This week went by at about a hundred miles per hour. Doctor’s appointments, no school Friday, phone calls to straighten out health and homeowners insurance, bathroom demolition, and my once-peaceful bedroom and craft corner piled high with displaced vanity storage. Falling into bed each evening, I longed to slow down tomorrow and get more done. Hah!
Our trip to the neurologist netted a couple of suggestions--but no relief yet-- for Sam’s pain. We also got a long list of migraine trigger no-no’s. A couple of them I wasn’t surprised at all by—MSG and high fructose corn syrup, for example. She was also told no more Clif bars—they use so many soy derivatives that they may have a significant contribution to this ongoing pain. The long, daunting list was “ingredients” in processed foods that may mask or naturally contain certain levels of MSG. Working from this list, Samantha and I went to the grocery store. She’s a pretty picky eater in the first place, but we have to try, right? Basically it comes down to mostly eating more whole, raw foods. We can make just about anything from scratch, but can’t depend on simple solutions like crackers and granola bars. I’ll be making most of our bread from here on out. This means I’ll be looking into a wheat grinder for my KitchenAid as well as a good ice cream maker for this summer. I’ll be making and freezing my own broth more often. I'm sure the list is a lot longer, but these are the immediate things that come to mind.
In short, I’ll be slowing down and focusing on the process in a way that I haven’t done for a very long time. In some ways I’m looking forward to this return to basics; in other ways I’m dreading it. I know it will mean taking more time to prep my meals. I’ll probably have to re-work about a third of my 8-week meal plan. No more putting off dinner until 4pm since so many of the convenience factors I’ve come to rely on just went out the window.
So, in with my deep ujjayi (ū-jī) breath, slowly out. And again. Allegro in, adagio out. Maybe that’ll be my mantra this week. Have a good one!
Add hard cheeses to the list of things to avoid. I had to deal with that when Kim was going through her migraine stage. And I love your blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks! You're so supportive; I so much appreciate it. We noticed that all the orange cheeses were made with annato that is on the no-no list, but white cheeses seemed OK. Sam doesn't really like any dairy, so she's loving cutting back. Thanks for the heads-up.
ReplyDelete