Like James Brown, I'm BACK!

Despite only 4 hours of sleep, when I was woken around 5am this morning a veil had been lifted. My body was ache free, my head clear for the first time in two weeks.


TODAY'S COOKING:
Basic Tomato Sauce: It was a bummer running out of the last container of homemade and having Betsy bring in horrid jarred stuff. More annoyingly, B asked me to skip all the fresh herbs I use in my sauce (oregano, thyme, basil) -- I guess she prefers the flat taste of jarred stuff. I imagine if I jarred my sauce and put it up on a shelf for a year, Betsy would like it more. Hrumph.


Grilled Cheese: I wasn't hungry, but fed the family. B's 100-ingredient store bought whole wheat bread, swiss, a few tomato slices, brushed in butter and fried on the caste iron grill pan. Had a nice brown line pattern on it and crunched nicely when I cut them.

AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 7am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


BREAKFAST pt 2: 10:15am, egg mcmuffin minus the egg, 2 little hashbrowns, diet coke, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3pm, meatball hero, salad, a few french fries, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 4:45pm, spoonful of homemade chocolate ice cream

DINNER: 8pm, handful of bagel-wrapped mini hotdogs, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Boding better

Feeling better, but still housebound. Went out with Mil for 30 minutes to sit in the park and run a short errand, makes me think -- where the hell is the snow? I think we were snowbound by this time last year. Betsy was out in the morning and brought me lunch -- dang, how lucky am I to have such a woman in my life? She doesn't cook, but she cleans! She rears kids! She's kind to me! She takes care of me! She only freaks out on occasion!

A total feeling of exhaustion took over me in the late evening, the first time in weeks that it wasn't mixed in with an ill-tension. Bodes well for tomorrow, I hope.


AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9pm, organic cornflakes with organic dead milk, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 2pm, Subway 12" veggie burger sub on whole wheat, health salad, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:30pm, breaded tilapia, 2 pickles, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, peanut butter & nutella, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Went to the doctor

And the doctor said: no more monkeys jumping on the bed! Actually, I did go to the doctor, and other then being temporarily sick, I'm in pretty good health otherwise. Doc chalks it up to holiday eating / baby-related lack of sleep / stomach bug going around. It was a bit of a struggle to get myself out the door and to the appointment, but I suppose that's for the best. Hopefully soon I'll be back to normal -- tomorrow will be a full 2 weeks of being ill.


AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 11am, 2 toaster waffles, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 2:15pm, hostess apple pie pocket thingie, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, garlic shrimp with blackbeans & yellow rice, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, chocolate ice cream. .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Slowly floating up

A little better, but still not there yet. Doctor appt tomorrow. Eating less, but being that I'm doing little other than lying down, it seems to be OK.

AM SNACK: 10am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 11am, waffles with peanut butter, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 3pm, yogurt with honey, vanilla, peanuts, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 1: 6pm, turkey & swiss on whole wheat, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER pt 2: 9pm, steelcut oatmeal with brown sugar, butter, salt, vanilla, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 
WF brand steel cut oats sucks. Don't like the taste or consistency. Takes 15 minutes to microwave, despite me already roasting the oats to help with cook time.

A fine specimen

Probably had 4 hours of interrupted sleep last night -- despite that, still feeling a little better than yesterday. If I was able to get some sleep in, I think I would have been up and about days ago, but that's life -- Edie was off from school for the holidays, the baby is a baby and Betsy, while a fine specimen, is still only human.

Stayed indoors today, tried to not sleep too much during the day so the evening would be easier.

AM SNACK: 8:30am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10am, wholegrain cheerios with dead organic milk, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:15pm, 2 eggo waffles with smucker's "natural" peanut butter, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Ugg, the generic whole wheat toaster waffles have more character than these things, and the overly smooth, overly salted peanut butter doesn't hold a light to the freshly ground no-salt, no-BS peanut butter that you can get out of a machine at Whole Foods.


DINNER: 6pm, chorizo burrito, chips & guac, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, left over burrito, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Ugg

An unfortunate lack of sleep is preventing me from fully recovering, still a lack of energy and appetite running at 85%. Hopefully I'll be me again sooner than later, I miss participating in life!

Looking at the week before I got sick, the combination of poor eating, rich holiday food on hand, lack of sleep and exposure to some friends who had stomach bugs themselves (who I've learned have also been sick for a similar period as me this time around) just became a perfect storm to knock me down and hold me there for a while.

I miss having fresh homemade food on hand -- my home has been invaded by  whole grain "healthy" bread with about 75 ingredients that tastes not unlike cardboard, jarred tomato sauce that is vastly inferior to a simple prep of olive oil, garlic and dried basil (with a dash of Worcestershire) and an evil expulsion of my chocolate covered espresso beans. I gotta get back.


BREAKFAST: 8am, cornflakes with milk, iced green tea, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: noon, mini pizza, small scoop of chocolate ice cream, seltzer, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, good yogurt with honey, peanuts, vanilla, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 5pm, pizza, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 6pm, scoop of chocolate ice cream, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 10pm, waffles, goldfish, cornflakes & milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Good Golly, it's another year!

231--->226.8

I was not planning on going quiet on this blog at all, but my health failed me. Friday before last got some sort of stomach bug, destroyed me for about 4 days solid and have taken another 6 or so to regain my strength and mental functioning. I have not left the house since last Friday, which is a new world's record for me. A bunch of holiday plans got cancelled, Betsy juggled the kids, the food shopping, the laundry etc. on her own, and for that I'm amazed and grateful. My eating went close to zero for the first four days, and have been slowly increasing my intake. Today was the first day of relatively normal eating, though I'm finding we're pretty low or out of everything.

On the positive side, a few pounds came off, though I wouldn't invest too much in that. I'm not that big into New Year's resolutions, but the few I make I usually follow through on. Here is what I'm thinking:

• Resume biweekly weight lifting. Other than simply increase strength, flex and muscle mass, one paricular goal: gain the ability to do one chin-up. I've never been able to do one, and to accomplish that would be a not-small deal.
• Kontinue Knishing. Next steps are to set up a kickstarter, establish a relationship with an incubator kitchen, and book some tables. 
• Ride more miles than this past year. Shouldn't be too hard to accomplish, as a) B will not be giving birth again (hopefully) and Edie will be ready to be taken on longer adventure rides.

I think all that is within reason, right?

AM SNACK: 9am, iced green tea, banana

BREAKFAST: noon, steel cut oatmeal, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 3:15pm, chicken nuggets, mini potato knishes, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6:30pm, pad thai, fried tofu, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 10pm, left over pad thai, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5