Where were we? About a month ago, we all moved into a new house. Did I mention that? It happened suddenly, sort of. Nick and I began to think about what it would be like to have a bigger house, with a yard, more room for the kids to run around inside in winter. Out of what I thought then was idle curiosity, I contacted a broker in the East End I had run across at open houses around Munjoy Hill. He came over, checked out our house, and had a conversation with us about how easy or difficult it might be to sell Two Cats. Though we weren't certain we were ready to sell, Tom is a mover and shaker, and before we knew it, we were setting up an Open House of our own for 10 days out. We cleaned Two Cats like our lives depended on it. The Open House was a smashing success. Tom and his team said it was the best one they had ever had. A couple things worked in our favor: It was a sunny, warmish, beautiful February day, and a recent snowfall blanketed the Horseman's backyard in pristine white, disguising our home's biggest eyesore. (If you haven't been following, here's a clue as to what I'm talking about: We once documented a slice of pizza that remained impaled on a tree branch in the Trott's backyard through an entire winter and into spring.) The day after the open house, we had three offers in hand. We went with the one from a young-ish couple much like ourselves, in that they weren't really all that young (like ourselves), but did have a very young son, a five-month old. They had both also lived in NYC, like us, and he wore glasses, like Nick, and she was very pretty, like...well, in the interest of modesty, I won't finish that sentence. So. There is so much that went on in the time between accepting their offer and putting in our own offer on our new house. I wish I had blogged it all, because to try to summarize it all now in one big post means I'm dropping some of the great details and stories that go along with buying a new home. I'll try to add stories as I think of them. But in sum: we have moved. Our new house is wonderful. It has a fenced-in yard, a shed, a driveway, four (4!!!) bedrooms, a living room with a wood stove, a kitchen, a dining room, an office, a playroom, several closets, and two bathrooms. And it gets lovely light that moves around as the day goes on. It's near Evergreen Cemetery, which means we have a huge swath of running paths and bike trails, and the cemetery abuts what is apparently the largest acreage of woods in Portland. Which reminds me, Sadie turned four and can ride a bike now. Yes, I know, seems like yesterday I was posting photos of my baby bump. Did I ever even mention Clover, who is 21 months old now? More to come. We plan on shuttering our other blog, 2cats.wordpress.com and starting a new one. We just can't come up with a blog title. Which is kind of a lame excuse for not blogging the whole process of moving, setting up house, etc. Because believe me, we have stories to tell....
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Juice Cleanse, Day 3
By the time we go to Day 3 of the Juice Cleanse, most of the caffeine withdrawl symptoms had subsided and in their place I was simply feeling actual hunger. Not mind-numbing, I'm getting shaky, keening hunger; just rumbling stomach hunger, which felt healthy and normal.
I proposed to Nick that we eat a massaged kale salad for dinner, but he insisted we stick it out to the bitter end. So we did. Here's what I learned:
1-I drink way too much coffee. I plan on cutting down to one cup in the morning, followed by decaf if I really need some more.
2-Nutmilks are really good. The final juice of the day was a nutmilk, made by blending raw cashews with vanilla, raw cacao nibs, agave nectar and water. It is surprisingly delicious and satisfying, and makes a good substitute for a bowl of ice cream after dinner.
3-I don't if I'll ever do a full juice cleanse again, but I would consider the milder version of "juicing until dinner." The juices really were good, and if you drink 4 or 5 of them, you don't really go hungry.
And as for the plumbing, I did add some psyllium husks to my routine, and I think they did indeed help make the juicing a true cleanse. If you know what I mean.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Juice Cleanse, Day 2
I'm afraid to re-read yesterday's post, because yesterday was like having a hangover in hell. I don't want to relive it. It reminded me a lot, actually, of the days when I had horrible, devastating, terrifying menstrual cramps. I would make it through the day, but just barely.
Today was easier. The headache never really went away, but I felt less woozy and less like I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Hunger hasn't really been an issue, surprisingly. It's more like a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction. The grim feeling you get on the day you have to attend a funeral of someone you knew, but not that well.
My brain was still a little fuzzy. I had to bring baby C in for a check-up, and I left my keys in the ignition the whole time I was in the doctor's office (an hour!) Luckily no one noticed. I think I might have also turned left at a red light. Also, I got really short-tempered talking to my boss's boss on the phone--really unlike me be so bold as to call out a higher-up on his BS, but I just had no reserves of patience.
As for the nitty gritty details...I haven't weighed myself yet today, but last night the scale was the same. My skin does look slightly smoother, but I wouldn't call it glowing. And oddly enough, I am feeling constipated--not cleaned out. In fact, I think my stomach is pooching out more than ever as all those juices ferment in my gut. I think maybe they are....stuck?
We'll see what tomorrow, uh, brings.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Juice Cleanse, Day 1
After watching the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, Nick and I were inspired to try a juice cleanse. We started this morning, and I'm too woozy and short-tempered to write about the background, so instead, here's the play-by-play:
Day 1
7:00am. Nick puts a cucumber, 20 ounces of grapes, and 2 pears into a blender. That's breakfast. It's actually quite tasty.
8:00. Noticeable absence of coffee. I do not have to carry my to-go cup out to the car with me, along with 2 kids, 2 lunch boxes, and Sadie's naptime sleeping bag. One less thing to carry, and yet, I still forget to buckle Sadie in to her car seat. I don't realize it until I merge onto the freeway. (Immediately pull over and buckle her in.)
