Oops…

I seem to have a small problem this year.

You see, I promised I wasn’t going to plant a vegetable garden. After 3 years of mediocre results and uneaten salad greens, I was going to order some bulbs and roots from a fundraiser to start a perennial bed, and that was it.

I bought 2.5 yards of fresh garden mix and got the bed up to snuff:

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For a few days, I was content. The plants were taking root, and the deer were visiting without eating.

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Somewhere in the past two weeks…well…I forgot the last part of that promise.

And I developed a bit of a habit…

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And then, it got worse…because someone got her cute nose where it didn’t belong!

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So, I had to buy a new tomato plant (or three…). Also, I desperately needed mint…for mojitos…and I heard they had it HERE.

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And they did!

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But they also had all this:

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Which became this:

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Which turned into this:

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And now I’m not allowed to go out by myself anymore…

Oops.

When life happens

I’m still alive. Honestly. My mind has just been consumed with dance class wear orders and canning carrots and making pickles. And more class wear orders. And more pickles. And house-breaking the chiweenie. And parenting. And working.

And stuff.

So, what’s new? I’m on quite the motivation kick this week, and feeling great! Monday was sheer chaos, as I had to cancel $6000 worth of dance wear orders, resize them for a different company, and reorder them on a rush.

Yesterday, I canned EIGHT LITRES of dill carrots. All of the were from my garden. Yes, my garden grows carrots, zucchini, and potatoes. Nothing else. All my onions, peas, beets, radishes…nothing but greens. And truthfully, I only got one bowl of potatoes from twelve hills of potatoes, and only 5 small and 2 monster zucchini from six plants.

Yes, that is PURPLE cauliflower, from the St Albert Farmers’ Market!

But I have carrots!

Today is all about getting back on a health kick. I haven’t been running since my 30k at the end of July. I’ve been eating horribly, and if I get a litre of water a day, it’s a miracle. Ugh. I’m back on My Fitness Pal (add me: magzd), tracking and logging my food and activity. I may even start running again!

Then there is the house! I’ve finally narrowed down paint colours for my living room and I am getting rid of my red wall. It’s just too aggressive. I’ll keep my red accents, but it’s getting toned down. I’m also buying us an early Christmas gift as well:

And thanks to my dear Sku, my office is functional and tidy again!! We spent Sunday purging and organizing everything! I finished up on Monday, and it is SO nice to walk past the door without feeling massive anxiety… Yes, there is still a couple of boxes to put away, but as of yesterday, the desk clutter was completely gone!

And I took my long-neglected SCOBY, separated the layers, made a SCOBY hotel, and started brewing kombucha tea again, much to the horror of most of Facebook and Twitter :)

You can see that, while I’ve been absent from my blog, I haven’t been absent from life! I hope to be posting much more regularly now that dance is in full-swing and life has calmed down. I miss you all – and I have the winner from my 1000th post contest to post too!!

Now for the big question: did you miss me?? ;)

Wavering

It’s Day Two of the Whole 30. I hate every living minute of it.

I have never, ever, in my whole life wanted to quit something so quickly.

I hate it. Yes, the food is tasty. Whatever. It’s not satisfying at all. At. All.

My reasons for doing this were varied:

  • Of course weight loss is always a little bit nice. I haven’t been able to break 135lbs, but I also haven’t been trying.
  • I like the paleo food lifestyle. We can’t eat gluten-y grains, and we avoid most dairy anyway. This provided some structure, which was much-needed and much-wanted.
  • I love doing stupid challenges, like my sugar fast. I wanted to see if I could do it.
  • I wanted to feel better.

But guess what? The Whole 30 is a HUGE, SUDDEN CHANGE, even for someone who eats 90% gluten/dairy-free already. The physical act of cooking and eating the super-strict Whole 30 food isn’t what’s hard. It’s the mental commitment to it.

You see, I’m already pushing my brain beyond it’s happy place with my marathon training. I have to run 18 miles this Sunday, and I have some serious mental energy that needs to unblock before then. This year’s training is taking more mental commitment than anything I’ve ever done.

I also have a husband who has been gone since Saturday, and now won’t be home until August 2nd. He was supposed to be home today. Surprise!!

