Contentedly Crunchy

Pinning my hopes elsewhere

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 13:56:00 +0000

I thought I'd give a brief update from the last week. It has been a big one full of ups and downs.

The ups:

1) I finished my last college course requirement for my certification as an IBCLC! Now it's on to 90 hours of lactation education, CPR certification, and applying for the exam by mid-November! I'm on track to take the exam in April and be officially certified by July of next year!! I'm so excited.

2) I was cleared to go for walks and went for two of them!

3) I was cleared to go for (reasonably easy) non-stationary bike rides. I've gone for zero of them, but I'll change that soon!

The down:1) Well there's really just one. So it's 3-1 in favor of this being a good week, right?

All's been going well with my hip, and now it's really only the nerve pain in my feet keeping me from doing daily activities (washing dishes, cleaning the house, etc).

I went back to the neurologist yesterday. Every test he has run so far has yielded normal results and my feet aren't getting worse. I *think* they're getting better. They're at least getting less consistent about when they hurt. The inconsistency is great on the days I do a bunch of stuff on my feet and they don't hurt, but awful on the days I do the *exact same things* and they hurt like hell. It's psychologically pretty challenging.

The neurologist thinks that the problem is in small nerve fibers that need to remyelenate or regenerate. Because the tests they've done so far are measuring function in all the nerves of my lower legs, the small and large nerve fibers can't really be separated out, and problems with the large nerve fibers are what would show up. So I was given the option of a punch biopsy to count the number of nerves in my skin, but declined since it wouldn't change treatment.

Instead, we added a second drug to hopefully get the pain to stop interfering with my life. From the medical perspective, my nerves are still healing and should be given a year to do so.

From my mental health perspective, this is my life. My feet hurt. This is the indefinite truth and what I need to do is figure out how - through a combination of medications and non-drug therapies and lifestyle choices - to live with feet that sometimes hurt.

I'm not giving up hope, I'm pinning my hope elsewhere. Now I'm hopeful that even with permanent damage to my nerves I can enjoy my life. People do this. So many people live with chronic pain! And I need to do that. My feet have hurt for three years now, and the waiting for them to get better is just so old and I do find myself giving up hope for a pain-free life. So why keep making that the end goal?

Would I be thrilled if my feet healed and I got off these drugs? You bet. We're pretty certain this nerve damage was caused by a drug in the first place, so I am - to say the least - not thrilled to be on more drugs and have more potential side effects. But I'm going to go live my life with hope, joy, drugs, and whatever else it takes.

What's wrong with Brea's hip anyway?

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Thu, 19 May 2016 00:34:00 +0000

With such a huge outpouring of love and support, I feel obligated to explain to each and every one of my well-wishers, food bringers, and company keepers why I just had surgery (again) on my right hip.

There are some explanations of my first surgery elsewhere in this blog, but I'm fresh from more than a week on narcotics and still laying on my back most of every day; I don't have the energy to find the entries and link them. This is going to be as quick as I can - before I fall asleep unexpectedly or have to do more physical therapy or something.

I hurt my hip running, but it wasn't because of running - it was because the head of my femur wasn't smooth. It was like a square peg in a round hole. The hole is the socket side of the joint, called the acetabulum. This was due to the way my bones formed and I could have done it hiking, biking, dancing, or virtually any other way I had chosen to be active. This condition where the two bones don't fit together correctly is called femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). All the beating of that square peg in that round hole tore the cartilage that lines my socket (acetabulum). That cartilage is called the labrum.

So. I had this tear. And it hurt like hell. So the surgeon repaired it; he sewed it up and anchored it to the acetabulum. And then he shaved the edges off my square peg of a femoral head. All better. Physical therapy and get back to running!

Except that's not how things worked out. In the winter and spring of 2014/2015 I went back to my surgeon and he got me back into physical therapy for one last-ditch effort to get back to running. So in late April 2015, I broke up with running. I didn't want to keep doing something that was causing me pain.

Weeks later, still always having a bit of a nagging pain that I figured was my hip recovering from trying to run, we flew from Seattle to New York to Dublin.

By the time we arrived in Dublin my hip was screaming. I spent a lot of time in bed while my husband explored. It was miserable. We'd spent a year planning and saving for that trip, and I was in excruciating pain. I found a few things that helped, but the pain I experienced whenever I sat for more than about an hour was obviously not liveable.

Back to the surgeon, who said "I can re-scope you...or you can try physical therapy again." Back to PT. I failed PT. Even the car ride there (45-50 minutes) irritated my hip!

My surgeon did an injection to confirm the pain was coming from my hip (spoiler: it was), and I decided to have a repeat scope (arthroscopy - they take a little camera and a little set of tools into your...well, your dislocated hip...I try not to think about this part too much).

All we knew was going to happen was that they would tighten up/repair my joint capsule, which is now done routinely but wasn't done in my surgery in 2012. The thought was that the instability created by my looser joint capsule could have led to micro-tears and, hence, pain.

The surgeon was also going to check the 2012 repair, look for additional tears (because if they were near the 2012 repair they'd be difficult to see), possibly shave off another bumpy edge on my femur, and check out some other stuff.

All we know for sure now is that something looked pretty ugly in there. I don't know for sure yet what happened, though I think it's most likely the 2012 repair just failed. In any case, my surgeon decided to do a reconstruction (which is more involved than a repair). I got a donor graft. I'm sure at my post-surgical appointment on Friday my surgeon will explain all as he goes over the photos and videos (which we've already seen because we have our own copy at home! Crazy? Maybe.).

Today is the first day I've been totally off narcotics. The last week has been up and down and strange. I'm still processing some feelings about having a donor graft. We didn't even fully realize this was the case until we saw a card in my discharge paperwork telling me where to send a letter thanking the donor's loved ones and letting them know that, in death, their loved one's tissue has allowed me to do x, y, and z. Kind of heavy.

After two surgeries and what that means for my family, and now having a donor graft, I feel like I need to be a good steward of my hip and this tissue. As everything feels more like my own body again, I'll have to wrestle with how active I want to be and in what ways. I expect I'll be more of a cross-trainer than anything else now. Hiking, biking, rowing, running, plyometrics, HIIT, weightlifting, yoga, etc. I'll do it all. But I know I'll miss long-distance running. I'll have to chase the runner's high some other way.

I'm Alright.

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 01:43:00 +0000

I'm not sure if it's by the standards of Kenny or Jo Dee, but I'm definitely alright. My feet really do seem to be doing better, and I feel less run-down now that my blood pressure is back under control. I still stare at my new medication and convince myself to swallow it every morning, but so long as my feet continue to feel better I'll continue to take the stupid pill.

The next week will be busy. On Monday I start pre-operative physical therapy for my hip. This way I'll have as much functional strength as possible going into surgery so that my recovery will be easier and faster.

Tuesday I see a neurologist for some new perspective on my foot pain. I'm finding myself nervous about this and arming myself with peer-reviewed studies and trying to be ready for the new medical terminology that might be thrown at me. I've become such a professional patient. I now know that the more I can speak a doctor's language the more seriously they will take my complaints, observations, and suggestions.

Wednesdays are always busy and this one will have a little extra oomph as The Beast has an unusual evening commitment, but Thursday ought to be a normal and relaxed Thursday.

Friday Bean has off from school and we'll bake pumpkin bread to eat instead of cake at his birthday party on Saturday. Bean currently hates cake, which I find simultaneously endearing and bizarre.

So we spent much of today getting ready for Bean's eighth birthday party (how is that even possible?? EIGHT???). We made a big Pikachu and some tails for a game of Pin The Tail on the Pikachu, spray painted some ping pong balls to turn into Pokeballs, and we created some Pokemon Bingo boards.

