It's been awhile...

Did anyone else read that title in the tune of that Nickelback song? Anyone...anyone? Bueller?

I hate Nickelback. Their songs stick in my head. Obviously, this one has been stuck in my head since, like, 1998 or whenever it came out.

So. Yeah. Short version - we all got sick, I went insane trying to balance it all, took way too many days off from work caring for everyone else (and it was reinforced how awesome and understanding my boss is) but I still stayed on Paleo and managed to dodge the stomach virus bullet that H and C succumbed to. I firmly believe it's cause I did not stray from eating what I should for my gut. It also helped that I quarantined myself to use a completely separate bedroom and bathroom from H.

Part of my issue and anxiety over getting the infamous stomach virus was that the best way to avoid it is hand washing. That's great, but the mere sight of water and my eczema flips the eff out. The best I could do was to just not touch a lot of things, or wear gloves.

Yep, I wore gloves. It was like Michael Jackson,without the whole gross factor, cause I am totally NOT levels of MJ criminal and gross and why is it that when you think of MJ your mind immediately goes to the whole mid to late 90's debacles?

I digress.

So I stayed healthy. A relief.

I am just getting back into the swing of things, between the stomach virus and the approximately 14,452 snow days we have had the past three weeks. Yes, I know that's impossible. No, I don't care enough to change it. It's funny in an ironic way how having a snow day is not at all relaxing when you have H whining, "I'm booooooored" in between episodes of Rachel Maddow and some other political talking head that I block out, and then having C climb on you like a spider monkey in a Nat Geo documentary. I actually welcomed the opportunity to come back to work.

This entry is all over the place right now. I have so much I wanted to tell you guys, but at the same time, I can't focus my thoughts.

We bought 1/4 pig yesterday! I'm so excited, way more excited than I probably should be. So, I went to a farmers market with a friend Saturday, and bought some grass fed, pasture raised (GFPR) meat to try out. I've been mulling over the GFPR theory for awhile. It makes perfect sense, and in a perfect world, I would buy all of my animal meat that way. Unfortunately, bills gots tah be paid, and it's expensive. Not to mention, H wasn't exactly on board just yet with the idea.

Wait. Rewind. Or actually, let me interject that H recently bought the new Chris Kresser book, Your Personal Paleo Code, in hopes of jump starting his paleo journey (short story - H has IBS, and has been trying out a low FODMAP diet for awhile. It's harder than hard, because onions and garlic are high FODMAPs, and should be eliminated and, hello, GARLIC. Plus, it's not necessarily curing anything). Anyways, we're both trying a 30 day reset (like a Whole 30) after C and I return from Florida next week, and one of the suggestions in Kresser's book is that now (or then) would be the time to work your best on GFPR food. So perhaps CK had a hand in convincing H.

Anyways, back to the winter farmer's market. I bought yak sausage (yakety yak - yeah, you definitely thought of THAT song while reading that, right....RIGHT?!), chicken eggs, and pork sausage,all GFPR. Definitely could taste the difference - the eggs were more vibrant in color and tasted almost buttery; the yak (ety yak) was tasty and mellow, and the pork sausage was just....so NOT full of those little white flecks and overpowering spice that conventional sausage usually has. We've talked about the GFPR meat thing a few times, so cautiously, I approached H and asked what he thought about going in on bulk pork or cow. H likes cows (who doesn't?), but when I looked into pricing on that, well, I wasn't about to sell my bugaboo C for a side of beef. But pork was pretty reasonable - around 5.75/lb. And then, it all happened so fast - I emailed a farm in south Jers that had enviable farming practices, she emailed back the next morning with the subject line ;"Your pork is ready TODAY," and I danced a bit because, hooray! Going to a farm and buying pigs!

I made sure to tell everyone I encountered yesterday that I was buying a pig. Most of them were confused ("Can't you just go to Costco to get a lot of pork?" Oh, where to even beGIN), some were excited for me, and, I get to see goats so, YEAAAHHH buddy. H had a football party, so I snagged a friend of mine to take the journey to the depths of South J with myself and C, just in case farmer lady turned out to be like Jason or Freddy.

