Life's been good to me so far

So I switched from antibiotics to tons and tons of probiotics and my heavy miserable lazy meh phase abruptly ended, leaving me feeling SO GOOD comparatively...and then Grant was doing dishes and listening to Radiolab about how probiotics really are being looked into as a prozac-level mood and energy booster. The episode is here - http://www.radiolab.org/2012/apr/02/

This is similar to how I became a vegan and then experienced something like pre menstrual psychosis, a month or two or whenever ago, and then read about how that is treated with big doses of B vitamins (of which one is only found in animal products and others mostly in animal products), and then read this article about a study saying women who don't eat red meat are way more depressed: http://gizmodo.com/5895227/scientific-proof-that-red-meat-makes-you-happy

Which is all VERY similar to how, years ago, every cold I got turned into tonsilitis and I woke each morning sneezing and sniffling for an hour or so - until I quit having a lot of runny dairy all the time. Annie is anemic if she eats too much dairy (which makes you not just low on hemoglobin but, thusly, low on energy and happiness - dairy blocks iron absorption, for what it's worth).

The point is, it can be very hard to figure out, and it can be very hard to stick to your new guidelines if you do figure it out - but what we put in our bodies has a massive effect on us. Not just our physical body but our brains, our immune system, our feelings and mental function. It's worth digging deeper about and paying attention to your body for. It's annoying to think about, and there's a lot of contradictory stuff to wade through, but I know someone who's husband is permanently brain injured and unable to ever work again from (previously) undiagnosed gluten intolerance (and eating lots of gluten, clearly). My OWN husband is SO DIFFERENT on or off CORN of all things...

Crazy stuff.

---

Isaac, at dinner: I'm really really full...ugh I can't eat any more of this food...can I have some cantaloupe now?
Me: Of course not, you just said you're really really full.
Grant: Classic parenting trap.
Isaac: What? Cantaloupe is good for me!
Me: Yeah, but you just said you can't eat any more, and you didn't eat any at all.
Isaac: You mean I have to eat all of this if I want to have any cantaloupe?
Me: No, but you can't just not eat any and then say you're full to get cantaloupe.
Grant: That's a beginner's mistake.
Isaac: So I have to eat all of it if I want to have any cantaloupe?
Grant: That's not what she said.
Me: I just answered that question.
Isaac: No you didn't!
Me: It's not that you have to eat every little bit of it, I'm just saying you can't skip all of dinner and then have cantaloupe instead. If you say you're full it means you're done eating.
Isaac: What?
Grant: If you said, "I don't like this dinner, can I eat something else instead" that would be different.
Me: Yes, that would be respectable.
Isaac: So do I have to eat it all?
Grant: You need to eat a lot of it, we didn't give you that much.
Isaac: I don't understand.
Me: This is a concept you have to figure out for yourself, we can't hold your hand and guide you through.
Isaac: To cantaloupe?

---

Sometimes early mornings snuggling with this beast are the best part of the day.


She has several new dresses but has to wear a preschool tshirt to preschool. Simple solutions:


Loot from the Easter party.


This is what happens when I try to take a picture of Ananda and I in the grocery store...


And so I go in for a retake and get...

WTF iPhone? We laughed.

Style for days.


Tea.


10 year old heartthrob.




We saw this on the 836 the other day. Seems legit.


Oliver.


I took an afternoon nap in the hammock today: napping goes, this guy on my lap acting all cute and ridiculous.


He climbs away and I'm gettin all cozy and dozing off


And Elise appears, and wants to talk and talk and talk about why the moon comes out during the day and when Dad is gonna fix the trampoline and how Oliver is always nice to HER and then I blacked out and didn't hear the rest.


And then he was sad about something, but cute enough to make up for waking me for like the 15 time in 5 minutes.


Grant made this fabulous pasta bake for dinner (this is pre-baking). It involves chopping up/shredding/slicing onions, garlic, squash, zucchini, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and tomatoes, and also several types of cheese, and geez dude. Just geez. The man can throw down.

