When the Going Gets Tough (PHFR #5)

So, I'm currently working on stage 4 of the intro diet, and I'm trying to accelerate the process so that I can be on full GAPS by the time I go to Kansas City for one of my nephew's wedding.  So, the add-ins are accelerating, and I'm afraid that I'm kind of mixing and matching the additions.  But, I am still trying to go as slow as I can.  No matter what, I'm going to switch to full GAPS when I get on the plane to Kansas City next Friday.  It is just too hard not to be on full GAPS while travelling. I may cycle back and do the intro again this summer.  We shall see how I feel, and how my gut is doing.

In the meantime, I've lost about 8 lbs. since starting the Intro. I suspect that it will slow down/stop now that I'm adding more foods, but it is still nice to see that at least some of the weight is coming off.  I've decided to do pictures for every 10 lbs I lose, so hopefully I can give you another picture of what I look like in a week or two.

Some observations about so far--one of the things that are recommended to help eliminate some of the die-off symptoms is a mixture of honey and ghee taken in small quantities over the course of the day.  As I look toward (hopefully) getting back into running, I'm thinking that this mixture will work really good as a goo substitute on long runs, especially if I add a bit of salt to it.  I just have to figure out what to put it in, as my 4 oz jars are a little heavy to put in my pockets during a run.

Now, on to PHFR (Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real through Like Mother, Like Daughter, in case you are wondering)

Pretty

The sun setting over some nearby open fields.

So, I've been walking every day with the puppies since we got back from Christmas, and this is what greeted me on one of those walks. Little Miss Sassy Pants is still learning not to pull on the leash, but we are all getting the hang of walking daily.  I'm finding that my feet do better in the evening than in the morning, so I've changed our time.  It has been really nice because I was able to run about 1/4 of a 2 mile walk earlier this week.  I'm hoping and praying that the trend continues.  It feels SOOOO good to run--my body has really missed it.

Happy

This is MUCH better than our old couch, Mom!

So, I was able to buy a new couch set from Craigslist about a week ago (for only $70, too!).  The dogs love it, and so do I!  It is incredibly comfortable, although I really don't think my living room is big enough for a couch, loveseat, and an ottoman.  I'm not thrilled with the upholstery, but it is very sturdy, and very comfortable, so I'm planning on getting some sort of couch cover for it in the near future.

Daisy enjoying the couch and the quilt
I am currently working on.

Space wise, It helps that I don't currently have a TV. That frees up some of the placement issues.  I will figure it out eventually, but I need to think on it some more.

















Funny

My lunch today: Fermented Ginger Carrots, 2 GAPS pancakes made from the linked recipe, and some Smucker's fruit and honey spread to put on the pancakes.  You can tell I was running late this morning because I didn't spread the jam on my pancakes before leaving home.

Now that I can make something other than soups, I'm working on making sure I bring my lunch every day.  It is less expensive, and it keeps me on track with GAPS. I does make for some weird combinations, though.

I have a full set of  4 mugs like this (purple, orange, blue, and red), and I lost the purple one during training this week.  Thankfully, a friend picked it up, and I will be getting it back.  I lost a mug last semester that I was really sad about. I need to put my name and office # on the bottom, I think.

I'm not the only forgetful one.

 While I'm forgetful of my mugs, my students keep forgetting their thumb drives in classrooms after giving their speeches.  I'm starting a collection of them here in my office.  I'm not sure what I will do with them if they don't get claimed.  Some of them are really nice, too.  If I remember right, both of these are 16 GB.















Real

With the start of the spring semester around the corner (only 5 days left!!!), I'm scrambling to get everything done that I need to.  Grades for my winter-mester course, cleaning up my office in preparation for the spring, and making copies of everything for the first week are at the top of my list.  The race to the beginning is going full tilt in my world.

Once I'm finished grading my mini-mester, I have to deal with this mess--all of the extra handouts from last semester. Filing is never a high priority until right before the next semester.

The animals are both much needed and sometimes unhelpful distractions.
I still love them to pieces.

The cats helping me grade. Candles and Tea make
everything more enjoyable.

Now, if only I could keep them from hurting themselves or the furniture.