I'm not one of those moms who really enjoys putting together a party, but Bean is one of those kids who has big ideas and will execute them with or without your help; we might as well go along with it so everyone makes it through with ten fingers and toes and little property damage.

We have also been removing wallpaper from our kitchen for the past week or so. There are at least three - possibly four - layers of wallpaper on there. Some of it was papered over, some of it was painted over, and some of it was behind a shelf that we decided to remove (it will go back up after we've painted. There were 50 years of wallpaper on that wall, so we obviously took pictures. Today we headed over to Walmart to pick up the last of the supplies we needed for party prep and stopped in at Sherwin-Williams for some color chips.

I never expected the kids to get SO excited over a paint store. They each came home with a thick stack of paint chips that they then treated as both inspiration for their rooms and trading cards. We're focusing on getting the downstairs painted this spring. We need to always keep every other part of the downstairs in mind because you can see at least two other rooms from every room you are in - the colors need to flow!

Despite a decent amount of time spent standing, only my left foot hurts and it's not nearly as bad as I would expect it to be. So. Optimism. I have it again.

It will be really nice to have some projects finished and literally a fresh coat of paint on my very plain house when I'm recovering from surgery. Let's hope I don't decide, while mostly stuck on the couch, that the colors are all terrible!

Also, thanks so much everyone for the emails and Facebook messages and texts and phone calls and invitations. I've peered in on Facebook a couple times, but it has been good for me to remain signed out for the most part. I don't seem to get as sucked in, and it's encouraging me to get up off the damn couch and see how my feet fare. And that is what I feel like I really need to be doing right now.

So much sleep.

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 01:59:00 +0000

To try and get rid of the foot pain, I have been on a nerve drug for over a year. The dosage was increased a few weeks ago. Side effects include sleepiness, appetite changes, difficulty rousing in the morning (if I take the drug too late), sleeplessness/waking up very early and usually with a start (if I take it too late), and night terrors (if I skip my last dose before bed). I also think it's impacting my word recall, but I'm not sure.

I also went off a blood pressure medication a few weeks ago, since it turns out it could be causing the foot pain.

I traveled over the weekend, which meant eating a lot of sodium. Because of my kidney disease, my body is particularly sensitive to sodium. So when my blood pressure was high on Sunday I didn't worry too much. (Ok, I worried too much. But I tried not to.) I drowned my kidneys in water and on Monday my blood pressure was down. But today I took it again. I'm supposed to take it frequently so we can be sure my kidneys aren't beaten up too badly - high blood pressure can damage the kidneys, and also a spike in my blood pressure can indicate that my kidneys are in distress. It was high again, so I waited 20 minutes and took it on the other arm. Still high, so I called the doctor. The receptionist asked how I felt and I had to admit that I felt like shit. I have had a headache for three days that Tylenol put a dent in but didn't resolve, and where I was up at 5:45AM Friday and Saturday (I didn't need to be) I slept uncharacteristically late on Sunday, had trouble rousing on Monday, and wanted nothing more than to go back to bed while on the phone with her.

I also have my period and I can't get enough to eat. And I either want a whole cake or a nice greasy burger.

So I feel a bit like a science experiment and am becoming not-opposed to adjusting my own medications. (i.e. I wonder if reducing doses of the nerve drug is a bad idea...)

The good news is that I'm confident all this sleeping has nothing to do with depression, which I absolutely have also been struggling with over the last couple of months. I've thought about medication for that (usually Zoloft is enough to take the edge off and get me through a rough patch), but hell if I'm going to welcome any more side effects right now.

Today I've spent time on the phone with the nephrologist's office and the orthopedic surgeon's office (about whether or not I can do the drug protocol after surgery because of my kidneys), and I spent some quality time with my calendar figuring out just how many appointments I will need rides to during the first 2 or so weeks after surgery. My husband will take a solid two weeks off and cart me around to a post-op visit to the surgeon, physical therapy, and the lab (to pretty frequently check my kidneys).

Feet. Kidneys. Hip. Feet. Kidneys. Hip. Feet. Kidneys. Hip.

I just want everything to stop hurting, but I don't want to kill my kidneys to do it.

And thinking about priorities and what could be making me so tired today is exhausting and costing me spoons and, well, no wonder I'm so fucking tired, right?

And with that, I am going to fill out paperwork for a neurology appointment next week and get yet more sleep! Oof.

Managing my spoons

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 23:41:00 +0000

In order to understand this post, you need to read Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino.

I have known about Spoon Theory for years, but generally my chronic illness doesn't limit my spoons. Except when pregnant, things are pretty smooth and I don't feel sick in my daily life.

But over the past 4 years I have absolutely felt sick. I've been in a tremendous amount of pain.

I injured my hip, had surgery, and will have surgery again in a couple months. No, I don't regret the first surgery. I am better off than I was. I just hope that I can be better off still. And by that I mean that I hope I don't have to give up traveling with my family simply because I can't sit for long periods of time.

While recovering from the first surgery, my opposite foot started to hurt. I was in a boot for a suspected stress fracture when we moved across the country. When we moved back, I had some new and bizarre pain and it was in both feet.

Over the past few months the foot pain has at times been unbearable and I have found myself planning my days and weeks around what I expected my feet to feel like. Cocktail party late in the week? I can't clean the house before it because I'll already be in too much pain. The kids have a basketball game today? I need to stay off my feet in case the game is running late and I need to stand outside the court.

Some mornings I woke up, put my feet on the ground, and the floor felt so hard and cruel and painful that I knew I wouldn't be able to withstand the pain of a shower (the hardness of the shower floor and there being nothing I could do to soften or angle it made showers one of the most taxing parts of my day).

I've been on a nerve drug for the pain and finally got a diagnosis. Frustratingly, I then figured out by myself that the drugs I'm on for my kidneys might be the cause. The timeline makes sense, assuming the initial pain really was a stress fracture. I went on the kidney drugs as the stress fracture was healing and then this nerve pain started up because of the drugs. Maybe.

I've been off the drugs for 2.5 weeks. I think my feet are much better, but honestly I'm now so accustomed to being cautious about how much I'm on my feet that it's hard to say. I put them to the test by making dinner today and I don't even have a little pain, so either the placebo effect is totally amazeballs or the drugs were the culprit.

Except. Now I'm off the kidney drugs. And I travelled over the weekend and ate a lot of salt. My blood pressure was frightening yesterday, but better today after returning to my low-sodium diet and drinking a lot of water.

AND if the kidney drugs were the culprit, I'll go off the nerve drugs. Which means night terrors. I shit you not. I took this drug short term in college and weaning it was very memorable. Even now, if I accidentally skip my last dose I wake up in a panic in the middle of the night. I never enter REM sleep. I don't dream. I just wake up in a panic. Sometimes sweating. Over and over and over. So I have that to look forward to...I hope?

And don't forget I still have hip pain when I sit. So I can't sit for long periods of time and I can't stand for long periods of time. Cocktail parties are my nightmare. Even studying for classes. Having coffee with friends. Sitting at the dinner table. Painful!

I'm so tired of physical therapy and multiple doctor appointments and hurting and planning my days, weeks, months, life around what will hurt and whether it's worth it. And I worry. I worry about my kidney health and my heart health, which is so closely related to the kidneys. I worry that I'm going to be in pain forever. At what point do I accept whatever amount of pain I'm in?

