I was buying a t-shirt on a website from a store I’d never purchased from before, and I wasn’t sure of sizing. I looked at their chart, realized I didn’t know my own measurements, got out the tape measure, and panicked. These numbers seem a little big. Were they always this big? When I weighed myself in December, was I this size then? Or have I gained a hundred gazillion pounds in the last three weeks? Shouldn’t I weigh myself to find out what horrible damage I have managed to inflict on my unwitting body? The scale will tell me what has happened!

I actually avoided checking the scale for three days, but then I was finally so overwhelmed with curiousness that I broke it out.

I had lost six pounds since December. In three weeks.

And thus I have illustrated for myself why the resolution was a good idea. So apparently things are fine, and the scale didn’t help me lose weight, in fact I’m apparently doing just fine on my own. I kicked the scale back under the cabinet, and have decided that I won’t look again. Let’s see if I can still make it the rest of the year.

The thing is, usually when I finally get around to making this announcement, then the phase is over and the next day I’ve got twenty things to report. So in case that happens, here is the note beforehand warning that I might be busy for awhile. All is well! All is very well. I just don’t have a lot of time to write.

If you have questions or need to know anything (like, what could you possibly need to know?), just comment, or send me email, or carrier pigeon, or something of that nature. Except maybe not the pigeon.

And now that I’ve said that I’m taking a break, look for me to write twelve posts in the next two days.

But ALL WAS NOT LOST. I was on the treadmill for about ten minutes before I decided that the pains I was getting were strong enough to try something else, so I moved onto the floor and began doing some light aerobics, which for some reason didn’t hurt. I’d love to know why dancing around the room didn’t hurt, but the treadmill did – I’m sure it’s some kind of alignment issue. When running, I’m facing forward and moving everything along one axis, while the light dancing I was doing was, well, I won’t embarrass myself here, but let’s just say that more than one axis was involved. I got about 20 minutes of exercise in that way, which felt good.

They say exercise makes your brain work more better. HAHA. I’m not sure how true that is, but I did have a flash of inspiration while moving along my many axis: wall charts. I recently bought a large white pad of paper that has post-it glue on one side, allowing you to effortlessly adhere it to the wall. This is great when your six-year-old is an artist, but it also works great when you suddenly realize that having a list of exercises on the wall would be really inspiring:

On the left is a list of muscle groups, and on the right is a list of those groups, with corresponding exercises underneath them. I haven’t finished that list yet, but the idea was to be able to go into my workout/library/ukelele/massage room (I am hugely fortunate to have a large room that I basically get to do whatever I want in), and be able to do  few minutes of warm ups, and then pull from the list an exercise for each muscle group. There are 8 groups, so I’ll likely try to do 4 a day, and do workout nearly every day. Keep in mind I’m very out of shape, so I’ll be taking it really easy; “workout” won’t be an hour of hard-core weight lifting or anything.

I’ll let you know how useful this becomes. I’m going to go crack open a few more fitness books and write down more exercises on the wall.

This past week has actually gone pretty well, and I can say that now (knock on wood) because it appears to be over; rain is falling now, that glorious unfrozen water, and the snow is (HURRAH!) melting. Ollie and I took a short walk up and down the block, noting that there are more cars everywhere (everyone drove home after being away?), and the street is slushy but workable. A big sigh of relief came over me.

I’ve gotten a few friendly notes from people asking if I’ve been running – no, I haven’t. Running also triggers panic attacks, and I’m already fighting off the anxiety from the snow. I’ve had three attacks this week, one each night I went to bed and it was still frozen out. On top of that, a lot of free-floating anxiety. I wish I could control this. I would if I could. But since I can’t, I do what I can to avoid triggering it, which has meant that I didn’t exercise this week.

Now that it’s melting, however, I’m ready to get back on the treadmill. I’ll do that tonight and let you know what happens.

I’m feeling okay about doing this, but not very hopeful that I’ll be able to run much of this event, if at all. I still can’t even imagine running a mile, let alone three. I’m nervous about race day, even though it’s still 10 weeks away. I keep reminding myself that right now, even walking that distance would be a huge accomplishment for me. That’s what helps me keep going.

In the meantime, I walked and jogged for 20 minutes, and an hour later I’m very sore. And not at all whiny, in case you were wondering.

I’m still on the treadmill upstairs, using a novel Couch to 5k (which I keep misspelling as COUGH to 5k) application that works great. I’m walking and jogging barefoot, which works fine the first ten minutes, until I get a zingy pain in the arch of my left foot, at which point I either put on the flattest sneakers I own (Converse – my Tom’s were awful for this), or slow way down – which is hard to do because it isn’t like I’m that speedy already.

I’ve got my iPad open in front of me (yes, iPhone and iPad on the treadmill, at the same time), with my Kindle app open to Barefoot Running Step by Step. According to Roy, if you’re running right, nothing should hurt, but it also can take weeks to get used to this, so I’m going to give this barefoot thing more time before I quit.

