Saturday, January 07, 2017

Starting Up Slowly

When we had our Rivendell planning meeting last spring, the idea was floated to start back last Tuesday, Jan. 3.  I politely but firmly said there was no possible way I would be ready to start back then, and no matter what everyone else did, biology and life science would start back Jan. 10.  Well, there were no fisticuffs or anything (ha!), and everyone agreed that would actually be nice.

And it has been.  Absolutely wonderful, in fact!  There is no way we would have been remotely ready to start back on Tuesday.  This way we could kind of ease into it, since Potters School classes started this past week, as well as Anna's German class and Jonathan's math class.  But I was able to do school with the younger ones every day, which never happens on a regular week.  I need a running start to get Micah's reading off the ground this semester, lol.

It also allowed me to start another Whole30, like I did last April.  I lost 16 pounds from April to August--but then school started up again, and I gained back 13 of them.  It turns out Rivendell, college applications, and teaching at TNT are all big stress eating triggers for me, lol, and I didn't have time to exercise regularly anymore either.  So I knew I needed to get my head back in the healthy eating game, and January seemed like a good time to do that, since we don't have any birthdays to celebrate this month, and since Emily, a friend at church, was also doing it, and she had started a facebook group.  I found last time that having online support was really important!

It'a been a little hard because Nathan came home Jan. 2 for 2 weeks before heading back to college, and I didn't want to be trying lots of new recipes and doing weird things for this brief time he's home.  So I've been cooking regular food for them, and doing something else for me for dinner.  I've also been mainly eating a handful of nuts and a piece of fruit for breakfast, and then I eat my usual "breakfast" of 2 eggs fried in avocado oil plus some leftover veggies from the night before around 11:00 or so.  Then I have an apple with almond butter for a snack in the afternoon, and *voila* it's really only dinner that I have to think about.  So that's been good.

I wish I could say that getting rid of the water weight has made me feel wonderful, but actually I have some sort of virus, the same one Grace had at my parents' house, I think.  I've been running a fever and having a really sore throat with drainage and sniffles, plus aches, especially my neck.  On the plus side, it makes me not really want to eat much, but on the negative, it makes me feel sorry for myself and want chocolate.  Or hot chocolate!  But I have stood strong, here at the end of day 5!

The extra week off has also given me a chance to play around with my 2 big Christmas presents--an Instant Pot and a spiralizer!  I have successfully made a pot roast, as well as some jasmine rice (although the rice cooker does rice better) in the Instant Pot, and it's definitely a keeper.  I look forward to using that more.  And the spiralizer ( I got the Oxo one that'[s not handheld) has been a lot of fun too!  We have spiralized sweet potatoes to make fries twice, and the kids *love* spiralizing apples in the afternoon to munch on.  The main reason I bought it is that on the last Whole30 I really didn't end up loving spaghetti squash for noodles.  Even back then people were talking about spiralizing zucchini, and now I can try that!  We haven't had spaghetti yet, though, because Nathan had it 4 times up at WSS, and he is tired of it, lol.  Maybe tomorrow he'll be ready though . . .

Today I've been pondering plant hormones and tropisms, since Jan. 10 is unfortunately coming quickly.  Fun times are over, and it's time to take a deep breath and buckle down again.  At least there are no more college applications or TNT teaching this semester.  Hopefully I can make it through the next few weeks without chocolate or ice cream . . .

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