Hey Raven,
I promise I will get back to talking about all the things that make life worth living (in my opinion) very soon. But not tonight. At least, not exactly. Tonight I got a text saying I have to be to work at 6:45 tomorrow morning so I need to be in bed asleep... about 20 minutes ago.
But I don't want to get punished! Or miss a day blogging at you. So I thought I would tell you I will get back to the posts about my hobbies and passions next time, but tonight I will tell you something you probably already know. I love my job. I love both of my jobs, in fact. But the one where I get to look after, talk with, and just generally hang out with two wonderful kids is my chief job. And my chief joy outside of you and our friends.
We differ a lot in how we see children, but you're always willing to listen to me effuse on the subject of my charges, whom I love dearly. So yeah, I may have to go to be at work at 6:45, but I can say with a smile on my face that I will have a great time. How many other people do we know that could say that about their jobs? Especially if the job required them to be awake at 6am or earlier?
Now I would say that there probably aren't any friends in our circle that have a job like that. But I would also say there wouldn't be any friends in our circle like that even if they had my job. I love being around kids in a way I didn't realize was so out of the norm until I graduated from college and started doing more of it and talking to friends about how happy and fulfilled it made me.
I'm thinking about it especially today after I met with a 4th grade boy who I have been tutoring since the beginning of his 2nd grade year. I wasn't able to come back to start up my work with him until this week because of graduate schools, life, and other boring things, but the minute he saw me his eyes lit up and he had a big grin on his face. Totally worth any inconvenience to my still crazy busy schedule.
I loved your post and your reminder to cherish the little things and the seemingly insignificant, silly days. I loved sharing that day with you and I look forward to many more in the future. I wanted to add days like today to that list of things to appreciate: the days you feel at peace or at purpose with the world. A reminder that I am on the right track, doing work I love, for people I love was what I needed to put my mind at peace and give me a gentle nudge towards my purpose in life.
So - back to the hobbies and passions posts soon. Right now, to sleep. See you in a minute and I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.
- Owl
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Kingsman and Ginger Cookies
...would be an accurate summation of my day. Which is to say, it was a pretty good day.
Between my morning and my afternoon class, Owl and I baked ginger cookies. Not just any ginger cookies, but the best ginger cookies I've ever had. They were full of cinnamon and cloves, and the recipe didn't call for allspice but that's because the recipe was a liar, so I added allspice. These cookies? They were incredible.
After my evening class, Owl and I went with Crow to see Kingsman: The Secret Service. This movie was about as silly and dumb and self-aware as they get and it was marvellous. Samuel L. Jackson was crazy, Mark Hamill was odd and nearly unrecognizable, Colin Firth was unnervingly badass, Mark Strong was delightful. It had Arthurian nicknames, shiny gadgets, and so many James Bond callbacks I'm astonished they didn't just throw Sean Connery in the background of every scene. It was exactly as silly as advertised and I appreciate that in a movie.
Exciting days, packed full of thrill and adventures and new, wonderful experiences that you will remember forever are wonderful. And productive days, where you get everything done on your to-do list and then start a new project, finally clean out your cupboard, and mow the neighbor's lawn just because you're on such a roll, those are great too. But sometimes, you just need days like today, where you can eat ginger cookies and watch dumb movies and look back on your day and still think, yeah, that rocked.
Friends, do yourselves a favor. Do something silly now and then. Bake cookies in the middle of the day just because you can. See a movie just because you know it will make you laugh. Play a terrible 80s board game with a large group of friends and make up your own rules. (I can recommend quite a few if need be.) Make finger puppets, have a water balloon fight, or name all of your bookshelves and give them name tags. I promise, you'll feel better for it.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Being A Nerd Makes For a Brief Post Tonight
Hey Raven,
Short update tonight for a few reasons. 1st reason - it's late and we both need to be in bed. 2nd reason - my last few posts have been quite long and I am starting to feel overly verbose (seriously just look at that sentence I just typed!) 3rd reason - we got a bunch of shiny new video games today and spent the evening playing those instead of doing this post. Which I do not regret. At all.
Because of the Mystery Illness you wrote about in the last post we haven't been able to play our go-to video games lately. FPS games are no friend to the Mystery Illness. So today was a day to resupply our house with games you can play without exacerbating the already difficult and mysterious ailment. Seems to have been quite a success, too.
A brief list of our new purchases:
- MarioKart
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance
- Diablo III
- a ton of DS games
- Final Fantasy XIII
- an Avatar the Last Airbender video game (blanking on the name now)
So a very successful shopping trip altogether. Then we had a house video game night. I will miss those when Crow moves away.
We also watched what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite new shows on television: Agent Carter. I wanted to make a brief list of the reasons I love the show to be expounded upon at a later date with an actual post.
Short update tonight for a few reasons. 1st reason - it's late and we both need to be in bed. 2nd reason - my last few posts have been quite long and I am starting to feel overly verbose (seriously just look at that sentence I just typed!) 3rd reason - we got a bunch of shiny new video games today and spent the evening playing those instead of doing this post. Which I do not regret. At all.
Because of the Mystery Illness you wrote about in the last post we haven't been able to play our go-to video games lately. FPS games are no friend to the Mystery Illness. So today was a day to resupply our house with games you can play without exacerbating the already difficult and mysterious ailment. Seems to have been quite a success, too.
A brief list of our new purchases:
- MarioKart
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance
- Diablo III
- a ton of DS games
- Final Fantasy XIII
- an Avatar the Last Airbender video game (blanking on the name now)
So a very successful shopping trip altogether. Then we had a house video game night. I will miss those when Crow moves away.
We also watched what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite new shows on television: Agent Carter. I wanted to make a brief list of the reasons I love the show to be expounded upon at a later date with an actual post.
