Friday, July 20, 2012

Bullets (I know...) but packed with stuff....

It's not really true that I only have time for a bullet point post.

However, it is the most efficient way of articulating a few of the things swirling around in my brain or documenting some of the things we've been up to. Every time I think I will just stop blogging altogether I remember that aside from all the great things I love about blogging this will at least serve as little snapshots in time of our lives.

Here goes, in no particular order:

  • I've been baking/cooking/trying new recipes plus cooking some old favorites which I had forgotten about. All of this brings me great pleasure, I only wished I weren't so rushed when doing it (I still cook ahead for the following week so evenings run a little smoother). Some items include: avacado nutella muffins (yes, yes, and YES), Indian samosa pie, homemade vegetable pot pie (not really a summer food but it still hit the spot), Bakerella's key lime layer cake, quinoa broccoli casserole, Mexican vegan eggrolls, chocolate mint brownies, and these little peanut butter pretzel chocolatey things that just made my heart go pitter-patter.
  • I am running more than ever.
  • I am severely anemic. Hmph. Trying to get to the bottom of this currently and it involves more testing, which is annoying. I suspect my useless uterus is the culprit but am not allowed an ablation because of my higher cancer risk given my sordid uterine history. Hopefully I will know more in the next few weeks but I'd really like to avoid surgery. 
  • I am contemplating running an ultra marathon. On trails in my hometown. My Dad ran a shortened version of it fifteen years ago with my DH so that one feels like a good one to try.
  • We keep talking about moving to Ethiopia for a year or two. Seriously.
  • Of course we also still want to move to NYC--Brooklyn?--but Ethiopia is in our hearts.
  • But yet we both love our jobs. OK DH might not love his but I seriously love mine. Love it. I feel so lucky to work there, with incredible colleagues. One of my sweetest and most favorite coworkers asked me the other day how I felt the parttime thing was working out. I immediately said "Perfect. On Sunday night I am so ready to be back at work and on Wednesday afternoon after I close my last chart I am so ready to be home again." I know how lucky I am, and I think the tod-bots benefit tremendously from this balance. I think they'd be sick of me seven days in a row, week in and week out :)
  • I am trying/hoping to write an article to be published in a medical journal about this incredibly complex patient I have been seeing. The thing is, none of us can figure out what genetic issue he is plaqued with...and I've got the top lipid genetics guys working on it. I never thought I'd just pick up the phone and start calling journal authors to get help but that's what I did and now I've got several intrigued brilliant minds trying to help this guy out. All I'll say here is he's a skinny young guy with a total cholesterol over 700 and it was coming out in his skin. It's hard to write an article when so far all you can say is "dude, we really don't know what's wrong with you."
  • I am hoping my running will improve when my anemia improves but alas the doctor told me yesterday that a whole month's worth of iron therapy will be gone with one measly AF. Another doctor told me I need iron infusions but I seriously do not have time for that.
  • I have been contemplating going vegan. I am happily vegetarian but feel a strong pull to go to the next level. I have a whole post in my head about this and might just write it out one day, but it will be one of those that will likely offend a whole host of folks so maybe it's better to keep it in my head? At the very least we are going to start buying our dairy locally from a cruelty free dairy farm. And yes, I know chocolate is not vegan. And I know vegan baking is tough.
  • I am so happy to be raising vegetarian kids. So happy. We do allow them to eat some of the soy meat substitutes (yes, I know these would be out the window with veganism) and I need to quit saying things like "here is your chicken!" when at the same time I am telling them we do not believe in eating animals.
  • The toddlers are thriving. They are talking up a storm--a few two or three word sentences every now and again. Our son is especially interested in learning his letters right now. I get what people meant when they said this was a super fun age. The learning explosion is crazy to witness.
  • I am now running in minimus type shoes. I don't think I can go Luna Sandals or Vibram Five Fingers only, but I do feel like this is a much, much better way to run. I am really trying to work on technique, too, but some days it's just enough to get out there and cover some miles.
  • Yes, I still get up at 3:45 am to go running. I just keep saying my day is shifted. I'm in bed by 8:45 at the latest but it works for now so why change?
  • I am still drinking Diet Coke. Maybe if someone told me an animal was harmed during the production of my chemically syrup I could give it up no problemo....?
  • My Dad is the same overall but sometimes takes pretty bad turns, and I think "this is it." My mom is suffering the most, I think. It's hard to know what will happen next.  
  • My twentieth high school reunion is next month. Ugh is all that comes to mind.
I feel simultaneously old and young at the same time. Better/more running makes me feel young but my approaching twentieth high school reunion makes me feel O-L-D. Having toddlers makes me feel young and old at the same damn time...young because they are so delightful and it is so much fun to delight in their happiness but old because my God do they demand a lot of energy.

