Carnivorous.

So, gluten-free since October. A couple of purposeful glutenings, many more accidental. But I'm getting a handle on this thing now. I have a better feel for what I can and can't eat. I have decent substitutions in my head.

But substitutions are my "issue" (yeah, I know, get in line). The dear friend who pushed me into finally making the GF jump seems to have no issues whatsoever with other grains, legumes, etc. I on the other hand, do. Obviously not huge issues. I can suck back a bag of Doritos as well as the next junk food junkie. But while I feel oh-so-much better without the gluten, the overload of grains that I've allowed in my diet as a substitute is causing me some grief.

About three and a half years ago, I was low carb. Felt great most of the time. I'm realizing that it's because I was stringing together long chains of days without gluten, but I think it was more than that. I had more energy. I just felt better in general... until I started downing crap like Atkins shakes because they were convenient and we were on the road a lot, and crazy busy with preparing to move to the Midwest.

Paleo appeals, but I love dairy. So, I'm aiming my dietary arrow toward Primal, ala Mark's Daily Apple. His is the most common-sense approach I've seen to the "fads" of low carb, paleo, primal, et al. Aim for 80%. Forget about studies on general populations (or on skewed populations), and focus on your own n=1. How is your own health improving? How do you feel? What are your results (and yes, including markers like heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol counts, blood sugars). Look at the guidelines. Start somewhere. Keep moving forward. Keep tweaking. Live it, don't expect someone else to live it for you.

It makes me happy. I'll never be totally "paleo" or "Atkins" or "low-fat" or "raw" or whatever the diet of the day happens to be. Studies have meant a crapload of nothing for my mental health. Why should I expect that my physical health be any different?

I have a family history of  high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type II diabetics everywhere you turn. And they all depends on medication, and refuse to look at alternate solutions. Diabetic? Hey, there's a pill for that. Take it and "watch" your "sugars" and you can keep on eating all the crap you've always eaten  because hey, there's a pill and later when that won't work anymore there's insulin and really everyone's gotta die from something right?

Yeah, okay. Cool. I don't want to be Super Health Woman. I don't want to be scared of everything I put in my mouth. But I also don't want to be on meds - ha! I was about to say by the time I'm forty... too late! Been there nearly 9 months! Ah, the folly of youth. Anyway, I really don't want to obsess about things, overanalyzing every single thing I do, say, eat. I want to look and tweak and play and figure out how to best balance getting a bit healthier (or less unhealthy as time goes on) while just living my life.

Hopefully this will be a step in that direction.

Photo Play

Just a few more images from our time Down South that I happened to actually like without much editing on most of them. (Edit: Posting them on the blog loses some of the sharpness, or oversharpens, or something, particularly the street view pic.)

Grandma

Michael made a new friend

Street Guitar Banjo Cymbals Thingamajig

Bottlecap/Tincan Tap Boys

New Orleans Street View

Pretty Pictures.

I love taking photos. I do decently, considering my hands shake - a lot - and I just can't seem to learn my camera and get it to see what I want it to see.

That's my biggest issue there: getting the camera to see what I see. I still feel like I'm just taking snapshots. I look at the photos that my friends take (unedited, SOOC shots, groups of them not just the "chosen few"). I can't get my camera to do that. It's a user issue, not a camera issue, for the most part. I would like to get another lens or two that go outside of the kit lens that came with my camera. But really, the biggest issue is me.

I keep scoffing at taking a photography class, but I think I'm going to have to. I just can't wrap my head around certain things about SLR photography.

So this isn't a totally pointless post, here are some edited photos I took over our Spring vacation. I had to do the photos of the kids before my parents shot me, but I did get some shots in New Orleans that I'm itching to get to working on.

Grow little carrots!!

Today Molly and I worked outside, building a 2x2 raised bed for her carrots. It's our first raised bed, as well as our first time planting carrots.

I mean, they're generally $1 per pound, why plant? But I've gotten very interested in playing with heirloom veggies. And gardening is such a huge learning curve.

My husband's congregation takes very good care of us, and while we aren't rolling in the dough, we are comfortable. But the economy has been hard on this area. Our congregation is aging and shrinking. Taxes are, quite frankly, eating us alive, and with just the few changes I know about, our tax bill will likely triple next year. So while growing our own food is not a necessity at the moment, it's a huge part of my long term plan. The more we grow, the less we buy, and the less we drive.

I'll save my rant about the state of the country's food supply and my growing ickyness about what we put in our bodies on a regular basis for another post. Sometimes I feel hypocritical munching on Doritos and bitching about GMO corn, but it is what it is.

But today, just today, it wasn't about taxes and toxic chemicals and GMOs. It was about an awesome day of work, in the sunshine, with my beautiful girl who cannot wait to pull and munch her first Little Finger or Atomic Purple carrot out of soil she mixed herself in a box she helped to build.

Mellow.

There is no way to explain how utterly relaxed I am the second I walk into my best friend's house. Maybe it's because she has no children and I leave mine with my mom when I come here. Maybe it's because she has a cat. Maybe her furniture is more comfy than mine.

Maybe it's the fact that we've been friends for thirty years.

Nah.

I wish my own home was this stress-free. Every time I come I try to figure out how to move the mellow to my own place. So far, no good.

But it's ok, because I have it now. Ah...

Wowsers

So I took February off, apparently. It's ok. I found an app so I can post from my phone, so this could possibly turn into an actually updated often kinda thing.

Don't hold your breath.

But for all intents and purposes, I'm back. Not that anyone actually reads this, but still...

Obviously, this is a "playing with the new app" type of post. So I'll post a picture of my new hair.




Cute? Yes.

Learning to be...

It appears that 2.5 - 3 weeks is my "get over glutening" time frame. I've just started feeling better in the last 5 days or so from my Christmastime poisoning. In those five days, I've cooked three times. No, really. I suck at cooking. But it's getting better.

I'd like to be like my other GF friends who can eat a bunch of carbs and be fine, but I'm not sure I'm one of them. I'm finding that after really carb-heavy meals or snacks, my stomach is hurting. Hopefully that goes away, but in the meantime, I'm trying to minimize grain contact. Well, minimize is a relative term. I'll watch that bridge to see if it needs crossing or not. :)

Let me leave you with this nugget of wisdom: if you make cornbread from scratch with Maseca corn flour, it will taste like a big honkin' fluffy corn tortilla. And if that sounds appetizing, you're just hearing wrong. Ugh. GF substitution fail.