In my previous post about my trip toward local whole foods, I omitted one gigantic factor in my life: my disability.
I was born with hip dysplasia. It was too tiny to be noticed as a baby, and it fixed itself enough that by the time I was ready to learn to walk, my bones could handle the stress. But as I reached my preteen years and the sudden physical and hormonal growth that accompany it, the bones in my legs began to bow. From the hip to the knee, the bone now bows outward, and from the knee to the ankle the bones bow inward, giving my legs an "S" shape.
I dislocated my knee for the first time at age 9. The other knee went soon after that. Back in the 1970's there were few options for fixing recurring knee issues like mine. Microsurgery hadn't been invented yet, the now-common arthroscopy was not even a glint in the orthopedist's eye. So, they did what they knew to do: rebuilt tendons, cinched ligaments, moved muscles. Thirteen surgeries later, I cried "UNCLE!" The surgeries were not helping, and now I was battling arthritis from the constant assault of the joints.
All this has very little to do with my eating proclivities save a few points. One, that during the years of surgical intervention, I actually ate very little food and drank a great deal of water. Hospital food was never a big hit with me, nor was the take-out Mom would call and ask Dad to bring home for dinner. The pain meds left me constantly nauseated and masked any hunger I would have felt. But I was constantly thirsty. I kept a clean gallon milk jug full of delicious Rocky Mountain water next to my bed. It would go empty twice a day. That's a lot of water for a hundred pound kid! So you could say that one of my good habits was instilled early. To this day, I drink about a gallon of water each day as a baseline.
During pregnancy, the hormones circulating in my bloodstream made me positively "high" and giddy. The pain in my legs all but stopped, I could move very comfortably and felt great. But within a week of giving birth, the hormones changed and my joints stiffened, became swollen and hot to the point I couldn't walk for several weeks. I really didn't mind, after all, I had this new person to get to know! But the lack of exercise made my pregnancy weight cling to me. Each subsequent child added 20 pounds to my frame. When the child would wean and I could get back on strong pain and anti-inflammatory drugs, I generally lost about half of that weight again, as a result of nausea, lack of appetite and just being able to move.
Then the two C-sections that gutted me like a fish, ruining the rock-hard abs I had worked so hard to develop as a young woman, knowing that a strong core would help my knees. Weight began to pile onto my middle, a very bad place for fat to sit: balancing where my already precarious knees would have to adjust to it.
Now in midlife, I have good, bad and in-between days. A good day means I can stand and walk for nearly 30 minutes with minimal pain. A bad day finds me in a recliner or bed on pain meds. This leaves me with several mealtime options. 1) Eat out. Sink the budget and our health, this option is by far the easiest in the short term. 2) Eat extensively pre-processed food because it requires less prep time for me standing at the sink and stove. We're talking frozen entrees and nutritionless breakfast cereals here, make no mistake. 3) Eat food that is processed slightly less, do a little more of the cooking and thereafter, hurting. 4) Eat whole, local and mostly raw foods, paying more and working more for each meal; hoping that the short term cost in dollars and pain is balanced by a long term gain in health.
But, lucky for me, these options can vary from week to week, day to day and even meal to meal. I don't have to choose one to stick to forever. Lucky for me because I'd choose the course of least resistance: the extensively pre-processed road known as the Standard American Diet.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
In My Day, Little One...
A very brief history before I launch into my locavore life.
I was always a chubby kid, my sister was jealous because I was "shapely" and I was jealous because she was thin. I went on my first diet at age 8. One banana and 4 ounces of milk every two hours, if I remember correctly.
In my day, little one, Mc Donald's was just starting to find its way into the larger towns of our country. I was 12 before I ate my first meal at a McD's. There were no Quarter Pounders then, just hamburgers, cheeseburgers and small bags of fries. The drinks were served in 12-ounce cups and no one ever asked for a refill. Before that first fateful take-out, we ate at home, almost always.
In my teens, my mom took off for a year or so to take care of an ailing relative and left me alone with my dad. Dad worked long hours and had personal issues to boot, and I was not interested in cooking in the least. I didn't want to be home with him much either, so I ended up eating more of my meals with friends than at home. I was exposed to all manner of strange foods: Mexican, Chinese, Kosher.