8:30. Arrive at daycare. Sadie doesn't want to go to school because she doesn't like her teacher's bangs. ("They go down her face!") Hustle kids inside and have trouble managing to get everyone/thing inside in one piece. In no mood for idle chit-chat with daycare teachers. Sadie and I bonk heads as I lean down to take her shoes off and I feel like I'm going to blow a gasket. I need to get out of there, pronto.
9:00am. Arrive at work parking spot on bottom of steep hill. A thick feeling has entered my head, like someone is pouring hot molasses into my brain. The molasses hurts my poor head in a vague, undefinable way. Walk up the steep hill rather slowly.
9:30am. Have much less patience for the clutter in my personal email in-box. Normally I scan the offers for things I can't afford, read about environmental news or ways to Feng Shui my home, but today I delete without opening. This is rare.
10:00am. Glance co-workers' desk and thoughts go immediately to coffee, as in, I should grab my coffee and chat with co-worker about her vacation. No coffee makes it a less enticing option.
10:30. Get some water to try to break up the thick molasses feeling in my head. See doughnuts and muffins at coffee shop near water fountain, but surprisingly don't crave them. Don't really crave coffee either, just want the day to be over. They say the first day is hardest; by Day 2, you start to feel good, euphoric even. Nick is picking me up at noon so we can go home and drink juice together for lunch.
11:00am. Can't concentrate. Nick will be here at 11:45 and it can't come soon enough.
11:11am. Get a cup of black tea. I can deal with the juices, but the caffeine withdrawl is killing me.
11:25am. A few sips in and I am feeling more human. Maybe I just need the hot liquid?
12:00pm. Home at last for "lunch." 3 carrots, 2 Granny Smith apples, and a thumb of ginger, juiced. Delicious (really). I drink very, very slowly. Feel satisfied. Re-read our juice cleanse book and realize we CAN have green tea, either regular or decaf! Yeehaw! Nick mishears me and thinks we can have either regular or decaf coffee. I have to squash his dreams.
1pm. Noticing a stiffness in my neck. Lack of caffeine? Or lack of caffeine leading to reduced jaw clenching and thus a chance for my knotted neck to relax?
2pm. Experiencing actual hunger pangs. Now? Maybe because I just went to the cafeteria for tea. Ok, time to analyze data. Maybe then I will be so bored I won't be hungry anymore.
3:30pm. Extreme feelings of hunger, coupled with temporary nausea, make me want to dig into a bag of tortilla chips I have stashed in my desk. I resist.
4:30pm. I cannot WAIT for dinner and for the final juice of the day, the nutmilk.
5:30pm. Nick and I are both cranky. Not fun to cook real food for the girls when we can't eat ourselves. I run out to Rosemont for ginger. When I return, I make a startling discovery: somehow I got it in my head that we could have 2 fruit juices, 1 green juice, and a nut milk per day, but I totally screwed it up. We are allowed 3 green juices a day in addition to the fruit and nut milk! Nick is so relieved to be allowed more juice he isn't even angry with me for being such a doofus and making this day harder than it needed to be. Meanwhile, we've subsisted on two juices all day, when by now we could have been on our sixth. Oops.
6:00pm. We drink our first "green" juice: spinach, apples, pears, and ginger. It's not bad. Nick says he wants to tear into Sadie's fish sticks. I feel like I'm on two planes--on the one hand, real food sounds like it would be too difficult. On the other, at this point I have a pounding headache and would do anything to get rid of it. If it is caffeine withdrawl, though, it's too late. Past experience tells me I need coffee by 10am or these vise-grip headaches are inevitable.
9pm. We're drinking our last meal of the day, which is actually a nut milk. Raw cashews blended with water, coconut oil, raw cacoa nibs, and some honey. Because our Cuisinart didn't blend the nuts all the way, we get to chew the leftover little nibs of cacao and cashews. We get to chew!
The idea is that the fats in the nut milk help you sleep through the night. I hope it works. I'm not feeling any of the supposed benefits of the cleanse yet, but that might be different tomorrow. I have hope that tomorrow might be easier due to 1) some of the worst of the caffeine withdrawl symptoms being over, and 2) we'll drink 5 juices instead of just 3.
Today was grim.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
On Not Doing It All
I realized today that perhaps I try to do too much. I just signed up for an online medical writing course. I'm also trying to launch a jewelry line made of drilled seaglass pieces. And I want to keep up this blog, and my other one, 2cats.wordpress.com
Friday, October 21, 2011
A New Direction for Reverie in Maine
I've got a new gig: volunteer blogger at the Environmental Health Strategy Center. Check out my first blog post, here.
Oh, I'm still working full-time as a data analyst at Maine Medical Center, but I'm looking to expand my horizons a bit. Environmental health and sustainability are two things I think about a lot, and I'd like to revisit a former career of mine as a would-be writer.
So, in an effort to make all of the paths of my life converge in some meaningful way, I am hoping to reinvent this blog, dear reader, as a place where I can share what I learn about environmental health and show you how you can apply that knowledge to protecting your health. From little steps (not microwaving in plastic) to big ones (attempting a green renovation of our home), I'll let you know what works, what doesn't, what to be really worried about, and how much it all costs.
Stay tuned.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Peace in the Valley
Amazing what makes some cats happy. Thumbs has been suspended in this bag for about an hour.