I have a tendon in my hamstring that is giving me trouble. I noticed it before I started this project, a twanging on my hip bone every time I took a step. I can identify where in the step it happens. It isn’t something I can avoid, unless I stop walking entirely, which seems an impractical and perilous solution (although it would be fun to hire a butler). I have ten more PT appointments left in my prescription, so tomorrow I’ll call them up and ask for an appointment to see if there are exercises I can do to help whatever is causing the issue.

As many of you know, I’m a guest blogger at the Against the Wind Blog, run by the Dick Beardsley Foundation and in support of the Virtual 5k Race the Foundation puts on every year. This is my latest post. You can read it at their website directly, or here:

I wish I had progress to report, but this the lazy reality: I spent most of Christmas break fighting stress and avoiding exercise of any sort. I ran exactly twice, which I fully admit is pitiful by nearly any standard. By way of explanation, I want to talk about something that I didn’t mention in my last post.

I have panic disorder, which is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by panic attacks.

Panic attacks are, in a nutshell, a collection of terrifying physical and mental sensations that can hit a person in a series of intense waves, often suddenly and without warning, but also often triggered by certain things. I’ve been waffling about whether to bring this up in the guest blog, but the fact is, this information is already in my regular blog, and it has a large and important impact on my exercise and fitness program. If I didn’t talk about it, you’d be only be getting half the story.

The attacks that affect me began after the birth of my son in 2002, a birth that was so harrowing I was diagnosed with PTSD afterward, or post-traumatic stress disorder. A few months later I moved from periods of intense anxiety to having full-blown panic attacks, although it would take a few months (and many trips to the ER for heart-related issues) for us to really understand what they were.

It’s nearly ten years later, and I’m still coping with them. I tend to do much better during spring and summer, when we have a lot of light (yes, even in Seattle!), but much poorer in the fall and winter. My doctor has no explanation for this save perhaps for plummeting vitamin D levels, which is why I supplement now, and that does seem to help a bit.

How does this affect running? I haven’t exercised regularly in years in large part because exercise tends to bring on attacks. When my heart gets pumping, it often starts exhibiting an erratic beat, which easily triggers an attack (I’ve done a stress test and been checked out by a cardiologist). Even when the actual running seems to go well, when I stop exercising my heart rate will stay high, and that will trigger an attack.

In books about anxiety they will often state that a panic attack “lasts approximately 5-15 minutes.” Mine regularly last 90 minutes, and sometimes longer. It’s a huge distraction from life, and even after one is over I still have to cope with the after-effects, namely exhaustion and a low-level nervousness that might have a second wave. It’s kind of like the opposite of an after-glow.

All this is to accomplish two things: one, to reach out to those of you with anxiety disorders. You aren’t alone. It’s a quiet sort of illness, isn’t it? It’s surprisingly easy to hide, and often very private, and yet terrible to cope with – and so many of us do it alone. And second, to help readers understand why I did so little these past two weeks in the way of running. Christmas was so stressful; the idea of risking an attack by getting on the treadmill felt like a truly unreasonable thing to ask of myself (and of my family, who have to fill in for me while I’m recovering from one).

But look! What do we have here? JANUARY. That’s right. January is here! A full, new month is just around the corner, and with it comes several months without a major holiday. In other words: it’s time to boogie. Or run. Heck, maybe boogie while I run.

Here’s hoping everyone had a happy holiday, however you celebrate the lovely season, and a very happy new year! A new leaf is about to turn over. I’ll catch you on the flip side!

We aren’t  as good about this as Beth Terry is (my personal plastic-free hero), but we’re on the way. As you can see there are still several plastic containers there; mustard (I couldn’t find regular mustard in a glass jar, just the Grey Poupon, and I can’t buy that stuff since I don’t have a chauffeur and my fake British accent is alarmingly poor), and unfortunately I buy a lot of Bob’s Red Mill stuff which does come in plastic. The herbs were a mistake – I was on auto-pilot and it wasn’t until I even got home and uploaded this photo did I remember that OH YEAH, they have glass-bottled spices too. Next time.

The gluten-free focaccia is also plasticized, but I just want you wheat-eaters out there to think about all the delicious things you get to eat, and then while you’re doing that, I’m going to run away with this bread, which is really, really good.

So then I’m standing there with a knife and apple in one hand and using my other hand to try and flick these stickers off my finger into the garbage. And we have like two or three stickers for every apple, it’s like one to say APPLE, and then another to say ORGANIC, and then another to say YOU WILL NEVER GET ALL THESE STICKERS OFF JUST GIVE UP NOW AND GO BACK TO EATING CHEESEBURGERS.

(I’m kidding.)

Tonight I made Black Bean Burgers (pg. 86) and Cajun Home Fries (pg 30).