One of my New Years resolutions was to drink (a lot) more water. I'm doing it, but the thing is I wonder every day whether or not the health benefits are worth it when compared to the loss in quality of life because of how much I fucking loathe having to go pee all the time. I realize this is ridiculous but, like, seriously, it is extremely annoying to me to have to stop what I'm doing and go to the bathroom. Ever, not just when it's frequent. I just don't understand why my body is so inefficient and irritating. It seems like a total waste of time and effort to me, to a degree I understand is both unusual and irrational.

For what it's worth, I have the same reaction to needing to stop and get gas. I frequently get to the bathroom feeling ready to burst, and frequently pull into the gas station when my little indicator countdown warning says I only have *** miles left til we break down on the side of the road.

I wonder if this is because some subconscious part of my brain feels like my bladder and my van should be advancing the same way other technology is. I think my iPhone has totally died once since I got it 6 months ago, and I can plug it in while using it anywhere I am :p Sort of similar to how I got an IUD 6 months ago and haven't thought about birth control since.

Urination is archaic bullshit, this is 2012 and I won't stand for it!

---

So, this classy establishment is where I purchase my car insurance:


As you can see, they spare no expense where decorating is concerned:


Priorities = straight:


And this is Miami for "shirt".


I do love where I live.


Do they have coffee so strong it's served in thimbles other places?

This is not vegan, but as cheating goes I felt ok about it ;)

Also not vegan. Who the hell finds a picture like this appetizing?!


Jakey at TLC.


A Jake story copied and pasted from facebook:
My Jakey is so sweet ♥ He just brought me his beloved teddy bear, Beary, in panic, because he had a hole. I told him to bring me the sewing kit and he was all worried it was going to hurt Beary. So we put him to sleep first, and then Jake ran to make him a pretend cake while I did the surgery so he could have a treat when he woke up. When I called him to tell him Beary was all done and good as new he threw his arms around my neck with all this emotion, telling me "THANK YOU MAMA!" *sigh* This kid is awesome.

Immediately upon recovery, Beary had a birthday party that I was invited to.

He is about 115 in Favorite Stuffed Animal years (they have a birthday approximately once a week).

Here he is dressed, in some of Jake's old clothes :)


View through my bedroom doors one day:


One night, we were at Kristin's, and she had Hennessy and Hennessy Hammocks:


The next morning, I took a shower:


Packed up my vegan food for a long day out:


And talked to Kristin on the highway as we serendipitously rolled along side by side:


Aaron and Isaac at Dr Geraldi's last week...they could not be more different.


My oil and water children.


My surprise when I came out from the bedroom on Valentine's Day morning:


Das right, baby <3

I'm not really a Starbucks person anymore, I guess, since 1. I can't afford that! and 2. I can't get non-dairy stuff from them that isn't soy.

I am eating seafood. Pesce-vegan?


P.F. Chang's Asian Pear Mojito trumps all other Mojitos.


Ananda has improvisational style for days. Here she is in a brother's shirt, my tank top, shorts she just cut...


Here she is taller than Nancy. It's clear who's happier about this development.


That park was great.


Isaac turned 8! Here he is with his card from Nana and Pa.

He's really getting something of a birthday week...he's gotten cards in the mail a couple of days, and got a new bike and to choose the whole day's menu on the day. This weekend just him and Dad are going camping and we're doing cake and pinata with some people (which will be extra special since Oma is coming down from Lake City).

A random shot of a Magic game. They play a lot lately.


Gratuitous Elise pictures:

So now that I've been at it for a bit and it's remaining something I feel good about, I'm "coming out" as a for health, for now, flexible-ish vegan. I don't like sabotaging myself by spreading the word about weight loss efforts that fail. This is a weight loss and digestive health and overall health effort...meat and dairy both make my whole entrapped hernia thing way more uncomfortable, dairy in general makes it like I have a cold and am itchy all over all the time. And both of those things (along with many other things) make me continually get fatter. So. This is my indefinite experiment.

So far it's working out really well and is almost shockingly easy (especially compared to the strict rigidity of Eat to Live). I have coconut ice cream in the freezer and coconut milk and creamer in the fridge, and dark chocolate is hidden in a closet. Neither coffee nor alcohol contain animal products of any kind ;) I will continue to consume honey, to eat animals at holidays and special occasions, and to not be hard to accommodate when I'm someone's guest.