In high school, I fell in with the music department clique. They went every Friday morning to IHOP for breakfast. It was so cool to be counted among a group, and I loved being the quirky kid who always sprinkled pepper in her buttermilk and had a side of hash browns.
In early marriage, both hubby and I worked. Sunday morning omelettes at Hof's Hut was a real treat. That first child was born with a load of food sensitivities, though, and I had to learn how to cook for real. Told I couldn't breastfeed by well-meaning but mistaken nurses, I embarked on bottle feeding only to watch my son not gain. At three months of age, he had not gained but one pound over his birth weight. I got myself to a La Leche League meeting and learned how to breastfeed. After a few more months, my son was gaining and growing normally. It was during my dad's one and only visit to see his grandchild that I learned about whole, fresh foods, brown rice, live cultured yogurt and tofu. My dad, the alcoholic wanna-be truck driver, had discovered macrobiotics in the last years of his life. What a baffling day that was!
The babies stopped for about 10 years before resuming, one after another, in rapid succession. During my pregnancies, I learned and read about nutrition, both for me and the babies. I learned how to shop for and cook with whole foods, how to plan a nutritious well-balanced diet and kept a careful eye on my children's health. We didn't eat out except for the rare special occasion, and when we did, it was not fast food.
But, after six children, the non-fast variety of dining out became too expensive and cumbersome and our eating out devolved into trips to the drive-through or pizza delivery. The last baby had numerous allergies and food sensitivities and my attention to nutrition was aroused once again. I began growing food, canning, buying from a natural food co-op and learning all I could about herbal medicine. I even took an herbal medicine course, and am currently about three hours and a final exam short of being an herbal practitioner.
But the more I studied, the more I discovered the flaw in herbal medicine: it's still treating what goes wrong. What if there was a way to prevent things from going wrong, to walk daily in health?
I was always a chubby kid, my sister was jealous because I was "shapely" and I was jealous because she was thin. I went on my first diet at age 8. One banana and 4 ounces of milk every two hours, if I remember correctly.
In my day, little one, Mc Donald's was just starting to find its way into the larger towns of our country. I was 12 before I ate my first meal at a McD's. There were no Quarter Pounders then, just hamburgers, cheeseburgers and small bags of fries. The drinks were served in 12-ounce cups and no one ever asked for a refill. Before that first fateful take-out, we ate at home, almost always.
In my teens, my mom took off for a year or so to take care of an ailing relative and left me alone with my dad. Dad worked long hours and had personal issues to boot, and I was not interested in cooking in the least. I didn't want to be home with him much either, so I ended up eating more of my meals with friends than at home. I was exposed to all manner of strange foods: Mexican, Chinese, Kosher.
In high school, I fell in with the music department clique. They went every Friday morning to IHOP for breakfast. It was so cool to be counted among a group, and I loved being the quirky kid who always sprinkled pepper in her buttermilk and had a side of hash browns.
In early marriage, both hubby and I worked. Sunday morning omelettes at Hof's Hut was a real treat. That first child was born with a load of food sensitivities, though, and I had to learn how to cook for real. Told I couldn't breastfeed by well-meaning but mistaken nurses, I embarked on bottle feeding only to watch my son not gain. At three months of age, he had not gained but one pound over his birth weight. I got myself to a La Leche League meeting and learned how to breastfeed. After a few more months, my son was gaining and growing normally. It was during my dad's one and only visit to see his grandchild that I learned about whole, fresh foods, brown rice, live cultured yogurt and tofu. My dad, the alcoholic wanna-be truck driver, had discovered macrobiotics in the last years of his life. What a baffling day that was!
The babies stopped for about 10 years before resuming, one after another, in rapid succession. During my pregnancies, I learned and read about nutrition, both for me and the babies. I learned how to shop for and cook with whole foods, how to plan a nutritious well-balanced diet and kept a careful eye on my children's health. We didn't eat out except for the rare special occasion, and when we did, it was not fast food.
But, after six children, the non-fast variety of dining out became too expensive and cumbersome and our eating out devolved into trips to the drive-through or pizza delivery. The last baby had numerous allergies and food sensitivities and my attention to nutrition was aroused once again. I began growing food, canning, buying from a natural food co-op and learning all I could about herbal medicine. I even took an herbal medicine course, and am currently about three hours and a final exam short of being an herbal practitioner.
But the more I studied, the more I discovered the flaw in herbal medicine: it's still treating what goes wrong. What if there was a way to prevent things from going wrong, to walk daily in health?