A Few of My Favorite Things (About Agent Carter)
- Superhero adjacent (I adore all things related to superheroes, especially in the Marvel-verse)
- Excellent female protagonist (Peggy Carter was my absolute favorite part of the first Captain America movie)
- Though there is strong foreshadowing for it, Carter remains (as of episode 6) unattached romantically - I don't think they'll keep that going and I won't hate it if they end up pairing her up, but I like that it isn't the point of the show
- 1940s - I am a stupid sucker for the time period and I love what they're doing with everything from the music to the hairstyles to the costumes
- Excellent supporting cast - including a superlative incarnation of Edwin Jarvis, Dum Dum Dugan, and Howard Stark
- Enough realism (read: sexism) to make it realistic, but not enough to bum me out
- Funny - I have trouble watching shows that don't make me laugh
I'm sure I'll discover more reasons to love the show and I plan to make a post here when the first season wraps up. 2 more episodes to go.
Happy Monday - I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Elimination
Hi Owl,
After an exciting weekend of adjusting to all of the things I can't eat and fiercely cuddling my cats in defiance of the doctors' orders, I'm back home.
For those of you who might be unaware, I've been pretty sick for awhile, and we've been working hard to try and figure out what's up. It's nothing life-threatening or anything, just unpleasant, and often hard to work around. I'm planning another, more in-depth post on living with my Mystery Illness, so I'll save that for later, but right now, I wanted to talk about diets.
I like food. I like cooking it, I like eating it, I like talking about it. But in recent years, my ability to enjoy most food has been diminished a fair amount due to loss of appetite, and the fact that most food seems to make me ill. Even so, I still like cooking and eating and talking about food, even if it's been a bit more difficult.
However, in the course of my quest for a diagnosis, I have tried several diets, in the event that there is an underlying food sensitivity that is making me ill. These experimental diets, while they have yet to cure me, have been enlightening in other ways.
In autumn of 2013, I tried a gluten-free diet, even though I had tested negative for Celiac Disease. I was a year out of college, working at a historical society in Pennsylvania, and I was sicker than I had ever been in my life. I went to see a doctor out there, who suggested that I try removing gluten from my diet for a trial period, to see if it helped. This happened at the same time that I was dogsitting for a friend of a friend, so I had a fancy kitchen at my disposal, and some high-end grocery stores nearby that catered to more eclectic eating habits. It wasn't overly-hard to find gluten-free foods, but they were generally a) incredibly expensive and b) very poor substitutes for the real thing. Seriously, I don't know if you have ever tried gluten-free bread, but it is not good. Gluten-free peanut butter is worse. So, despite the nice kitchen and the well-stocked grocery stores, making food that was both edible and enjoyable at a reasonable price was challenging. Even worse was going out to eat. This had become a major component of our work culture. I was working with four of my college classmates on an archiving project, and we generally took our lunch breaks together at one of the local restaurants, to talk about the project or simply to decompress. Even more importantly, the professor who was overseeing the project flew in from our alma mater in Wisconsin every other week and we would discuss our progress and our plans for the next weeks over a several-hours-long dinner at a Chinese/Japanese buffet. Suddenly, I couldn't eat gluten, and my restaurant choices were drastically limited. I stopped eating lunch with my co-workers, opting instead either to bring my perpetually-undercooked and inexplicably dry brown rice pasta from home or eat at one of the two restaurants that had blissfully thought to add gluten-free items to their menu. The bi-weekly buffets were harder, since even sushi was out---the rice vinegar used in making sushi rice generally contains gluten. I started to eat before these meals, and while my colleagues ate I would nibble on a few pieces of sashimi and sip my water while we discussed. This was not a set-up ideally suited to these two-to-four hour long chats, and though my colleagues and professor were supportive, I got the sense that my not eating made them somewhat uncomfortable.
In fact, I saw this a lot. Gluten-free diets have gained popularity as a health fad, even among people who aren't gluten-intolerant. Added to that, so many of the people who think that they are gluten-intolerant really aren't, as was (spoilers) the case with me. The result of this is that many people don't look kindly on gluten-free diets. When I asked what was in a dish or refused cookies because of the flour, people assumed I was just being picky, or rude, or overly-sensitive. I knew I didn't need to explain myself to these strangers, but it still bothered me. Not only was I sick, not only was I not able to partake in the food culture we had developed at work, but now I was being belittled by strangers for trying to make myself healthy. I was astonished by how many people felt the need to make my diet their business, and that, even more than the expense, the poor choice in quality food, and the difficulty fitting it into my workday, was what stood out to me most about the experience.
I quit the gluten-free diet before too long when it became clear that it wasn't helping. Flash forward about ten months to July of 2014. I was still sick, and we had exhausted a good number of other routes that had seemed likely. My mom and I decided that it was time to take a fairly drastic measure---an intense, comprehensive, and daunting elimination diet.
In brief, an elimination diet is where several foods or food groups are removed entirely, you take careful notes of what you eat and how you feel, then slowly reintroduced after a period of time (generally 1-2 months). Ideally, one of the foods or groups of foods will make react negatively when reintroduced, thus pinpointing what is making you sick. Simple enough.
