Join in for awesomeday!
Here's my list of awesome (*), please tell me yours!
1. Penguins getting valentines cards! I could leave it there, but really, you deserve the full story, complete with pictures:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/california-academy-of-sciences-penguins_n_1277627.html
(This is my favorite news story of the week. Thanks for sending it to me Redcat!)
2. New recipe tried and loved: carrot-scallion latkes! Seriously considering trying them with beets. OMNOMNOMNOM!
2.5 Said recipe called for coconut flour as a binder instead of the traditional wheat flour, so I have FINALLY made a recipe with the coconut flour I picked up to try a couple of months ago. YAY!
3. Diet changes seem to be working for me. Managing super busy days reasonably well despite sleep interruptions (ahem, spouse, snoring), and really exhausting couple of months (2 funerals). And more objectively --
For years and years my weight has fluctuated in the same 9 pound range. Stepped on scale for first time since seriously eliminating wheat & reducing grains and my weight was 3 lbs lower than the low end of the range. And 5 lbs lower than last I checked in november. During PMS with boobs swollen enough that spouse called them "huge" last night. (No one has EVER called my boobs huge.) I sure as HELL haven't been exercising or counting calories. I take this as likely confirmation that I'm eating food that agrees better with me. (**)
4. Speaking of spousal snoring -- a partial solution seems to have finally been found. The super spiffy earplugs I got (because the long treks on public transport were damaging my hearing to the point where I felt like my ears needed glasses) seem to do the trick! When snores woke me at 5am, I finally got smart enough to stumble out of bed, grabbed the ear plug for the ear I keep up and fell back asleep within 5 minutes. it was really weird that I could hear him snoring better through the ear I had down on the pillow. I'm not so sure that it'll be good for me to wear those every night, but I got nearly 10 hours of sleep last night. 10 HOURS. I <3 sleep.
5. Bought a spiralizer - yay! I can't wait till it arrives. Affordable, dishwasher safe, and if I use it consistantly instead of gluten-free noodles, it will genuinely pay for itself in about 6 uses. (What's a spiralizer? This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DF5P-uLXwc ) Not to mention the health benefits of replacing noodles with veggies.
6. Peeled bananas freeze okay! whodathunkit? Peeled bananas frozen 4 days show no more discoloration in my freezer than they would in a fruit salad (with citrus juice) for an hour or two. I'd always heard you could freeze bananas to make an ice-cream like substance, but I thought they might look icky. They do not!
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(*) This here awesomeday thing is cheap therapy. Tell me good things!
(**) Weight is far from the final arbiter of all things health, BUT given that many of my issues stem from having an auto-immune hypothyroid disorder, and one of the major symptoms of thyroid malfunction is generally weight gain, I'm taking weight loss without counting calories or additional exercise as an objective sign that my thyroid is working a bit better.
1. Penguins getting valentines cards! I could leave it there, but really, you deserve the full story, complete with pictures:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/california-academy-of-sciences-penguins_n_1277627.html
(This is my favorite news story of the week. Thanks for sending it to me Redcat!)
2. New recipe tried and loved: carrot-scallion latkes! Seriously considering trying them with beets. OMNOMNOMNOM!
2.5 Said recipe called for coconut flour as a binder instead of the traditional wheat flour, so I have FINALLY made a recipe with the coconut flour I picked up to try a couple of months ago. YAY!
3. Diet changes seem to be working for me. Managing super busy days reasonably well despite sleep interruptions (ahem, spouse, snoring), and really exhausting couple of months (2 funerals). And more objectively --
For years and years my weight has fluctuated in the same 9 pound range. Stepped on scale for first time since seriously eliminating wheat & reducing grains and my weight was 3 lbs lower than the low end of the range. And 5 lbs lower than last I checked in november. During PMS with boobs swollen enough that spouse called them "huge" last night. (No one has EVER called my boobs huge.) I sure as HELL haven't been exercising or counting calories. I take this as likely confirmation that I'm eating food that agrees better with me. (**)
4. Speaking of spousal snoring -- a partial solution seems to have finally been found. The super spiffy earplugs I got (because the long treks on public transport were damaging my hearing to the point where I felt like my ears needed glasses) seem to do the trick! When snores woke me at 5am, I finally got smart enough to stumble out of bed, grabbed the ear plug for the ear I keep up and fell back asleep within 5 minutes. it was really weird that I could hear him snoring better through the ear I had down on the pillow. I'm not so sure that it'll be good for me to wear those every night, but I got nearly 10 hours of sleep last night. 10 HOURS. I <3 sleep.
5. Bought a spiralizer - yay! I can't wait till it arrives. Affordable, dishwasher safe, and if I use it consistantly instead of gluten-free noodles, it will genuinely pay for itself in about 6 uses. (What's a spiralizer? This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DF5P-uLXwc ) Not to mention the health benefits of replacing noodles with veggies.
6. Peeled bananas freeze okay! whodathunkit? Peeled bananas frozen 4 days show no more discoloration in my freezer than they would in a fruit salad (with citrus juice) for an hour or two. I'd always heard you could freeze bananas to make an ice-cream like substance, but I thought they might look icky. They do not!
----
(*) This here awesomeday thing is cheap therapy. Tell me good things!
(**) Weight is far from the final arbiter of all things health, BUT given that many of my issues stem from having an auto-immune hypothyroid disorder, and one of the major symptoms of thyroid malfunction is generally weight gain, I'm taking weight loss without counting calories or additional exercise as an objective sign that my thyroid is working a bit better.