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The tomatoes, the silence, the new venture
My cherry tomato plants outgrew the Aerogarden this week and I couldn't bare to prune them as much as they would need to be to keep the tiny, compact size needed to fit in the machine. So, I transplanted them (or Blair did, under my instruction) into the Earthbox outside. She used twine to tie them to the fence for a little support, and they are doing quite well. I expect the first harvest in a week or so. I do intend to prune them as vigorously as needed, when they get to about two feet in height. But one foot tall just seemed a bit soon. They'll have loads of room in the Earthbox to grow and augment my salads to their hearts' content.
Haven't been posting much. Haven't been doing much at all. My knees have gotten to a point where if I bend at the waist I hurt myself. Imagine being a mom and not being able to bend at the waist. No picking up stuff off the floor, and cooking and laundry folding must be done from a sitting position. I did the grocery shopping today and every step was daggers in my knee. It didn't help that my sciatica on the other side was acting up, or that the bulging disk in my neck was sending a nerve headache to my head. I don't do pain well, which is a shame since I seem to have a lot of it. My wimpy little Darvocet didn't touch it this morning, either, which means a dose of much stronger Vicodin tonight. All these factors conspire to deepen the darkening clouds of my recurring depression that began gathering yet again at the beginning of June.
But, much to my protestations otherwise, all this sitting has had one benefit: I read a book! It was, of course, non-fiction, and on a topic I hold dear. It was The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It's a title being bandied about on blogs I read and I was piqued. It was very, very good. I had a teensy bit of overlooking to do (a little language, a lot of "old earth" theology, and some just plain silliness) but there was enough ammunition to fuel another battle in my "eating well locally" war I wage with my family. (Not against my family—I try ever so hard to not fight against them! Side by side we fight, in the style of Minutemen soldiers.) So, I've decided I'm going to begin blogging about my locavorous journey. Fear not, the posts (other than this introduction) will be separated from the other stuff of my life, so you can easily tiptoe around them. Won't bother me a bit. Like most of what I blog, what I write is more for the clarification of my own thoughts than the enlightenment of others, anyway! Not that I don't appreciate you, reader(s). And you know who you are.
Haven't been posting much. Haven't been doing much at all. My knees have gotten to a point where if I bend at the waist I hurt myself. Imagine being a mom and not being able to bend at the waist. No picking up stuff off the floor, and cooking and laundry folding must be done from a sitting position. I did the grocery shopping today and every step was daggers in my knee. It didn't help that my sciatica on the other side was acting up, or that the bulging disk in my neck was sending a nerve headache to my head. I don't do pain well, which is a shame since I seem to have a lot of it. My wimpy little Darvocet didn't touch it this morning, either, which means a dose of much stronger Vicodin tonight. All these factors conspire to deepen the darkening clouds of my recurring depression that began gathering yet again at the beginning of June.
But, much to my protestations otherwise, all this sitting has had one benefit: I read a book! It was, of course, non-fiction, and on a topic I hold dear. It was The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It's a title being bandied about on blogs I read and I was piqued. It was very, very good. I had a teensy bit of overlooking to do (a little language, a lot of "old earth" theology, and some just plain silliness) but there was enough ammunition to fuel another battle in my "eating well locally" war I wage with my family. (Not against my family—I try ever so hard to not fight against them! Side by side we fight, in the style of Minutemen soldiers.) So, I've decided I'm going to begin blogging about my locavorous journey. Fear not, the posts (other than this introduction) will be separated from the other stuff of my life, so you can easily tiptoe around them. Won't bother me a bit. Like most of what I blog, what I write is more for the clarification of my own thoughts than the enlightenment of others, anyway! Not that I don't appreciate you, reader(s). And you know who you are.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Books and Reading
A friend was blogging today that she had a book she wanted to read, but more than likely she wouldn't get around to it.
I feel awful about the how little I read. Here I am in a "reading" house and I just don't read. The kids' favorite outing is the library, their favorite gift is a book, hubby is in publishing, my oldest girl is well on her way to a career as an author, and I can't tell you the last time I picked up a book other than a cookbook, a medical reference or my Bible and actually READ it. I do maintain a want-to-read list in case I'm ever hospitalized or get old.