And I'm impatient. I'm waiting for my husband to be able to take two weeks off work (because I won't be able to drive and I will need to get to physical therapy, the lab for kidney tests because I'll be on drugs that can damage my kidneys, the kids need to get to activities, etc etc etc). The delay means I will have to skip some things I'd like to be doing this summer and deciding to go ahead and do others I may really regret - like sitting all day for 5 days a few weeks after surgery...

About a week-and-a-half ago I ran out of spoons. My husband didn't even know what I was talking about when I sobbed to him over the phone "I'M OUT OF SPOONS! I HAVE NO MORE SPOONS!" He was on his way to a conference and I was home alone with the kids completely out of spoons physically, mentally, and emotionally. Between anxiety, pain, and the mentally taxing logistics of being the parent who maintains everyone's schedules, makes sure everyone is seeing the doctor and dentist when needed, who is the default sick care whose schedule get re-arranged (and oh! I do have a schedule, and it is busy. Someone imply to me one more time that being a stay-at-home mom is easy and I'll punch them in the nose!)...I ran out of spoons.

That night I turned into a puddle of neediness at bedtime. I told the kids that I hurt all the time, and I have this job that is completely thankless. I reminded them of how much they crave recognition when they've done something cool, or even just worked really hard at something. And most of what I do is basically invisible. I work hard to get a meal on the table - feet on fire - and I'm often met with complaints.

Both boys cried with me, hugged me, and told me how much they love me. Bean wrote me a note telling me how good I am at being a mom.

In an effort to take care of myself, quell my mounting anxiety (you guys - TRUMP????), and force myself into some reflection and meditation, I'm signing out of Facebook for a little while starting tomorrow. I'm not sure for how long. But I need to make sure that I guard my spoons and consciously choose what to use them for, because running out of them was seriously ugly.

If you want to reach me, please email me at contentedlycrunchy at gmail dot com. If you have my phone number (or my other email address), those are also great ways to reach me.

See me regularly and didn't know I was in so much pain almost all the time? That's because I'm a Spoonie.

Mom is human.

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 02:07:00 +0000

I have always felt very strongly that I should answer the questions my children ask - about sex, death, math, reading, whatever - as honestly as I can and in as comprehensible-to-them a way as I can. And I think my children need to know that I am human. I am fallible. I am damaged. I am strong. I am complicated. And I love them unendingly. Forever. No matter what.

But sometimes...oh sometimes answering those questions and giving my children a glimpse of my most human parts is both natural and seemingly cruel. Cruel to my kids or to myself, I'm not sure.

As I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon and hardly blogged in the two years since we left the town where my children were born and, hence, am sure to have new readers, I will give a quick re-cap.

I have PTSD and my main trigger is emergency vehicles. Firetrucks are especially triggering. Generally I am prepared when I'm driving to do a maybe-kooky thing to stop flashbacks because flashbacks while driving are not ok. Sometimes I am blindsided. It all goes back to the pivotal moments of my life as I watched my mother's life slip away suddenly. So suddenly.

Tonight I briefly explained my trigger to Bean. A-Train was there too, and knowing the way his little brain operates I'm sure he didn't miss a word of it as he stared out the window.

I was driving us home from a dinner and we pulled out onto the main road through town. I heard sirens. Check the rearview mirror. Nothing. Look ahead of me. Nothing. Check the rearview. Nothing. Check every side street. Nothing.

By the time I saw the ambulance (thank goodness it wasn't a firetruck), I was stopped at a red light and it was coming toward us. Heartbeat quickening. There is no one in the north- or south-facing left-turn lanes so the ambulance can surely pass. It's ok. It's ok. It's ok. I must have mumbled something to The Beast as I held his hand and confirmed with him that the best thing for me to do was stay stopped exactly where I was.

Because Bean asked me why I was upset.

I've never given him details.

I've never told him that I ran after a firetruck to help Grandma Nita and I came back to find her, essentially, dead.

But tonight, in the midst of trying to calm my body down and keep the adrenaline from really flowing, I told my son about my deepest, darkest, toughest, most-hidden damage.

When Grandma Nita died I chased a firetruck. It turned the wrong way and I wasn't sure how they would come back to help Grandma Nita. And now my body sometimes does a thing where it acts like I'm back on that day.

The day Grandma Nita died.

Grandma Nita died.

My mom died. And I'm your mom.

It's ok for them to see that I'm human. I don't think I'm ready for them to realize that I am mortal.

Brea's sweet potato, black bean, quinoa...thing

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 20:52:00 +0000

Posting this here because I get asked for it frequently. It's just one of those things I made up. I always use a jar of black beans that we cooked from dry, only for the sodium level.

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes
cumin
chili powder
coriander
a can of black beans
2TBSP chipotle in adobo, whizzed or finely chopped.
1 cup quinoa
tortillas
feta

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes (or smaller)
3. In a bowl, coat the sweet potatoes with oil (I like safflower, but vegetable would work), and spices.
4. Roast in the oven until soft and slightly browned (check every 15 minutes or so)
5. Rinse the quinoa very well in a strainer. It will be bitter if not rinsed well.
6. In a medium-sized pot, bring 1.25 cups of water and the 1 cup of quinoa to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20minutes.
7. When the quinoa is done, add the chipotle in adobo and black beans, mix together.
8. Serve on tortillas with feta cheese on top.

21

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 13:44:00 +0000

21 year ago today. That seems impossible. But it has been 21 years since my world was rocked and my soul shaken by the sudden, unexpected, traumatic death of my mother.

21 years later and I know she would be proud of me. She'd be happy with the life I've built and who I've become. She'd be grateful for those who stepped into the unfillable void - teachers, friends, family - and guided me through the lowest and most difficult time of my life, when I sometimes wasn't sure I wanted to keep going.

Her death tore my life and my family apart. 21 years later, I still think of her every day. Sometimes it's happy thoughts (I still picture her laughing her memorable laugh and see those fillings in her teeth); sometimes they're bittersweet (I haven't managed to recall the sound of that laugh for years, except when its echo comes out of my own mouth); and sometimes they are full of stinging grief (how did my mother parent through particular phase? How sad for my children that they will never meet her.).

21 years. My grief can legally drink now.

30 Days of Gratitude: Friends and Family

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:27:00 +0000

I got behind. No surprise. I've been keeping busy with a sick husband, spending some more time with the kids since the show ended, studying (and being completely overwhelmed by one class in particular), and trying to get my house back in order. But here I am, catching up for the last 8 days! It's like a Hanukkah of Gratitude!

Day 8: The Beast
How could I not start with the guy who officially recruited me onto Team Carlson? This partner of mine, who shares my vision and my values in life and whose happiness is intertwined with my own. I'm proud of him, grateful for him, and will happily argue with him (in both the intellectual/philosophical and emotional/marital varieties) for the rest of our lives. He keeps me solid, I keep him from becoming a hermit. It's a match made in Oberlin.

Day 9: Bean, my first-born
This. Kid. This boy who unflinchingly wore a leopard print skirt and football jersey to his first day of school in a new town. This amazing soul who told me his classmates would "get over it" when they kept asking him if he was a boy or a girl, and whether he was wearing pants or leggings (leggings, of course! Metallic "armor" leggings!). This boy who, as a baby, taught me to be flexible while also demonstrating why sleep-deprivation is used as a form of torture. He has been an incredible teacher to me. I've learned how to be his mom, how not to give a fuck when people stare, how to roll a furious child into a blanket burrito to calm him down, how to pick my battles, how important listening is, and so much more. I'm so grateful that I get to be his mom.

