Something with Substance

Sooooo . . . it has been a while.

(Now I'll tell you some things you don't already know. ;o)

We're expecting #6.  Yeah.  It was a shock to us, too.  I'm about 19 weeks along, and just really getting used to the idea.  Anyone know if you can get a bench seat for the front row of a Honda Odyssey?

The powerful advent of morning sickness signaled a significant pause in our raw diet adventure.  Thusfar it has been a four month pause, but we'll see what happens.  I'm not feeling as good as I did while raw, (duh), but I did what was necessary (considering the circumstances in my life right then), and I feel good about my choice . . . especially because I can change it at any time.

We've managed to make some progress on getting the site work done at the farm. (That's what I'm calling our homesite and surrounding property.  We'll see if it sticks.)  We lost three months' progress (and sight of our dream for that time) in late winter/early spring due to an out-of-area health department inspector denying us a reasonable assessment during the perc test; but as it turns out, that hasn't really changed much, because it's STILL a bog out there due to the nearly-constant rain we've had.  (Rain nearly daily since March . . . I think Mother Nature is trying to make up for an unusually snowless winter.)  We've taken a bid for putting in the road, and we're currently reviewing bids for the concrete work.  Bids for the septic system are under review.  Once site work actually begins, I'll have photos to share.

The house plan is coming along fairly well . . . we're refining things we've already decided on, and working out kinks in the new story-and-a-half version.  It'll be cozy, but that's the point.  A home that will fit all of us without putting us in bondage for nearly times the cost of the home.  (Making reasonable assumptions, we would be paying 2.8 times the cost of our home with a 30-year mortgage.  No way, Jose.  Paying $504,080 for a $180,000 loan is just not in the cards.)

In other home-related news, our landlord is the best we've ever had.  He gave us permission to put eight small raised beds in the backyard, and we've been eating salad and greens from them for about a week now.  (Yummmmmmm.)  I also have a brand-spanking-new dryer vent.  The old one was the no-no-big-time-fire-hazard-white-vinyl installed when the house was build fifteen years ago, and never cleaned.  If my dryer's high-limit thermostat hadn't worked as intended, shutting off the dryer's heating element before the vent caught fire, I'd have been blogging to a very different tune by now.  The "we're all okay, but we've lost everything in the fire" refrain.  Photos and details and an illustrative video will ensue.

I've just finished a beginning weaving class, which I really enjoyed.  It was with Kristie of the Weaving Room at Bluster Bay Woodworks, and she did a great job.  (Being a textiles teacher at the University of Alaska for a couple decades helps with that.)  I have an eight-foot scarf woven in decently-recognizable herringbone tweed to show for it, and quite a few hours logged on Schacht's new Wolf Pup loom.  I really do enjoy weaving, and would love to do more . . . but I'm not taking on any new hobbies/tasks/adventures until after the house is built and my impending mother-of-a-newborn status has passed.  Home construction is a full-time endeavor; adding a new baby to that is going to be interesting. ;o)  When the time comes, though, that I purchase a loom, it will probably be either a Wolf Pup or a Baby Wolf.  The Pup has a few disadvantages (like harnesses that are at the complete upper limit of width without a center support), but it's a great "little" loom with a really conservative footprint, and I found it very easy to use.

I'm just coming out of a verrrrrry long stint with a sinus infection.  Like two weeks.  Nasty bug, that one, that brought it on.  Vern and MrC are still working on kicking it.  One great serendipity, though, was I got several solid days of knitting in while stuck on the couch, directing traffic.  (Thanks so much, Mom, for helping so much!)  I've knit two WHW Trim Soakers, one adorable Owlie Sleep Sack set,  and I'm finishing up my fourth pair of Nifty Knickers.  (A bottom-up version, which will be posted for free in my Rav pattern store soon.) Photos and more info to come, as well as Rav project entries for all of the above.  (Those are Ravelry links, so anyone reading who hasn't yet signed up at Ravelry, please feel free.  There's no longer any waiting. :o)  Newborn knitting is just so fun and fast; you use incredibly luscious yarns, on teensy tiny sweet little things, and get to finish really fast.  It's a beautiful thing.

I've been dreaming about starting a Granny Stripes Afghan, crocheting along with Lucy of Attic24, but haven't yet found a natural fiber DK-weight yarn that will survive my daughter and leave me with a penny to my name.  It's got to be less than about $6.50/4oz, be less than 50% acrylic, and have a wide range of brilliant colors.  Any ideas?

Hmmmm . . . what else?  Those seem to be "the biggies", as my Mom would say.  I've just been feeling in just a little over my head, but have been provided with a tremendous amount of help, in many forms.  (Thanks so much, Mom . . . )  And now that I've given you the debriefing, I've got an outline for the next half dozen posts or so.  I love it when that happens . . .

Hopefully I'll get back to blogging a little more regularly.  I've always got thoughts running through my head, complete with ideas for photos and posts, but time all-too often simply does not allow.