I suspect this gash is the product of some rough-housing that got
a bit rougher than usual.  Sassy is on antibiotics, and I will never
know for sure, since it happened while I was at Mass.

The real reason I need slip-covers--dogs are hard on furniture. Sassy is the culprit for this, and it was the day after she had gotten a bath. I've resigned myself to never having a clean dog: she likes digging too much, and she is all white.

 

"Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater..."

Yesterday was not a good day for me, at least in one respect.  You see, I went to my office to get some work done, and in the process, I ended up eating a WHOLE BOX of cookies.  Yep, I ate a whole box of these puppies.  It is what I get for not cleaning out my office stash before I left.  Eating them was its own punishment, as it made me feel yucky the rest of the day, but it also means that I'm at least going to have to extend my time on the introduction part of GAPS in order to get the results I want (specifically the first phase).

The diet that I have started (and totally blew yesterday), GAPS, begins as an elimination diet. You start with bone broth and tea with a little bit of honey, then add veggies cooked in the broth, then the meat that you used to make the broth.  You stick with just this for a few days, while also adding probiotics (juice from fermented veggies and whey from yogurt that has fermented over 24 hrs--I'm not doing the whey because of my allergy issues, though) , then add egg yolk and ghee in the second phase (and full on yogurt/kefir, if you are doing dairy).

Third phase, you get to actually add the fermented veggies, not just the juice from the fermentation, scrambled eggs, and avocado.  You can also make pancakes using nut butter, squash and eggs (I've had them before, and they are actually really good!).

There are more phases, and you can read about all of them here, but basically, you get the picture.  The whole point is to make digestion easier for your body, while giving your body the building blocks it needs to heal itself....and cheating, like I did yesterday, undermines all of that.  So, I'm back on the wagon: I no longer have anything in my office that I can cheat with anyway.

I know that, if I can get through to the third phase, I will be fine, as my food choices will open up wildly, but these first days are a bit brutal.

Even so, I think that God has a particular sense of humor.  I tend to use Jennifer Fulweiler's Saint generator at the beginning of the year for a saint's life to focus on for the year.  This year, my saint is St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon. Among other things, he is the patron saint against stomach diseases!  I'm not sure my food allergies/digestion issues strictly count, but it is funny that he is the person who came up, not once but twice (I forgot his name the first time, and used the generator again a few days later--seeing it again jogged my memory)!

At least I'm walking my dogs daily, like I wanted to, so far!  I'm currently on a 4 day streak, and I'm pretty proud of that.  I even got up early to do so, which is quite a feat for this particular night owl.

The sunrise was rather pretty today.

The dogs are loving the walks, and they are slowly but surely figuring out that we don't go anywhere until they calm down.  Sassy is also learning not to pull on the leash, which is also nice. Sometimes I think Ginger is helping her to learn the way things work.  Now, if only I could get them to understand that getting their leash on doesn't always mean a ride in the car--they tend to make a bee-line for the car door in the morning!

Oh, I should mention that Ginger (the original Dig-dog) has had a new sister since right before Thanksgiving.  Meet Sassafras (Sassy, for short).  

This is her the day we got her. She now has more brown
 spots that are showing up on her coat.

Sassy decided that she didn't want to be near the other dogs
on the way home, so she crawled onto the luggage.

Another picture of her, just because she was being too cute for words.

A New Type of Pilgrimage

As many of you know, I was planning to walk the Camino again this year in celebration of my 40th birthday (my birthday present to myself), but my body has had other plans....I'm currently able to walk/hike about 1-2 miles pain free, and that is about it. That is also without a full backpack, although trailing behind 2 energetic dogs on leashes can have their own challenges.

So, the focus this year is to get healthy.  My sister posted an article about choosing a word to focus on for the year, and in going through the process, the word health is what came up for me.  I am actually trying to low-ball my goals, as I'd like to actually meet and/or exceed them. I'm not sure that all of these will be possible, but I'm willing to go all out to do so.

Me, Yesterday before walking the dogs. Weight: 193.6 lbs.