This elimination diet, however, wasn't just one or two foods. We eliminated all gluten (easy, done that), all dairy, all processed foods, all legumes, most meats, barring fresh water fish, lamb, and turkey, all nightshades (potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes are the big ones here), and various other eclectic items. And yes, I do mean we---Owl immediately offered to do this with me, and she was amazing throughout the entire thing. This list sounded tricky on the surface, but we soon realized that it was a LOT trickier than we had anticipated. We couldn't have corn, and that meant nothing with high fructose corn syrup, either. We couldn't have most grains. We could have olive oil, but only cold, expeller-pressed olive oil. We couldn't have sugar. We couldn't have soy. Most spices were out. Take a look around your kitchen. How many items in your pantry have none of those ingredients in them? A few, I'm sure, but not a ton. Owl and I made a trip to a local grocery store with a large organic section, and after several hours and a truly astonishing amount of money, we had enough to restock our pantry with the staples---arrowroot flour, agave nectar, safflower oil, almond milk, brown rice pasta, etc. My parents were incredible, helping us both with the exorbitant costs of maintaining this diet, and with coming up with creative new ways to prepare exciting meals---or at least less bland meals. Not to mention, they were a great source of moral support, which was much needed, as it wasn't long before I realized that this diet, far from helping, was making me sicker. I was doing everything I could to get all the nutrients I needed. We would cook huge dishes of salmon or tilapia so that we could refrigerate leftovers to grab at a moment's notice. Avocados became our new best friend, since they contained both protein and a good number of the nutrients we needed. I started carrying around bags of cashews and almonds, and learned to make sweet potato and kale chips that were actually quite good. We ate at one restaurant the entire time we were on this diet, and it was for my birthday. My parents came up to visit and took us to a local landmark, and we ate at the restaurant there. Nothing on their menu was allowable on our diet, but the waiter was incredibly patient and brought all of our restricted foods to the chef, who made us an amazing dish of fish (some sort of white, cold-water fish I'm forgetting at the moment) lightly seasoned with vinegar and salt.
In many ways it was an enjoyable, or at least interesting, experience, because we were paying such careful attention to what we ate, and we were cooking a LOT more. It made us more mindful of what we consumed, how we shopped, and how we cooked. It was definitely eye-opening to realize just how many additives go into most food. And not just the stuff you'd expect it to be in---juice, peanut butter, bread (even when we found gluten-free bread, it was loaded with chemicals and additives we couldn't eat). Organic food is far from free of these additives---turns out, soy is organic, but soy lecithin is also an additive. In fact, soy is ubiquitous these days. Finding food that doesn't use soybean oil or soy lecithin as an emulsifier is nearly impossible, it seems. And if it doesn't have soy, it has high fructose corn syrup. So, challenge though it was, we definitely got an education. And having a reason to make time every day to cook was nice. It was also, I think, kind of fun for Owl and I to do something so challenging together, though she may not agree.
In the end, however, I was so sick that we realized that reintroducing the foods back in to see what I reacted to would be useless---even if they made me ill, we wouldn't realize, since I was already feeling so badly. I was constantly sick to my stomach, I was listless and could barely make it up a flight of stairs, and I had been advised against going to the gym. I was constantly hungry even though I also felt sick, I was tired all the time, and, to be perfectly honest, I was not much fun to be around. It was a frustrating experience, and I was annoyed that I was going through all of this hassle and feeling so poorly as a result, when it was supposed to make me better.
We stopped the diet four weeks into the six, and I started to feel better---or at least, my "normal" level of better, which wasn't that great.
Now, in February of 2015, I've had the worse month health-wise that I can recall having. On Friday, I had an allergy test, which you can read about here, and as it turns out I'm sensitive to quite a bit. I've been put on another elimination diet. This time it is much smaller, which is a blessing, though there are still a few limiting factors on there---soy, again, has proven to be the trickiest, with barley flour, almonds, and olives as close runners-up. Rice, rye, apples, pineapples, halibut, shrimp, tuna, lamb, turkey, cabbage, and sweet potatoes are also banned. In six weeks, I can begin to reintroduce these into my diet, but until then, we'll have to get a bit creative. We just went on another (shorter and less insanely pricey) grocery run today, finding bread without barley flour and flour tortillas without soybean oil, replenishing our supply of non-olive-based vegetable oils, searching desperately for fruit juice without apple concentrate, and splurging a little on organic, 70% cacao chocolate, because everything else has soy lecithin in it. In comparison to the last diet, this should be much easier, especially now that we know what we're doing. (And yes, Owl has agreed once again to join me in this adventure.) We'll post more about what we've been cooking, and what weird things we've been finding out aren't allowed because of soy- or malt barely-inclusions.
So far I think the most surprising revelation has been how much food, even healthy food, has unexpected ingredients. Apple concentrate or apple cider vinegar are in a surprising number of sauces, dressings, and juices, malt barley flour is in whole wheat bread and most crackers, and soy? Man, soy is EVERYWHERE.
I have so much more to say on this subject, but I think I have rambled on enough for one night. So, friends, I will leave you with this challenge, if you're interested: try and go a day and eat only foods whose ingredients you know completely. Sure, you know all the fixings on that sandwich, but what went into the bread? Did you know a number of teabags use soy lecithin? And that organic juice may have some surprising additions. These aren't necessarily bad things, but neither is eating mindfully, at least for a day. Try it, and feel free to comment if you do and let us know how it went!
Owl, thanks for helping me with this diet, and I'll see you tomorrow.
After an exciting weekend of adjusting to all of the things I can't eat and fiercely cuddling my cats in defiance of the doctors' orders, I'm back home.
For those of you who might be unaware, I've been pretty sick for awhile, and we've been working hard to try and figure out what's up. It's nothing life-threatening or anything, just unpleasant, and often hard to work around. I'm planning another, more in-depth post on living with my Mystery Illness, so I'll save that for later, but right now, I wanted to talk about diets.
I like food. I like cooking it, I like eating it, I like talking about it. But in recent years, my ability to enjoy most food has been diminished a fair amount due to loss of appetite, and the fact that most food seems to make me ill. Even so, I still like cooking and eating and talking about food, even if it's been a bit more difficult.
However, in the course of my quest for a diagnosis, I have tried several diets, in the event that there is an underlying food sensitivity that is making me ill. These experimental diets, while they have yet to cure me, have been enlightening in other ways.
