actually going to be a fun sort of creative challenge to see what I can make with relatively limited ingredients. For instance, I probably never would have bothered making sweet potato fries, or perfecting sweet potato chips (I can make them so perfectly crispy now!!) because it's a lot easier to throw a sweet potato in the oven and then cover it in sugar and butter as soon as it's done. I wouldn't have tried drying pears in my oven, but now I know it's super easy and I can probably do it with other fruit and I'll have something to snack on at school besides salted cashews.
I'm venturing out today, to poke around Plaza Midwood with my friend Sarah and hope that some shops are open. I'll be really glad in a week, when I can venture out with some possibility of buying food at a restaurant. I'll also be really glad when my breakfasts can be things like eggs or cereal or bacon, and not pears and sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes and pears. john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
Monday, January 10, 2011
Snow Day!!
Snow day!! At 4:45 this morning I was a little confused to see the voicemail icon on my cell phone, but that robo-call voice has never sounded sweeter. I went back to bed until 8:30. It was glorious. That may not sound very late, but compared to 4:45 (when my alarm went off) it is a spectacular time to wake up. I had some sweet potato chips for breakfast and decided to finally find this Little Sugar Creek Greenway that I keep hearing about. I cut through neighborhoods to King and Morehead, where the Greenway picks up with that clock tower thingy in the middle of the intersection. Then you go under a bridge.
There was a large, chattering bird flying in front of me down the creek for a little ways. He'd swoop low over the water, making a lot of noise, then swing up to a branch for a few seconds. Then fly down again, fuss at me, then find another perch. I wish I had a better lens. He looked like a kingfisher, but I thought they were more blue. Thirty seconds of Google Images when I got home revealed that he was, in fact, a belted kingfisher. Who knew.
I followed the Greenway until I got to Freedom Park, and then cut back up Queens Road West and walked home. (It occurred to me, as I neared the end of my walk, that I probably should get in shape if I intend to hike any part of the Appalachian Trail this summer.)
It was a beautiful way to spend an hour of my morning. Walking through the neighborhoods all the sounds seemed muffled. Kids were shouting to each other in their backyards but they all sounded far away. There were a few cars slushing through the streets, but only very few. And when you go out for a walk in a snow storm ("storm" is used loosely here, but I'll call it whatever the locals want to call it), everyone you run into seems to be extra friendly, because they've all decided to go out and walk in the snow too. I said hello to two men on bikes and a couple dog walkers. And as I walked past a woman standing at the end of her driveway, she said to me, "Amazing out here, isn't it? I'm surprised more people aren't out!" I agreed with her. I also saw a man on cross-country skis, which looked more than than a little ridiculous given that this is Charlotte, not Chicago, but he gets some points for dogged determination.
We have a "work at home" day tomorrow, which means I'll do a little planning, and then enjoy snow day number two. This diet thing sucks. These are the kinds of days I should be going out to eat, or reading a book and drinking coffee someplace. Thursday can't come soon enough.
There was a large, chattering bird flying in front of me down the creek for a little ways. He'd swoop low over the water, making a lot of noise, then swing up to a branch for a few seconds. Then fly down again, fuss at me, then find another perch. I wish I had a better lens. He looked like a kingfisher, but I thought they were more blue. Thirty seconds of Google Images when I got home revealed that he was, in fact, a belted kingfisher. Who knew.
I followed the Greenway until I got to Freedom Park, and then cut back up Queens Road West and walked home. (It occurred to me, as I neared the end of my walk, that I probably should get in shape if I intend to hike any part of the Appalachian Trail this summer.)
It was a beautiful way to spend an hour of my morning. Walking through the neighborhoods all the sounds seemed muffled. Kids were shouting to each other in their backyards but they all sounded far away. There were a few cars slushing through the streets, but only very few. And when you go out for a walk in a snow storm ("storm" is used loosely here, but I'll call it whatever the locals want to call it), everyone you run into seems to be extra friendly, because they've all decided to go out and walk in the snow too. I said hello to two men on bikes and a couple dog walkers. And as I walked past a woman standing at the end of her driveway, she said to me, "Amazing out here, isn't it? I'm surprised more people aren't out!" I agreed with her. I also saw a man on cross-country skis, which looked more than than a little ridiculous given that this is Charlotte, not Chicago, but he gets some points for dogged determination.