The rest of the family is still eating whatever they want, though I feel this is only having a positive effect on what my kids eat.

Anyway, this has been about a week and a half now and I've already lost 5 pounds. I'm also "going to the bathroom" at least 5 times as much as I was before...frequency and quantity, good grief, I mean damn. It makes me feel SO MUCH LESS freaked about my hernia! Constant reassurance that I am nowhere near needing emergency surgery ;) Really, though.

And, I'm kind of shocked by how much LESS I'm eating. I mean I'm not putting any restrictions on myself at all as far as how often or much I eat, and I think it's still probably more than most people eat. And sometimes reactionary/not hunger related...it's just ending up being a lot less. Because it's more filling stuff? Because it's more nutritionally dense so my body wants less? Maybe both? Or maybe there aren't as many rich things to entice me ;) Sort of irrelevant.

I'm posting all that because I want to write about my menu plans re: tonight's grocery shopping. I'm psyched! I've been eating a lot of standard fare of ours, like kale and bean soup, salads, fruit, chips and salsa, curried chickpeas with brown rice, lentils, carrots and peanut butter, and oatmeal. But I've decided to branch out based on some experiments I've done, recipes I've looked up and things I've had out places. Some of the things I'm planning to do include:

-quinoa with a bunch of little sauteed junk thrown in, i.e., corn, peas, diced red and green bell pepper, onions, garlic and black olives
-coconut curry of onions, carrots, celery, broccoli and who knows what else, with rice
-sweet potato and black bean enchiladas with green chile sauce on top
-cauliflower tacos

I'm also mixing salsa into hummus because I'm weird like that, and bringing back the old but good waheni and wild rice mix that's loaded with mushrooms and cooked in broth that I used to make all the time. And non-dairy risotto full of mushrooms and almond slivers.

I am soy-phobic in addition to having a legitimate nasty reaction to concentrated soy protein, and Elise is out and out allergic, so standard "vegan alternatives" and manufactured fake foods don't work (or appeal, honestly). I've been doing some (non-protein) Odwalla bars and toasted edamame here and there and things like that seem to agree with me ok, as does soy sauce as a condiment. Also taking B12 every day, and I use nutritional yeast which has it.

Very much kicking around making this a permanent change. A real lifestyle change is what I need, and if I am not in a position to really alter my trigger-y and emotional eating, I can at least make sure I'm eating way better stuff. It's green and factory farming is horrifically disgusting. I've gone through weird meat aversions before and not eaten dairy for months at a time since I know it messes with me - it seems doable in many ways and much less restrictive than stopping to add up every calorie on Weight Watchers or stick to some precise very difficult formula with ETL.

I am totally reserving my right to watch Earthlings if I start to slip up too often, because I've been avoiding that, knowing it will ruin meat and cheese for me, like, forever.

I also think I found the place I'd like to get my surgery done when the time comes. It's in freakin' NYC, but having spent a week there that seems a lot more doable than it did when New York was like the moon to me. If I can go to Boston for months to have a baby, I can spend a week in New York for a surgery, right? It's not like it's happening tomorrow. They cater to and specialize in hispanic women, meaning this body type and this skin type. The galleries are SO much more things I can relate to (and would desire) than typical plastic surgery before and after galleries, I mean, gah. So while I don't feel GOOD about it...I feel better than I have.

It's interesting, not living in denial about my body. I have the peace that comes from accepting that I'm a work in progress and the hope that comes from knowing I'm doing things differently. But those are mixed in with the soul killing sight of myself as I actually am, rather than my standard idealized version. Don't get me wrong, I think in many ways I still have more confidence in my looks than many women do...but it's a whole hell of a lot less than I typically would. Being present in my own skin to experience my back aches and foot pain and hip weirdness is as jarring as looking in the mirror honestly is.

Also - I realize I'm "supposed" to be against street harassment, but damned if it isn't exactly the boost I need sometimes when men are telling me I'm beautiful or asking if I'll stop and talk as I ride by on my bike.