Day 10: A-Train, my baby
And, of course, this kid. My favorite photo-bomber, my shadow, my buddy, my little ham. He loves to snuggle, and hugs me around the neck to tell me I'm the best mommy ever. He likes routine, unless it involves not being allowed to watch videos. And he doesn't know his letters but he can spell "poop" gleefully. A-Train and Bean are incredibly different people, so I have the honor of learning from both of them. This guy is so laid back (in the context of being 4 years old) and so sweet. Where Bean often pushes the limits and forces me to find the sort of self-confidence in my mothering that he seemingly possesses in all things, A-Train goes with the flow and builds me up (only occasionally tearing me back down!). And his throaty laugh that is almost a cackle? It might be my favorite sound in the whole world.

Days 11, 12, 13, and 14: Very Important Meetings
One great thing about having kids is that, when you move, you can be plopped right into a community of fellow moms. Don't get me wrong, I love my child-free friends and relish the times I can go out and forget I have Y chromosomes. But this group of ladies? They are already part of my joy and sanity in our new town. I can already call them up and say "I'm lonely. Have lunch with me and A-Train?" I can ask for childcare, and they can trust me to love on their kids in the same way. Together, we have turned 4 bushels of apples into apple sauce (an impressive feat!), crocheted/tried to learn so we can make blankets for young new mothers and their babies, figured out why I lost my appetite and a fairly scary amount of weight (it's a medication), soothed children, laughed, cried, and stripped in front of over a thousand people (well, just two of us did that). This picture was taken after we had a moment and ended up in a group hug. So, from left to right, I'm grateful for Carrie, Mindy, Gwen, and Rebekah (who is missing from the photo) and our very important meetings.

Day 15: Mom
Though, obviously, I wish she'd been alive longer - or were still alive - I'm grateful for the 13-and-a-half years I had this woman mothering me. She gave me a solid start, and certainly influences my own mothering. Despite the trauma and drama it relates to, I'm grateful she is my mother.

30 Days of Gratitude: Behind-the-Scenes and Oxytocin

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 18:29:00 +0000

I love you...a bushel and a peck...

30 Days of Gratitude, Day 6: Behind-the-Scenes

Take back your mink...

When I auditioned for Guys and Dolls in September, I was really unsure whether there was a role for me. I told the folks doing the casting that I would do anything they asked - including play in the pit orchestra instead of being on stage - and they cast me as a Hot Box Girl. A dancer. What?!?

I'm so glad that I trusted their casting decision and, especially, that I got to work with a wonderful choreographer who made a whollllllllle bunch of non-dancers look amazing. The costume designer came along and made us look a perfect combination of adorable, ditzy, and sexy and the director gave us the latitude to have a little subplot in our scenes. Our first two shows were to full houses and our last two are sold out! I've had a blast and I will be sad when it's over. I'm really grateful for this opportunity to return to performing and thrilled to have been pushed fairly far our of my comfort zone.

This Teenage Mutant Photobomber is a master snuggler.

30 Days of Gratitude, Day 7: Oxytocin
I wonder if I'm an oxytocin junky. But who doesn't love snuggles, right? One thing I'm looking forward to when the show ends is snuggling A-Train to sleep at least a few nights a week. I'm planning to do homework and studying during the bedtime hour, but will hopefully get some sweet preschooler snugglage in moreso than I have been over the past month or so!

30 Days of Gratitude: My own resourcefulness

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 21:25:00 +0000

30 Days of Gratitude, Day 4: My own resourcefulness:It is a rather hard-won quality, but I am commonly described as "resourceful." Today I am grateful for all the times I had to make crazy shit work because it means I might be able to make crazy shit work again.

Bean is sick and will likely not go to school tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am sitting in on a class that I started more than halfway through the semester, and don't attend the lab for...so I'm rather determined not to miss any classes. The Beast teaches at the same time. I need to make some childcare magic happen!

Also, I voted today. And I'm grateful for all the women (and men) who came before me to give me the right to do so.

And now let's just call me a day ahead on this 30 days of gratitude deal...

30 Days of Gratitude, Day 5: My right to vote

30 Days of Gratitude: Avocados

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 18:09:00 +0000

photo credit

30 Days of Gratitude, Day 3: AvocadosWhat's not to be thankful for with this amazing fruit? They've been one of my favorite foods since I was a kid, and Albuquerque completely spoiled me with their regional affordability.

I found them on sale here this week, which means I ate one on its own for breakfast (and my having an appetite for breakfast is a minor miracle these days - all hail the avocado!) and then created my lunch around eating another.

Lunch was mashed avocado with spicy pepper jelly mixed in, on fresh-cooked tortillas with some leftover quinoa. Delicious, nutritious, and quick!

Oh, Avocado. How I love thee...

30 Days of Gratitude: Our Year in Albuquerque

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 22:21:00 +0000

Hot Air Balloons getting ready to launch at Mass Ascension (Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta)!

30 Days of Gratitude, Day 2: Our Year in AlbuquerqueTechnically it lasted less than a year (11 months), but living in ABQ was generally wonderful. I had a fractured and otherwise messed up foot the entire time we were there so I didn't get to run/exercise as normal and my weight reached heights it has only seen in pregnancy, but it was still a place I will think of fondly.

I lived in El Paso, Texas, until I was 14. Albuquerque and El Paso (and Texas and New Mexico) are definitely different places with varied quirks and cultures, but being back in the Southwest was a special thing to share with my little family. (And they have Taco Cabana in ABQ...)

We had mountains in our vista, heard Spanish regularly, ate fantastic food, enjoyed a relatively mild winter, learned about cultures we had never encountered before directly from people wanting to share their heritage and traditions, and felt a bit less stressed over finances. I got to see a friend who'd moved from Indiana regularly, and managed to meet some wonderful people who I remain in touch with (thank you, Facebook!). The kids and I could decide to go to the wonderful zoo/bonatical garden/aquarium at the last minute after Bean got out of school - it was a 15-minute drive from our house! We don't seem to be big city people, but Albuquerque was just big enough.

As it's getting cold and gray here, I definitely miss ABQ!

30 Days of Gratitude: Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 14:45:00 +0000

A contemplative scene in our Albuquerque backyard last fall

I've been rather contemplative lately. Probably because that's part of my natural state, and I feel like I'm finally returning to it after more than two years of not exercising due to injuries and high degrees of uncertainty due to the nature of The Beast's career. The lack of exercise, especially, has had me reeling. But I am finally starting to look and feel like me again!

I've remembered over the past couple of months how much I love being busy and, in contrast, just how mind-numbing being All Mom, All The Time can be for me. Not always, and I wouldn't change the choices I have made, but I'm thrilled to be expressing other parts of myself again. I'm really happy. I'm not sure I have been so happy for awhile. I'm downright bubbly again!

I'm taking two classes and sitting in on a third, all in preparation for sitting the exam to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. So far I'm on track to take the exam during the summer of 2016! I'm also singing and dancing in a musical, though I never would have considered myself any kind of dancer before. I'm playing in a chamber orchestra, too. And considering giving some flute lessons again.

I'm out of the house, preparing for performances, making music, socializing outside my roles as mother and wife for the first time since Bean was born. I've also got a wonderful group of mom friends and we have productive meetings at least once a week (have you ever made 19 gallons of apple sauce in a day?!? We have!), so I'm not completely abandoning my children or eschewing that part of my identity! And The Beast and I have been able to squeeze in some time together, too.

Me and my Dinoboys yesterday - Halloween fun!

With all this introspection going on, I thought I'd participate in the 30 Days of Gratitude this year, and do it via my blog. The musical goes up this week, so wish me luck posting every day...I'll do the best I can!

Day 1: Happiness
Yesterday I was reveling in all the good things in my life and got to thinking about the moment I chose happiness. After Mom's death, I just wanted the pain of her loss to end. I have recently been rereading my teen journals (I am very slowly compiling them into something of a memoir), revisiting the anguish that had me begging G-d for relief and contemplating suicide.