There’s also the timing on top of the mental stress. I am going away for the August long weekend with two celiac kids. I already need to plan for their food, and I don’t know if I want the added stress of bringing my own food too. Plus, it’s kind of imposing and rude to my hostess (even though she’s a beautiful, accommodating soul). The morning after we get back, I leave for 5 days in Las Vegas. I’ll be dancing from 9-5 every day, plus three training runs. I’ll have a tight schedule around meal times, and I’ll be at a hotel the whole time. The hotel is at the edge of town – no time for grocery store trips or anything like that.

That, my friends, is 8 solid days of food stress. On top of travel stress, on top of training stress.

I honestly don’t think I can do this right now. I actually feel anxious about eating. THAT is not healthy. I actually want to CRY. It’s pathetic. I don’t want to run out and get a Blizzard and a bottle of wine. I just don’t want to feel trapped and anxious!

I’m a healthy person! I’m not overweight, and I’m very active. I have no discernible health concerns. This isn’t a do-or-die nutrition situation. But I have to stop and wonder: am I having trouble because of all the other stress it’s causing, or because I really need to do this for my body. Is this just withdrawal/cleanse, and I need to push through it? Or is it just BS and I need to take the warning signs and walk away, try again later?

And it’s not like I’ve been starving. I’ve eaten LOTS – at least 2000kcal each day for the past two days. But I’m forcing it in, and I’m still not getting nearly enough carbohydrates to support my training.

Ugh.

I don’t like quitting, and I quit too often. But it’s not worth the struggle right now. Even if I woke up tomorrow and it was an easy day, it’s not worth it right now.

I can go gluten-free and dairy-free. I can’t do this Whole 30 right now. So while the title of this post is “Wavering“, what it really means is “Quitting“.

I need some breathing room right now. I can’t do food guilt. I need to just eat and train and dance and run that marathon in October!

So, Whole 30? I quit.

Whole 30 – Week One

My meal plans are set out for the next seven days! Today and tomorrow are my farewell-to-grain days, as I am preparing for the Moose is Loose half marathon in the morning. Monday morning is the start of my Whole 30 Challenge!!

Breakfasts:

  • Egg muffins with spinach, sausage, onion, and pepper
  • Ground turkey with onion, kale, and apples
  • Shredded chicken with yam/carrot/onion hash
  • Sausages with sweet potato hash brown cakes
  • Omelette with spinach, onion, peppers
  • Apples with almond butter, hard boiled eggs, left-over asparagus
  • Shredded chicken with apples, onions and carrots

Lunches:

  • Spinach salad with tuna, avocado, peppers, and cucumber
  • Spinach salad with salmon, red onion, capers, and olives
  • Peppers stuffed with tuna, carrots, peppers, avocado, mayonaise
  • Shredded chicken, sweet potatoes, fruit
  • Omelette with sausage, kale, and asparagus
  • Left-over beef roast with kale, onion, green beans and sweet potato
  • Left-over beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onion

Dinners:

  • Spaghetti squash with ground beef, diced tomatoes, spinach, onions, and peppers
  • Beef roast with kale, onion, carrots, sweet potatoes, and green beans
  • Beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes and onion
  • Turkey chili with tomatoes, onions, and kale
  • Cauliflower pizza dough with sausage, onion, tomatoes, and peppers
  • Sausages with onions, apples, kale, and cucumber salad
  • Crustless spinach quiche

I’ll be honest: looking at my meal plan, the estimated cost of groceries for this week terrified me! Nothing but fresh produce and meat! And this is my first week of living on cash only! What if it was more than the $200 I allotted us??

I had a handful of the ingredients already (5 peppers, green beans, cucumbers, riced cauliflower, diced tomatoes, almond butter, and capers) but I needed to buy everything else. When the cashier at Superstore finished ringing up my items, I was shocked!


Shocked!!!

Now, I still need 2 rotisserie chickens (those are my lazy-protien days ;) ) and a spaghetti squash, so my final total will be closer to $150. I’m sure I could do a little better on the produce if I went to H&W Produce, but I didn’t want to make 2 trips into the city today.

Not bad, hey? And this is for ALL FOUR of us!

Switching to gluten-free grain flours and products bumped my monthly food bill from $600/month to $850. It kills me to spend $4-8 on a loaf of bread. This will take a huge chunk off that total, AND it will also keep Leith from buying lunch every day. $8-10 a day, 5 days a week?? That’s another $200 a month saved right there!

I am so excited, and my mouth is watering just looking at the menu. I can’t wait to start…48 hours to go!

