Memorial Day 2017

*237...maybe and hot flashes suck!*

   I hope you are having a solemn and sunny Memorial Day today. It has been raining since pretty early this morning. I think cooking on the grill is a no today for us. Many of the local parades have been cancelled also.  I can cook inside the house but I was so looking forward to charred sausages. At least we wont have to hear any fireworks tonight from the neighbors. Crossing fingers.

   June 1st is the start of an experiment for us as a family. I am going to try to do a No Spend Month. We will pay bills, scripts, necessities, and groceries. We are going to eat out of the freezers and the cabinets also. There is alot of food in there that needs to see the light of day. I will shop for things like perishables but we will extremely limit what we buy at the grocery store this month. I bought my monthly order of low carb bread for Hubs and I. I was going to buy a couple other things but I deleted from the list. Bread is all we really need and bread is all we are going to get. I love the low carb bread by the way. OMG! You can find it on Netrition.com and it is called Great Low Carb Bread Company.   Yes, it is 7.99 a loaf. But the slices are thin and you keep the bread in the freezer to make it last. I bought one loaf of Everything bread. It lasted almost a month. And we were very conservative with it. I bought 3 loaves this time. They will probably last us about two months total. Really good if you are diabetic and want to eat bread again.
  Anyway. I am going to make a list in my notebook of all the necessities I buy for the month of June. If it is not something we need, I am not buying it. I have a packed pantry that needs to be organized so we can actually see what we have to use for meals. I bought two big bags of charcoal on sale so that will last us too. I want this house to be worked on and it will not happen if we are constantly buying take out. Enough!

  The kid and I planted peppers, tomatoes, and basil yesterday. It has been a slow start to the growing season but it will pick up as it gets warmer. She pulled some nice big radishes and they were super spicy the way I like it. We have many strawberries that are tiny and white. They will be a lovely treat in a couple weeks. I do have some strawberries in the fridge that I need to cut up and freeze. I always have something that has to be done. Ugh. Since it is raining, I will probably do burgers and sausages in the house. I have some curly fries for the girls. Hubs and I can have some baked cauliflower that I found online. I will use almond flour in place of the bread crumbs. I have not bought the low carb bread crumbs yet.

   I have been doing well without taking the steroid of my gut. If I stay away from dairy and wheat, my colon is a good girl. It doesnt get all upset by my food choices. I do have to give up alot but I would rather just eat right instead of taking a pill that will make me blow up like a balloon. I am doing good this past week. I still am dealing with the pain from my whiplash but if I ignore that shit, all is okay. I am surprised I am not dealing with fibro flare. The weather has been so iffy lately. We have not had steady warmth yet. It is coming. Just not today.

  I am procrasting while I post this. I have dishes waiting for me and I have a pile of clothes to put away. I put half away yesterday so the other half is screaming for recognition. I am putting away winter and pulling out summer. I am also tossing anything I did not wear. They will go in the donation bins. I have to make room for others that I might find for free or really cheap...just not in June. So yeah..i could really just take a nap at this point cause the weather calls for it.  I will do a weekly tally of what I spent of food, any times I said no and what it was for, and if I mess up..I will say so. I think I will finish the dishes and take a nap with the dogs.
Yeah.
Take
A
Nap
!

Memorial Day 2016

*238*

  It is O'dark 30 here this morning. Downpours over my head woke me up. There is a tropical something passing by today. The garden will be very very happy. It sucks for any cookouts or parades but we here needed the rain. Crossing fingers the basement doesn't flood. Not in the mood.

  Today is a month on a low carb way of eating. Yay! I have lost the 7lbs I gained plus like 3 more so far. I stalled a little bit so I had to adjust my macros. When you eat this way, you eat low carb, moderate protein, and high fat. I was not eating enough fat and too much protein. I should start seeing a difference in the weight loss. The endo gave me permission to fiddle with my insulin. His assistant told me that if I kept my shots as they were, I would end up with low blood sugar reactions. So I got that going for me.  I feel a lot better. I am not always hungry and I have had some unintentional ketosis which is good. It was so hard to achieve the last time I tried. I am not trying this time but I am sure I am in fat burning. I don't have proof but I just can feel it. 

  C-diff sucks...the end. I am all done with the Dificid. But my gut still feels wrecked. I keep being told that I will overcome it. It will go away. Right now, I feel like I have no hope for that scenario. Some days I am okay, some days I have pain. I see the gastro in June and I am due for an upper endoscopy. They will see how my ulcers and esophagus are doing. I feel like the meds have helped with it. I don't get the searing pain anymore but pics will give us a clear idea.

  So far we have had one hiccup in the garden. The beds have a case of leaf miner. My Swiss chard had to go in the trash. I was able to replace with three types of eggplants and some Anaheim peppers. Leaf miner effects chard, spinach, and beets. A couple of us will try again in the fall. My butter lettuce at home is not doing well. But the ones at the garden are ready for harvest. I will bring the ones from home there and switch them out. I will post pictures when I go to harvest on Tuesday. My buckets of sugar snap peas and beans are growing so well also. I need to twist some twine around the cages to give them more stuff to grab and grow on. I planted three bleeding hearts this Spring and they are all growing nice. Except for the killed chard, it has been a good kick off to the season. 