When I talk about health, I'm thinking not just physical, although that is part of it. I'm also looking at mental, emotional, spiritual....the whole gamut. With that in mind,  There are 2 major things I have decided to do this year, and a few minor thing that I hope to be able to incorporate.

First, I've started the GAPS diet, and am currently working through the intro diet.  I've done this before, and in the process lost quite a bit of weight, as well as felt one million times better, and that was in spite of not following it very well.  My goal this time around is to fully follow the protocol in the hopes that I can curb some of my food allergies.  I'm sick of having to play 20 questions in order to eat at just about any restaurant.  It won't be a permanent thing, but I'm hoping that, in following this diet for 18 months to 2 years, I can get healthy enough to add back some of my favorite foods again.  Losing some weight will also, I hope, alleviate some of my foot pain, as they will have less stress on them.  At the same time, I'm not expecting the dramatic weight loss I had last time--one of the hazards of weight yoyo-ing is that you lose weight slower the next time around.  I will be happy if I can even lose 10 lbs, but am healthier inside and out.

Related to that, I don't plan to go back to my bad eating habits afterwards.  This is what happened the last time, and why I am where I am right now.  I'm not sure what my new normal will look like, but it isn't going to be what I was doing before I started yesterday.

Second, I'm going to walk my dogs every day (and maybe eventually run with them). I'm sick of not being able to run, hike, etc.  And, the only thing I can think of to get to that point again is to walk until my feet begin to hurt and go home.  This currently means a little less than a mile each time.  I'm hoping, by the end of the year to be able to run a 5k (3.1miles).  I will settle for being able to walk that far.

This also helps my mental/emotional health, as it helps me to clear my head and gives me quiet time to think.

As for the small things I plan to do, I want to volunteer somewhere here in town, I want to join a book club that isn't work related, I want to start dating, and I want to not bring any work home from my office.

I have decided that this year of pursuing health is not so much a new year's resolution, but a pilgrimage--a path of discovery of what works best for me to grow, to change, to follow God's will.  While eating weirdly and exercising isn't necessarily thought of as a spiritual exercise, taking care of our bodies, which are the temple of the Holy Spirit is.  I'm looking forward to what the coming year will bring, as it will be an adventure, even if it doesn't take me exactly where I expect to go.  That is the fun of a pilgrimage...your journey is always different that what you expected it to be. :-)

Identifying with Jonah

These last few weeks have shown me that I have more in common Jonah than I ever believed.

My time volunteering with a religious order in Chicago this last summer showed me that I needed to revisit the possibility of having a religious vocation.  I started to work hard at the vocation process--prayer, listening to God, researching and contacting various orders, letting myself be open to wherever the process leads.  Then, I began to get information back from various orders, and most of them were/are cloistered orders or no's because of my age and my food allergies.  While the idea of being hidden in God appeals to me, the idea that this is where God might be calling me scares me. Aside from feeling not worthy of such a calling, I'm also worried about pursuing something that really isn't what God has for me in the first place.

Another issue is whether pursuing a religious vocation is a way for me to run away: from romantic relationships, from responsibility, from life.  I don't really know that is the case, but it is always possible...how does one know??? I think at least part of this fear comes from having never really fallen in love with another human being, not even my ex.  I sometimes wonder if I even have the capacity for the kind of love a woman should have for a spouse--I have more emotion toward my digdog than to other people most days.  Most vocation stories talk about falling in love with Jesus.  If I don't have that capacity for humans, how could I ever make the leap of doing so to God?

And, in the process of all this questioning, I've had a bit of a knee jerk reaction...Praying the liturgy of the hours fell by the wayside first.  If I quit praying, I didn't have to worry about God confirming or denying where He wanted me. Then, I got sick this semester--colds really do suck, but don't necessarily require missing my hours of Adoration, even if they are in the middle of the night.  I either skipped or got substitutes anyway.  And then, I ended up missing Mass--which acted as a bit of a wake-up call to what was happening.  I've gone to confession since then, but I'm at a loss of how to get beyond the fear I have.  I don't really want God to send a whale to swallow me whole, but my fear (maybe stark raving terror is a better description) is still there.  I don't know that I have enough courage to confront this head on.