We have a "work at home" day tomorrow, which means I'll do a little planning, and then enjoy snow day number two. This diet thing sucks. These are the kinds of days I should be going out to eat, or reading a book and drinking coffee someplace. Thursday can't come soon enough.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Day Three: Oil!!!! (and Sweet Potato Chips)
After a trip to one Harris Teeter and a phone call to another, plus a call to Trader Joe's, I finally found sunflower oil at Berrybrook Farm on East Boulevard. She even had the bottle of oil waiting for me behind the counter. I poked around the store a little bit, and good lord, granola has never looked so good. And the frozen foods! Burritos!! Argh!!
No wonder there are so few published large-scale studies of diets like this one - getting people to stay compliant would be a nightmare.
But the oil really has made everything better. I had no idea how much I was craving fat until I found myself running my finger along the inside of a bowl to lick up sunflower oil as if it were chocolate frosting. It doesn't even really taste like anything; it's just a plain sort of salad oil. But it has made my food infinitely more tasty.
Look! I can roast vegetables! Turnips aren't even so bad when they've got crispy edges and lots of sea salt! (They kind of taste like a big, bland radish.)
And sweet potatoes! I can make chips!!
I marked on my new 2011 calendar which days I reintroduce which foods. First up are avocado and chicken. That's on Thursday. Next day is green beans, grapes and broccoli. But Saturday is what I'm most looking forward to... tomatoes and beef!!
Of course, really I'd rather have one of those things cause some reaction than the more likely culprits: wheat and dairy. But in any event, it'll be good to eat foods that aren't root vegetables again. The grocery store was torture today. There were Ding Dongs by the check out at Harris Teeter. I don't think I've ever even had a Ding Dong, but holy hell did they look good.
No wonder there are so few published large-scale studies of diets like this one - getting people to stay compliant would be a nightmare.
But the oil really has made everything better. I had no idea how much I was craving fat until I found myself running my finger along the inside of a bowl to lick up sunflower oil as if it were chocolate frosting. It doesn't even really taste like anything; it's just a plain sort of salad oil. But it has made my food infinitely more tasty.
Look! I can roast vegetables! Turnips aren't even so bad when they've got crispy edges and lots of sea salt! (They kind of taste like a big, bland radish.)
And sweet potatoes! I can make chips!!
Sweet Potato Chips
Sweet potatoes
Sunflower oil
Cast iron skillet
Peel sweet potatoes, and slice thinly. I like them a little thick (like in the photo) so they get chewy in the middle.
Heat up the oil in a cast iron skillet or pan. It doesn't need to be very deep - about a quarter inch.
Cook the sliced sweet potatoes in batches, turning them over until they're browned and crispy on both sides. Put a bunch of paper towels on a baking sheet and put the chips on that as they're done. This will let you drain them and keep them warm in the oven while each new batch cooks.
If you do more than one or two medium-sized sweet potatoes, you'll need to add more oil as you go along. Let it get hot again before adding more potatoes.
If you aren't on a wacko diet, you can put salt on them, or cinnamon and sugar.
I marked on my new 2011 calendar which days I reintroduce which foods. First up are avocado and chicken. That's on Thursday. Next day is green beans, grapes and broccoli. But Saturday is what I'm most looking forward to... tomatoes and beef!!
Of course, really I'd rather have one of those things cause some reaction than the more likely culprits: wheat and dairy. But in any event, it'll be good to eat foods that aren't root vegetables again. The grocery store was torture today. There were Ding Dongs by the check out at Harris Teeter. I don't think I've ever even had a Ding Dong, but holy hell did they look good.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Diet...Day Two
I think I'm finally done with caffeine withdrawal. I've been drinking mugs of hot water, pretending they're tea. It's all very sad.
I've also discovered that cooking without any fat or oil is incredibly difficult.