She wasn't, we saw goats, C was terrified, a pig made out with my leg, and we all fell in love with little lambs.

Oh, heeeyyyyy there...

And I left with 51.75 lbs of GFPR pork, and 6 dozen eggs. Yay!

So far I have only tried the scrapple (made up of organ meats and buckwheat, everything organic and natural, and, no I did not like it but I think I effed up in cooking it) and the eggs (homerun). I'm saving the bacon for my birthday. Nothing says birthday like bacon. We also got tenderloin, shoulder, ham, canadian bacon, chops, sausage...it's a beautiful thing, all this meat.

So, that's my story. I also found a missing piece in the puzzle of my eczema, but that'll be an entry for another day (or later today). Off to the dollar store (holla for a dolla) to get supplies for work. Until then, dream of my bacon.

Tea Time

I love coffee.

Like, no.

 I LOOOOVE. COFFEE.

And I'd be hard-pressed to find something that tastes just as good as a good coffee with some heavy cream.

But, my eczema is not a fan of cream. Or any dairy, for that matter.

I started out being a coffee fiend with the whole, "light and sweet" tomfoolery. Slowly, I whittled down to light and copious amounts of Splenda (but it took less pkgs of Splenda to reach my diabetic inducing coma, so, yay, I "cut down!"). And then it went to skim milk, which tastes like nothing, and then half and half. Then, once I started Whole30, it was all about the black coffee.

Black coffee is HARD.

I kept coming back to this quote from "It Starts With Food" about how quitting cocaine is HARD, quitting crystal meth is HARD, quitting creamer and sugar is decidedly NOT HARD. And being that I have neither a cocaine nor crystal meth addiction, I just called myself a little bitch and told my taste buds to wise up. And thusly, for 30 days, I went black coffee.

I went back. Ten points to Gryffindor for the thinly veiled, mildly inappropriate reference there.

Anyways, once W30 was over, I added heavy cream (the only instance of "dairy" in my otherwise paleo diet) back to my coffee and it was like the angels sang to me and their melodious notes liquified into magic elixir in my mug. GOD, it was so good.

Not good was the itching, the, "I need to rip my hands off or maybe light them on fire just stop with the itching." itching. I'm still not 100% positive that dairy is the culprit, but after reading up on several studies online that point towards dairy (most importantly, the casein IN dairy) being a culprit, I am kind of convinced. And, despite the fact that heavy cream has a low casein/high fat profile, I still think it maaaaaay be affecting me. So, I do what I can, and for the next few days/weeks, I am going to hardcore eliminate dairy to see if it helps the eczema. I like the....tradition? Celebration? I'm not sure what the right word is...of having a hot beverage in the morning. Most of the time, I am enjoying that hot beverage while alone, reveling in the last few minutes of solitude before jetting off to work. So -

CEREMONY! That's it. I like the small, in my own way, "ceremony" that I have before work. It's not like, a party hardy, noisemakers kind of ceremony, but it's the few minutes of quiet Me-Time before the business of the day begins. I would go so far as to say it is more of the ceremonial aspect of hot beverage in the AM that I can't give up, and less of the coffee (although, coffee with heavy cream is like a dessert, and, mmm, dessert).

I asked for some tea recommendations on good ol' FB, and my sister's dude recommended Adagio Teas. I'm intrigued about loose leaf tea, and I like addictions (of the legal kind), so, I'll give it a go. I like that 1. It's headquartered in JERSEY 2. It offers sample packs for $2 3. I LOVE SAMPLE PACKS. I was able to get 10 different types of tea, each in $2 samplers that are enough to make 10 cups. Each. So, hot dog. We will see where this goes.

In other news, we had a rough night with C last night. She has a cold, and typically, it goes through a three or four day phase. The congestion began on Saturday, Sunday it got pretty bad, and last night was the "rough night", where she doesn't sleep, we don't sleep, and all of our collective hearts break into approximately eleventy jillion pieces, as we hear her moan and cry over the baby monitor. Sigh. She did sleep, albeit in our bed for a good portion of the evening, which meant *I* did not sleep, because her hot little body was curled against mine.

