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.