Exhibit A: Miserable, leathery little spears of sweet potato.
I tried to eat the insides of a few of them but ultimately tossed them. Dr. John Mansfield's elimination diet does not give recipes. All it says are things like "boiled" or "raw or boiled." Reason being, there ARE no recipes when you only have ONE ingredient.
I did some more research today, and found another doctor's version of Mansfield's diet. It's a little more lenient (allows kiwi, lamb, and sunflower oil). I'm going to pass on the kiwi and lamb, just to be safe, but I might go buy some sunflower oil. If I can fry things in oil, this will be much, much easier to do for a week (plus I need the calories). I could saute things again. And pan fry my fish. Besides, I can't remember the last time I ate a sunflower-anything, so somehow I'm doubtful that sunflower products are causing my (rheumatoid? mysterious?) arthritis.
The Atherton Mills farmer's market provided me with some more food this morning, although it was very hard to walk past all the little sample trays of bread and olive oil and granola. Arghh. I'm allowed turnips, according to Mansfield, so I got three small ones. I have no idea what in the hell to do with them - I guess you can boil them like potatoes and mash them up? Once I get some sunflower oil, maybe I can fry them? Roast them in little chunks?
Also, trout is freaking 10 bucks a pound. I got two pounds, so I can eat one ziploc bag today and one tomorrow. I baked some for breakfast when I got back from the market - it was the first thing I've eaten in almost 48 hours that actually tasted GOOD. Baked a Bosc pear too, which was equally delightful (although would have been better slathered in butter and brown sugar!!!).
I have no symptoms today except a vague and lingering headache/foggy feeling. I kind of wish something felt terrible, so it could then go away dramatically by week's end, and then reappear dramatically when I introduce some malicious food item. Ah well...I guess we'll see how this turns out soon enough.
john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
I've also discovered that cooking without any fat or oil is incredibly difficult.
Exhibit A: Miserable, leathery little spears of sweet potato.
I tried to eat the insides of a few of them but ultimately tossed them. Dr. John Mansfield's elimination diet does not give recipes. All it says are things like "boiled" or "raw or boiled." Reason being, there ARE no recipes when you only have ONE ingredient.
I did some more research today, and found another doctor's version of Mansfield's diet. It's a little more lenient (allows kiwi, lamb, and sunflower oil). I'm going to pass on the kiwi and lamb, just to be safe, but I might go buy some sunflower oil. If I can fry things in oil, this will be much, much easier to do for a week (plus I need the calories). I could saute things again. And pan fry my fish. Besides, I can't remember the last time I ate a sunflower-anything, so somehow I'm doubtful that sunflower products are causing my (rheumatoid? mysterious?) arthritis.The Atherton Mills farmer's market provided me with some more food this morning, although it was very hard to walk past all the little sample trays of bread and olive oil and granola. Arghh. I'm allowed turnips, according to Mansfield, so I got three small ones. I have no idea what in the hell to do with them - I guess you can boil them like potatoes and mash them up? Once I get some sunflower oil, maybe I can fry them? Roast them in little chunks?
Also, trout is freaking 10 bucks a pound. I got two pounds, so I can eat one ziploc bag today and one tomorrow. I baked some for breakfast when I got back from the market - it was the first thing I've eaten in almost 48 hours that actually tasted GOOD. Baked a Bosc pear too, which was equally delightful (although would have been better slathered in butter and brown sugar!!!).
I have no symptoms today except a vague and lingering headache/foggy feeling. I kind of wish something felt terrible, so it could then go away dramatically by week's end, and then reappear dramatically when I introduce some malicious food item. Ah well...I guess we'll see how this turns out soon enough.
john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Elimination Begins...!