"If you're gonna waste time with your face buried in a book, it'd better be to learn something!" Mom used to say. And I did just that for the majority of my young years. I could teach myself about anything I needed to know by grabbing a book at the library and teaching myself.
When I was a young married, hubby picked up on this trend and introduced me to Robert B. Parker's Spencer novels. I absolutely loved them! The chapters were short, the storyline engaging, and I was just old enough to remember the Spenser TV series with Robert Urich, who always topped my eye candy list. There was even a time when new installments would coincide with the birth of a new child, and hubby would read them aloud to me when I was in labor.
But, probably because my visualization of Urich didn't translate, the enthusiasm I had for Parker waned when he moved on to a female detective and retired the Spenser series. Eventually, pregnancy was put into retirement, too.
Then the capper. I got a Nintendo DS. No, it doesn't expand my horizons or educate me like reading. It's mind-numbing, and that's why I play. I don't become engaged in the storyline. Hubby reads at night, but reading in bed wakes me up as I become involved in the story. I game at night, playing Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon until the sheer boredom spins cobwebs in my brain. It turns off the cares of the day and lulls me to sleep. I can escape the piles of laundry, the dirty dishes, the never made bed, the badly-attituded teen, the constant demands on my time and just plant a garden or write some letters.
And I don't get paper cuts on the stylus.
I feel awful about the how little I read. Here I am in a "reading" house and I just don't read. The kids' favorite outing is the library, their favorite gift is a book, hubby is in publishing, my oldest girl is well on her way to a career as an author, and I can't tell you the last time I picked up a book other than a cookbook, a medical reference or my Bible and actually READ it. I do maintain a want-to-read list in case I'm ever hospitalized or get old.
"If you're gonna waste time with your face buried in a book, it'd better be to learn something!" Mom used to say. And I did just that for the majority of my young years. I could teach myself about anything I needed to know by grabbing a book at the library and teaching myself.
When I was a young married, hubby picked up on this trend and introduced me to Robert B. Parker's Spencer novels. I absolutely loved them! The chapters were short, the storyline engaging, and I was just old enough to remember the Spenser TV series with Robert Urich, who always topped my eye candy list. There was even a time when new installments would coincide with the birth of a new child, and hubby would read them aloud to me when I was in labor.
But, probably because my visualization of Urich didn't translate, the enthusiasm I had for Parker waned when he moved on to a female detective and retired the Spenser series. Eventually, pregnancy was put into retirement, too.
Then the capper. I got a Nintendo DS. No, it doesn't expand my horizons or educate me like reading. It's mind-numbing, and that's why I play. I don't become engaged in the storyline. Hubby reads at night, but reading in bed wakes me up as I become involved in the story. I game at night, playing Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon until the sheer boredom spins cobwebs in my brain. It turns off the cares of the day and lulls me to sleep. I can escape the piles of laundry, the dirty dishes, the never made bed, the badly-attituded teen, the constant demands on my time and just plant a garden or write some letters.
And I don't get paper cuts on the stylus.
Friday, June 13, 2008
So THAT's what it was like
Blair came home with a gift for her little sister: WOW 2008 disc 1. Great songs. Like I do with all our new CDs, I popped it into the Mac and downloaded its contents into iTunes to back it up and make its contents available on our iPods. When it was done, it ejected, it ejected, it...
didn't eject! Oh no! The CD was stuck in the drive! You know that little hole beneath the CD drive where you push in a paper clip and the eject a CD manually? New Macs don't have 'em. Why? Because that little manual eject would add width to their look-at-how-cool-and-narrow-our-CPU-is screen.
So, off to Mac Authority we go. Five to seven days they say. I rent a little iBook, but the tiny screen is so...tiny. I can access my business stuff online, but all my documents on the Mac are still on the Mac! Yeah, I have the backup - the one that runs with Leopard, which the little iBook doesn't have.
Two weeks without pre-made chore charts. Without my address and phone book. Without Quicken and my bank talking to each other and balancing my checkbook without my input. Bone knives and bear skins, Jim!
In home news, Christy has come down with a new batch of infections. First "pool ear" in one ear, then otitis media in the other ear. Now she has a UTI. She hasn't got what you'd call a delicate constitution, but when our diet gets too junky, her health always sounds a klaxon and gets me back on the whole foods.