The No’s: any grains/rice/quinoa, seeds (including peas and corn), soy, dairy, legumes, sugar, caffeine (other than tea), and alcohol

I can’t wait to share the results with you :)

The Whole 30 Plunge

I’m a little bit excited, a whole lot nervous, and very indecisive about when to start…

I read a great book this past week, in keeping with two other foodie books I read this past year. The first was Wheat Belly. This was my insight into the problems caused by eating grain. I needed to understand more about celiac and gluten, and this was a great resource.

From there, I moved onto Robb Wolf’s paleo bible, The Paleo Solution. It was another interesting read, but quite frankly, I didn’t like his tone. It was too casual and condescending for me. I know too many of “those types” from my fitness background. But I liked the material and the theories. Between that and Wheat Belly, it all made sense.

But of course, I like dairy and I love wine.

Unfortunately, 6 weeks into my naturopathic journey, I still feel blah despite strengthening my adrenal system and trying to improve my quality of sleep. I’ve thought about doing another sugar fast, and other than two oversights, I have been gluten free for all of July.

That’s when Laurie pointed me in the direction of It Starts With Food. It’s another paleo-style book, but I found a greater connection to the why: why I shouldn’t be eating dairy, or legumes, or grains. It also lays out a great 30-day purge, if you will, to challenge you to eat within Paleolithic nutritional guidelines and what to expect.

More importantly? It didn’t end with 30 days of meal plans. I hate meal plans. I won’t follow them, and I know that my family won’t follow them. I’ve tried to get eggs into my kids at breakfast. Not. Happening.

But guidelines? Perfect! Help me implement a lifestyle, instead of follow a chart! That I can do. I need that kind of flexibility.

I already know that nutritionally, I have something funky going on. My celiac test came back negative, but I feel better when I follow my girls’ celiac diet. One of the next steps my naturopath wants to take is eliminating dairy. Between those two, I’m halfway there already, so why not take the full Whole 30 plunge?

I just can’t narrow down the when. You see, there’s nothing stopping me from starting tomorrow. The problem lies in my Vegas trip in just under 3 weeks. I know that it will be a hard thing to follow while staying in a hotel, revolving around a conference schedule. I don’t know how easy it will be (time- or convenience-wise), and I don’t want to set myself up for failure.

What would you do? Would you commit to the full 30 days, and hope for the best for 5 days in Vegas? Or would you wait until you got back and just make small changes in the meantime?

I really want to try this. I want to buckle my diet down to good food that my body was designed to digest. I am SO sick of feeling sick and tired and unwell. I’m tired of feeling achy, dehydrated, sore, swollen, and inflamed with no discernible cause.

I’m giving myself until Monday to (decide to) start. My next half marathon is this Sunday, and I don’t want to change anything right before a race. But in the meantime, I’d love some feedback. And, if you’d like to join me, I’d love to have a team to survive with ;)

Meet Herman

Meet Herman:

kombucha starter

Herman is my scoby! Much like Irish friendship bread, Herman came to me as an offshoot of my friend Erin’s scoby :) She popped him in a jar and passed him along to me.

What’s a scoby? It’s a live culture. It looks like a glob. It grosses people out.

But Herman’s purpose in life isn’t to gross people out. His purpose is to turn already-tasty tea into magical kombucha tea! Magical because it brings the body back into balance…although the effervescence does feel magical when you drink it ;)

You can read about the reported benefits of kombucha here.

Basically, I will take Herman, and add him to the amazing sweet tea from Tea Desire and distilled water:

kombucha starter

Sweet tea, cooling so as not to scald (KILL!) Herman

He will do that voodoo that he does, and in a week I will have kombucha! I’ve been looking for a tastier recovery drink, and Herman is my gateway.

Yes, the whole thing is a little hippie for most people. I don’t mind though – I’ve been missing the hands-on experience in the kitchen during our celiac transition, so this is a nice way for me to get back to the earth and also help with my detox.

Bottoms up!

Counting up

…slowly! I have been such a slacker with these posts. Honestly! I’m a little bit frustrated with myself…

But while I’m not blogging them, or journalling them, I am counting my gifts every single day. It’s overwhelming at times, getting to stop and feel completely overwhelmed at the fullness of life.

So while this isn’t from a counted list, I am still adding and counting today because that is what truly matters.