In autumn of 2013, I tried a gluten-free diet, even though I had tested negative for Celiac Disease. I was a year out of college, working at a historical society in Pennsylvania, and I was sicker than I had ever been in my life. I went to see a doctor out there, who suggested that I try removing gluten from my diet for a trial period, to see if it helped. This happened at the same time that I was dogsitting for a friend of a friend, so I had a fancy kitchen at my disposal, and some high-end grocery stores nearby that catered to more eclectic eating habits. It wasn't overly-hard to find gluten-free foods, but they were generally a) incredibly expensive and b) very poor substitutes for the real thing. Seriously, I don't know if you have ever tried gluten-free bread, but it is not good. Gluten-free peanut butter is worse. So, despite the nice kitchen and the well-stocked grocery stores, making food that was both edible and enjoyable at a reasonable price was challenging. Even worse was going out to eat. This had become a major component of our work culture. I was working with four of my college classmates on an archiving project, and we generally took our lunch breaks together at one of the local restaurants, to talk about the project or simply to decompress. Even more importantly, the professor who was overseeing the project flew in from our alma mater in Wisconsin every other week and we would discuss our progress and our plans for the next weeks over a several-hours-long dinner at a Chinese/Japanese buffet. Suddenly, I couldn't eat gluten, and my restaurant choices were drastically limited. I stopped eating lunch with my co-workers, opting instead either to bring my perpetually-undercooked and inexplicably dry brown rice pasta from home or eat at one of the two restaurants that had blissfully thought to add gluten-free items to their menu. The bi-weekly buffets were harder, since even sushi was out---the rice vinegar used in making sushi rice generally contains gluten. I started to eat before these meals, and while my colleagues ate I would nibble on a few pieces of sashimi and sip my water while we discussed. This was not a set-up ideally suited to these two-to-four hour long chats, and though my colleagues and professor were supportive, I got the sense that my not eating made them somewhat uncomfortable.
In fact, I saw this a lot. Gluten-free diets have gained popularity as a health fad, even among people who aren't gluten-intolerant. Added to that, so many of the people who think that they are gluten-intolerant really aren't, as was (spoilers) the case with me. The result of this is that many people don't look kindly on gluten-free diets. When I asked what was in a dish or refused cookies because of the flour, people assumed I was just being picky, or rude, or overly-sensitive. I knew I didn't need to explain myself to these strangers, but it still bothered me. Not only was I sick, not only was I not able to partake in the food culture we had developed at work, but now I was being belittled by strangers for trying to make myself healthy. I was astonished by how many people felt the need to make my diet their business, and that, even more than the expense, the poor choice in quality food, and the difficulty fitting it into my workday, was what stood out to me most about the experience.
I quit the gluten-free diet before too long when it became clear that it wasn't helping. Flash forward about ten months to July of 2014. I was still sick, and we had exhausted a good number of other routes that had seemed likely. My mom and I decided that it was time to take a fairly drastic measure---an intense, comprehensive, and daunting elimination diet.
In brief, an elimination diet is where several foods or food groups are removed entirely, you take careful notes of what you eat and how you feel, then slowly reintroduced after a period of time (generally 1-2 months). Ideally, one of the foods or groups of foods will make react negatively when reintroduced, thus pinpointing what is making you sick. Simple enough.
This elimination diet, however, wasn't just one or two foods. We eliminated all gluten (easy, done that), all dairy, all processed foods, all legumes, most meats, barring fresh water fish, lamb, and turkey, all nightshades (potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes are the big ones here), and various other eclectic items. And yes, I do mean we---Owl immediately offered to do this with me, and she was amazing throughout the entire thing. This list sounded tricky on the surface, but we soon realized that it was a LOT trickier than we had anticipated. We couldn't have corn, and that meant nothing with high fructose corn syrup, either. We couldn't have most grains. We could have olive oil, but only cold, expeller-pressed olive oil. We couldn't have sugar. We couldn't have soy. Most spices were out. Take a look around your kitchen. How many items in your pantry have none of those ingredients in them? A few, I'm sure, but not a ton. Owl and I made a trip to a local grocery store with a large organic section, and after several hours and a truly astonishing amount of money, we had enough to restock our pantry with the staples---arrowroot flour, agave nectar, safflower oil, almond milk, brown rice pasta, etc. My parents were incredible, helping us both with the exorbitant costs of maintaining this diet, and with coming up with creative new ways to prepare exciting meals---or at least less bland meals. Not to mention, they were a great source of moral support, which was much needed, as it wasn't long before I realized that this diet, far from helping, was making me sicker. I was doing everything I could to get all the nutrients I needed. We would cook huge dishes of salmon or tilapia so that we could refrigerate leftovers to grab at a moment's notice. Avocados became our new best friend, since they contained both protein and a good number of the nutrients we needed. I started carrying around bags of cashews and almonds, and learned to make sweet potato and kale chips that were actually quite good. We ate at one restaurant the entire time we were on this diet, and it was for my birthday. My parents came up to visit and took us to a local landmark, and we ate at the restaurant there. Nothing on their menu was allowable on our diet, but the waiter was incredibly patient and brought all of our restricted foods to the chef, who made us an amazing dish of fish (some sort of white, cold-water fish I'm forgetting at the moment) lightly seasoned with vinegar and salt.
In many ways it was an enjoyable, or at least interesting, experience, because we were paying such careful attention to what we ate, and we were cooking a LOT more. It made us more mindful of what we consumed, how we shopped, and how we cooked. It was definitely eye-opening to realize just how many additives go into most food. And not just the stuff you'd expect it to be in---juice, peanut butter, bread (even when we found gluten-free bread, it was loaded with chemicals and additives we couldn't eat). Organic food is far from free of these additives---turns out, soy is organic, but soy lecithin is also an additive. In fact, soy is ubiquitous these days. Finding food that doesn't use soybean oil or soy lecithin as an emulsifier is nearly impossible, it seems. And if it doesn't have soy, it has high fructose corn syrup. So, challenge though it was, we definitely got an education. And having a reason to make time every day to cook was nice. It was also, I think, kind of fun for Owl and I to do something so challenging together, though she may not agree.