Then one winter day - either my junior or senior year of high school - as I walked up a snowy hill to my boarding school dorm, I thought "I'm done with the thoughts of suicide. I'm sticking around. I don't want to live and be miserable, so I suppose I should figure out how to be happy."

For awhile, it was a conscious choice to find joy and to be happy. Along came college with adult freedoms that matched the weighty adult responsibilities, choices, experiences and circumstance I'd had for years. When I did The Heart Project on campus at the very end of my time there, several friends were stunned to learn I didn't come from a stable home (to say the least). College was the time when choosing happiness became easy. Happiness would find me. It was not - is not - constant (BORING!), but I had and have enough perspective to appreciate that the tough parts make the good ones that much better.

Reading my journals from so long ago, my happiness seems like a miracle. So today I'm grateful simply for my happiness.

Soapnuts

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 14:46:00 +0000

Since mid-September, I've been doing our laundry with soapnuts instead of detergent. I've heard about soapnuts for years and was always highly skeptical. How could a dried berry effectively wash my clothes?

But a good friend of mine had used them - for clothes as well as cloth diapers - for two years with great success. We did quick math on the price per load and estimated it at $.08, which is ridiculously low. As frugal as I am, I couldn't pass up giving them a try and I'm so glad I did!

I bought one pound of Soapnuts from NaturOli. It came with a cotton pouch to put the berries in during the wash, as well as a sample of their 18x concentrated laundry soap, which I used to wash A-Train's wool covers. Now that I know I like them and find them effective, I only wish I'd bought at least the 2lb package that includes multiple cotton pouches - fishing the berries out of one load to immediately start another is my least favorite part of using soapnuts!

The soapnuts are really easy to use. You put five or six in the cotton wash bag and, if you're washing with hot water and you know the berries are fresh you can just toss them in the washer.

If you've already used the berries for a couple loads, or you are washing with cold or warm water, it takes an extra step. To check that the berries are still suds'ing (yes, the berries make SUDS!), put them in a jar of water and shake. If you see a good number of bubbles, they're still usable. And if you're going to do a cold load, soak the nuts in hot water in that same jar for a few minutes. I keep a jar on top of the dryer and I usually do a hot load first, so I don't have to worry about how long it's soaked between loads - I just shake to check for suds and throw them back into the washer all soaked from the previous load. When they're no longer producing suds, I throw them in our compost.

Soapnuts are fine going through the dryer, too. Which is why having only one wash bag that I have to fish out to start another load is a little annoying!

The only other complaint I have about the soapnuts is that occasionally the wash bag opens and the berries are amidst the laundry. Sometimes I find little pieces of them in the clean laundry. But they don't stain, they're not dusty or oozy. It's like finding a nutshell in the laundry; just pick it up and throw it away. I have taken to tying a knot in the drawstrings of the wash bag, and that helps.

So, one month in, I'd recommend soapnuts!

Two decades.

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sat, 16 Aug 2014 06:07:00 +0000

Though I feel I am in a good place this year, I sit here in tears after writing this post. I also feel compelled to post links to some of the other posts about my mother and her death in order to provide background for new readers (we've moved again and made new friends!) and to again encourage even my young friends to care for their hearts and their health in general.

20 years ago, maybe right about now, I crawled into bed with my mother. She admonished me for staying up late and sleeping in all summer. Tomorrow would be my first day of eighth grade; my first Tuesday of before-school flute sectionals with our new band director; my first day of volleyball practice.

It would turn out to be the first day of my life without Mom.

20 years later, there is still a space in my heart that nothing can ever fill and I'm positive I don't want it gone. I will miss her for the rest of my life. I will miss her on behalf of my husband, my children, even my in-laws who were not lucky enough to know the love and laughter of my mother. I will miss her, and in my best moments I will be glad for it.

This year I am finding a lot of gratitude for the 13 years, 7 months, 7 days, and handful of hours I had with her. Somehow, I have come through her death and the ensuing chaos of my adolescence and found that adulthood feels like a happy ending in progress. I have to give her credit for the foundation she gave me.

Two decades since she died, and I wonder if it really has been twenty years without her. Sure, she isn't physically here. I can't turn to her for advice or a kick in the pants or a shoulder to cry on when things are less-than-ideal. But her influence lives on in so many ways.

So here's to more than 13 years. And to all the firsts I had with my mom in the flesh, and all those I had and continue to have with her in my heart.

Tomorrow I will honor her by treating myself to a massage and enjoying a dinner party with my husband.

Rest in peace, Mom. You did good. I am grateful and proud to call you my mom.

Diane's 5-Grain Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 22:15:00 +0000

If you loved Diane's Whole Wheat Bread, you should try this 5-grain variation! It is hearty without being too dense. My kids love this bread just as much as the whole wheat bread, so I decided to make it last week because I was running low on bread flour!

Yes, those loaves are cooling on top of my washing machine (which is in my much-hated kitchen); I was also running a little low on counter space (as always, hence my kitchen hatred).

The bread slices up really well. My mother-in-law also makes these into dinner rolls, and I think that may be my favorite!

The method is essentially identical to the whole wheat bread. You might want to check out The Beast's videos on kneading and loaf shaping if you haven't already.

So here's Diane sharing her recipe with a couple notes from me, mostly because I didn't have all the ingredients and made a couple substitutions

Diane’s Five Grain Bread

This recipe makes four loaves of bread and is a staple food in our household. My husband grew up eating bread every day and at every meal. He still does! He loves this recipe. It is a variation of my Whole Wheat Bread recipe with more complex flavors. It is a very hearty, yet finely textured bread that is great for sandwiches, toast, or made into dinner rolls. Once again, the inspiration for it comes from The Tassajara Bread Book.

I raise my bread in an oven that has been heated to a low temperature, 75 to 100 degrees, and then turned off. Any temperature above that will kill the yeast, and the bread will not rise.

Here’s how to make the bread:

Heat the oven to 75 degrees, and then turn it off. In a very large stainless steel or ceramic bowl, add the ingredients below to make a sponge. The sponge, when completed, will be beatable and look like a thick mud. You will need a two gallon capacity bowl. The bowl size matters! If your bowl is too small, the sponge will bubble over the top and end up on the bottom of your oven. Take it from me, this is not fun to clean up!

Stir together until yeast is completely dissolved:

6 cups warm water

2 T. dry yeast --- I use Red StarYeast. (I get it in a jar and store it in the fridge after it is opened.)

½ cup of honey

Add and stir in, one cup at a time, 7 cups of flour:

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup oat flour (Bob’s Red Mill makes this)

1 cup rye flour (I substituted spelt flour)

½ cup soy flour (Bob’s Red Mill) (I substituted millet flour)

½ cup cornmeal

Beat the dough about 100 times. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel, and raise the sponge for one hour. The dough will be bubbling due to the yeast activity when you take it out.

Remove the sponge from the oven. Stir it down, folding in the following ingredients as you go:

¾ cup vegetable oil --- I use safflower or canola (I use olive)

2 T. salt

Add and stir in one cup at a time, 7 more cups of flour:

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup oat flour

1 cup rye flour (still subbed spelt flour)

½ cup soy flour (still subbed millet flour)

½ cup cornmeal

Knead on a well- floured surface, adding more flour as needed. The dough will start out very sticky, and as you add more flour it will form into a ball. Flour your hands and push the dough down and forward, turning it a ¼ turn each time, until the ball of dough is elastic and shiny. Kneading usually takes me 5 minutes or so.

