These are a few of my favorite things

As mid life cruises along, I've realized it ain't that bad.  I'm wondering more if I shouldn't change the name of my blog to something like My Midlife Mumblings Make Me Miserable.  Because, after all, misery loves company, right?  If you complain, you'll be unhappy.

I think I will focus more on food.  A blog seems to be a good outlet for a lot of my grumbling about unhealthy food choices that I make, mostly sugar!  Most of you know that I follow a diet-style like none other.  Most people look at me like I'm nuts, but (ooohhhh, nuts... yum! Oh, look, a shiny thing)  I really enjoy the challenge of being healthy. 

Recently, I posted a question on the Dr. Fuhrman forums asking what "avoid" really meant since Dr. F has a number of foods that we should avoid for better health.  For me, one of those foods is gluten.  Gluten, as you know, is in wheat and other grains.  It was advised that I "avoid" gluten to help with what appears now to be an undiagnosable autoimmune disease.  (More on that in a different post.)  So there's a couple things going on here.  What really does "avoid" mean?  and   Why avoid gluten? 

First, "avoid" means avoid like the plague.  And that answer comes not only from the forum, but also my handsome husband.  I hate it when he's always right.  If you knew there was a 10-mile backup on I-5 and you were told to avoid the area, you would, right?  If there was a man with a gun running around and you were told to avoid him, you would, right?  So when you're told to avoid a certain food, you don't eat it, right?  Well... only if you want to get sick.  But darn if it doesn't taste good.  I have learned that gluten isn't for me.  (The answer to the second question)  This recent discovery as to why I've felt lower belly discomfort a lot of my life has led me to avoid gluten as much as possible.  It has also made me realize that I need a substitute.  Gluten-free breads are good, though many of them are not vegan & still contain sugar -- Gasp! So does regular wheat bread, duh -- they also are expensive, and really good GF products are only baked at our local bakery certain days of the week.  I have learned to make my sandwiches in lettuce wraps.  It's one of my new favorite meals -- and snacks, for that matter.  Anything you put on bread, you can put in a romaine leaf!

Top it off with some yummy nut dressing & you've got a wholesome meal.  I usually eat two of these.  And no meal would be complete without dessert, so this is my new addiction.  Apple slices with almond butter with currants!

So now, I feel like a million bucks and I have another game to add to my list of healthy eating challenges .  Now, if I could just as happily take on sugar.

Bumbing Mumblin

This is supposed to be a midlife mumbling blog & I haven't been mumbling about anything lately much less midlife.  So I will do some catching up.  If this post doesn't explain the inner workings of a pre-menopausal, midlife woman, I don't know what will.

My very smart, talented, handsome, free-spirited, high-on-life son has made the decision that college isn't really all it's cracked up to be and he wants to follow his dream and work with kids in the outdoors.  By now you're saying, Well, that all makes sense; you should follow your dreams.  I wholeheartedly agree.  It's taken me a number of weeks to get over the idea that right now college is not his thing and while he's still young he should travel and live the life of a single, free guy.  So at the end of May, we will pick him up from his dorm; he will say goodbye to his very special roomie and we will bring him home for a few weeks before he packs up all of his belongings -- all of those that are extra special to him like his climbing gear & guitar -- and he and my handsome hubby will head off to Wyoming.  Yes, Wyoming.  Do you notice that word?  Say it very slowly... WY-OH-MING.  Doesn't it sound like "Why, oh me"? 

When we have kids, we have dreams for them.  Our dreams are not their dreams.  They must stretch their wings and leave the nest at some point.  I'm okay with that.  I don't think that having him gone for the summer is all too different than when he worked at Boy Scout camp near Bumping Lake.  He will be home after a few short weeks & then he'll tire of us after a bit and be on to something different.  Au contrair, mon ami!  After he works at the kids' camp, he will be moving over to the resort owned by the same folks.  He plans on being gone until at least October, maybe longer.  He assured me he'd come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'd better start planning my menu now!

This idea of him moving to a different part of the country does give me some travel ideas, however!  Grand Tetons.  I think I was there when I was five or six and I'm sure I didn't appreciate the scenery at all. And how nice would it be to have my son waiting on ME at a resort?!  Oh, there goes that dreaming again.

So another day that I'm feeling older & one step closer to emptynestedness.  I'm not sure I'm complaining, just mumbling.

Tomorrow I will post about food.  Today I just HAD to report my latest midlife crisis.  I think I'm lovin' it... at least embracing it.
Toodles,

Age is just a number... really?

I've been thinking about age a lot recently.  As a mom of an adult child <gasp!> and a wife a retiree, I've been feeling old lately.  I keep plugging away and going to work each day which I like.  I like routine and organization so work keeps me on target.  It seems easier to work out and eat well when I'm in my groove.

