All's well in the land of Denmark

So... it looks like HSBC has finally gotten its facts straight. This week, I received a letter confirming the Robert Osborne agreement. Which is a good thing, since I found some folks to rent the house to, who seem like the type to actually take care of it (unlike the last tenant disaster). Also a good thing.

I also finally finished building the main database for my work. FileMaker Pro is fairly user-friendly, if a bit tedious. I am, by no means, an expert; but I do feel like I'm becoming marginally competent. I tried reading the manual first, but talk about mind-numbing. Instead, I just dove in and used the manual as I hit road-blocks. Clearly, I'm a learn-by-doing kind of girl. I just hope that it turns out better than my first memory of learning-by-doing:

When I was a little girl and it was just my mom and I living in a trailer in rural southeast Arizona, mom was doing some weeding and ended up disrupting a fire ant nest. She had to go inside rather quickly, but told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from the ants, or I'd get hurt.

I smiled. I nodded. And as soon as the door closed behind my mom, I squared my shoulders, hunkered down and pedaled my Big Wheel as hard as I could, determined to destroy the invaders.

Helas, I woefully underestimated the enemy and before long my mom had ran outside, swooped me up and all but hurled me into the tub, where she ran the shower on me - fully-clothed - until not a single ant remained.

Hopefully my FileMaker Pro interlude will end on a better, less painful note.

The dissertation is still a work in progress, but at least, this week, I felt like I was making some really good progress. I changed my sleep/work pattern, to relatively good success:

• I go to work from 8:30-5:30/6;
  
• stop by the garden to harvest greens, cukes, eggplant and/or squash (and let me say, I don't know WHAT I was thinking when I planted two zucchini plants, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, acorn squash, summer squash and TWO pumpkin plants);
  
• go home for dinner and phone calls;
  
• then to bed by 7:30 or 8 for a two-hour nap;
  
• followed by two or three hours of late night dissertating, before heading to bed for 6 hours of sleep.

It sounds insane when I write it out, but it works. Fridays are my dissertation days, when I don't go in to the office. Most days, it's a combination of dissertation and household chores, but yesterday it was sweltering misery all-around, since it was 84 degrees inside the house, triple-digits outside the house and my roommate has a strong antipathy to air conditioning at home (have I mentioned his room is for rent?). Needless to say, yesterday sucked. And both today and Sunday will be in the triple-digits. Yay. My roommate and I may well have to have a chat about that air conditioning attitude.

Well, gotta go: chapters to tweak, cold showers to take, and all that. But before I go, I must share the one thing that tore me up this week:

Hamlet on Facebook (courtesy of the folks at McSweeney's)

This is just...too...funny!! It is, IMHO, funnier than Long, Singer and Winfield's "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" (1, 2, 3, 4)

Mischief Managed

In the weeks since my first lap myomectomy attempt went sour, I have not been myself. I have been bits of myself:

• The Dreamer - entrepreneurial planning
• The Dutiful Servant - participating in a brainstorming session for the school where I taught last year, but for which I do not yet have a contract
• The Scholar - periodically working on my dissertation, thanks in LARGE part to my amazing writing group
• The Flirt - testing the waters of online and old-fashioned dating
• The Bitch - yeah...I said it, I can be very, very bitchy when given the right (wrong?) provocation
• The Geek - re-reading three Harry Potter books, waiting in line for nearly 2 hours to watch the latest HP film on IMAX, and practically flinging myself into the arms of the UPS guy when he brought The Deathly Hallows
• The Glutton - I seriously fell off the Happy Hippie Diet wagon in the last two weeks. If it was fried, meaty, sugary or processed it probably ended up in my mouth more often than my 80-20 rule allows (80% good stuff; 20% S.A.D. [Standard American Diet - thanks Dr. W])
  
• The Nervous Wreck - suffice to say that unemployment, health issues, housing issues and ... well ... issues in general, do not a happy Karen make, especially when I have Lupron (the menopause faking, mood swinging, fibroid shrinking drug-o-choice of myomectomy-performing surgeons) making my life oh...so...interesting.

I have been all of this and more, at various times and in various combinations. But I have not been anywhere close to my best self.

But I am working on it. And getting better at it. Starting with going back to the gym more than once last week (3 times, actually, including TWO cycle classes). And eating MUCH better (my digestive tract had really grown accustomed to my high-fiber, whole food diet and pretty much mutinied against my taste buds and feeble willpower). I'm also trying to sleep more (though Saturday was an exception given my reading marathon and a birthday party at which I had to make an appearance). And I've cleaned A LOT of my house (formerly known as The Sty-o-Shame). But best of all, I have rediscovered a part of my old best self, The Organizer. I have begun making, ticking off and sticking to weekly & daily To-Do lists. I must be a little Type A, because this simple system is making me more productive and happier than I have been in a VERY long time.