First, the burgers: Oh wow, they were so good. I honestly didn’t think they had enough stuff in them, I figured they might be boring. They weren’t boring, they were delicious! I put them on gluten-free focaccia bread and used gluten-free bread crumbs in the recipe.

But the best part is, my nine-year-old son adored them, and I’ve been working so hard at finding things he’ll eat. He said, and I not kidding, “These are the best burgers I’ve ever had!” I was stunned. We all were, you could hear crickets for a few seconds at the dinner table. “Really?” I asked him. “Yes! Whatever these are made of is really good.”

And then the adults all changed the subject really quick so that he wouldn’t hear the word BEANS. Heaven preserve us.

Next the Cajun Home Fries: Just NOM. Here again, I’m not yet used to eating low-fat, so it seemed wrong that we weren’t covering these babies with oil before baking, but Lindsay was right, they were still delicious. The kids even loved them, although they said they were “too spicy” which was my fault: have you ever noticed that cayenne pepper and paprika look a lot alike? I KNOW, RIGHT? Once reassured that next time the potatoes wouldn’t be as spicy, she also declared the dinner a total success.

I just made a meal that pleased three adults (two of which are unrepentant meat-eaters), a nine-year-old who believes that “food” is either a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or bacon, and a six-year-old who last night told me she didn’t like beans because they taste “foggy”.

I know that pictures of food look better when someone isn’t halfway through stuffing their face, but too bad, I was hungry and I forgot to take a “before” shot.

I know, I know, there is mayo on there. BABY STEPS. Hey, at least I’m off meat. Also – that mineral water comes in various flavors, and it’s very tasty. You can get it at Whole Foods for $1.37 a bottle. I go through one a week.

There aren’t very many, and some of them are personal so I won’t be sharing the list, but the one that I wanted to share was this:

For the entire span of 2012, I will not find out my own weight.

This means that I won’t weigh myself at home, and when I go to the doctor’s office I’ll tell the nurse I don’t want to know what the number is when s/he weighs me. I go to a great clinic and I’m confident this won’t be an issue.

Obviously if someone blurts it out, I’ll be annoyed, but that won’t break the resolution. I’m also adding a caveat for any medical issues; in the unlikely event that my doctor feels my weight is a problem, and needs to talk to me about it, then obviously that will happen. I’m not at a high enough weight nor do I have any weight-related illnesses that would make her concerned, and I’m not losing weight at a rate fast enough for her to worry, so I think chances are good that I might actually be able to pull this resolution off.

Why am I doing this? I want a break from the issue, just for a year. It isn’t that I don’t want to lose weight; I would love to. And it isn’t that I think weight is unimportant; I don’t believe that, I believe weigh-related diseases are very real and we should care about how much we weigh, and what effect that might have on our health.

However, I have other commitments right now that are leading me toward better health and fitness, such as learning to run a 5k, learning to cook and eat a plant-based diet (see Lindsay’s great post for why I’m no longer using the word “vegan” if I can help it), taking Tai Chi classes, meditating, and other pursuits. If I’m eating healthy food and getting the exercise I need, then the number on the scale doesn’t matter.

We already know that an increase in fitness is more important than weight loss anyway. Losing weight would be great, but unfortunately we have ample evidence that it isn’t losing weight that’s the problem, it’s keeping it all off for any extended period of time. I’m not kidding, this task is nearly impossible for most people.

And you know what I realized? I’m not that special. I’m not confident I can do what 97% of people can’t do, in large part because I just don’t care that much. No, I don’t particularly like being 40-50 pounds overweight (depending on what table you use), but I’m not going to starve and exercise myself into oblivion just so I can gain back all that plus 50 more, putting me into a weight bracket with virtually guaranteed serious deleterious effects. I refuse to do that to myself.

Not weighing myself for a year is a leap of faith in myself, and I love the way it feels. It means that I trust myself to eat well and exercise, and I trust that whatever my body does this year in response to those things will be okay, acceptable, even welcome. It means I have faith and acceptance in my body, no matter what. At least that’s what I’m saying. Let’s hope I can follow that with action! Or rather, in this case, inaction.

I know what I weighed on December 31st, 2011. Next weigh-in: December 31st, 2012.

I likely won’t make these again anytime soon, but when I do I’ll try it in the oven and see if that makes a difference. I have to say, the leeks in the bowl did make for a lovely photo.

I’m going to try sweet potatoes and broccoli next, although not together. A very nifty feature is that the steamer lets you steam in three different baskets, and each one is protected from the flavors of the other baskets, so you can steam three foods with entirely different flavor profiles and not worry about them getting mixed up.

What else did I discover? Take away all the ethical or environmental reasons for not eating meat and I’m still left with this: I don’t like it. I don’t like the taste or the texture, nor do I enjoy cooking with it. The only way that meat is palatable to me is if it’s breaded and covered in sugar, like Orange Chicken for example, which I haven’t been able to eat in nearly two years after discovering I can’t eat gluten, and isn’t a healthy option anyway.