274. Acupuncture for ridiculous headaches

275. Starting NAET treatments next week with a consultation

276. Passionfruit tea

277. Super-soft bubble hoodies – a luxurious treat for my little girls

278. Snuggling fresh new babies

279. Safe arrivals :)

280. Sunshine after days of rain

281. The power back on after a 2-hour outage this morning!

282. Remembering the flurry of excitement 5 years ago as we prepared to become husband and wife

283. Constant, overwhelming support for my renewed dream

284. Catching up with old friends at Zumba

285. Dancing, moving, shaking, grooving

286. Running, never stopping

287. Greek yogurt and homemade granola

288. Learning about scobies and kefir, and buying gallon pickle jars ;)

289. Quiet time to myself

290. Catching up on blogs

291. Cucumber and carrots with dip

292. Little “I love you’s” whispered in hugs

293. Their creativity

294. Watching them dance and spin and twirl

295. Playing outside for hours in the fresh air

296. Fresh sheets

297. Picking dandelions to make our own wine

298. Opening the windows to let the spring breeze in

299. Little green shoots finally poking up through the dirt

300. Spontaneous hugs

Hello Friday!!

Hello almond butter marshmallow squares, cooling in the fridge

Hello dance registrations, filling up quicker than I could imagine

Hello beautiful children playing nicely

Hello sunshine (and goodbye wind…hint hint, Mother Nature…)

Hello husband coming home tomorrow

Hello flowers to plant

Hello functional website, thanks to Karen :)

Hello music downloading

Hello new iPhone

Hello sleepy puppy

Hello vacuumed floors

Hello laundry pile (hello sarcastic font…)

Hello Mothers’ Day plans

Hello weekend!

**thanks, Crystal, for this inspiration!!

Hey, May!

May is going to be awesome. I know this because:

  • Leith got called out to Ft MacMurray for 3 weeks today. This would normally throw me into a fetal position, but with our financial diet in full gear, 21 days of 12-hr shifts sounds pretty good to us!! Hello, overtime!!
  • His office did fix the paperwork screw up, so we did get paid in full…which means all my bills will be paid today – yay!!
  • I get to pick up my bugz’ first dance pictures this week
  • I’m going to see my bestest Suzi this weekend for a training run in Cochrane, just 4 weeks before the Footstock half marathon!
  • I get to buy new underwear!! Woohoo!
  • May means almost summer, which means PLANTING MY GARDEN!!! The nursery in my living room is getting out of control…
  • The start of morning coffees out on our deck :)
  • Erin is going to have her baby this month!
  • The greenhouses are in full swing, which means I can go and get all my beautiful flowers for my yard soon!
  • It’s Celiac Awareness Month
  • I have a new treadmill to play with, and it’s oh-so-beautiful
  • I get to keep Shredding, which is giving me oh-so-beautiful arms ;)
  • There’s sunshine everywhere, and long daylight hours for playing outside
  • I’m thisclose to getting my devil IUD ripped out!
  • I can buy groceries at the farmers’ markets soon – outside! In the sun!
  • The first baby wearing walk of the year is on May 23
  • We will be celebrating our 5-year anniversary on May 25 – so far, so very good

Although we’re guaranteed to have a few ups and downs, I’d say we have a lot to look forward to this month!

What are you excited for in May?

Counting up

Sooo…April was kind of a bust in a lot of habit-keeping areas. One thing that fell by the wayside was counting my gifts. So while this list is short, with a lot missing in the middle, rest assured that I did not miss any of my gifts in the past 4 weeks. I just neglected to write them down ;)

248. Silly wisps of fog being chased away by the morning sun

249. Fluffy yellow dresses

250. Excellent customer service, via social media

251. A fresh, clean house

252. Measuring cups and spoons that click together!

253. This moment

254. A lunch bag full of healthy snacks for us

255. Flourless chocolate cookies

256. Quiet snuggles and Gravol

257. Sunshine and no jackets!!

258. Seeds planted, and waiting for the ground to thaw

259. Fuzzy soft puppy ears

260. Earth Day: celebrating the world around us

261. A return to bikram yoga…and surviving

262. Less pain than expected after a 15km run

263. When they sneak into our bed to snuggle

264. Playing for hours in the sunshine

265. Seeing friends, talking to friends, feeling love everywhere

266. Surprise visits from my parents

267. Freshly tilled earth

268. Their bathtub giggles

269. Good, real, healthy food for us, every day

270. +20 degree weather in the still-early spring

271. The chi weenie frolicking in the fresh air

272. A strong body, for running, yoga, yard work, playtime

273. Swinging in the sunshine