  Lu is doing okay. The antibiotic helped her. Her gum infection is at bay and her cough is much better. We just have to dose her ever few months to beat the infection back. Perla the chichi has to go on Friday to the vet. She also has a tooth infection that needs some syrup. She absolutely hates it. It is like mostly alcohol so she fights me every time but for her it works good and longer, she took it like 6-7 months ago so it lasts longer.  Lu actually likes the *vodka*. She slurps it down out of the dropper. Little booze hound. 

  Yesterday night we went to Walmart and picked up the very last 10k btu air conditioner in the store. The price was right and we were very lucky to get it. We will drag it inside after the rain ends later and prop her in the window. I hope it doesn't kill the man's back. Lu and I cannot survive another summer without a swamp cooler. I tried to be all 1976 economical but my IIH demands cool air on some days. I have said we won't abuse it. If it is in the 70s, don't you dare turn it on. No sense and I will be pissed at the electric bill. So yeah, we did a adult thing and bought a big appliance. Feels good that the economy of the house has gotten a little better. 

  I am going to try to make something called Fathead Pizza this week. It is a low carb crust made from cheese. If it is good, I will share pics and the recipe. I miss pizza sooooo much. If I can find something satisfying to me, it will make me very happy. I tried the cauliflower crust and I just didn't like it. There are alternative flours i can use in baking. Here is coconut and almond flours. I have to make a trip to the store to get supplies. There is also a sweetener for baking called Swerve. I have never had it but it supposedly tastes just like sugar hut without the aftertaste of Stevia. We shall see.

  We don't have a grill, yet. So even if it wasn't raining, we wouldn't be cooking out. *insert sad face*. We only had air conditioner money. Maybe next month we will have enough to get a grill. It will happen before the 4th, hopefully.

So that is about it. My head is feeling the effects of the storm. I am gonna roll over and try to go back to sleep. It is 517am. I think I will just have to nap later instead. 

Happy Memorial Day

*268*

I woke up sweating. Ugh! It is another humid one today. I do not mind heat. I really hate humidity. But I shouldn't complain. Because I complained about the non Spring we had.
 My Memorial day plans consist of puttering around the house, doing nothing at perfectly timed intervals, cooking out on the grill later on today.Oh! Fred and I are going to finally put that damn $7 grill together! I started it on Friday but could not get this doo-hickey on it. So he tried and he couldn't either. Then an online friend told me what to do so we are going to try that today. The old grill is on it`s last legs. This will probably be it`s last year. I will use it if we have alot to cook in one meal.







I would like to end this post with a poem about Memorial Day. It was written in June 1882 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Decoration Day

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest

On this Field of the Grounded Arms,

Where foes no more molest,

Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,

And started to your feet

At the cannon's sudden roar,

Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death

No sound your slumber breaks;

Here is no fevered breath,

No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,

Untrampled lies the sod;

The shouts of battle cease,

It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!

The thoughts of men shall be

As sentinels to keep

Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green

We deck with fragrant flowers

Yours has the suffering been,

The memory shall be ours.

                              -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Memorial day weekend

*268*

  We are coming onto the beginning of summer. Not officially but when the beach starts charging, it is summer for us here. We went yesterday and it was gloomy and foggy. The beach pass is $5 more this year but I will buy it. It pays for it self in entertainment by the time July rolls around and it is good until Labor day. Day and Night. Fireworks, car shows, swimming, pool, etc. We like it

 This Sunday, Fred and the girls are going to RI to visit the family for a cookout. I am staying behind because of psycho dog. She would tear this house apart if she was left to her own devices. She is crazy. We tried to crate her when she was young but she literally screamed the whole time she was in the box. We tried it for a week and no one got any sleep. I think as a younger puppy, she was sleeping with the humans in the house she came from. She is getting better with the discipline but she had bad separation anxiety when I went to Jersey and I do not want to leave her so soon. So I will stay here, grill a steak, and who knows what. I have the house to myself! Maybe I will watch a tv series on Netflix. Read a book. Take a nap on the couch with the dogs. It will be good.
I promised I would get some strawberry jam done too. Maybe just maybe i will do that too. If it is not hot. I think it could be okay.
It could all end up being a wash anyway because there is a tropical storm churning out there near us. It could hit Saturday or Sunday. That will mean no cook out and he most likely will not go. Crossing fingers that I get the house to myself! LOL
  So everyone cross their fingers that Heidi gets some alone time! Ha!

*I got cramps and I am moody this afternoon. That is it so far*

Memorial Day 2011

Today should be a day of remembrance of all of those that served for our country in the past and the present.

It is raining today. I do not have to go to the community garden to water. I did some grilling yesterday which is fortunate because I do not know if the sun is going to pop out today.
Try to make this a nice relaxing day for yourself. Back to normal activities tomorrow.