I really tried with this one. I was convinced for a long time that paleo would save me, despite the fact that whenever I really adhered to the diet I had headaches, was more anxious than ever (I know some people report lower anxiety levels on paleo, but that wasn’t me), and didn’t lose a pound. I could never tolerate the high level of flesh that diet prescribes, neither could I tolerate the fat. Anytime I eat a high-fat meal I get heart palpitations afterward, and it doesn’t matter if that’s animal fat or a healthier fat like coconut or olive oil.

Every time I would look at my paleo plate with all that meat and all those veggies, I would EAT JUST THE VEGGIES. I KNOW, RIGHT? I don’t like vegetables. That’s Hollie’s General Rule #3. I’ve based this whole blog on poking fun at my dislike of vegetables. So imagine my surprise when faced with a plate of beef, salad, and zucchini, I gobble the salad and zucchini and avoid the beef. I’m even bored with bacon. There. I said it.

What I’ve settled on, what seems to make me feel good, is when I eat more fruits and veggies, less fat, and less sugar. That leaves protein: do I eat more meat, or more beans? I’ve got a big pot of vegan chili simmering on the stove right now, so there you go.

1. Unbearable itchiness.
2. Shortness of breath.

What is the DEAL with the itchiness? This is INTENSE, too, it isn’t just mildly uncomfortable, it’s overwhelming. I was indoors, it wasn’t cold, so I know it wasn’t my body hitting the outdoor air or anything. This has happened before, almost always when running and the last time was when I attempted the Couch to 5k program in 2006. It was so bad that when I got home I’d be broken out in hives, and that had never happened to me before. Thank goodness we have the internet, our beloved and trusted source of important medical information.

On an online forum, someone asks my question:

when am working out, especially running exercise, my body itchs so bad that i’d be forced to stop. mostly the abs and thighs itch so bad and when i start scratching, it becomes worst…please help. thanks in advance.

People suggested prickly heat, but I know mine isn’t a heat rash. Someone else suggested that it was just blood circulating, which, I dunno, maybe, but I do other things the get my blood circulating and I don’t break out in hives or feel like I can’t breathe. But then I saw this:

I have this same problem, I will even start itching all over when I am out walking.  I mentioned this to my doctor and her response was that I am out of shape and the reaction is due to the blood circulating.  Well, that is all good and fine but it still happens when I am in better shape.  To make a long story short, I am a nurse and I was talking about it one day to a co-worker when one of the physicians came up to me (he had overheard our conversation) and he told me I was having a histamine reaction and that some people experience this for unknown reasons.  He said if I took an anti-histamine before I walk or work out then I shouldn’t have this problem or it will lessen it’s severity.  Well, he was right, it worked for me.  Now I just take an anti-histamine prior to working out and I am fine.  It is a strange phenomenom but one I have learned to live with. Hope the info helps you.

Huh. So then I looked that up. There is a rare disorder, exercise-induced anaphylaxis (EIA), that can create symptoms similar to mine, but that seems like overkill (pardon the expression). I don’t break out in lesions, I just itch a lot and get chest tightness. Still, this is interesting stuff, and it often has to do with food:

“These are people who will not have this reaction unless they exercise right after eating this food,” says Dr. Jacqueline Eghrari-Sabet, an allergist in private practice in Montgomery Village, Md., and a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. “Eating shellfish and sitting there? Nothing. But eating shellfish and exercising? For these people, it’s bad news.”

As you exercise and your heart rate speeds up, your blood starts whizzing through organs much faster, and therefore more frequently, than it normally does. With every trip your blood takes to your stomach, it’s picking up more, say, celery bits. For those with exercise-induced anaphylaxis, the normal amount of celery antigens picked up by the blood isn’t enough to bother them. But while exercising, the extra celery bits their blood is picking up causes an allergic reaction.

Running and jogging are the most likely to trigger an attack, but other strenuous activities like dancing, volleyball, skiing and even yard work can also cause a reaction.

But that doesn’t get you out of exercising:

Unfortunately for people seeking an excuse not to break a sweat, most dermatologists and allergists send their patients with exercise-related allergies right back to the locker room.

“If they come to me, I’m not going to tell them not to exercise,” says Dr. Bruce Robinson, a Manhattan dermatologist.  Instead he advises patients to pick a less strenuous regimen or a cooler place to work out.

Because the itchy sensation happens when body temperature suddenly rises, it can be eased by warming up and cooling down slowly, before and after every workout. Or try swimming for your normal cardio routine, which will keep the body temperature cool. If a food allergy is the culprit, don’t eat for a couple of hours before your workout.