Dum dum dummmm. The elimination diet started today. I went to Harris Teeter on my way home from UNCC last night for a meeting that apparently I didn't have to go to since I'm dropping my classes this semester and taking them next year (hassle of the century). That was irrelevant. What's relevant is that, in my quest to fix my unidentified rheumatological issues, this is what I'll be eating for the next week:
Yep. Like, literally. That's it. No oil, no tea (!!!), no grains, dairy, red meat, eggs, nuts, booze, sugar or anything other than what's in the picture. Except trout. The fish in the photo is salmon, which I can also eat. Salmon, trout, carrots, sweet potatoes, pears, and sea salt. Tasty treats. If anyone's interested, it's a diet developed by some British doctor named Mansfield. A slightly less severe version of it is here: What I'm kind of concerned about is eating enough calories to like, live. In looking back through what I've eaten the last month (yes, in Excel form) I probably eat between 1000 and 1200 calories on an average day. It seems my only real option to keep that up is to eat a pound of fish every day. I'm not trying to be skeletor in a week, so it's a good thing I like fish, I guess. Bad thing I can't do anything WITH it except bake it, or poach it, plain, with sea salt. I'm going to desperately miss oil and flour.
While I can't say I'm looking forward to this, I also know that if I let Dr. Nami the rheumatologist put me on some daily pharmaceutical product, I'm going to constantly be wondering if it's really necessary or if I could have fixed my problem in a more natural and permanent way. I don't want to treat symptoms if I could fix the problem. I also know it could totally do nothing. I could just feel like shit for a week, not notice any of the promised symptoms of "withdrawal," or the eventual "clearing," and not notice any reactions to any of the foods I test. It could just be a sad, sad month of food deprivation and misery. I'm hoping, of course, that won't be the case. I guess only time will tell. Time, and my magical, wonderful Excel charts.
So today I've had a pear and a bag of baby carrots for lunch. I drank hot water in my travel mug this morning instead of tea. I have two salmon fillets in the broiler and cut up sweet potatoes in the oven. I have a headache and feel vaguely dizzy. Let's get started!!!
john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
Yep. Like, literally. That's it. No oil, no tea (!!!), no grains, dairy, red meat, eggs, nuts, booze, sugar or anything other than what's in the picture. Except trout. The fish in the photo is salmon, which I can also eat. Salmon, trout, carrots, sweet potatoes, pears, and sea salt. Tasty treats. If anyone's interested, it's a diet developed by some British doctor named Mansfield. A slightly less severe version of it is here: What I'm kind of concerned about is eating enough calories to like, live. In looking back through what I've eaten the last month (yes, in Excel form) I probably eat between 1000 and 1200 calories on an average day. It seems my only real option to keep that up is to eat a pound of fish every day. I'm not trying to be skeletor in a week, so it's a good thing I like fish, I guess. Bad thing I can't do anything WITH it except bake it, or poach it, plain, with sea salt. I'm going to desperately miss oil and flour.
While I can't say I'm looking forward to this, I also know that if I let Dr. Nami the rheumatologist put me on some daily pharmaceutical product, I'm going to constantly be wondering if it's really necessary or if I could have fixed my problem in a more natural and permanent way. I don't want to treat symptoms if I could fix the problem. I also know it could totally do nothing. I could just feel like shit for a week, not notice any of the promised symptoms of "withdrawal," or the eventual "clearing," and not notice any reactions to any of the foods I test. It could just be a sad, sad month of food deprivation and misery. I'm hoping, of course, that won't be the case. I guess only time will tell. Time, and my magical, wonderful Excel charts.
So today I've had a pear and a bag of baby carrots for lunch. I drank hot water in my travel mug this morning instead of tea. I have two salmon fillets in the broiler and cut up sweet potatoes in the oven. I have a headache and feel vaguely dizzy. Let's get started!!!
john mansfield elimination diet rheumatoid arthritis alternative health joint pain arthralgia hypoallergenic diet
Monday, January 3, 2011
A month's worth of movies
I've watched an unhealthy number of movies since getting my Netflix account. I thought I'd save you all the wasted (in some cases) hours I've spent and give a collection of brief reviews for your own Netflix-ing interest.
In the order I watched them, here's the last month in movies:
Julie and Julia - As everyone predicted, I liked it a lot. Meryl Streep was amazing, Amy Adams was adorable and not annoying, and that guy who plays her boyfriend was adorable. And I love food. Plus, two unexpectedly precious love stories...very cute and very worth seeing.