Raw Update Journal: It's only the beginning.

I blogged that I had gone raw . . . blogged that I would continue raw . . . and now I'm making good on the promise to actually tell you all something about it. ;o)

It has been interesting.

First, I'm going to list some of the latest perks:

Since the day we went raw (one month and four weeks ago this Friday), I have lost 14.4 pounds.  I'm the only one in my family losing weight . . . Vern is maintaining (he doesn't have anything to lose), and the children are looking healthy and round, and growing just fine.

While I'm not down to the 4-5 hours sleep many raw foodists rave about, I do really well on eight . . . which I haven't been able to do in at least six years.

My pathetic abdominals have really made a good show of finally getting back to their former selves.  (With all the other pregnancies, they did so within six months or so on their own . . . this last time, they simply stopped at about six weeks post-partum and refused to improve no matter what I did.)

My irises are getting clearer and lighter in color.  This week I noticed the brown inner portion (I have hazel eyes: half green, half brown) is significantly lighter . . . more of a dark straw color than the medium earthy brown they have been all of my life.

My back is getting better all on its own.  Nearly two months of treatment in Oregon before the move did little lasting good (although it really helped me feel better while I was going), but once I went raw, it improved dramatically all on its own.

And now, onto some of the actual story . . .

In the beginning, I kept things very simple.  VERY simple.  I used the recipes at the back of the book 12 Steps to Raw Foods, along with some common sense dishes (fruit or green smoothies, salads, raw muesli, etc).  For the first four days or so, I would begin to feel like it was time to eat and start thinking about things I would usually make (grilled salmon, brown rice and salad, for example), and then I'd feel the fear begin to rise.  Fear of not knowing what to feed my family, fear of being hungry, fear of who-knows-what.  Then I'd think calmly about my handly little book, and start going about the task of feeding everyone.

After a few days, those fearful episodes ceased entirely.  I began sleeping better, feeling better, and began (for the first time in a LONG time) to actually feel hungry again.  It has been years since I have felt what we all know as hunger.  Due to the hypoglycemia, I would go straight from doing fine to shaky and/or headache and/or depressed and/or panic attack.  So not fun.  Sometimes I even got to feel the draining, sinking feeling as my blood sugar plunged, and to anticipate for a terrible minute or two on what was coming next.

A few days after we made the switch, I was up very, very late on a Saturday night.  (I think I got about five hours.)  Sunday is a full day for us, with church attendance and service, and the rest filled with family time.  It takes a lot of energy, but is the most fulfilling and happy day of the week for me.  I was a little less energetic than I had been the preceding days, but compared to what I would have been pre-raw, I was amazed.  So was Vern.  I've had plenty of short nights since then, and while most of the following days haven't been as great as that Sunday was, they're still like a walk in the park compared to the "bad" days of the past.

I should probably explain just what the "bad" days were like, eh?  Okay.

A typical bad day included most of the following, and sometimes all:

• Deep fatigue, such that climbing the stairs took all of my energy, made my heart pound, and required rest at the top.
• Nearly overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and despair.
• Incredibly short temper.
• Unkind tones of voice (often completely unnoticed by me until someone pointed it out)
• Lots of time spent distracting myself from everything around me.
• Deep-level hunger, accompanied by a complete disinterest in eating anything (with the disinterest often bordering on revulsion).

Those, my lovelies, are what hypoglycemia can do to you.  Many health professionals call those symptoms "depression" . . . which they are.  But depression is not a disease.  It is a symptom.  And if you change the fuel you give your body, the depression will leave.  Whole, raw, complete foods do the trick.  I can eat raw, whole fruit smoothies and dates for an entire day, and feel great.  No crashes, nada.

Now that I'm past them, it seems easier to talk about them.  While stuck in that cycle, the knowledge that my life consisted mostly of these kinds of days felt as though it would crush me . . . it was difficult to be anything like the mother I want to be, and to not be able to see my way out of where I was didn't help. (Yeah. Understatement, that.)  I felt like I could never catch up to my husband's and children's needs . . . that I would always be behind them on sleep, mealtimes, everything . . . I wasn't fast enough, strong enough, good enough . . .

And now they're nearly gone.  (The bad days, not my husband and children. ;o)

I still have off days every so often.  Short nights bring them on, as have times when I've allowed something a little questionable to come into my food supply.  (Agave syrup more than once or twice a week in small amounts is not good for me.)  But these "off days" are barely even a shadow of what the bad days used to be.  Honestly, my off days now are what my really good days were like then.  And those good days were only two (or if I was lucky, three) out of seven.  Now I'm at least five good days out of seven, and it's really more like six or seven out of seven.

People ask me all the time "Don't you miss _____?", or "Isn't it hard?", or "How can you handle it?"

My response is simple: "Giving up _____ is nothing.  I have my life back."