I missed our CSA pickup this week. I had to drive Blair and a friend 250 miles on Monday to get her to where she'd join up with the next leg of her journey: all the way to Colorado Springs for a writer's conference! Then I had to turn around and drive the 250 miles back and try like crazy to get to the CSA pickup location between 4 and 6pm. Didn't make it. I didn't even get close until 7pm. The farmers are donating our share to the local food bank, though, so at least I know the food wasn't trashed.
I get to make the drive again in about two weeks unless I can convince the friend's dad to drive it this time. That would really be great because otherwise I have to try to fit the trip in after dropping hubby and Kate off at work and before picking them up and that is just too narrow a time frame for that distance!
And we are battling a tummy bug. Hubby's got it the worst. He's been off work more than on the last three weeks. I have it but not terribly, and the kids all got over it in a couple days. Mostly for me it's exhibiting as low energy and weakness. It's been a couple weeks since I've felt like doing anything other than sleep. I try to jolt myself into getting just the basics done (dishes, laundry and meals) with coffee. Put that together with the meds I take for my knees (yeah, I messed up the left one about two weeks ago and it's not bouncing back well) and I'm a real damp dishcloth. Charming.
didn't eject! Oh no! The CD was stuck in the drive! You know that little hole beneath the CD drive where you push in a paper clip and the eject a CD manually? New Macs don't have 'em. Why? Because that little manual eject would add width to their look-at-how-cool-and-narrow-our-CPU-is screen.
So, off to Mac Authority we go. Five to seven days they say. I rent a little iBook, but the tiny screen is so...tiny. I can access my business stuff online, but all my documents on the Mac are still on the Mac! Yeah, I have the backup - the one that runs with Leopard, which the little iBook doesn't have.
Two weeks without pre-made chore charts. Without my address and phone book. Without Quicken and my bank talking to each other and balancing my checkbook without my input. Bone knives and bear skins, Jim!
In home news, Christy has come down with a new batch of infections. First "pool ear" in one ear, then otitis media in the other ear. Now she has a UTI. She hasn't got what you'd call a delicate constitution, but when our diet gets too junky, her health always sounds a klaxon and gets me back on the whole foods.
I missed our CSA pickup this week. I had to drive Blair and a friend 250 miles on Monday to get her to where she'd join up with the next leg of her journey: all the way to Colorado Springs for a writer's conference! Then I had to turn around and drive the 250 miles back and try like crazy to get to the CSA pickup location between 4 and 6pm. Didn't make it. I didn't even get close until 7pm. The farmers are donating our share to the local food bank, though, so at least I know the food wasn't trashed.
I get to make the drive again in about two weeks unless I can convince the friend's dad to drive it this time. That would really be great because otherwise I have to try to fit the trip in after dropping hubby and Kate off at work and before picking them up and that is just too narrow a time frame for that distance!
And we are battling a tummy bug. Hubby's got it the worst. He's been off work more than on the last three weeks. I have it but not terribly, and the kids all got over it in a couple days. Mostly for me it's exhibiting as low energy and weakness. It's been a couple weeks since I've felt like doing anything other than sleep. I try to jolt myself into getting just the basics done (dishes, laundry and meals) with coffee. Put that together with the meds I take for my knees (yeah, I messed up the left one about two weeks ago and it's not bouncing back well) and I'm a real damp dishcloth. Charming.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Then the banquet
The day after the graduation church service, the church held a banquet for the grads and their families. It was a big, fancy dinner and the graduates were really "sent off" with a bang! At the end of the speeches and such, the pastor had all the graduates stand up. He asked each one of them in which area of ministry they would like to serve, and made arrangements to put each of them through a crash course in that area so they could begin right away. Very cool. Here is a photo of the family and one of the youth pastor with Blair and Kate.
A major milestone
Blair turned 18. (Her nickname is Mickey, like the mouse, hence the cake.) I can't begin to explain how it happened. Last week she was five, sitting on her Daddy's lap being unbelievably silly, this week she is eighteen. On her cake is a mortarboard. She graduated from high school within two weeks of her birthday, and we had out-of-state relatives for the ceremony, so she said it was okay to combine the two parties.
The church had a special graduation service with a nice little booklet of the names and photos of the graduates. She got to walk across the stage and get a monogrammed Bible, and the pastors' message was geared right to them. We came home and had an ice cream cake and opened presents. The 'big' present was an iPod. She is so into music and has never had her own iPod before.
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