The Constant Gardener - Evil pharma exploiting desperate African villagers with sinister drug trials. Man that looks like Liam Neeson but isn't (Ralph Fiennes) investigates after his young, independent-minded wife is killed suspiciously. Nothing wildly unpredictable, the usual villains, lots of Hollywood-style moral outrage, but pleasantly entertaining enough.
Food Inc. - I've been buying organic co-op milk and farmer's market meat since watching it. It didn't make me a self-righteous food Nazi, but it made me go "Yuck," and was fun to watch.
About a Boy - Hugh Grant + small awkward British boy with a mentally unstable hippie mom + "jerk-is-changed-into-nice-guy-through-charms-of-a-child" plot = happy ending, very cute, but not really worth watching again.
Moon - A movie with essentially one visible actor, living alone on the moon. Kevin Spacey is the voice of a HAL-like robot. Creepy things ensue ... ooo, what's real and what isn't? A little bleak, but actually pretty good.
The Machinist - Talk about bleak. Christian Bale's holocaust-victim body (I think he weighs less than I do in the movie) makes you want to take a shower or puke or something. Eerie, twist ending, loads of creep factor, and all the shots are dark, gray and dirty looking. Did not love it.
Punch-Drunk Love - Weird-ass movie, allegedly a romantic comedy, with Adam Sandler and the girl who plays Chloe on 24, and some British girl. There's something involving a lot of cups of pudding, and something involving a small piano, and none of it really made sense. I loved Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, but did not love this. It was quirky and had promise...but was just kind of odd.
Wonder Boys - I'd seen it before, but forgot how good it was!!! Michael Douglas is great, Tobey Maguire is great, and Katie Holmes doesn't suck. Oh, and Robert Downey Jr. is sexy and hysterical. Aging college professor, writers and academics, weird kid with a talent, dead dog in a car trunk...lots of good stuff.
Notting Hill - This was lame. Everyone loves it, but it was lame. I did not like Julia Roberts' character, and there were the corniest songs interspersed throughout the whole things, and some really gag-inducing scenes that made me ask "Seriously?" out loud. Lame-o.
Wilby Wonderful - Ellen Page and Paul Gross and a bunch of other Canadians in a small town with something secret going on and lots of unique small-town-ish characters and sweet little relationships and stories. Not perfect, but I liked it.
Sweet Land - LOVE IT. Second time watching it, and it's still one of the sweetest, funniest love stories I've seen in a movie. It's also one of the most beautiful movies I've seen - just visually, with open fields and big skies and farmland. Really just a beautiful story. It's about a Norwegian farmer and the mail-order bride who shows up and turns out to be German (set some time after WWI). You begin the movie knowing they grow old together, and then get to watch their story from when they first meet. Love it, love it, love it.
Boys Don't Cry - Hillary Swank acts the hell out of a pre-op transexual teenager who is biologically female but passes as a boy. Mix of oddly sweet love story, brutal, unpleasant violence, and some damn good acting. And based on a true story, which I did not know. Definitely worth seeing, although not a particularly happy movie.
9 Songs - Uh, yeahhh. Watched part of this and stopped. It consists of the following: 1. Concert footage of a full-length song by some underground rock band. 2. Non-simulated sex scene between two people who don't say much and who you don't really like (read: porn). 3. A few minutes of uninspired dialogue about something banal that doesn't tell a story. Repeat nine times (see: movie title). Only I didn't watch all nine repeats because the music sucked and I'm not a fan of porn.
Ondine - Colin Farrell is gorgeous. He is gorgeous as an Irish fisherman. The mysterious girl he pulls out of the water in his big fisherman net is also gorgeous. His small, precocious child is gorgeous. The story is a little bit magical, a little bit romantic, and very satisfyingly happy. And Colin Farrell is gorgeous. You will be happier for having seen it.