Re-heat the oven to 75 degrees, and then turn it off. Wash out and dry your bowl, and then rub oil in it. Place the ball of dough, top side down, into the bowl. Flip the ball over so that the oiled side is up. Cover with a cloth. Raise in the oven for 50 minutes.

Remove the bowl from the oven, and punch down the dough with your fist several times. Cover with a cloth. Re-heat oven to 75 degrees again, and then turn it off. Raise in the oven for 40 minutes.

Now to shape the dough! Remove the bowl from the oven and punch the dough down. Divide it into 4 balls. Let them rest on a floured surface for 5 minutes. Shape the balls into 4 loaves. Do this by kneading and turning the dough about 5 or 6 times. Roll up the dough into a log shape, then turn it over and pinch the seam together all the way along it.

Brea has made of video of The Beasst showing how he forms the bread into loaves. A great tutorial! You can find it here.

Use butter or oil to coat the bottom and sides of the loaf baking pans. (Brea and I use glass loaf pans.) Place loaves seam side down into the pans and cover with a towel. Re-heat the oven to 75 degrees again, and then turn it off. Raise the loaves for 20 minutes. Remove loaves from oven. You are now ready to bake the bread!

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake the loaves until golden brown on the tops and sides. Baking in my oven takes about 55 minutes. If you are using metal pans, bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes.

Remove the loaves from the oven and let them cool for about 5 minutes. Turn the loaves out of their pans and cool them on a wire rack.

Then eat and enjoy!

This bread freezes well and makes great sandwiches and toast. The dough can also be formed into dinner rolls. Each ball of dough makes one loaf of bread or 12 rolls. I bake my rolls on sturdy cookie sheets that have sides all around. One sheet can hold 24 rolls. I bake the rolls at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Knees out

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 01:58:00 +0000

Guess who's running again, and looking super dorky doing it? THIS GIRL!!!

A few months ago, I got a cortisone injection in my foot. Afterwards, I was very cautious about starting to run again - or doing anything else that might injure my foot. A couple weeks after the injection, it was feeling great. I was finally able to stand around the house without pain, so I started walking. I started with a quarter mile and worked up to 3 miles.

After the new year, I saw a physical therapist again. She cleared me to run a minute at a time, and I've been working up from there.

She also analyzed my gait, from which I got some very good news: my gait isn't all that funky. Meaning what led to the surgery wasn't the way I was running, but really was the shape of the head of my femur. And that means my physical therapist doesn't expect to see me injured so severely again! Cheers for no more surgery!!!

What little I am cleaning up about my gait is what is holding me back from running more/further/longer, but that is ok by me. Every time I have tried to get back to running since my hip surgery almost 17 months ago, I have ended up with a new injury. I'm cool taking it slow and re-training my brain and my various muscles to run correctly!

What I'm changing about my gait is two-fold:
1. On my right side (where I had hip surgery), the muscles around my hip don't always fire completely right, and my right knee falls slightly inward. Occasionally my knees even knock together (but it's entirely the fault of that right side - the left side looks fine). This creates a whole chain reaction that ends with my right foot being whipped around, sometimes kicking myself in the left calf, and generally putting unnecessary straight on my hip and knee.

2. I land a little harder on my left (non-surgical side, formerly stress fractured) foot, and in slow motion video it appears I'm actually over-striding and heal-striking on that foot while landing mid-foot on the right. My physical therapist likened this to a realllllllly subtle limp - like I'm possibly subconsciously still protecting my right hip.

How I'm changing my gait is with cues and counting. The cue for my knee is simple: "knees out." And it works! In video of me on a treadmill, you can tell even without sound when my physical therapist tells me to start cuing.

For the uneven stride, I'm just counting in my head in a monotone and thinking musically about a fairly long, unaccented meter (usually 11/4). My musical background comes in handy again!

I'm running and walking in intervals, so one running interval I'm to cue "knees out" and on the next I'm working to even out my stride. This is fine when I'm running 1 or 2 minutes at a time. I'm currently at 4 minutes running with a 1 minute walk break...and my brain just cannot stay focused on these things for that long. Running is usually when I most let my mind wander!

This week, I got creative. I did the usual cuing for my first two intervals, and then I came up with a funny way to combine them: military cadence.

So this is what is going through my head while I run:

I don't know but I've been told (repeat)
It's not that bad getting old (repeat)
Knees out... Knees out... KNEES OUT!

If you have any ideas for me to throw in so I can mix things up, keep this fresh, and really solidify a better gait, please share. I'm starting about halfway through the Couch to 5K next week, and once I'm done with that I'm planning to stop the cuing madness and check in with my gait whenever I think of it.

But, the good news is that I am running regularly and without pain! And I'm feeling optimistic enough that I purchased the sunglasses in the picture topping this post. They have interchangeable lenses so that I am ready to run in the bright New Mexico sun, a dust storm or two, and blowing snow next winter...when we'll be living back in Indiana! The Beast got a great job, so off we go this summer!

And since my foot is feeling fine now, I'm getting out with the boys to the zoo and whatnot. I'm looking forward to a little hiking in the mountains before we leave!!

I was happy to see him at the zoo. I think the feeling was mutual.

Diane’s Whole Wheat Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 18:28:00 +0000

You can see a seam at the end of one of my VERY first loaves from back in September, but they came out pretty well!

My husband comes from a line of bakers and bread-lovers. My family of four goes through 3-4 loaves of bread a week, which quickly gets expensive! My mother-in-law (Diane) retired last April, and one of her goals was to start making all of her household's sandwich bread and rolls. She has perfected this whole wheat bread and shared the recipe with me, so I'm now trying to keep up with my family's bread demands by making all of it! The Beast is sort of the nerdy bread expert in the family, so he has helped both Diane and myself learn to shape loaves perfectly. And, in this post, he's going to help you, too!

I will share the recipe, then photos, then videos.

I now double the recipe, so the videos show The Beast dealing with a HUGE batch of dough and getting ready to shape four loaves. The recipe is only for two. And now...here's Diane! (With my comments in green, parentheses, and italics.)

Here is the recipe that I have adapted from The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown. This is the cookbook that I used to learn to make bread when I was in college. It has great tips, illustrations, and is clearly written. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in making bread. When my neighbor Kate and I were both stay at home moms, we started baking bread together once a week. We talked and laughed, the kids played, and everyone enjoyed eating freshly baked bread! We all loved it.

This recipe makes two loaves of bread. It takes about 4 hours from mixing the ingredients to taking the baked loaves out of the oven. But most of that time is spent allowing the dough to rise and bake—it is not 4 hours of work!

I raise my bread in an oven that has been heated to a low temperature, 75 to 100 degrees, and then turned off. Any temperature above that will kill the yeast, and the bread will not rise. (I initially heat my oven, but then I use my oven's light to maintain the temperature for the process. I determined it maintains 87 degrees by placing a jar of water in the lit oven for a few hours and checking the temperature.)

Here’s how to make the bread:

Heat the oven to 75 degrees, then turn it off. In a very large stainless steel or ceramic bowl, add the ingredients below to make a sponge. The sponge, when completed, will be beatable and look like a thick mud. Brea’s bowl capacity is 2 gallons. The bowl size matters! If your bowl is too small, the sponge will bubble over the top and end up on the bottom of your oven. Take it from me, this is not fun to clean up!

Stir together:

3 cups warm water

1 tablespoon dry yeast --- I use Red Star Yeast. (I get it in a jar and store it in the fridge after it is opened.)

¼ cup honey

Stir in, one cup at a time:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 ½ cups unbleached white flour

Beat the dough about 100 times. (I stir it hard with a wooden spoon because I don't have a hand mixer.) Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel, and raise the sponge for one hour. The dough will be bubbling due to the yeast activity when you take it out.