In the end, however, I was so sick that we realized that reintroducing the foods back in to see what I reacted to would be useless---even if they made me ill, we wouldn't realize, since I was already feeling so badly. I was constantly sick to my stomach, I was listless and could barely make it up a flight of stairs, and I had been advised against going to the gym. I was constantly hungry even though I also felt sick, I was tired all the time, and, to be perfectly honest, I was not much fun to be around. It was a frustrating experience, and I was annoyed that I was going through all of this hassle and feeling so poorly as a result, when it was supposed to make me better.
We stopped the diet four weeks into the six, and I started to feel better---or at least, my "normal" level of better, which wasn't that great.
Now, in February of 2015, I've had the worse month health-wise that I can recall having. On Friday, I had an allergy test, which you can read about here, and as it turns out I'm sensitive to quite a bit. I've been put on another elimination diet. This time it is much smaller, which is a blessing, though there are still a few limiting factors on there---soy, again, has proven to be the trickiest, with barley flour, almonds, and olives as close runners-up. Rice, rye, apples, pineapples, halibut, shrimp, tuna, lamb, turkey, cabbage, and sweet potatoes are also banned. In six weeks, I can begin to reintroduce these into my diet, but until then, we'll have to get a bit creative. We just went on another (shorter and less insanely pricey) grocery run today, finding bread without barley flour and flour tortillas without soybean oil, replenishing our supply of non-olive-based vegetable oils, searching desperately for fruit juice without apple concentrate, and splurging a little on organic, 70% cacao chocolate, because everything else has soy lecithin in it. In comparison to the last diet, this should be much easier, especially now that we know what we're doing. (And yes, Owl has agreed once again to join me in this adventure.) We'll post more about what we've been cooking, and what weird things we've been finding out aren't allowed because of soy- or malt barely-inclusions.
So far I think the most surprising revelation has been how much food, even healthy food, has unexpected ingredients. Apple concentrate or apple cider vinegar are in a surprising number of sauces, dressings, and juices, malt barley flour is in whole wheat bread and most crackers, and soy? Man, soy is EVERYWHERE.
I have so much more to say on this subject, but I think I have rambled on enough for one night. So, friends, I will leave you with this challenge, if you're interested: try and go a day and eat only foods whose ingredients you know completely. Sure, you know all the fixings on that sandwich, but what went into the bread? Did you know a number of teabags use soy lecithin? And that organic juice may have some surprising additions. These aren't necessarily bad things, but neither is eating mindfully, at least for a day. Try it, and feel free to comment if you do and let us know how it went!
Owl, thanks for helping me with this diet, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
The Key to Not Burning Down a Church Is Good Communication
Happy Valentine's Day, Raven! Sorry you had to spend yesterday getting turned into an allergic pin cushion. Sounds decidedly unpleasant. I hope today was significantly more pleasant and less filled with allergens (excepting all cat shaped allergens).
Today's title is brought to you by our lovely friend Stork (yup, still not using real names), but also by Crow and the tabletop D&D game he is running for Raven and some of other friends. In this game a great warlock (who'd basically sold his soul to the fae for badass magic powers) goes to a church to get a spell he really, really wants. His patron (a fae who is a bit jealous of organized religion) demands recompense for this grand betrayal and the warlock foolishly offers himself up as willing to do anything. His patron's response? Burn down a church.
The irony Crow says is the patron might have been able to get him that spell if only he'd asked instead of going behind his patron's back.
When I jokingly remarked that I should post the story for tonight's blog (having little else to say tonight) Stork jokingly suggested the title. But the more I think about it, the more appropriate the subject seems for the day. Not the D&D story, though I am glad to share my ridiculous nerdiness with the world at large, but the moral of the story. Communication is the key to a strong, healthy relationship. Even if the relationship is between a semi-evil, tainted warlock and his faerie patron.
I didn't want to just post a regular post for Valentine's Day, but I also wasn't interested in posting something super sappy and drivel-ridden for the day either. But talking about communication on a day about relationships seems to fit perfectly.
Since I am exhausted and have work tomorrow morning and also because I think brevity is good here I'm going to boil this down to a list of habits I think are essential to good communication in any relationship.
Sympathy and empathy aren't the same. Know when to use which. The key to both empathy and sympathy is in sharing an emotion and that can be a very good thing for both positive and negative emotions, but empathy - really entering into a person's emotional state - isn't always what is needed. For either party. For example getting caught up a friend's anger at a situation may be just what is called for when they want to vent about someone who cut them off in traffic. It may be less productive when they are mad at their boss and about to send an angry, standoffish e-mail. Sympathy means understanding the anger, sadness, etc, but not giving in to feeling it yourself. In some situations it's best for one party to stay calm (though I have learned after many years of calmness that sometimes you need to get carried away with the other person).
If you need it, ask for it. Again, should be a no-brainer, but it's not. Your friend, no matter how long you've been friends, isn't necessarily going to know that you talking every day about your new job really bothers you because you're having trouble at yours right now. Or maybe you hate the smell of oranges. Or maybe you need to know the secrets of the priests, but all you have is your friend the angry fae. Your friends won't know any of your needs unless you open your mouth and say something. If you need something, say something. Just do it tactfully. And respectfully. And perhaps most importantly, without judgment or accusations.
Don't assume. You don't want to be the ass. Don't assume your friends know that you don't want to go out. Don't assume they do. This is sort of a combination of #1 and #3. Ask first, then listen for the response (not just for the one you want to hear) and then act on what was said. Be open and assume others will do the same for you.