Week in Review: Week One

A New Pact

I'm an omnivore. Plain and simple. I get that the amount of grain and water used to feed cattle, piggies and chickens could be used for better purposes. But I can’t deny the carnivorous beast that pricks my spine every time I smell frying bacon, grilled steak or coq au vin.

So, rather than sabotage my transformation before it even gets really started, I decided to allow myself two meat days per month: one for poultry or pork; the other for red meats (preferably buffalo or lamb). On the other 26-29 days of the month, I will get my protein from vegetables and fish. Pescovegetarianism, here I come! Well, except for those two days a month.

It's an imperfect pact for an imperfect woman. But I have to start somewhere and I fully intend to make sure my two animal protein days only use organic and free-range animals.

It's beets, not blood

Even before committing to developing this blog, I began seriously delving into the first part of my Accidental Hippie plan: taking better care of my body, so that my body takes better care of me.

I revisited the archives of the Uterine Fibroids and Healing For Fibroids Naturally Yahoogroups, and finally began reading Dr. Warshowsky's Healing Fibroids, and began to integrate some of the things I was learning about into my diet.

Apparently beets (sometimes combined with molasses) has been used in ethnic medical treatments for fibroids, with some success. UNFORTUNATELY, having never eaten beets before, I was unpleasantly surprised to discover their effects on certain body wastes. Asparagus reeks havoc with number one; and beets bedizen number two.

What was pleasant to discover was that unsweetened cranberry juice combined with beet juice makes a rather nice drink. I now try to have it before every meal. Beet juice can be a little spendy ($6 for a 120z bottle at Marlene's). But it looks like my garden beets are doing well, so soon I'll be able to make my own juice.

The Garden

As I am still recovering from my surgery, there's not much yard work I can do, even though there is MUCH I need to do:

But I am happy to say that my organic raised beds are coming along nicely. I have found that if I take things slowly, I can still get down and savor the triumphant rush of weeding. My next garden project: getting the worm compost bin up and running. I bought one during last summer's disastrous retail therapy, and promptly neglected it. But now that my fruit and veggie intake is climbing, it makes sense to resurrect the worms (or, more accurately, buy some new ones).

Easy Omega-3s

Prior to last week, I had a habit of eating flax meal only when I had applesauce or Soy Cream's Very Cherry Chocolate Chip. This week, I discovered that I can add flax seed to mashed potatoes for a rather nice and subtle nutty flavor. I've also added flax meal to my new weekday morning routine: fruit smoothies. But perhaps the Omega-3 discovery of which I am most proud, is the Copper River Salmon sushi I made with my dissertation group buddy on Wednesday. Sure, I now understand why brown rice rarely shows up in sushi. But that just means that the next time I make it (likely this evening, I will make the rice mixture 2 parts sushi rice, 1 part brown rice).

Smoothies in the morning help the commute pass by

I used to drive to work with a mug of molasses tea and some sort of muffin in my lap. This week, I began using the blender to make smoothies: frozen berries + cranberyy/beet juice blend + prune juice + flax meal + almond milk (I use Pacific's Almond Milk because I'm lactose intolerant) = VERY good! By the time I get to work, I've finished the smoothie and simply wash out the bottle and fill it with filtered water at work

Stocking up: some pre-hippie rules STILL apply, like DON'T SHOP WHILE HUNGRY

On Thursday, after my acupuncture appointment, I made a pilgrimage first to Marlene's, then to Trader Joe's. I brought a list, which was good. But I also brought an appetite, which was not so good. The damage: Marlene's - $83.61, and five items not on my list (I bought 28 items), including a seriously yummy raw peanut butter and honey bar ; Trader Joe's - $75.65 and three items not on my list (out of 28 items), including the oh-so-good Sharon's Coconut Sorbet.

Minor relapse: Consequences of impulse-purchasing; and ye ole "Well, I've got to clean out the refrigerator" excuse, or how I ate two hot dogs as a "snack"

Friday morning began with me being a very good girl: nutritious smoothie and packing my lunch. Unfortunately, my lunch was one of the impulse buys from Thursday: Morningstar's BBQ Riblets. Sure, it's soy-based and soy in moderate amounts is very good for my overall health and my efforts to get rid of Fi. But a soy-based product doused in seriously delicious, sugary badness? Not so much. I tried to "make it up" to myself by adding flax seeds to the mashed potatoes I made to go with it. But still, this was clearly a relapse.

And it was aggravated when I got home later in the afternoon: tired and hungry. I looked in the fridge and two relics stared out at me: left-over hot dogs.

I was torn. Do I toss them, and thereby waste them? Or do I eat them and have today count as one of my two meat days for the month?

I ate them.

Treat of the Week:
Sharon's coconut sorbet with fresh strawberries and flax meal