Remove the sponge from the oven. Stir it down, folding in the ingredients as you go:

½ cup vegetable oil --- I use safflower or canola oil (I use olive oil.)

1 ½ tablespoon salt

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 ½ cups unbleached white flour

Knead on a well- floured surface, adding more flour. The dough will start out very sticky, and as you add more flour it will form into a ball. Flour your hands as needed and push the dough down and forward, turning it a ¼ turn each time, until the ball of dough is elastic and shiny. Kneading usually takes me 5 minutes or so. (See video below for tips and tricks from The Beast!)

Re-heat the oven to 75 degrees, then turn it off. Wash out and dry your bowl, and then rub oil in it. Place the ball of dough, top side down, into the bowl. Flip the ball over so that the oiled side is up. Cover with a cloth. Raise in the oven for 50 minutes.

Remove the bowl from the oven, and punch down the dough with your fist several times. Cover with a cloth. Re-heat oven to 75 degrees again, then turn it off. Raise in the oven for 40 minutes.

Now to shape the dough! Remove the bowl from the oven and punch the dough down and divide it into 2 balls. Let them rest on a floured surface for 5 minutes. Shape the balls into 2 loaves. Do this by kneading and turning the dough about 5 or 6 times. Roll up the dough into a log shape, then turn it over and pinch the seam together all the way along it. (See video below for a demonstration of all this!)

Use butter or oil to coat the bottom and sides of the loaf baking pans. (Brea and I use glass loaf pans.) Place loaves seam side down into the pans and cover with a towel. Re-heat the oven to 75 degrees again, then turn it off. Raise the loaves for 20 minutes. Remove loaves from oven. You are now ready to bake the bread!

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake the loaves until golden brown on the tops and sides. Baking in my oven takes about 55 minutes. If you are using metal pans, bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes.

Remove the loaves from the oven and let them cool for about 5 minutes. Turn the loaves out of their pans and cool them on a wire rack.

Then eat and enjoy!

This bread freezes well and makes great sandwiches and toast. (To freeze, we put each loaf into a bread bag or similarly-thick plastic bag, get as much air out as we can, close with a twist-tie, and place in the freezer.)

After you get comfortable with the recipe, you can experiment by substituting in other flours, such as: rye, soy flour, cornmeal, buckwheat, oat flour, or millet. Try substituting small amounts at a time to see how your family likes the different flavors.

This, again, is my first attempt. The crumb (the inside of the bread) comes out perfect for sandwiches! My kids LOVE it!

The sponge before rising in the oven.

The sponge after rising in the oven.

Dough before kneading.

Dough after kneading.

Dough in bowl before rise.

Dough in bowl after rise

Dough punched down before second rise.

Dough after second rise.

Bread!

How to knead the dough!

How to shape the loaves!

Wear Red Friday, February 7th!

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 17:41:00 +0000

I recently wrote a short piece for Bean's school newsletter, and I wanted to share it on my blog as well. Wear red this Friday, February 7th to raise awareness of heart disease in women! Educate yourself and those you love on the risk factors and signs!

I'll never forget my first day of 8^th grade. It was a unique day from the beginning, but I never imagined that my life would be forever changed by the time I went to bed that night. Or that I would sleep in an apartment I had never visited before. I certainly didn't anticipate crying in my sleep or waking up screaming.

My first day of 8^thgrade was August 16, 1994. That was the day my mother – a single parent of two daughters - died of a heart attack while my sister and I watched. I chased the fire truck and led the first responders to my home when they turned the wrong way. My 16-year-old sister stayed with Mom as she lost consciousness.

In the months and years that followed, we learned that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women. It kills 1 in 3 women and more than all forms of cancer combined. We had never imagined heart disease was a threat to our active, vibrant, 45-year-old mother.

Most shocking, though, was that Mom had had symptoms for three months before she died and had reported them to her doctor. As happens to many women, her symptoms were dismissed as emotional in nature. The day she died, she believed she was having a panic attack for almost 16 hours before she passed away.

My sister and I have been involved in the cause of women's heart health for many years now; we don't want any more mothers, sisters, daughters, or friends to die when awareness and advocacy could get them life-saving medical care.

February 7^th is the National Day to Wear Red to raise awareness of heart disease in women. I hope you will join me in dressing conspicuously in red to spread word of your commitment to your heart health and of those you care about.

Before February 7^th, I urge you to visit www.goredforwomen.organd find out about the signs, symptoms, and risk factors of heart attack in women and make plans to talk to your doctor about any concerns you have. Make sure the women in your life know how different a heart attack can look and feel in a woman from how it looks for men. Women often experience fatigue, jaw pain, or even flu-like symptoms when they are having a heart attack. They may not experience chest pain!

I go red to honor my mother and support other women in advocating for their health. I go red for my two little boys so that I may see them graduate from high school, get married, and have families of their own. Will you join me?

Update.

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 18:38:00 +0000

Emotionally, I think I am feeling a little bit better - or at least handling things better - than the last time I wrote. I'm seeing a counselor, and that is helping.

I spent three weeks in a boot for a suspected second metatarsal stress fracture/reaction. I started physical therapy about a week later, but have put the boot back on a few times when things were feeling irritated or weak.

Monday of this week I noted to my physical therapist that a new part of my foot was hurting enough to have forced me off my feet during the day. She treated it for inflammation and off I went. Yesterday (Wednesday) I went back in noting yet a different part of my foot was hurting.

The physical therapist said this could all be things working themselves out - every time something hurts, I subtly change the way I am walk or standing and irritate something else. So what we need to do is get everything calmed down at the same time. She also said that if this spot didn't get better after yesterday's treatment, I should probably get an MRI.

Today I have not been on my feet much, but already that spot (my first tarsal-metatarsal joint) is hurting so badly I have put my boot back on for the first time in over a week.

I'm frustrated. But I'm coping. At this point I'm hoping to get that MRI just to confirm whatever is or isn't going on. I've had varying degrees of foot pain for 6 months now. I just want to know what is going on so we can appropriately treat it and I can MOVE ON!

In other health-related news, my new nephrology team is more aggressive than my previous, and I've started back on drug types I was on when I got pregnant with Bean. I'm currently waiting on test results to make sure the medications aren't killing my liver or any other organ systems. I'm betting (since I was on similar drugs for a decade) that I'm just fine, in which case we'll follow up in three months to determine whether these drugs have done any good (I'm betting not, since I was on them for a decade before and the protein in my urine never dropped to the point they are aiming for...or at all).

If this combination of drugs doesn't work (and I'm assuming it won't, though I hope it will...), I'll do a six-month course of immunosuppressive therapy. That drug will have more severe side-effects, but will almost certainly force my kidney numbers down for as long as I am on them. However, because of the side effects, they will take me off after 6 months and wait to see if my numbers stay low. The hope is that I will go into remission and stay there.

Because I am so stable, I am very much considering the option of putting off the immunosuppressive for a little while (probably 6 months to a year). We don't even know where I would finish the course of immunosuppressive therapy. Though all that would be needed would be blood and urine tests wherever we are located, I have already found getting settled with a new nephrology team to be anxiety-inducing and I'm not sure I want to add months of side-effects and the emotions of finding out whether those side effects were worth it to the process of moving.

And the moving...we are not sure yet whether we are moving again this summer or not. Everything is up in air. We will move again eventually, and we actually hope it is this year because of what that means for The Beast professionally. But who knows.

Dark Cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 00:42:00 +0000

Photo Credit

Today I cried twice in a podiatrist's office, once in a dentist's office, and almost continuously for about 20 minutes in the arms of Bean's P.E. teacher.