Although serious side effects are rare, some experts believe, that exercise-induced anaphylaxis often goes undiagnosed. So if you start to feel itchy while working out, watch out. It’s probably best to avoid death by treadmill at all costs.

 

Hmmmm. Well, for now I’m not going to worry about it. I was just at the doctor for a possibly-broken bone (it was a bone bruise, not a crack), I don’t really feel like going back and complaining that I itch when I run, at least not until I’ve tried a few things first, like warming up more slowly. I’m also curious whether this will go away after a couple weeks of regularly attempting exercise. If it’s just a simple histamine reaction, maybe it will work itself out over time if I just don’t push too hard. I would try taking the anti-histamine beforehand, but those make my heart beat irregularly and I get pretty anxious.

I also found another webpage that talks about this and the worst food offenders:

Common foods that contribute to elevated histamine are seafood, cheese, peanuts, tomatoes, wheat, celery and corn. Food preservatives, infections or viruses, and medications or over the counter products such as NSAIDS and aspirin may also contribute or act as co-factors.

I eat a lot of cheese and corn, so maybe I’ll avoid those on the days I exercise.

More updates to come!

So, dear readers, I am now an official guest blogger at the Against the Wind Blog, and I’m going to cross-post my entries at this blog. Here is the first post, which went up on the blog yesterday (feel free to read it there!):

Hello, readers! I’m Hollie, and I’m your newest guest blogger. I reside in the beautiful and ridiculously wet city of Seattle with my family, where the fish walk freely on land because they can’t tell the difference. It’s a great place to live, and I hear from friends that it’s a great place to run.

I’ve been a stay-at-home Mom for years to my two children, but I’m currently transitioning back into my field of massage therapy, aiming to work part time with oncology patients. As you might imagine, a healthy level of fitness is important as a massage practitioner, but I am woefully out of shape at the moment.

You might think I’m one of those people who say they’re out of shape but really aren’t. Those people drive me nuts. I’ll hear them behind me in line getting coffee, “I went hiking with Ted the other day, but I was so out of shape! I was only able to do 9 miles!” Sometimes I want to turn around and say, “How many miles do you think you could do if I kicked you in the shins?”

I’m one of those people who is actually out of shape. I can’t walk a city block without wondering if I’m about to lose a lung. I really want this to change, and what better time to start an exercise program than right before the New Year? In just a few weeks it will be me and a few thousand other clueless newbies out on the street, huffing and puffing away toward our resolution of finally being able to run a mile without being chased.

I wish I could say I’m just out of shape, but I’m also overweight, and I’m sure that plays a big role in my level of fitness. If we go by the BMI charts, I’m about fifty pounds overweight for my height. Sentiments for the BMI metric range from “It’s a healthy way to gauge where your are,” to, “It’s utterly bogus and worse than useless.” My position is somewhere in the middle. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable fifty pounds lighter, but I’d be happy with thirty or forty, and I hear running is a very effective way to drop excess pounds.

Several friends have reported great success with the Couch to 5k program, and I’m looking forward to giving it a go. I have a treadmill at home where I will probably spend most of my time, since I hate being cold – and as a native Pacific Northwesterner I deem anything below 39 degrees to be an affront to humanity. But I look forward to running outside for the Against the Wind event in March, even if I have to hoof it through the rain. If I can actually make it five kilometers, I’ll be so happy I won’t even notice.

 

BONJOUR! MY NAME IS HENRI! HAHA, IT'S ACTUALLY BILL, YOU TOTALLY THOUGHT I WAS FRENCH! I FOOL EVERYONE WITH THAT!

For some reason our local nursery has a camel for Christmas. Because they love the Pacific Northwest this time of year? It was surprisingly friendly, it wanted to have its head scratched, which the kids (and me) were happy to do.

I apologize for abandoning you during the Thanksgiving season. I’m sure that all 100 of you (seriously! 100 subscribers!) were SIMPLY BEREFT.

Why was I gone? I’ve been busy! A couple weeks before Thanksgiving I made the huge decision to go back to massage therapy, beginning in April. I’m so excited!

I’ve been a therapist for four years, but stopped working a couple years ago after we moved back to Seattle. The kids were in a new school and needed  a lot of support with the big transition between our previous small town and the big city, and I didn’t feel up to the challenge of trying to start a practice again, so I just let it slide. I did, however, keep up all my credentials, thank goodness!

I’ll be doing an oncology massage workshop in March that will let me work with oncology patients in hospitals and in hospice, so I won’t be formally beginning my practice until that’s complete, but in the meantime I’m volunteering with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the Providence Hospice Program, and possibly one other organization. I hope to work mostly with cancer patients and other clients under care or in recovery for illness, but we’ll see how it goes. I’ll be working part time for now, it’s incredibly important to me that I’m home with the kids as long as we can afford it.