I'm not sure that I really WANT to know where God wants me anymore, which really means that any discerning is at a standstill.  I realize that my recent actions are much like a 4 year old shoving his/her fingers in her ears and yelling, "I'm not listening" repeatedly.  It doesn't mean that my awareness of this behavior gives me an idea of how to get beyond the impulse. Just because I want to surrender to God's will doesn't mean that I know how to go about it.  Neither do I want to continue my mini-tantrum.

Maybe I need that whale after all.

Shifting Priorities

On my way to my parish, I pass an old gas station: the pumps are covered with yellow arrows.  Those arrows remind me every time I go to Mass of my time on the Camino, where similar yellow arrows pointed me in the direction of Santiago.

See the yellow arrows on the pump?

And yet, as I get closer to the point when I need to seriously begin the process of planning and training in earnest for going on the Camino in 2016, I'm realizing that my priorities have shifted.  I still want to walk the Camino from beginning to end, and I hope that God allows me to do just that at some point.  However, even if my priorities had not pulled me in other directions, I don't think that my body would currently let me do so.  You see, I'm still having foot pain, and I'm still unable to even run 1 mile with no weight, let alone walk 9-12 miles in a day with 15 lbs. on my back.  My podiatrist doesn't currently think that I need surgery (Thank GOD!!!), but he hasn't ruled it out completely either.  The other option would be to bicycle the Camino, but that would mean losing out on much of the social aspect of the Camino, and I really don't want to do that.  It also means figuring out how to ship a bicycle to Spain, and that just seems really complicated.

So, as much as I want to do something epic to mark my passage into my Forties, walking the Camino, or any kind of hike next summer is out.  I'm not sure what my gift to myself will be, but I have a few ideas percolating.

Many of my own personal priorities have been in flux of late, anyway. To try to choose something that will fit those priorities a year from now wouldn't work at the moment, for I'm not sure what those priorities will be.

As the weeks go on, I will try to talk a little bit about what I've been thinking about, but here are a few questions that have been simmering in the back of my head as a teaser:

1. What does it mean to be a single lay person in the Church today?  What role do we play in the life of the Church?
2. What are the things in my life that are obstacles to saying yes to God? How can I work on removing them?
3. I've been given this huge blessing of my own house. How can I use that gift as a blessing to others?
4. One of the things I loved about my time with the Sisters in Chicago was the rhythm of prayer that their life revolved around. How can I both incorporate that into my own life, yet balance it with the rest of my obligations?
5. What does it mean to be "in the world, not of it"?  

I don't have the answers to the above, and I may never have those answers, but they are definitely worth pondering, and prayerfully exploring.  It will be interesting to see where these questions take me.

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real (vol. 3)

Pretty

This Past 4th of July, I was able to grill in my backyard for the first time.  While there was a bit of a mishap putting the grill together (see funny), things went really well, and overall, I would deem the experience a success....That in spite of the dog eating 3 of the finished hamburgers off of the kitchen counter.

I originally assumed that 2 lbs of hamburger would give leftovers for a few days. The dog had other plans.

The charcoal finally lit, after borrowing lighter fluid from our neighbors.  Now I know for next time.

The first half of the burgers. Ginger ate all but the smallest of these.  That is what I get for leaving them unattended.

Grilling isn't complete without a few grilled veggies.  I want to try other veggies this way (covered in salt and olive oil), but am unsure of which would taste good.

 Happy

We have a new foster-dog.  Our local animal shelter is seeing a huge boom in animals, so we have taken one in, hoping that our socialization of her will make her more adoptable.  Of course, we hit the jackpot, because she was already house-trained.  My father thinks that we will have a tough time giving her back once she is adopted.  He may be right.  My niece is already saying things like, "we should adopt her ourselves."  

My ginger (at the back of the picture) seems to like her, and my niece's dog, Daisy, loves to play with miss Athena.  

Funny

So, putting together a grill while sitting outside on a wooden deck has a few hazards involved...such as losing a screw through gaps in the boards.