Give yourself and your friends permission to mess everything up. We all have bad days. We all say stupid stuff that we wish we hadn't or didn't really mean. And that is one part of this rule. Forgiveness is a big part of communication in friendship. If someone is truly sorry and seeks out your forgiveness don't take that lightly. Give forgiveness where it is due with the knowledge that you'll need that forgiveness someday yourself. The other part of this rule is harder (at least for me). There are some subjects that are very important to us, but make us uncomfortable to talk about. For me this is often social politics (race, gender, class, etc). It's hard to talk about these things and we all have a million prejudices on the subjects. We're bound to say something stupid (or at least something that sounds stupid) from time to time. And we're likely to hear something we think is stupid. It's okay to have these conversations and for them to be uncomfortable. To really know a person something that's what you have to do. And most importantly for our prejudices to vanish and our beliefs to evolve we have to first discover what they are and learn what we want them to be. I don't think you can do that without having at least a few awkward conversations with people you really trust. Which brings us to our final point...
Trust. A definite no-brainer. Secrets are secrets. Keep them that way unless it would put a friend in danger. Beyond that, trust that a friend has all the facts for their own life. Let them make their own choices without second guessing them. Give your advice and opinions then take a step back. We're all big boys and girls here.
Today's title is brought to you by our lovely friend Stork (yup, still not using real names), but also by Crow and the tabletop D&D game he is running for Raven and some of other friends. In this game a great warlock (who'd basically sold his soul to the fae for badass magic powers) goes to a church to get a spell he really, really wants. His patron (a fae who is a bit jealous of organized religion) demands recompense for this grand betrayal and the warlock foolishly offers himself up as willing to do anything. His patron's response? Burn down a church.
The irony Crow says is the patron might have been able to get him that spell if only he'd asked instead of going behind his patron's back.
When I jokingly remarked that I should post the story for tonight's blog (having little else to say tonight) Stork jokingly suggested the title. But the more I think about it, the more appropriate the subject seems for the day. Not the D&D story, though I am glad to share my ridiculous nerdiness with the world at large, but the moral of the story. Communication is the key to a strong, healthy relationship. Even if the relationship is between a semi-evil, tainted warlock and his faerie patron.
I didn't want to just post a regular post for Valentine's Day, but I also wasn't interested in posting something super sappy and drivel-ridden for the day either. But talking about communication on a day about relationships seems to fit perfectly.
Since I am exhausted and have work tomorrow morning and also because I think brevity is good here I'm going to boil this down to a list of habits I think are essential to good communication in any relationship.
6 Rules For Communicating Well in Any Relationship
Listen first, then respond. This sounds like an obvious one. And it is. But we don't always do it. Sometimes, especially when we know someone well we start to think we know what they're going to say before they say it. Or we think a conversation is about something it really isn't. Or we bring preconceptions into the conversation. Don't do any of that. Listen. Really listen. And then respond to what was said. |
| I'm communicating... with my fists... |
Sympathy and empathy aren't the same. Know when to use which. The key to both empathy and sympathy is in sharing an emotion and that can be a very good thing for both positive and negative emotions, but empathy - really entering into a person's emotional state - isn't always what is needed. For either party. For example getting caught up a friend's anger at a situation may be just what is called for when they want to vent about someone who cut them off in traffic. It may be less productive when they are mad at their boss and about to send an angry, standoffish e-mail. Sympathy means understanding the anger, sadness, etc, but not giving in to feeling it yourself. In some situations it's best for one party to stay calm (though I have learned after many years of calmness that sometimes you need to get carried away with the other person).
If you need it, ask for it. Again, should be a no-brainer, but it's not. Your friend, no matter how long you've been friends, isn't necessarily going to know that you talking every day about your new job really bothers you because you're having trouble at yours right now. Or maybe you hate the smell of oranges. Or maybe you need to know the secrets of the priests, but all you have is your friend the angry fae. Your friends won't know any of your needs unless you open your mouth and say something. If you need something, say something. Just do it tactfully. And respectfully. And perhaps most importantly, without judgment or accusations.
 |
| To be honest... I need you to never wear that moose again. Okay? |
Give yourself and your friends permission to mess everything up. We all have bad days. We all say stupid stuff that we wish we hadn't or didn't really mean. And that is one part of this rule. Forgiveness is a big part of communication in friendship. If someone is truly sorry and seeks out your forgiveness don't take that lightly. Give forgiveness where it is due with the knowledge that you'll need that forgiveness someday yourself. The other part of this rule is harder (at least for me). There are some subjects that are very important to us, but make us uncomfortable to talk about. For me this is often social politics (race, gender, class, etc). It's hard to talk about these things and we all have a million prejudices on the subjects. We're bound to say something stupid (or at least something that sounds stupid) from time to time. And we're likely to hear something we think is stupid. It's okay to have these conversations and for them to be uncomfortable. To really know a person something that's what you have to do. And most importantly for our prejudices to vanish and our beliefs to evolve we have to first discover what they are and learn what we want them to be. I don't think you can do that without having at least a few awkward conversations with people you really trust. Which brings us to our final point...
Trust. A definite no-brainer. Secrets are secrets. Keep them that way unless it would put a friend in danger. Beyond that, trust that a friend has all the facts for their own life. Let them make their own choices without second guessing them. Give your advice and opinions then take a step back. We're all big boys and girls here.
I'm still working on a lot of these and admit to making many communication missteps. Anything you think I should add? Anything different on your list?
Raven - I'll hear from you (and see you!) tomorrow!
By the way, your punishment has been decided - You will have to write a blog post about the virtues of something you don't necessarily like yourself. I don't want you to do something you actually hate (no 50 Shades of Grey - though I may hate that more than you... not sure), just something you don't normally appreciate. You can pick anything you want (Republicans, facebook games, romance novels) just as long as it's not a subject you would normally sing the praises of. This challenge is at Stork's suggestion! Thank you Stork!