I’m also enrolled in the East-West School for Herbal and Aromatic Studies to become an Aromatherapist! I’ve wanted to do this for years, and I finally get my chance, and with such a great school, too! I love scents and essential oils, and I’m excited to use what I learn in my practice, and at home with the family.

Between all that and Thanksgiving, well, the blog slid a little, but I hope to be back in track now. I’m digging all the Christmas prep so much! It’s so fun, and it’s such a huge gift to be in our new house this year, I find myself thinking I am so thankful, every single day.

More later, including an updating on the Couch to 5k, and back to our Daily Photo feature, woo!

Love,

- Hollie

Today’s photo has Nanner in the foreground, reclining on my knee. Lars, in the background, has discovered a shopping bag on the couch, and with intense glee, is trying to work himself into it, practically twitching in joy every time the bag crackles. Every so often he looks up at me in awe, like, “OH MY GAWD, these are the GREATEST THINGS EVER.”

Nanner, raising her head slightly from her repose, has appraised Lars, and then turned to me, as if to say, “Not the brightest bulb in the pack, if you catch my drift.”

I’ve been using Pamela’s Gluten-Free Baking Mix to make my waffles, and they’ve been delicious. Here’s a photo I took last Sunday of those:

NOM NOM NOM. NOM. WITH EXTRA NOM.

Alas, I ran out of mix. But at least this happened in a normal way, and not through some waffle chain-eating incident, like what happened with the eggnog. Nothing’s worse than eggnog detox.

This morning, desperate for waffley goodness, I tried to make some from an oat flour-based recipe in You Won’t Believe It’s Gluten-Free, and unfortunately they didn’t come out well. They looked great, but they had no structure. It was difficult prying them off the waffle iron, they kept going limp and folding over onto themselves.

The passive resisters of the waffle world:

I’m not sure why they were so bendy – is that an absence-of-xanthan gum thing? The recipe called for xanthan gum, which is a binder (incidentally it also called for three eggs – are there GF vegan waffle recipes out there? I’m going to find one and/or invent one), but we didn’t have any, so I used flax meal, which seemed to work great in the batter. It was nice and thick. The waffles, however, had no body.

They tasted merely okay, nothing special. I’m going to work on this. I think the world needs better waffles.

But.

Then it was gone.

A whole quart. Gone.

And I didn’t feel very well.

The next morning I woke up with this weird coating on my tongue, and I was sick all day. Headaches, stomach aches, one after the other. Dizzy spells. Two nights before that I’d watched Forks Over Knives, which is all about how going vegan will save us, and right then, in my coated-tongue dairy-filled haze, I can tell you that I wanted to be saved.

Enter the soy nog. It’s just enough eggnog-iness to sate that addicted beast within, but not so much that I can’t put the carton down.

Oh and yes, that’s Stratego in the background.

A couple weeks ago I got an email from Jameson at Conscious Box, asking if I’d like to try one of their boxes. I checked out their website, and was impressed with both the range of products and the earth-friendly mission statement. Hoping this was actually a real offer from a real company and not the most creative stalk-a-hippie project ever, I sent Jameson my home address. Within a few days my little box of treats arrived, and I was not disappointed. I had so much fun opening it and trying everything out. The kids and I even attempted to make a video, but it came out poorly so I’ll spare you. There was much ooooohing and ahhhhing, and HEY I WANT THAT!

This is how it looks when you open it. It’s like a present! I was happy to find that all the packaging is completely recyclable, and there’s even a little list included of creative ways to reuse the box.

When you lift the lid, you’ll notice it’s all paper, yay! No plastic (even the tape on the outside of the box was paper). These folks clearly care about being consistent in their message.

I loved the card inside:

Finally, the goodies! Here’s what they looked like when they came out – with a few wrapped up. It really felt like getting a gift, and who wouldn’t love a gift of treats coming to them once a month?

The second photo is after I unwrapped them:

SO MUCH YUMMINESS! I was really impressed with how much was in the box:

• 2 KIND bars
• 1 Honest Kids Honest Tea
• 1 pack of Funky Monkey freeze dried fruit
• 1 pack of Mary’s Gone Crackers Double Chocolate Cookie (gluten-free, wheat-gree, vegan, organic!)
• 1 pack of Living Nutz Absolute Chi Almonds
• 1 pack of Vanilla Bean Nourishing Body Cream
• 1 pack of Honey Almond Nourishing Body Cream
• 2 packs of CocoaWell True Energy supplements
• 1 bottle of Pharmacopia Verbena Body Lotion
• 1 bottle of Pharmacopia Verbena Body Wash
• 1 Glee Gum Lemon
• 1 Glee Gum Refresh Mint

In our family, Uncle Jason is in charge of the television, and the man does not disappoint. A few weeks ago he said we needed a new TV.

“Why on earth would we need a new television? The one we have is huge, it’s a freaking behemoth! You can see it from three neighborhoods over. People stand on the hill to look down into our living room and watch Big Bang Theory. It’s the reason people don’t go to the theater anymore. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECLINE OF THE ARTS IN SEATTLE.”