You can't see it well in this picture, but the screw I dropped is between these two boards

 Thankfully, my niece was able to give me the idea of putting a magnet on something to try and fish out the screw.  Otherwise, my grill would have had to been put together with a missing screw.  I don't have any loose screws laying around. (OK, maybe some of the mental kind, but not the physical kind.).

Why yes, that IS a refrigerator magnet attached to a zip tie with packing tape--we use what we have. I was able to fish out the screw, and it only took me 2 or 3 tries!

 While the foster doggie is still being put in the crate at night, we are leaving her out for most of the rest of the time. Yesterday, I let her stay out with the other critters while I did errands.  I'm not sure I trust her to be out with the rest of the critters for a long period of time without supervision, but an hour or two seems to be ok.

This is what I saw through our front window as I was coming in from my errands. I know it looks like Athena is standing on Daisy's head, but she is actually standing on a cat perch we have near the window.  Neither cat has been using it since Athena got here, because Athena is just a little too curious about them.

 Of course, this is something that I never thought that I would see in my neighborhood, but these guys have been out and about pretty much every day since we moved in.

I live near the center of town, and yes, my neighbors have free-range chickens hanging about.  So far, I've seen 4 of them.  I've been told that they keep bugs way down. That makes it tempting to go out and buy some, but my digdogs would chase the poor things to death.

Real

One of the things we do each summer is keep a wading pool in the yard for the digdogs.  This is absolutely essential in warmer climates, since it helps them to keep themselves cool.  However, living in a desert is a little bit different than living in Central TX.  We've been having visitors to our pool, which never happened back in El Paso.

I suspect that the curiousity/hunting instinct of both Daisy and Athena have run off this particular neighbor--I haven't seen the frog since they tried to capture it together a few nights ago.

 With two dogs that like to chase other animals (Ginger doesn't chase anything but toys--I think she believes that chasing a living being is too much work, since they don't stay in one place like toys do), the cats have begun to look for hiding places, especially places that the dogs can't reach them.  Since we are still waiting for the darker paint to set, all of our cabinet doors are off in the bathroom. Mysti has decided that our towels are the perfect place to sleep because of it, although the top of the refrigerator is not out of question.

High, comfy, and hidden.  What more could a cat ask for???

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Tattoos, Commitment, and Saying Yes

Ever since the first time I separated from my ex, I have flirted with the idea of getting a tattoo. Back then, I always said that said tattoo would be a phoenix rising from the ashes:

Something like this, actually, but I always wanted it to be full color.

This symbol is very powerful for me, because it speaks to the process I feel that I've gone through as I've processed and healed from my divorce.  And yet, something has always held me back from actually doing it.

It has to do with the permanency of a tattoo...I'm not sure that I'm willing to commit to a mark on my skin that is going to be there for the rest of my life.  Which, really, is kind of funny, because I once committed to wearing a ring on my finger in a sign of commitment "til death do us part." And, while I was married, I pretty much didn't take it off unless my fingers were swelling. Even almost 3 years later, I can still feel a bit of the dent left by wearing a ring for almost 11 years.

However, I've begun thinking about getting a tattoo again, and much of it has to do with the time I spent with the Sisters in Chicago (This article talks about the order I was volunteering with, and this is their website).  You see, the sisters say the Angelus 3x/day, and part of it has been echoing in my heart and my mind:

Be it done 

to me according 

to Your Word.

This echo of Mary's Yes to God, it seems to me, is the heart of following Christ, and if I ever DO decide to get a tattoo, it will be of those nine momentous words.  In some ways, it would be a way of formalizing the yes I tell Him daily.   I still like the image of the Phoenix, but I'm no longer in the process of rising from the ashes.  It no longer fits, somehow.

I'm still undecided about getting any kind of tattoo, and some of it is cost.  I have a hard time justifying $100 for 9 words.  And, I keep coming back to whether I really NEED to formalize the yes I say to God.  The nice thing is that I don't have to make this decision today, or even tomorrow.  Instead, like one of the postulants told me while I was there, all I need to do is know what God wants of me right now, not 2, 3, 5, or 10 years from now.  And, that is where my daily yes comes from.  The rest will work itself out as I do what is before me in the here and now.  May we all echo Mary and say, "behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to your word."