In the order I watched them, here's the last month in movies:
Julie and Julia - As everyone predicted, I liked it a lot. Meryl Streep was amazing, Amy Adams was adorable and not annoying, and that guy who plays her boyfriend was adorable. And I love food. Plus, two unexpectedly precious love stories...very cute and very worth seeing.
The Constant Gardener - Evil pharma exploiting desperate African villagers with sinister drug trials. Man that looks like Liam Neeson but isn't (Ralph Fiennes) investigates after his young, independent-minded wife is killed suspiciously. Nothing wildly unpredictable, the usual villains, lots of Hollywood-style moral outrage, but pleasantly entertaining enough.
Food Inc. - I've been buying organic co-op milk and farmer's market meat since watching it. It didn't make me a self-righteous food Nazi, but it made me go "Yuck," and was fun to watch.
About a Boy - Hugh Grant + small awkward British boy with a mentally unstable hippie mom + "jerk-is-changed-into-nice-guy-through-charms-of-a-child" plot = happy ending, very cute, but not really worth watching again.
Moon - A movie with essentially one visible actor, living alone on the moon. Kevin Spacey is the voice of a HAL-like robot. Creepy things ensue ... ooo, what's real and what isn't? A little bleak, but actually pretty good.
The Machinist - Talk about bleak. Christian Bale's holocaust-victim body (I think he weighs less than I do in the movie) makes you want to take a shower or puke or something. Eerie, twist ending, loads of creep factor, and all the shots are dark, gray and dirty looking. Did not love it.
Punch-Drunk Love - Weird-ass movie, allegedly a romantic comedy, with Adam Sandler and the girl who plays Chloe on 24, and some British girl. There's something involving a lot of cups of pudding, and something involving a small piano, and none of it really made sense. I loved Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, but did not love this. It was quirky and had promise...but was just kind of odd.
Wonder Boys - I'd seen it before, but forgot how good it was!!! Michael Douglas is great, Tobey Maguire is great, and Katie Holmes doesn't suck. Oh, and Robert Downey Jr. is sexy and hysterical. Aging college professor, writers and academics, weird kid with a talent, dead dog in a car trunk...lots of good stuff.
Notting Hill - This was lame. Everyone loves it, but it was lame. I did not like Julia Roberts' character, and there were the corniest songs interspersed throughout the whole things, and some really gag-inducing scenes that made me ask "Seriously?" out loud. Lame-o.
Wilby Wonderful - Ellen Page and Paul Gross and a bunch of other Canadians in a small town with something secret going on and lots of unique small-town-ish characters and sweet little relationships and stories. Not perfect, but I liked it.
Sweet Land - LOVE IT. Second time watching it, and it's still one of the sweetest, funniest love stories I've seen in a movie. It's also one of the most beautiful movies I've seen - just visually, with open fields and big skies and farmland. Really just a beautiful story. It's about a Norwegian farmer and the mail-order bride who shows up and turns out to be German (set some time after WWI). You begin the movie knowing they grow old together, and then get to watch their story from when they first meet. Love it, love it, love it.
Boys Don't Cry - Hillary Swank acts the hell out of a pre-op transexual teenager who is biologically female but passes as a boy. Mix of oddly sweet love story, brutal, unpleasant violence, and some damn good acting. And based on a true story, which I did not know. Definitely worth seeing, although not a particularly happy movie.
9 Songs - Uh, yeahhh. Watched part of this and stopped. It consists of the following: 1. Concert footage of a full-length song by some underground rock band. 2. Non-simulated sex scene between two people who don't say much and who you don't really like (read: porn). 3. A few minutes of uninspired dialogue about something banal that doesn't tell a story. Repeat nine times (see: movie title). Only I didn't watch all nine repeats because the music sucked and I'm not a fan of porn.
Ondine - Colin Farrell is gorgeous. He is gorgeous as an Irish fisherman. The mysterious girl he pulls out of the water in his big fisherman net is also gorgeous. His small, precocious child is gorgeous. The story is a little bit magical, a little bit romantic, and very satisfyingly happy. And Colin Farrell is gorgeous. You will be happier for having seen it.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Fog Area
You know those signs on the highway you come across sometimes, especially on like, hilly or mountainy stretches of road, that say "Fog Area"?