“It doesn’t have 3D.”

“Oh. Okay.”

It arrived a few days ago. I’ve named it Stan. As in, “Stan there and show me the wonder of 3D. Thank you, Stan.”

So far all I’ve seen is Shrek 4, but I’m looking forward to JAWS. Hey Meg, when are you coming over? I got a pair of these Poindexter glasses with your name on them, baby.

Yeah you’re right, that wasn’t very funny. But it isn’t my fault. We’re both so desperately tired tonight. We can remember being up at every hour of the night last night, and we aren’t even sure why. I know the 4 and 6am wake-ups were due to noise (the neighbor with the motorcycle, and whatever lives on our roof – Bill the squirrel?), but the other hours I don’t know. We just found ourselves awake. I was laying there, wondering whether my turning on my iPad to play Ticket to Ride would wake him up, when out of the darkness I heard, “You awake too?”

“Yup.”

“So you know that new death and dismemberment policy I have at work?”

“Oh right, the one where it now makes financial sense for us to cut off your leg?”

“Right! That one. Well I heard today that it isn’t just limbs, it’s also eyes. So if I lose an eye, I get half the money.”

“Well that’s only fair.”

“No, you’re right, of course. That’s only fair. But that isn’t what I’m saying. See, I have an alternative idea to the sawed-off leg: eye patch. I could lose an eye, and then I could wear an eye patch, and I’d be stylish and rich.”

“So I’d have a pirate husband?”

“You’d have a rakish and handsome husband!”

“Well okay, but what are you going to do with all this money? If you’re going to lose an eye and become rakish, shouldn’t we make a plan?”

“You want a plan now?”

“I know, I know, I’ve lost the joie de vivre you married me for.”

“Well maybe not the vivre, but clearly all of the joie!”

“Uh huh.”

“WHOAH. Check that out! Martha Stewart has her own wrap. Wow, parchment-lined foil, man, that is seriously sexy.”

“If you say so.”

“It is, I am not kidding, that is the sexiest wrap ever. Parchment-lined foil? Do you have any idea how useful that would be?”

“No.”

“It’s seriously useful.”

“Seriously.”

“I wonder what it’s like to sleep with Martha Stewart?”

“I honestly can’t imagine that.”

“I bet it’s clean. Very clean.”

“Probably.”

“And I bet you get a little mint on your pillow when you’re done.”

“Why don’t you ever leave me a little mint on the pillow?”

“I’m a bad wife.”

I’m sure for some of you, here for the food talk, this is as interesting as mud, but to me it’s as if my whole world has turned upside down. I left organized religion in the dust somewhere in 1990, after a particularly brutal wounding by the evangelical church I was attending at the time. I’ve been a happy Buddhist ever since. Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled into a local Episcopalian church, and found, to my complete shock, that I didn’t break out in hives, and I didn’t want to leave. So we went back the next Sunday. And the next. I have no idea what’s happening, but it looks like I might start, you know, doing this. This thing. This going to church thing.

More on this later. Now on to the butt scratching:

Yesterday I was sitting outside at my kids’ school. I had gathered them up after their classes and herded  them to their after-school activities, and then I went out to the front lawn to sit and enjoy the gorgeous fall weather. I had my journal with me, so I broke that out and began writing. Suddenly I looked up, and was just stunned at how pretty it all was. The school has all these marvelous old maple trees, and everywhere I looked all I could see were orange and gold leaves, up against the blue sky, down against the green grass, and this big shaft of sunlight landing on the whole scene.

I grabbed my iPhone to take a picture, including my journal in the shot so I could remember what I was doing when I saw all this – and right when I went to click the photo, this kid (who had been annoying me for the last few minutes careening around yelling at his little brother, I AM TOTALLY GOING TO SHOOT YOU NOW), ran right into the center of the shot, stopped, and reached back to give his butt one enormous scratch.

Welcome to fall, ya’ll.

Until then, I give you the best Halloween sign Beth has ever made. At the bottom, in blue and black letters that are hard to make out, she writes, “Love, The Ghost.”

This is my favorite view. I love that leaded window. And then we have, the chicken. Her Majesty. I bought that from a local artist at a craft fair at our old school in Shoreline. I got the garlic at the Ballard Farmer’s Market – from these sweet boys who asked me what I was going to do with it. Kids, every house should have protection against vampires, and the chicken ain’t gonna cut it.

But my favorite thing is the guinea pig cutting board. I made that in the 7th grade, and my Mom kept it all these years and then gave it back to me. LOVE.

You’ll notice I kind of have a thing for jars. Keep reading. It gets better.

Here you’ll see we have a toaster oven and a toaster – thanks to celiac disease we have to keep the wheat and the gluten-free foods separate, even when toasting.