I've been eating more consciously the past few days, trying to really stay on paleo. I *feel* better, I *think* better, and therefore, I am a better person to those around me. I did wake up this morning tired from the events of the evening, but I was not nearly as crankilicious as I could have, should have, been if I was eating a SAD (standard American diet). And that was a pretty sweet "a-ha moment" for me.

Making conscious decisions with you in mind is a superficially selfish concept. But, when you tear down the layers, making conscious, healthy choices for me enables me to be a better person, and that has a much more lasting effect than eating Taco Bell because it's quick and I can then devote the rest of my day to clenaing out my closet.  I am a good mama; I know I am a good mama, but I am not as good a mama when I am cranky or tired.

 I have to remember to keep my eye on the prize - and that prize isn't weight loss.

 It's health. Emotional, physical health.

My Resources.

The stuff I luuuurve:

Podcasts:
I was never an audiobook person, even though I have an hour commute to and from work each day. But when I found podcasts, well for some reason, I can listen and absorb info from podcasts.

Balanced Bites
Hysterical duo, Liz & Diane, discuss any and all information pertaining to paleo - not just food, but nutrients and lifestyle recommendations. This isn't a lecture - it's like hanging out with two friends. Two really smart, pop culture referencing friends. The nitty gritty details about paleo are best explained by these two - they put the science into terms my humanities-trained brain can understand.

The Paleo View
Stacey Toth and Sarah Ballantyne lost, like, a million lbs combined. But more important than that, they are real. Normal. Both mamas, both work, both employ practical applications of paleo. I can relate to these two - it's real life paleo, in a real world. Plus, Sarah is a fancypants scientist, so when people ask me the tough questions about paleo, I can use her awesome brain power to back me up.

Books:
I love books. It's in my genetics.

The book that started it all:
It Starts with Food, by Dallas & Melissa Hartwig
Based on the Whole 30 elimination diet, this gives a no holds barred, accessible way to understand how and why our bodies may have intolerances to certain foods. I never thought I'd become a food conspiracy theorist, but after reading this book, it encouraged me to ask questions, to trail sources, to find out why, to not accept anything blindly. It also helped me realize that my body and my composition is different from anyone else's...therefore, it needs to be treated thusly.

My paleo bible:
Practical Paleo, by Diane Sanfilippo
I actually bought two copies of this book - the e book, so I could access it anywhere; and the print book, so I could lend it out to my people. Anything and everything you've ever needed to know about paleo is in here. If you buy one paleo book, make it this one.

Cookbooks:
I collect cookbooks like some people collect souvenir spoons. And I love them all just as much.
Well Fed, by Melissa Joulwan
Nom Nom Paleo, by Michelle Tam
Eat Like a Dinosaur, by Stacey Toth
Beyond Bacon, by Stacey Toth & Matthew McCarry
Against All Grain, by Danielle Walker
Gather, by Hayley Mason & Bill Staley
Make it Paleo, by Hayley Mason & Bill Staley
The Paleo Slow Cooker, by Arsy Vartanian

Websites:
The Paleo Parents (Stacey Toth, of The Paleo View podcast)
Balanced Bites (Diane Sanfilippo, of the Balanced Bites podcast)
The Paleo Mom (Sarah Ballantyne, of The Paleo View podcast)
Chris Kresser
Mark's Daily Apple
The Food Lovers' Kitchen (Bill Staley & Hayley Mason)
NomNom Paleo
Robb Wolf
CaveGirl Eats (Liz Wolfe, of the Balanced Bites podcast)

The post where I tell you all about me and my paleo.

And why I do what I do.

Are you bored yet?

Haha. I'm interesting, probably, to some people. I married a pretty cool dude (H) I met in college (but it turns out, our parents were besties when we were little, and there are baby pics of us together, and already I am telling you too much about my life). We had a little girl in 2008 (C).

There're the basics.