Friday, February 13, 2015
Allergies
According to one of my doctors earlier today, I'm allergic to air.
Not really. That would be rough. Okay, so, I'm not allergic to air, but it turns out, I'm allergic to a lot more than I thought.
I spent the better part of today in the hospital (or in transit to and from the hospital) to get an allergy test. I spoke to a whole host of doctors, PAs, nurses, and techs, who were all very lovely. After about an hour of waiting in the waiting room and another hour of talking to a nurse and two doctors, they finally brought out these trays of common allergens, which were divided into sets of eight based on food types (tree nuts, proteins, vegetable A, vegetable B, etc). There were eight tiny needles on each set, one for each allergen they were testing, and each of the eight sets was administered at once by pressing down somewhere on my arm. It was a small prick, more like being pinched than like getting a shot. Eight sets of eight, plus one control set of four.
Not really. That would be rough. Okay, so, I'm not allergic to air, but it turns out, I'm allergic to a lot more than I thought.
I spent the better part of today in the hospital (or in transit to and from the hospital) to get an allergy test. I spoke to a whole host of doctors, PAs, nurses, and techs, who were all very lovely. After about an hour of waiting in the waiting room and another hour of talking to a nurse and two doctors, they finally brought out these trays of common allergens, which were divided into sets of eight based on food types (tree nuts, proteins, vegetable A, vegetable B, etc). There were eight tiny needles on each set, one for each allergen they were testing, and each of the eight sets was administered at once by pressing down somewhere on my arm. It was a small prick, more like being pinched than like getting a shot. Eight sets of eight, plus one control set of four.
The "needles"
Immediately after, 68 small red dots formed where each prick was administered. Many of them were slightly raised, and several developed small white wheels around them, like welts. There was a twenty minute period between when the test was administered and when they could begin to interpret the results, so I waited with my mom while we took pictures of my spotted arms to send to friends and put up on Facebook, because it's the 21st century and what else would we do with free time, read? Many of the dots itched, but none of them seemed to be terribly large or raised.
The technician and the nurse came back and measured the bumps, then they administered another set of tests on my back, this time for environmental factors. This garnered an immediate and relatively drastic response, with several large, raised, red-and-white welts forming as soon as the test was finished.
As we waited for the environmental test to finish so it could be analyzed, we went over the results from the first test. While there were no bumps large enough to suggest a full-on allergy (nothing that would really cause hives or difficulty breathing) there were about fifteen positive responses, which indicated at the very least a sensitivity to those foods. Among the positive results were almonds, rice, barley, lamb, tuna, soybeans, shrimp, and olives.
We talked to a dietitian, who put me on an elimination diet. I'm to remove all of the positive results from my diet for six weeks, then slowly reintroduce them. If you talked to me at all around July, you may remember that Owl and I were doing a very stringent elimination diet back then (me because I'm sick, Owl for moral support) which was not successful. This, however, will have a much narrower scope, so hopefully it will yield some results. Until then, I'll be doing all of my cooking with sunflower oil or coconut oil. (And since sushi is out for the time being, if anybody wants to get some [non-tuna/shrimp] sashimi with me, let me know!)
Then I got back the results for the environmental test, where they told me I was allergic to dust, trees, pollen, and my parents' cats. (I mean, all cats, but right now these are the ones that matter.) I can give up olives, lamb, and almonds. I won't be happy about it, but I can do it. Cats, not a chance. Fortunately, they told me that the cats will only be a problem for my asthma, which is almost non-existent at this point. So, right now all it means is that when I visit my parents, I have to keep my bedroom door closed so that the cats don't climb on my bed...which has so far proved trickier than expected, as these kittens love going anywhere that is off-limits.
After a four-hour appointment we finally grabbed lunch at the cafe in the hospital (my first full meal in a day and a half) and went home. I cuddled my cats in fierce defiance of the doctors' orders, then took a bath because I was covered in tiny check marks where each needle went in, and also because I was itchy and sore.
Then I got back the results for the environmental test, where they told me I was allergic to dust, trees, pollen, and my parents' cats. (I mean, all cats, but right now these are the ones that matter.) I can give up olives, lamb, and almonds. I won't be happy about it, but I can do it. Cats, not a chance. Fortunately, they told me that the cats will only be a problem for my asthma, which is almost non-existent at this point. So, right now all it means is that when I visit my parents, I have to keep my bedroom door closed so that the cats don't climb on my bed...which has so far proved trickier than expected, as these kittens love going anywhere that is off-limits.
After a four-hour appointment we finally grabbed lunch at the cafe in the hospital (my first full meal in a day and a half) and went home. I cuddled my cats in fierce defiance of the doctors' orders, then took a bath because I was covered in tiny check marks where each needle went in, and also because I was itchy and sore.
Now I am less itchy and sore, but I am quite tired. I will leave you here for tonight. Owl, I'll look forward to your post tomorrow.
P.S. If I remember, I may post some pictures of my allergenic back and arms later. So, there's that to look forward to, I guess.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
A Day of Love For Everyone
Hey Raven!
It's Thursday and I've just worked a double shift. You know what that means? It means I'm really tired and having trouble seeing the words I'm typing because the screen is all... floopy (shut up spell check - it's totally a word, okay?)
I apologize in advance if this post makes less sense than usual, but I'm going to try to power through to write something coherent. However, I don't really want to write about anything I am super passionate about tonight because I'd like to give those posts more attention and brainpower than I currently have at my disposal.
Today I thought I would share my day with all you. The first 6 or so hours of it consisted of standing on my feet a lot and looking over a lot of awesome LEGO (guess what my first job is - I dare you). The second part of my day was considerably more fun and consisted of playing lots of nostalgia board games like Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land (which they changed since I was child and now makes me a bit angry*), and Connect Four (not technically a board game, I am aware).