Speaking of being in the groove... What really made me think today that I was getting old was when I clicked on the radio to the "oldies" station, Michael Jackson's PYT: Pretty Young Thing was playing.  After singing along and doing a little car dancing on my way to the Park & Ride, I realized I was listening to what is termed an oldies station.  Seriously?  Oldies? That song was released in, oh... 1982 on the Thriller album.  That really wasn't that long ago.  After all in 1982, I was just a pup in high school, eager to get my driver's license and start my own life as a PYT (okay, that was added as humor).

For the last couple of weeks when I've looked into the mirror, I've seen an old lady.  I really think I'm becoming my mom.  My neck is getting wrinkled, my eyes look tired and we won't even talk about my hair!!  I've been focusing on eating so healthy & feeling great I've forgotten to look at ME closely.  And my hands... Oh my goodness.  The hands really tell a woman's age.  Yep.  If I didn't know that I was in control of my fingers, I'd say they were my mother's!  Perhaps when God was mixing the X & Y chromosomes and creating my DNA, I got all of my momma's characteristics.  But that's okay.  My mom was a great woman!  I'll gratefully take her grey hair, her wrinkly, stubby fingers & her lines around her mouth.  I'll accept all of that to have a happy & long life.  In order to do that, I think I'll go eat a salad!

A way of Life -- Eating to Live rather than Living to Eat

You've read my last couple of posts, I'm sure, & know that I struggle with sugar addiction.  Hello... who in America doesn't?  Okay, maybe there's three people that have no cravings mid-afternoon for a cookie or a hunk of chocolate.  But I'm not one of them.  

I've done fairly well keeping it to just one day a week.  Last weekend was no exception.  Friends came over for dinner & I tasked them with dessert.  Holy cow!  Did I know they would bring an ice cream cake and the slices would equal one-eighth of the cake itself?!  Did I politely say, no thank you?  No, I ate it anyway.  Not sure if it was the dairy or the sugar, but I suffered long after that.  I vowed not to have sugar EVER... until it was time for coffee with my handsome hubby.  Yep, I had a chai tea.  It settled fine and I went about my merry day.  

The more I read, the more I learn.  So after much reading, contemplation and prayer as to what my purpose in life is, I decided to enroll in NEI which stands for Nutritional Education Institute.  Yep!  I'm "going back to school."  Okay, but it's not like school, school.  It's on-line and self-paced.  There is a TON of required reading and only three exams.  Heck, who can't handle that, right?  It can't be that hard... Until you start reading about the genetic makeup of phytochemicals and the effects micronutrients have on your body and how it can literally heal itself.  

People have asked me what I'm going to do as a Certified Nutritional Education Trainer.  Heck, I dunno.  I just want to learn more about this style of eating, see how it can help me live to be 150, and hopefully I can educate friends and family and help them turn away from the SAD (standard American diet) and turn towards Eating for Health.

As Lent winds down, I have plans to keep my sugar intake to a minimum as I wrestle with cravings.  I will continue to post my midlife mumblings (but not the grumblings) and keep you updated on my educational journey.  Wish me luck.  The box of reading materials & course outline arrive next week!  

Shamrock Shake, not so lucky

Today being Sunday & a "little Easter," permission is granted to leave my Lenten promise behind for the day.  So... I took it upon myself to overindulge in the sugar category.  Apparently, my chai tea outing with my handsome hubby wasn't enough.

But we must go back to last week when I realized March is the month for Shamrock shakes at McDonalds and I questioned my giving up sugar as my sacrifice for 40 days.  I planned for this day for nearly a week!  I even suggested to my son that I stop by his dorm with a chilly treat for him & his girlfriend.  They accepted the invitation.  So after spending an hour in the office on Sunday (not normal), I drove past a number of McDonalds, dreaming of the minty goodness that would soon pass my lips.  I stopped at the last Mickey D's closest to the campus and ordered three medium Shamrock Shakes and one chocolate for hubby waiting at home.

Boy, was a surprised when I watched the young guy behind the counter fill the cup with something of a color that seems inedible, topped with whipped cream from a can & a cherry the color of a Crayola crayon.  Since when do they put toppings on a milkshake?  After making my delivery to the two young 'uns who were waiting with great anticipation, I could hardly wait to rip the wrapper off the straw and take that first long slurp....

"What the heck is this?" she says.  Sugar and green food coloring?  I think that's about what it was.  I even questioned what it really tasted like.  I remembered Shamrock shakes being minty, refreshing and, yes, a tad sweet.  But this was disgustingly sweet and a flavor indiscernible!  Is it because sugar has become sort of not the center of my world and only the center of my thought processes?  I was terribly disappointed, though I did not stop sucking the green goop up through the straw, and even skewered the cherry with the straw, being careful to bring it out through the large hole in the lid without knocking it off.


Was it all worth it in the end?  No way.  The gut ache that ensued, and still does six hours later, is not what I was looking forward to.  One day I will learn. 

There you have it, my final commitment to steer clear of a McDonald's shake.  And for that chocolate shake that Hubby consumed, he admitted it wasn't so tasty either.  I guess we will stick with our green smoothies as a sweet pick-me-up.  

Or maybe next Sunday I'll give a peanut cluster a whirl!