I'd never given them much attention before. Maybe once or twice I've noticed that there was a little hovering mist or something and thought "Ah, how lovely, a picturesque fog, just like the sign says!"
Until I was driving back to NC last night down 77. I'd just gotten off of 81 when I started seeing these signs. These permanent signs were coupled with those overhead light-up signs that sometimes tell you about detours or accidents or heavy traffic. Last night they said "Fog Ahead Use Caution."
No shit. It was like I was in some horror movie environment that could only be made by Hollywood special effects. Here is an artistic rendering of what my visibility was like.
My friend with the darkish-color car and the double-circle tail lights was the only thing keeping me on the road at times. I have never been more thankful for the little yellow reflector thingies they put on the guard rails. And like, okay, a dense fog for a couple minutes is one thing. A dense fog for about 20 minutes is another thing. It might have been longer because for the first several minutes I wasn't looking at my clock because I was trying to squint through the clouds of death to find the lines on the road, and because I was at this point saying outloud to myself things like "Seriously? Is this real? Whatt? Are you serious?!" Here's a map showing the terror-death-zone. Note the dangerous red color and the frantic lines signaling extreme peril.
In short, I am a relatively nervous driver as is. Lord only knows how I made it 800 miles in a U-Haul this summer. By the time I got out of the fog last night and onto a piece of highway that actually resembled a ROAD at nightime (i.e. you can see black asphalt and lights and other cars) instead of the inside of a tub of Kool-Whip, my eyes were sore from squinting and my arms were tense from gripping the steering wheel at the most desperate ten-and-two position you've ever seen. Whew.
Back to work tomorrow. Kind of dreading it, to be honest. I'm just not up for loud, unruly teenagers. Christmas break could go on for another month. It'd be lovely. I'd do Appalachian Trail research, do my elimination diet, run on a regular basis, read all the novels I've started but haven't finished, get through Romans, do a painting or two, visit friends, have dinner parties, drink tea, watch Netflix .... sigh. Five months until summer.
I'd never given them much attention before. Maybe once or twice I've noticed that there was a little hovering mist or something and thought "Ah, how lovely, a picturesque fog, just like the sign says!"
Until I was driving back to NC last night down 77. I'd just gotten off of 81 when I started seeing these signs. These permanent signs were coupled with those overhead light-up signs that sometimes tell you about detours or accidents or heavy traffic. Last night they said "Fog Ahead Use Caution."
No shit. It was like I was in some horror movie environment that could only be made by Hollywood special effects. Here is an artistic rendering of what my visibility was like.
My friend with the darkish-color car and the double-circle tail lights was the only thing keeping me on the road at times. I have never been more thankful for the little yellow reflector thingies they put on the guard rails. And like, okay, a dense fog for a couple minutes is one thing. A dense fog for about 20 minutes is another thing. It might have been longer because for the first several minutes I wasn't looking at my clock because I was trying to squint through the clouds of death to find the lines on the road, and because I was at this point saying outloud to myself things like "Seriously? Is this real? Whatt? Are you serious?!" Here's a map showing the terror-death-zone. Note the dangerous red color and the frantic lines signaling extreme peril.
In short, I am a relatively nervous driver as is. Lord only knows how I made it 800 miles in a U-Haul this summer. By the time I got out of the fog last night and onto a piece of highway that actually resembled a ROAD at nightime (i.e. you can see black asphalt and lights and other cars) instead of the inside of a tub of Kool-Whip, my eyes were sore from squinting and my arms were tense from gripping the steering wheel at the most desperate ten-and-two position you've ever seen. Whew.Back to work tomorrow. Kind of dreading it, to be honest. I'm just not up for loud, unruly teenagers. Christmas break could go on for another month. It'd be lovely. I'd do Appalachian Trail research, do my elimination diet, run on a regular basis, read all the novels I've started but haven't finished, get through Romans, do a painting or two, visit friends, have dinner parties, drink tea, watch Netflix .... sigh. Five months until summer.
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