1-1/2 cups dried navy beans, rinsed
2 cups cold water
6 slices thick-cut bacon
1 medium carrot, cut lengthwise into halves, then cut into 1-inch pieces
1 rib celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small turnip, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
4-14 oz. cans chicken broth
Soak beans overnight in cold water.
Cook bacon in skillet, drain and crumble. Combine carrot, celery, onion, turnip, Italian seasoning, beans and bacon in slow cooker. Pour broth over top; stir. Cover and cook in slow cooker on low 7-1/2 to 9 hours or until beans are crisp-tender.
****
I made this today; the cookbook intended it to be a chowder, but I tweaked it a little--it sounded better as a soup. It came out really well.
Edit: it was even better the second day! ;o)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
40: not just a U2 song
I turned 40 on December 3rd, which means I have to get mammograms every year now. I already had a baseline in 2002 because of some family history, so I kind of knew what to expect this time. I wore my "Chicks Rule" shirt, and on the way out of the hospital parking lot, cranked "The Bitch is Back" just to bring the whole experience around in a circular fashion. However, no chocolate or shopping was involved.
My 40+ female friends who are reading this, go schedule your mammograms now if you haven't already. :o)
Edit, 2-17-09: I got the letter today that the exam came out normal, which made me want to find even more empowering music to turn up!
My 40+ female friends who are reading this, go schedule your mammograms now if you haven't already. :o)
Edit, 2-17-09: I got the letter today that the exam came out normal, which made me want to find even more empowering music to turn up!
Monday, February 9, 2009
Nutritionist appointment today
Day 30 of write everything down that I ingest; appointment number 2 with the nutritionist. I was surprised to learn that I have lost four pounds, not that I get that excited about losing four pounds at this weight. I know all I have to do is look at a piece of apple pie and I will gain 20; to paraphrase comedian Ron White (who, it should be noted, makes me laugh until I snort most unbecomingly), "I know. I've seen me do it." Still, it was nice to receive praise, even if it made me think of what positive rewards for toilet training must be like (I was relieved not to receive any sort of sticker). I maintain that I lost the four pounds because dread burns calories.
She looked at my food diary and actually said I was doing well there, too. The only thing she would have me change is to get in another serving of vegetables a day, which is exactly what the last nutritionist I saw told me to do. I told her I could do that. And I can.
Insurance wants me to see the exercise physiologist, so I see him Wednesday. He looked young and nonthreatening and seemed upbeat, but not in a vomity way, so it might be okay. We'll see how it goes...hey, if insurance pays, I'm there with bells on; I am nothing if not educable.
We also discussed my sweet tooth, my nocturnal need for sugary sustenance, and my assignment for the month is about cravings. She gave me four strategies to control cravings. The point of this is to write about which strategies I try and how they work or don't work. More on that later.
After going grocery shopping post-appointment and buying all kinds of healthy food, I am tired and on the way to celebrate my meager weight loss by getting in bed with a book--even better, a trashy true-crime book that has absolutely no redeeming social or academic value. Let's hear it for the printed word!
She looked at my food diary and actually said I was doing well there, too. The only thing she would have me change is to get in another serving of vegetables a day, which is exactly what the last nutritionist I saw told me to do. I told her I could do that. And I can.
Insurance wants me to see the exercise physiologist, so I see him Wednesday. He looked young and nonthreatening and seemed upbeat, but not in a vomity way, so it might be okay. We'll see how it goes...hey, if insurance pays, I'm there with bells on; I am nothing if not educable.
We also discussed my sweet tooth, my nocturnal need for sugary sustenance, and my assignment for the month is about cravings. She gave me four strategies to control cravings. The point of this is to write about which strategies I try and how they work or don't work. More on that later.
After going grocery shopping post-appointment and buying all kinds of healthy food, I am tired and on the way to celebrate my meager weight loss by getting in bed with a book--even better, a trashy true-crime book that has absolutely no redeeming social or academic value. Let's hear it for the printed word!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Night moves
Waking up in the middle of the night wanting sweets has been part of my life since I was seven years old. I don't remember exactly how it began, but I can certainly put it into some context.
My father was in prison; my mother had died five or six years previously. It was the third U. S. state in which I had lived in my short life, and was at least the third family group with which I shared a household. I was just beginning to figure out that my mother was really gone for good and what that might mean, but I didn't talk about it with anyone; I had long since learned that the more invisible I could make myself and the less demands I appeared to have, the better off I would be. I had also been molested by this age, and as a result, did not sleep well.
So--I'm seven. I'm living with a relative I'll call Mr. Forced Starvation, who I mentioned previously in this blog. Mr. FS has a wife, too, but, as I recall, she mostly serves as a Greek chorus for his (largely negative) pronouncements, though she has a few choice ones of her own. Needless to say, they are not the most pleasant of people to live with. He seems to really enjoy eating in front of me, talking about what he's eating, taunting me about how I can't have it--and it's usually chocolate ice cream, which is my favorite. To add insult to injury, some friends of theirs have a little girl who comes over to our house frequently, and she's allowed to eat whatever she wants, whatever they're having. A point is made to send me to my room, where I can hear everything that is going on. I haven't misbehaved; the only way I have failed at this point is to be born shaped in a certain way. In the pictures from this time period, I'm not particularly heavy yet, but I'm definitely a child that a practiced eye can see will be struggling with her weight later--even if the environment in which I was living wasn't already handing me an eating disorder on the proverbial silver platter.
I can remember waking up in the middle of the night and looking out the window, hearing other people's snores, knowing I had reliable privacy for the moment. There was a tendency in this particular household to be walked in on in the bathroom, a distinct overall lack of healthy boundaries. This household taught me not only the necessity of, but joy, even revelation in my own ability to hide: not only who I was, but what I felt and needed, and simply to get away from the world.
I remember the light of the moon shining down on my contraband roll of Sweet Tarts, which I had either stolen from the store or stolen the money to buy (probably the latter). As low as the moonlight often was, I can still remember the sound the wrapper made as I peeled it off, and the quiet shot of glee within me when I could distinguish that the next piece of candy was pink or orange. How appropriate this memory is now, more than thirty years later, when I still awaken in the night with similar cravings. This memory, and many others like it, contain the presence of the only true sweetness I was able to rely on for the first half of my life; but the very weight of articulating this truth is sour, and its tartness burns.
My father was in prison; my mother had died five or six years previously. It was the third U. S. state in which I had lived in my short life, and was at least the third family group with which I shared a household. I was just beginning to figure out that my mother was really gone for good and what that might mean, but I didn't talk about it with anyone; I had long since learned that the more invisible I could make myself and the less demands I appeared to have, the better off I would be. I had also been molested by this age, and as a result, did not sleep well.
So--I'm seven. I'm living with a relative I'll call Mr. Forced Starvation, who I mentioned previously in this blog. Mr. FS has a wife, too, but, as I recall, she mostly serves as a Greek chorus for his (largely negative) pronouncements, though she has a few choice ones of her own. Needless to say, they are not the most pleasant of people to live with. He seems to really enjoy eating in front of me, talking about what he's eating, taunting me about how I can't have it--and it's usually chocolate ice cream, which is my favorite. To add insult to injury, some friends of theirs have a little girl who comes over to our house frequently, and she's allowed to eat whatever she wants, whatever they're having. A point is made to send me to my room, where I can hear everything that is going on. I haven't misbehaved; the only way I have failed at this point is to be born shaped in a certain way. In the pictures from this time period, I'm not particularly heavy yet, but I'm definitely a child that a practiced eye can see will be struggling with her weight later--even if the environment in which I was living wasn't already handing me an eating disorder on the proverbial silver platter.
I can remember waking up in the middle of the night and looking out the window, hearing other people's snores, knowing I had reliable privacy for the moment. There was a tendency in this particular household to be walked in on in the bathroom, a distinct overall lack of healthy boundaries. This household taught me not only the necessity of, but joy, even revelation in my own ability to hide: not only who I was, but what I felt and needed, and simply to get away from the world.
I remember the light of the moon shining down on my contraband roll of Sweet Tarts, which I had either stolen from the store or stolen the money to buy (probably the latter). As low as the moonlight often was, I can still remember the sound the wrapper made as I peeled it off, and the quiet shot of glee within me when I could distinguish that the next piece of candy was pink or orange. How appropriate this memory is now, more than thirty years later, when I still awaken in the night with similar cravings. This memory, and many others like it, contain the presence of the only true sweetness I was able to rely on for the first half of my life; but the very weight of articulating this truth is sour, and its tartness burns.
How I can end up spending the better part of a day on the phone with insurance and the doctor's office
The past week has been incredibly frustrating. I was turned down for three of the five jobs I'd applied for; I didn't hear anything on the other two. My sleep continues to be on and off, which can make a person a little crazy all by itself. I tried to force sleep a couple of nights by taking two Benadryl, which resulted in grogginess the entire day after and still waking up every couple of hours. I took a generic version of Unisom tonight and was (am) up after 2 hours.
My primary-care doctor is about three hours away and so I conduct a lot of business with her via e-mail. My husband's insurance has been hounding me to get all my medications via their mail-order program, so I have been trying to transition them all. There are seven or eight of them. The health insurance took so long to process the initial switch that I ran out of everything for several days, requiring several frantic phone calls back and forth with insurance and the doctor's office, paying almost $20 to have overnight delivery, etc., and after all that neither my antidepressant nor my sleep medication were included. I've emailed my doctor two or three times in the last couple of weeks to have those things transitioned as well. Of course, the emails were never answered and I found myself playing the call-everyone-involved-two-or-three-times game a couple of days ago to try to get those medications transferred to the mail order pharmacy program before I ran out of them, having to request expensive overnight delivery again. My doctor and I have had a long-standing relationship, and she has never had a problem changing a medication for me. Unfortunately, I think her staff is getting their signals crossed now; I haven't had any direct communication with her at all on this issue, and after thinking all was said and done and the medications were ordered, I get a call yesterday from her staff saying I had never gotten the new sleep medication from her previously and that they were just going to discard the request from insurance to fill it--because insurance had referred to it as "a refill". (I had made it clear to insurance that it was a new medication.) Of course, this was left on my voicemail at home while I was out; of course, I received it after their office had been closed on Friday afternoon; and of course, they acted annoyed, like I was trying to put something shady past them, sounding rather indignant with me on the message they left. And of COURSE, the sleep medication is the one being disputed.
Doubly frustrating is the fact that I tried repeatedly to get the fax number for the doctor to send a request for the new medication to insurance, but insurance would not give it to me, preferring instead to fax something to the doctor and have her fax it back to them. If they had simply given me their fax number in the first place, I seriously doubt this would have played out the way it did. I left a frustrated message on the doctor's office voicemail in which I doubtless sound like a total freaking loon, telling the entire story for what felt like the 500th time and trying desperately to say the right polite words at proper intervals.
"How do you not go mental?" a friend asked me not long ago. I chuckled somewhat ruefully; I think it's too late to refer to it as "going" mental at this point.
My primary-care doctor is about three hours away and so I conduct a lot of business with her via e-mail. My husband's insurance has been hounding me to get all my medications via their mail-order program, so I have been trying to transition them all. There are seven or eight of them. The health insurance took so long to process the initial switch that I ran out of everything for several days, requiring several frantic phone calls back and forth with insurance and the doctor's office, paying almost $20 to have overnight delivery, etc., and after all that neither my antidepressant nor my sleep medication were included. I've emailed my doctor two or three times in the last couple of weeks to have those things transitioned as well. Of course, the emails were never answered and I found myself playing the call-everyone-involved-two-or-three-times game a couple of days ago to try to get those medications transferred to the mail order pharmacy program before I ran out of them, having to request expensive overnight delivery again. My doctor and I have had a long-standing relationship, and she has never had a problem changing a medication for me. Unfortunately, I think her staff is getting their signals crossed now; I haven't had any direct communication with her at all on this issue, and after thinking all was said and done and the medications were ordered, I get a call yesterday from her staff saying I had never gotten the new sleep medication from her previously and that they were just going to discard the request from insurance to fill it--because insurance had referred to it as "a refill". (I had made it clear to insurance that it was a new medication.) Of course, this was left on my voicemail at home while I was out; of course, I received it after their office had been closed on Friday afternoon; and of course, they acted annoyed, like I was trying to put something shady past them, sounding rather indignant with me on the message they left. And of COURSE, the sleep medication is the one being disputed.
Doubly frustrating is the fact that I tried repeatedly to get the fax number for the doctor to send a request for the new medication to insurance, but insurance would not give it to me, preferring instead to fax something to the doctor and have her fax it back to them. If they had simply given me their fax number in the first place, I seriously doubt this would have played out the way it did. I left a frustrated message on the doctor's office voicemail in which I doubtless sound like a total freaking loon, telling the entire story for what felt like the 500th time and trying desperately to say the right polite words at proper intervals.
"How do you not go mental?" a friend asked me not long ago. I chuckled somewhat ruefully; I think it's too late to refer to it as "going" mental at this point.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Not much to report
Have not felt like writing much the past few days. My sleep is still all over the place. I notice I crash after 2 days without it; last night I took a couple of Benadryl to help it along, and it did the trick.
I have spent most of today on the phone with doctors and insurance, trying to get new sleep medication ordered, and then a "health advisor" from insurance called and advised me to check in regarding the appeals process. So I did, and as I thought, I don't have a leg to stand on without that 6 months of documentation, which I am in the process of obtaining.
I see the nutritionist Monday, and I have a lot of questions for her. A friend recommended the South Beach Diet, or at least many of their recipes, so I've been reading the book. It seems like a reasonable diet in the 3rd phase, but Phase 1 throws me into a panic. I don't think I feasibly can go to that extreme, and I hope I don't need to--just being able to have some sugar-free pudding or Crystal Light helps tremendously with curbing my appetite for sweets.
I have gotten a couple of hip-hop and salsa dance-based workout DVDs that I am enjoying and alternating with the t'ai chi. I don't look as cute doing salsa dance steps as the instructor, but thankfully, there is no one here to see me trying to learn them but the cats.
I've also been applying for a lot of jobs.
I have spent most of today on the phone with doctors and insurance, trying to get new sleep medication ordered, and then a "health advisor" from insurance called and advised me to check in regarding the appeals process. So I did, and as I thought, I don't have a leg to stand on without that 6 months of documentation, which I am in the process of obtaining.
I see the nutritionist Monday, and I have a lot of questions for her. A friend recommended the South Beach Diet, or at least many of their recipes, so I've been reading the book. It seems like a reasonable diet in the 3rd phase, but Phase 1 throws me into a panic. I don't think I feasibly can go to that extreme, and I hope I don't need to--just being able to have some sugar-free pudding or Crystal Light helps tremendously with curbing my appetite for sweets.
I have gotten a couple of hip-hop and salsa dance-based workout DVDs that I am enjoying and alternating with the t'ai chi. I don't look as cute doing salsa dance steps as the instructor, but thankfully, there is no one here to see me trying to learn them but the cats.
I've also been applying for a lot of jobs.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Honesty
I think I was optimistic about how quickly Ambien leaves the system. While I am getting more sleep and largely good sleep, I am also more tired. I have also had a couple of stretches of being up for two days and then wanting to crash for extended periods of time. When I am up, at least for the first day, I feel good, have more energy, am more productive. By the end of day 2 I'm completely exhausted and overwhelmed by everything. My husband is the most laid-back, accepting person--he made me laugh at my own ridiculousness yesterday. I'd been awake for 48 hours, it was late Sunday morning, and I knew I needed to just go to bed and pass out. I was at the point where my brain was not working, I ran into a wall because I was so tired, and I had less-than-zero patience with anything (and I'm not an incredibly patient person to begin with). I went to the bedroom, switched on the TV to set a recording for a show, and there was some ad with Marie Osmond talking about weight loss. I have nothing against Marie Osmond at all (except for her dolls, but I hate all dolls equally, not just hers), but I just said, "I hate everyone!" and turned off the TV abruptly.
My husband laughed and said, "I love you, sweetie."
I looked at him, asking, "God, WHY? I'm a mess."
He smiled and said, "You're just so honest. I love that about you." He has told me that before, saying things like "I never have to wonder what you're thinking" and "I always know where you stand". It's a good thing he feels this way. It won't be changing anytime soon.
I am a big believer in honesty. Get it out there, talk about it, don't let it fester. Honesty can be construed as a weapon and a defense mechanism, but I think the functions of honesty are mostly positive ones. I can only speak from my own experience, but I know I have been the sickest when I didn't talk about things or refused to feel them; I went through a huge chunk of my life like that, and it almost killed me. They say in twelve-step groups (which are not anything I'm into, but they work wonders for some folks, so I'm glad they exist), "We are only as sick as our secrets", and I tend to agree. Secrets are usually connected to shame and ultimately self-loathing. For me, honesty is something that makes me feel better and figuratively, if not literally, lighter. Honesty for me is refusing to allow my voice to be silenced. You can love me, hate me, think I'm full of crap, but at least if I say my piece, I cannot be called a victim without any agency.
My husband laughed and said, "I love you, sweetie."
I looked at him, asking, "God, WHY? I'm a mess."
He smiled and said, "You're just so honest. I love that about you." He has told me that before, saying things like "I never have to wonder what you're thinking" and "I always know where you stand". It's a good thing he feels this way. It won't be changing anytime soon.
I am a big believer in honesty. Get it out there, talk about it, don't let it fester. Honesty can be construed as a weapon and a defense mechanism, but I think the functions of honesty are mostly positive ones. I can only speak from my own experience, but I know I have been the sickest when I didn't talk about things or refused to feel them; I went through a huge chunk of my life like that, and it almost killed me. They say in twelve-step groups (which are not anything I'm into, but they work wonders for some folks, so I'm glad they exist), "We are only as sick as our secrets", and I tend to agree. Secrets are usually connected to shame and ultimately self-loathing. For me, honesty is something that makes me feel better and figuratively, if not literally, lighter. Honesty for me is refusing to allow my voice to be silenced. You can love me, hate me, think I'm full of crap, but at least if I say my piece, I cannot be called a victim without any agency.
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About Me
- Salted with Shadows
- Seattle, WA, United States
- This blog focuses largely on a personal journey to and through weight-loss surgery. It's also about reading, writing, animals, photography, love, humor, music, thinking out loud, and memes. In other words...life.