We also have two sets of knives. The set on the left is the one Greg and I came with, a.k.a. The Crappy Set. The ones on the right are Jason’s knives, a.k.a The Henckels. There is some tension in our household about these knives. Greg and I think knives are useful for things like cutting an apple directly on the countertop, or scraping adhesive residue off jars, or unscrewing things if a screwdriver isn’t handy. Jason thinks knives are for cutting food and food only, and only on approved wooden cutting boards, NEVER ON THE COUNTERTOP GOD HELP YOU. And if you put one of his knives in the dishwasher he actually develops a rash. I’m kidding. Sort of.

We used to argue about this all the time until finally I began using his knives regularly, and wow, he was so right. No wonder he treats them so well, they’re incredible. Cutting through raw squash, it’s like BUTTA. One of those Henckels is worth a few dozen of my crappy knives. So now I treat them with great care, like little knife babies – or like something else less creepy. I only use them on the approved wooden cutting board. I set them aside when they’re dirty and wash them by hand, and NEVER with the abrasive side of the sponge (GOD HELP ME).

I made this wall of spices after years of getting sick of looking for the right spice in my cupboard. I love spices, I put them in everything, but finding them is always a pain. I’ve never found a system that works to keep them organized, there’s always the one odd jar or tin that doesn’t fit in whatever holder or shelf I’ve installed. And they’re so little – I reach my hand into the cupboard to rummage around to find what I’m looking for an end up knocking one over – which just dominos into the next and a few seconds later you can hear them crashing to the floor, the countertop, and me cursing. It isn’t pretty. Although I have it on some authority that it’s quite entertaining.

The jars work perfectly. They’re big enough that I can reach for them easily, the big open mouths mean that I can clean the jars in a snap and reach spoons in (or fingers for a pinch!), and the glass means I can see the contents easily, which to me is quite lovely to look at. They’re also easy to refill. I’ve done a wall of tea in the same way on the other wall (not pictured). Since I put these up, I’ve used spices so much more often, and I enjoy cooking so much more.

I wrote the labels myself, using some Avery labels I bought at an office supply store. It’s nice because they’re all my handwriting, which means both that I can read them easily and they’re all uniform. The jars I purchased here in Seattle from Seattle Specialty Glass. They’re called “Eco-Mason Jars”, and you can find them here. Mine are the 8oz size with silver lids. They’re 80 cents per jar, with lid, which was a total bargain, if you ask me. SO worth it. Incidentally, the jars of beans and quinoa in the top photo are also from Specialty Glass, they’re the half-gallon jars, and they’re $3.60 per jar, with lid.

Oh and none of this loveliness would have been possible without the super-heroine powers of Cody Strauss from Clearspace Seattle. She’s an organizer, and she came over for a few days last month and helped me perform the seemingly insurmountable task of getting this kitchen in order (and a few other things). I couldn’t have done it without her – believe me, I tried, before I finally gave up and called for help. Cody is the best. I even made myself an account on Yelp just so I could write her a review.

Hanging out with her was so great. She would stand in the kitchen and be like, “So what do you want to DO in this room?”, and at first I was all, “Uhhhhhhhhh……cook stuff?” But then we kept talking and pretty soon I was just off and running about how I wanted space to chop veggies (so maybe I’d eat some once in awhile!) and a place for my spices because I hated the cupboard, and on and on and on, and Cody listened and then made it happen. She was brilliant. I miss her. Sometimes I want to mess up the house so I can have an excuse to hire her again (HA! That’s a little joke – if you saw my house you’d know that Cody still has a lot of work to do).

I’m okay referencing it, as I’m doing now – that feels like pointing at it with a stick from a safe distance. “Hello, yes, do you see over there, around that tree? The thing with it’s head peeking out? The dripping fangs, the stench of human misery emanating from its hide? Yes, that would be my math phobia. DO NOT GET TOO CLOSE.”

But actually getting into it….ugh. It feels like talking about failure. And I hate failure. I hate feeling stupid, because I know I’m an intelligent person, and I don’t fully understand why, as Barbie so famously said, math is so hard. Greg has been tutoring me for the last couple weeks, and he says over and over that 95% of my problem is that I’m so anxious every time I crack open a book that I can’t see anything past the anxiety. “So what’s the other 5%?” I ask him. “IDIOCY?”

“No, dork,” he says. “The other 5% is that you’re always in a hurry.”

“Yes, well, the faster I am done the faster this torture ends.”

“Do you see where that philosophy is getting you?”

To this I can only stick out my tongue. That is the extent of my defense.

So tonight I took a test. There were 20 questions and I’m pretty confident about 15, maybe 17. Fingers crossed. Afterward we met Jason at Señor Moose, where I had a small but potent margarita in which to drown my phobia (and create a future headache – must rethink this approach later), and a delicious dinner.

This is Greg and I making the math phobia faces: