Six Days Down

Today is my 6th day on Whole30.

I don’t really blog on the weekends so I thought I’d post today about what’s become of me so far on the first week.

1. I keep thinking I must be cheating on this because everything I’ve made so far tastes so good and doesn’t need the added dairy or sugar. As I’d already been pretty strict about grain, there hasn’t been much of a change there. I cooked last Saturday and Sunday and made my breakfasts, lunch fixings and dinners so that I didn’t have to cook at all this week. I didn’t mind eating the same thing every day altho dinner got a bit boring, but I have a plan to combat that next week.

2. I have food cravings in the evenings. I can’t even really say it’s a sugar craving… it’s more of a ‘food in my mouth’ craving. I’ve been drinking a lot of tea to stay hydrated and interested and when the craving pops up (more of a habit than a craving… it’s all mental) I ask myself if I’m hungry. The answer is predictably no, so that’s the end of that mental conversation.

3. My sleep has improved. I’ve always been a good sleeper but often would be dog tired when I finally went to bed and wake up tired and a bit crabby. Now at 9pm I turn the tv off and get started on my bedtime routine that includes face washing, teeth brushing, cat duties, sometimes a bath and then into bed. I find that I’m still alert and cognitively functioning when I crawl into bed but sleep comes easily and is deep and lasting. I wake up at 7am in the morning and feel alert and ready for the day (except this morning but I think I over did it on Valarian tea last night).

4. My digestion has gotten better. I haven’t had a stomach ache or bloating or gas in days.

5. My skin condition on my hands has cleared up. It’s not a full win in the skin category as it’s winter and dry and harsh for skin but I have no more itchy red bumps on my hands and my legs don’t itch at night.

6. I’m a lot calmer. I think this can be attributed in large part to having my food planned and prepped for the week so I don’t’ have to spend valuable week night time on cooking, but I also feel more calm and peaceful. Every day right after work I put my pajamas on and sit on the living room floor to play with the kitty. Because I don't have to do much in the way of cooking or cleaning because it’s taken care of on the weekend, I really look forward to and enjoy the time that I get to spend with the little fuzz ball. It’s probably about 20 min of playing and he makes me laugh. He seems happier because of the extra focused play time and we’ve invented two new games this week that he really seems to enjoy.

Those are all the things that I’ve noticed thus far. I know it seems weird to attribute a happier cat and a better kitty/human relationship to W30 but as they say all over the website and in the book, W30 is about changing your lifestyle. The planning and prep time that I invest on the weekends is something I never did before and now I’m realizing the benefits of it. It’s also given me cause to think that my easy wake up at 7 could probably be pushed to a bit earlier and some excerise could be scheduled in to the am. I’ve always been an AM workout person and I used to really enjoy it so I’m going to expect to start that soon and see if I can make AM workouts fit in my life again.

All in all, a fantastic and successful first week on the Whole 30.

Well then...

Fall has arrived... and by 'fall' I mean the part of fall that feels like winter here in Vancouver and it's started to rain.  I'm told that the rain won't last for long and that we're to have a mild, dry winter.  Let's hope so because it's raining today for the first day in months and I don't like it!

Last night I made spicy meatballs in a soup-ish sauce and Curry Fish Stew... Normally when I come on here and say that I made things, I share the recipe and gloat a little bit that while I don't enjoy cooking and I'm not all that 'cheffy', I can come up with some pretty yummy things with nary a cookbook in sight.

I will suffice it to say that I was not entirely successful last night and there are some inedible things in the house right now that I'm hoping Mr. Fluffypants takes upon himself to dispose of while I'm at work (I'm sure I'll be disappointed and he'll just snooze on the bed until I get home to take care of it!)

So, since it's fall and my apartment doesn't have any heat, and after spending a few nights on the sofa, looking like this,

and like this, 

 I took some twitterly advice and took myself down to Costco to buy a Parabolic heater.  For the suggested $40 it seemed like a good idea... Well when I got there the heater was actually $65 and the box said it heats 'you' but not the air... Not exactly what I was looking for and to be honest, with tax and environmental fee, that little heater would have been almost $75!  So I wandered through the store and stumbled down the blankie aisle... and for $12.99 bought myself a twin bed sized sherpa and microfibre blanket.  It's big enough to cover me from tippy toe to tippy top of my head when I'm laying on the sofa and it's as soft as a cloud.  Obviously that won't heat up the air either, but it was $13 and that'll have to do for now.

Last weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada.  Normally a huge dinner is had with family and friends but that's not quite how it worked out for me this year, altho I'm certainly not complaining!
On Saturday my friend and I had a little studio time and we stopped at a butcher and liquor store before arriving to get a snack.

She worked on cleaning up a mess we made last time we were there and I worked on making myself a wreath for my door.  Back in my younger days I made quite a few wreaths... Most of them have been given away so I thought it would be nice for my door to have a seasonal decoration.  The neighbors I've spoken to have really really liked it and I think it's been well received.  Except for the crazy guy that lives upstairs that makes rude face and hand gestures toward it everytime he walks by..

On Sunday evening, the more popular day for the big Thanksgiving Feast, I made salt and pepper chicken wings and sliced tomatoes with bacon seasalt.  I was cozied up on the sofa with my knitting and my kitty and some tea.  Not a bad way to spend Thanksgiving.  I felt very thankful!

Last weekend I started and finished a little hat out of scraps for myself.  It was touch and go for a few minutes and I think at one point I was actually just knitting the idea of yarn and not actual yarn, but in the end it turned out cute...

It's a sock monkey 'inspired' hat but I've been told it would be more effective with a pompom.  Since the only thing I have left from the scraps is the yarn fumes, there will be no pom pom... maybe next time.

After I finished this last item a week ago, the only thing I could think of to knit was another one in a different yarn.  I tried everything to find a new project, but the only way around being obsessed with something is through it, so I went and got myself a little ball of sunshine and started knitting.  I wish it was done today... all this rain already and I need a little sunshine wrapped around my neck!

The other thing I'm making is my Christmas Hat.  Normally I make myself a Birthday hat every year but I'm probably going to be pretty busy around that time this year, so I figured I'd take a different route.
I had to start early because it's tiny yarn on tiny needles and it's going to take a while but I already love it!
You can see the yarn in the picture with the chicken wings and yes, it is sparkly.  The yarn is woven with a strand of real sterling silver... very cool!  The hat is going to be a double thickness and reversible... it'll be this glittery red on one side and on the other side i'm going to stripe in some cream so it is remeniscent of... a CANDY CANE!  What better Christmas hat than that!

And finally, altho it seems like 'no big deal', Charlie seems to be more interested in actual snuggling now... not lap snuggling, but normally he doesn't make much of an effort to touch me unless he's whapping me with his eagle talons.. so this is a big step! It could be because it's about -10 in the apartment...

That's about it.  I'm hoping to go to KnitCity this weekend with a friend but if she bails, I'll just go on my own...
For those of you in Vancouver (and surrounding area) who have not heard of it, this is Vancouver's very first Fibre Festival!
Here's the info!

Feel free to wander over to another blog that I contribute to with my sister.  It’s one that we both post to; pictures, recipes, anecdotes.  Anything light and fun that maybe doesn’t quite fit on our regular blogs.  Go see Half A Pear

Nesting and how there's more to life than food

When I went home last night I realized that I hadn't taken anything out of the fridge for dinner, I didn't care about dinner and I wanted to go shopping.  I watched a pvr'd version of Dr. Phil while laying on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and then I put some clothes on and headed out to Costco.

On the way out the door I ran into the neighbor that lives across the hall and has actually seen my cat because one of the days that the kitty was really sick, he escaped out into the hallway.  On that day, neighbor told me that he had a kitty that looked JUST like Charlie Fluffypants but that his Tigger had passed in March.  So sad!  So when I saw him in the laundry room on my way out the door I took a deep breath and asked him if he was going to be around for Christmas because Mr. Fluffypants needed a babysitter.  He was fantastic and said that yes he was probably going to be around but that if he wasn't for a day, Don, our upstairs neighbor and Neil (across the hall neighbor)'s best friend would be home and between them, they'd make sure my furbaby was taken care of!  He also exclaimed how cute he thought Charlie was and I was sold that it was the best plan to keep Charlie at home and let the neighbors fuss over him for a few days.

Anyway, once I was done my Costco trip in which I bought Shrimp Cocktail, ground beef to make curried meatballs and Mexican Pasta Sauce and chicken wings to make... well, chicken wings (which I think should be a food group unto itself and one of my FAVORITE  things to eat ever!), I came home.

I sat on the sofa for the remainder of the evening and worked through my Goals book.  If you don't know, every year I write down my goals in categories of Family, Friends, Relationships, Financial, Education, Health and Beauty, Home and Outrageous.  Usually I go through the list quarterly to see how I'm doing but I was a bit busy this year and until last night had completely forgotten that I'd even done it.

I crossed off a LOT of things... Things like 'spend a week with Dad'... I crossed that off because even tho it hasn't happened yet, the plane ticket is booked.  Things like 'Pay Tax Arrears by end of year', 'move to a 2 bedroom apartment', ...  There are obviously a lot of things still left on the list and some which it is clear won't be completed by the end of the year.  And that is OK.  Some will be carried forward to next year, some will be evaluated for usefullness based on what I feel is going on next year and some will be ditched because they're either no longer a priority or they've changed, or they don't count now because something has changed (like buy a new bbq for bunker... no more bunker, no need for bbq).

The second thing I did with that Goal book was to make a second section at the end of every category labelled Oct-Dec.  I took the goals I thought I could complete or the ones I wanted to focus on in the last quarter of the year and re-wrote them under that heading.  I also added new ones or modified existing ones.  That's the nice thing about goals... you can change them as your life changes.

When I was done I put my pen down and my book down and went to bed... and as I was getting comfy and cozy I realized that not a single one of those goals and thoughts had to do with food.

Food has gotten the better of me in the past and it was well on it's way to getting the better of me just recently.  Food, in my opinion, is to nourish your body.  People and goals and sunshine and kittens and puppies nourish your soul.  That's the way it is for me... and from now until December, my one and only food related goal will be to remember this.