Then I got home found a ton of Valentines taped to the bedroom wall courtesy of a very sappy Raven, which basically made my whole day. Then I talked with my roommate about our impending board games night. It's a weekly tradition that our house hosts a board games night with a bunch of friends, games, food, and drink. This week we weren't sure about hosting it because... Valentine's Day. But as Raven is out of town, Crow doesn't have a partner, and most of our other friends don't celebrate, don't have a significant other or have a significant other who lives out of town we decided to throw board games night anyways.
It got me thinking about Valentine's Day in general and how to celebrate in particular. I love celebrating with Raven and we have a tradition of doing something really sappy and sweet every year because basically we're really gross and stuff**, but I started thinking how appropriate it was to celebrate a day that has come to be all about love*** with some people I love in a totally non-romantic way.
We put a lot of emphasis on the romantic partnership and the importance of that relationship. Many people still see partnering off as a natural almost unavoidable end for them. But despite that view more and more people choose to remain single, unmarried, or at least uncommitted all the time and I think it's time we, as a culture, started honoring that choice and showing it as a norm. I am not someone who could live their life without a steady, long-term, romantic partner (or maybe I just couldn't live it without Raven), but on this Valentine's Day away from her I am going to take some time to think about all the other people I love who I couldn't get along in life without. My family and my friends.
I know and remember how hard Valentine's Day can be without a significant other to celebrate with, but we all have someone we love and regardless of your coupled or uncoupled state I urge everyone reading this post to take a moment on Valentine's Day to tell those people that you appreciate them and are happy they are in your life. The word love doesn't even have to come up! I think that is a way to celebrate the day that everyone can get behind and enjoy. I have long believed that love is always worth celebrating and although I have never needed a day marked on a calendar to give me the excuse to celebrate it, I think we could all use the reminder at least once a year that we aren't alone in our life. And that is a great thing.
So Raven I hope you have a tolerable time getting poked and prodded by doctors tomorrow. I will be keeping you in my thoughts (as I always do). You should still expect a super sappy Valentine's something from me on V-Day! I can't wait to hear from you tomorrow and I will see you on Sunday.
Love,
Owl
*Seriously! Queen Frostine isn't a queen anymore. She's princess. Seriously, Hasbro?!
**Except for the first year when I was a goof and didn't do anything and Raven was super sweet.
***I know originally it was the day a saint (or possibly two saints) with a name resembling Valentine was/were canonized, but let's face it Hallmark has taken it over and it is now more reliably about love (specifically romantic love).
It's Thursday and I've just worked a double shift. You know what that means? It means I'm really tired and having trouble seeing the words I'm typing because the screen is all... floopy (shut up spell check - it's totally a word, okay?)
I apologize in advance if this post makes less sense than usual, but I'm going to try to power through to write something coherent. However, I don't really want to write about anything I am super passionate about tonight because I'd like to give those posts more attention and brainpower than I currently have at my disposal.
Today I thought I would share my day with all you. The first 6 or so hours of it consisted of standing on my feet a lot and looking over a lot of awesome LEGO (guess what my first job is - I dare you). The second part of my day was considerably more fun and consisted of playing lots of nostalgia board games like Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land (which they changed since I was child and now makes me a bit angry*), and Connect Four (not technically a board game, I am aware).
Then I got home found a ton of Valentines taped to the bedroom wall courtesy of a very sappy Raven, which basically made my whole day. Then I talked with my roommate about our impending board games night. It's a weekly tradition that our house hosts a board games night with a bunch of friends, games, food, and drink. This week we weren't sure about hosting it because... Valentine's Day. But as Raven is out of town, Crow doesn't have a partner, and most of our other friends don't celebrate, don't have a significant other or have a significant other who lives out of town we decided to throw board games night anyways.
It got me thinking about Valentine's Day in general and how to celebrate in particular. I love celebrating with Raven and we have a tradition of doing something really sappy and sweet every year because basically we're really gross and stuff**, but I started thinking how appropriate it was to celebrate a day that has come to be all about love*** with some people I love in a totally non-romantic way.
We put a lot of emphasis on the romantic partnership and the importance of that relationship. Many people still see partnering off as a natural almost unavoidable end for them. But despite that view more and more people choose to remain single, unmarried, or at least uncommitted all the time and I think it's time we, as a culture, started honoring that choice and showing it as a norm. I am not someone who could live their life without a steady, long-term, romantic partner (or maybe I just couldn't live it without Raven), but on this Valentine's Day away from her I am going to take some time to think about all the other people I love who I couldn't get along in life without. My family and my friends.
I know and remember how hard Valentine's Day can be without a significant other to celebrate with, but we all have someone we love and regardless of your coupled or uncoupled state I urge everyone reading this post to take a moment on Valentine's Day to tell those people that you appreciate them and are happy they are in your life. The word love doesn't even have to come up! I think that is a way to celebrate the day that everyone can get behind and enjoy. I have long believed that love is always worth celebrating and although I have never needed a day marked on a calendar to give me the excuse to celebrate it, I think we could all use the reminder at least once a year that we aren't alone in our life. And that is a great thing.
So Raven I hope you have a tolerable time getting poked and prodded by doctors tomorrow. I will be keeping you in my thoughts (as I always do). You should still expect a super sappy Valentine's something from me on V-Day! I can't wait to hear from you tomorrow and I will see you on Sunday.
Love,
Owl
*Seriously! Queen Frostine isn't a queen anymore. She's princess. Seriously, Hasbro?!
**Except for the first year when I was a goof and didn't do anything and Raven was super sweet.
***I know originally it was the day a saint (or possibly two saints) with a name resembling Valentine was/were canonized, but let's face it Hallmark has taken it over and it is now more reliably about love (specifically romantic love).
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