Sigh.

What have you been up to?

12 comments:

  1. Love your updates, bullet points or not. And I really think I NEED that recipe for the avocado Nutella muffins (What????).

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  2. Yay for maybe going vegan!

    FYI (I'm vegan):

    Plenty of chocoalate is vegan. You just have to scour labels. Whole Foods sells vegan choc chips.

    A lot but not all of meat analogues are vegan-/again, have to get used to scouring labels.

    Re baking: EggReplacer (sp?) works in almost any recipe. Not brownies tho-silken tofu works great for those. Soy milk can substitute for dairy milk and Earth Balance can substitute for butter/dairy margarine.

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  3. A move to Ethiopia? That is an exciting prospect! 700 cholesterol? Now there's something you don't hear about every day. Good luck getting to the bottom of that.

    I wish I had your love of cooking. I hate it and often feel stuck in a rut. :-/

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  4. All kinds of stuff going on! I love the update - even in bullet point form. Here are some things I would love to talk to you about, or at least get you to expand in a blog post: veganism - why, thoughts about raising vegan kids, nutrition, etc.; moving to Ethiopia - wow - how would this even work? What would you guys do there?; and running - I'm a new runner, and I'm loving it. But how do you keep from getting injured? And how to keep inspired?

    My 20th year reunion is this year too - ugh... When did that happen?

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  5. I love reading your updates. I look forward to them. :) Don't have much to say, but thank you... Thank you for always commenting on my blog and always being a source of hope for me. It means more than I can even say. :)

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  6. Most comments in bullet points:

    I'm so jealous of your ability to cook/bake those amazing things you posted, yummy! You must post some of your recipes, esp the avocado nutella.

    Wow, move to Ethiopia??? I didn't expect that one. Would love to hear more.

    I hope you get the answer to your anemia!

    Oh isn't this stage so much fun!!! The learning explosion is just the best thing to watch, ours is still going and I can tell you it gets better and better.

    Your drive to run makes me exhausted. I wish I had your energy!

    If you're wanting to get off diet coke, I can give you some propelling reasons.

    So sorry to hear of your dad and your mom's exhaustion. =(

    Good to hear an update!

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  7. Indian samosa pie recipe please!!!

    Also: come to NY! We have a great Ethiopian restaurant right by our apartment in Harlem! Our neighborhood is also heavily west African. Wrong coast, I know, but right continent!

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  8. I love that you guys are tossing around the idea of moving to Ethiopia for a year or two- if you can do it, that would be so amazing for your family!

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  9. Thinking of you and sorry I haven't commented in a long time. I have no idea how you manage to have such thoughtful and long updates as I am totally swamped. As for anemia, I have it sometimes and beans and high iron veggies make me feel a lot better.

    Take care,
    T

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  10. Love the bullet points and the updates. YOu should start posting some of your favorite recipes--those muffins sound amazing. Hope the anemia gets resolved--how are you functioning? I've had it (low grade) in the past and felt so, so tired all the time. Hope your patient's situation gets resolved as well! Scary stuff. And the move to Ethiopia would be amazing on so many levels.

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  11. Chocolate is NOT vegan? WTF? How?

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  12. About the guy with the 700 cholesterol, check out the familia hypercholesteroemia posts from Chris Masterjohn at his "The Daily Lipid" blog.
    http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/
    (Sorry, forgot how to do HTML links) Warning, he is not vegan and against it, as am I, because of some personal bad experiences with veganism. It was horrible for my health and his. Also, look at the thyroid/cholesterol link. Good posts on this by Chris Kresser at chriskresser.com

    I don't recommend going vegan. I think you can find ethically raised eggs and dairy. You just have to buy directly from the farm. Your local Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter should have a resource list of pasture raised eggs and dairy.
    http://www.westonaprice.org/local-chapters/find-local-chapter

    I've been wanting to do barefoot running, but have had to settle for barefoot walking for now. The arches still aren't up to running yet. Have you tried Altra shoes?

    Glad the kiddos are good. Africa is an amazing place to live. If you can pull it off, that would be cool, but I worry about the instability of Ethiopia.

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