Today I realized:
1) that I have reached my breaking point (thank goodness I have a counseling appointment already scheduled for tomorrow)
2) how much I miss Bloomington and my friends there. I feel very alone, isolated, and a little lost here in Albuquerque right now.
3) that Bean's P.E. teacher is even more amazing than I had previously thought (which is saying something, since I was already so impressed with this woman's energy and commitment to her students). She helped me feel a lot less alone, isolated, and lost and I am grateful for the sense that someone local who sees me on a regular basis will know to check just under my smiling veneer.
4) that nitrous oxide works on more than just physical pain and has fewer side effects than alcohol.

A couple days ago, I had my husband block Facebook from our router. I was finding myself staring at Facebook and making myself feel bad about all kinds of things, and I needed to step away. Facebook is such a great tool for connecting with my friends, but I need - at least temporarily - to have a harder time accessing it because I seem to be a glutton for punishment on there, seeking out others' happiness and successes so I can wallow in my current misfortunes, stressors, frustrations, and sadness. And that is neither healthy nor how I choose to face a difficult time in my life.

I have journalled a little over the past few days and am right this minute pondering whether this writing belongs in my journal rather than my blog - but I do need to reach out. Cutting myself off from Facebook, my blog, etc while I am a thousand miles from the people who usually give me in-person support in various ways seems a terrible idea.

Sorry I'm vague, Blogland. I'm still sorting out what is mine to share on the internet - and what I even want to share on the internet. Two more months until this year - unlucky '13 - is over. I don't often pull out the curse words on this blog, but fuck this year. 2013 is an asshole.

I can say that I have yet to really run in 2013. A year without a runner's high. Hell, a year without hiking. A year without going for a walk with my family that didn't end with me icing some part of my body. A year of being chained to a gym if I wanted any exercise (p.s. my hatred for swimming has grown by leaps and bounds. A year ago, it was a mere dislike. Currently, I think I'd rather sit on the couch eating Bon-Bons, and that is totally unlike me! The stationary bikes are not far behind.). Add a move across the country, family stress, illness, an unexpected death that I am still trying to wrap my head around and it's a year of needing to cope and lacking one of my greatest coping techniques.

I regularly focus on what is going well, the ways in which I am blessed, and all the things for which I am thankful. But today that just wasn't enough. Today apparently required lots of tears in embarrassingly public situations. And nitrous oxide.

Thank you, Bully

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:11:00 +0000

Photo Credit: Will Clayton on Flickr

The bully on Bean's bus became an issue again. Yesterday she hit, spit on, and teased my son. An older boy tried to help; he had Bean and the bully's other target move away from the bully and sit with him. The bully followed and crawled under the seat to get to Bean as he sat by the window and the older boy sat by the aisle.

On a day he wore clothes entirely from the boys' department (not that it matters) she asked him teasingly why he was wearing girls' clothes. (To which he responded "first of all, these aren't girls' clothes! And also, there's no such thing as girl clothes! Or boy clothes!")

We've already worked with the school to address the behavior, but I'd also like to thank her.

Thank you, Bully, for bringing my family closer together, for showing me just how resilient my son is, and for giving me a chance to learn from him. Thank you for giving my child the opportunity to witness the awesome example of an older boy who watches out for those who could use a little help. I hope - I deeply hope - that this is a chance for you and your family to feel closer and for you to figure out a bit more of this socializing thing. I know it's tough, and it took me a long time to figure out, too!

My son's self-confidence is completely intact, and possibly strengthened. Thank you. Thank you for the relief of knowing my son is more secure than I ever was, and that his teachers will protect him from emotional injury and take both words and actions very seriously. Thank you for giving him a chance to shine brightly and reflect back at me everything I have ever said to him about compassion and empathy - you have him to thank for my remaining calm.

I am breathing a sigh of relief as my heart is filled with love and respect for my son.

BIG yellow butterflies

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 03:39:00 +0000

I came home from a sewing class tonight and Bean asked me to come snuggle him. As I climbed up into his top bunk he informed me were going to "ask each other questions. Whatever you'd like to know about the other person." I got to go first and my question was "what would you like to know about me?" Apparently that didn't count.

Eventually Grandma Nita came up, and he said "You have a necklace with a picture of you as a kid and a picture of her. I seem to remember that she has your same hair and your same face, but her hair is black." I told him that a lot of people say that about Grandma Nita and me, and he seemed offended that other people had gotten to see her and he hadn't.

I explained that people had known her before she died - people had known her even longer than I had. And lots of people had seen pictures of her.

So he started imagining her and said, "I see her in a white shirt...and a purple skirt with BIG yellow butterflies. I haven't decided on her leggings yet."

Then he asked me more about how she died. I gave the answer I usually give - that her heart stopped working - and he asked "how? How did her heart stop working?" So I described plaque building up and making the tubes where the blood flows too small and eventually maybe a piece broke off and totally blocked the way for the blood. He wanted to know more about where this "stuff" came from, and I said it was really hard to know - it might have been something she ate, it might been something her body was making.

"And then her whole body couldn't work anymore because blood couldn't get there? That's really sad." Yes, sweetheart. It was sad. I really wish you could have met her.

I love that kid so much. I love that he imagines his late grandma in a purple skirt with BIG yellow butterflies. She loved butterflies, and I once spent a good portion of my babysitting money buying her a butterfly pendant - it's currently in my jewelry box.

Bean and the Bully

noreply@blogger.com (Contentedly Crunchy) — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 01:40:00 +0000

So there is/was a bully on Bean's bus. He didn't tell me for a few days. One night at bedtime, we were snuggling up and he'd already shown me his latest and greatest Lego creations so I started asking him questions about his day, his life, and his interests. During previous bedtime talks, I had asked him how school was, and he raved about it. I knew from other talks that there had been a couple kids at school who had said something about his Hello Kitty backpack, but it had been a single happening and not a big deal - I had this seconded by the teachers. He was happy, secure, and confident.

This particular night, I asked how the bus was going, rather than about school. And he said there was a girl who kept bothering him about his backpack. He said he'd ignored her, but she just kept bothering him. That's the word he used - "bother." Almost in the same breath, he told me "also, the bus is really loud in the morning. It's so loud that it makes the thoughts go out of the my head."

We talked at length about what was going on. Bean was not the only kid being bothered. I told him "she is probably feeling unhappy or out of control, and making people sad makes her feel better. Like powerful or something." He grinned and said "well, she doesn't have any power over me because I wasn't sad!"

He was purely annoyed, which wasn't a reaction I had expected...but it was perfect. He wasn't upset, but he didn't want it to continue. He showed concern for the other kid being bullied - who did cry. And then he started thinking of ways we should address it. At first he wanted his dad to get on the bus and talk to her, but I explained that was probably too confrontational and would likely make things worse.

We talked about going to the teachers, and that he could do that immediately or he could wait and see if it continued. I offered to talk to his teachers, but he wanted to do it by himself after waiting a few more days. A few days later, the girl was apparently under a seat on the bus hitting another kid's feet and ended up hitting her own head and crying. Bean said he tried to make sure she was ok. (And I decided I needed to talk to the teacher to be sure the little girl was safe.)

These small incidents seem so huge when I think about my 5-year-old navigating all this new territory largely by himself. But I am so glad I let him go out there feeling confident in his own choices as well as prepared for those who question his taste. If I'd sent him with a boring backpack, I wouldn't have gotten to see his compassion, his independence, or just how solid his confidence is! Or I may have even undermined that confidence - if I won't even let him pick out a backpack, what choices can he make?