The Black Hole

Welp, it seems like just yesterday I was honoring irony while emerging from my migraine black hole. And here I am again.

I made it through the whole day yesterday, in fact I had a great night's sleep and an awesome day at work. As I was in the elevator on my way to go home, I texted Marvin "Tonight's definitely a movie and wine night!" I couldn't wait to get home, cook a healthy meal, and snuggle up on the couch with wine and a movie.

But that just wasn't what life had in store for me. As the elevator opened I realized I was having an aura. I fumbled frantically through my bag for my medication and swallowed some dry. I rushed out to my car to see if I could make it home before the aura was in full effect... which was probably a stupid idea... I drove nearly half blinded the four minutes to my apartment.

For an hour or so, I thought maybe it wasn't going to be so bad. Marvin came home and made me a Pb&J sandwich so my stomach wouldnt hurt so much from the meds. I laid in the dark impatiently with ice on my head... willing the headahe NOT to worsen and to go away.

But that's not what life had in store for me either :-( The pain that came was so bad I remember thinking my head was actually going to explode. At some point I fell into some sort of delerious sleep (thank god) and kept waking up from a sharp knife into my left temple. Finally, finally, around 10:30pm, I woke up nearly pain-free. 6 hours of my life. Gone.

I wound up staying awake until 2am. I felt like I had to make up the time I missed, so I just lounged around, watched TV with Marvin, read my kindle, etc. I wound up on the Ellis Island website and found my grand grandmothers passenger record. I also found some of my relative on my grandfather's side. It was so cool, I became obsessed and just kept looking at it over and over again. It made me feel pretty strongly about two things.

1) I definitely want to visit Avellino (where my grandma's side is from) and Giovanazzo (where my grandfather's side is from).

2) I want to start recording conversations with my grandmother. She doesn't know A LOT about our ancestry, but she does know some things. I just want to hear as many stories as possible while I still have time.

Avellino, Italy 

Giovanazzo, Italy

What I discovered on Thursday

1) Even if it doesn't really look like a meal, I still like my lunch.

2) I could probably be a vegetarian.

For lunch yesterday, I forgot to something, but I remembered that I had some carrots, cucumbers and hummus in the staff fridge. I thought "I'll just have a little snack before I go out and get food."

Well, what happened in between "having a snack" and "going to get food" was that... I got full. Apparently, carrots, cucumbers, and hummus, when eaten (and I mean, A LOT of carrots/cucs and a little bit of hummus) is very filling. I added some popcorners and before I knew it I literally could not have one more bite. I never even went to "get food."

This is a great discovery for me because honestly, I enjoy "snacking" a lot. I love having a huge plate of all or some of the following: raw veggies, fruit, crackers, cheese, olives, turkey pepperoni, and some kind of hummus or dip. I'm willing to revise that big plate (subtract the cheese & pepperoni - replace crackers with some sort of healthier crunch like nuts, or rice cakes) as long as I could have a lot of the healthy stuff.

I remember one day last year, I went with one of my colleagues to go out and get lunch. I went to the bagel store and got a salad with lots of stuff in it. She comes out of the health food store with this huge bag of carrots, hummus, pistachios, grapes,  raspberries, whole wheat pita, and peanut butter. She was like "I don't eat lunch. I just have a lot of snacks." In the moment I thought Pfft, I could never do that. But I think seriously I was a little bit jealous. And now here I am, enjoying my buffet of snacks.

The other thing is, I honestly think I could be a vegetarian if I knew how to do it without constantly eating carbs. Yesterday:

Breakfast
-Kashi red berry cereal

Snack
-Strawberries

Lunch
-Carrots, cucumbers, hummus, and popcorners

Disclaimer - popcorners are not healthy per say, but the ingredients are "yellow corn, sunflower oil, and salt." So they fall under real food and they are naturally low cal and low fat. 

Snack 
-Blackberries

Dinner
-Chicken & sweet potato curry (I'll get to this)
-Salad

Snack
-Mixed nuts & dried  fruit

So when it was dinner time, I tried this awesome new recipe that I kind of had to modify because I had no curry paste and no onions. But I used curry powder and onion powder and it worked just fine. Basically, when I started eating it, I realized I didn't even really want the chicken. I just ate the sweet potatoes in the curry sauce and picked out the chicken and I was still really full.

Monday's Menu

What was on the menu today? All of this and under my points by 3!

Breakfast

-3 hard boiled eggs, no yolk

Snack

-KIND bar; blueberry pomegranate pistachio (the best one, got a whole bunch of these free at a yelp event)

Lunch

-Pulled pork (homemade)

-Baby kale with balsamic 

-Apple

-KAME black sesame rice crackers (not crazy about these, but have been experimenting with some gluten free snacks)

 

Snack

-Banana

Snack

-Black seedless grapes.... Kind of like a mix between purple grapes and Concord grapes - they are so good

Dinner

-Skinnytaste sesame honey chicken

-Brown rice

-Salad

Real food!

So today, after parusig through some of my favorite healthy eating blogs, I decided to attempt to go back to clean eating again. About a year ago, after discovering 100 Days of Real Food,  I tried to go 10, and then 30, and then just plain "go" clean. I'm not exactly sure how long I did it for, but I guess was about 80% clean for awhile.

Lately, weight watchers has not only caused me to cook a lot more healthy and delicious meals, but unfortunately also caused me to start purchasing some "healthier" processed or diet foods. For example, the WW snacks, pretzels, diet soda, fat free string cheese, fat free cream cheese, Special K granola bars, etc. None of these things are unhealthy, in fact, they are all 0-2 WW points, but they are definitely not real food. To add, Marvin loves having some highly processed foods lying around the house that I try to hide, but eventually wind up sharing; ice cream, various candy like m&ms, snickers, twixs, blowpops, cheese puffs, white bread, ritz crackers, coke, higher sugar cereals, pudding, and more. Yikes, when I typed  it all out and look at it, it scares me a little how unhealthy he can eat! So I carefully approached the topic of going clean this afternoon, and he actually really liked the idea. We decided that for now, we're not going to buy any more non-real foods. We're not about to waste anything either, so once we eat the remaining processed foods, they will not be replaced! Some things that we ARE going to continue eating that are sort of controversial on the "real food" list are:

-100% whole grain bread & pasta (I rarely eat this anyway, but he has sandwiches pretty much every day)

-Gluten free (made from brown rice) pasta & brown rice

-Peanut butter (but all the all natural one with only 3 ingredients)

-Dairy, including and limited to:

---Organic whole milk and organic half & half for coffee

---Cheese, but only full fat cheese and going to try to stick to parmesan only

---Yogurt, but only Fage 2% or whole (I'm not sure I could stomach the full fat)

-Coffee (some real foodists eliminate caffeine completely, but we really love coffee and we only buy local fresh beans and grind them ourselves

-Beer and red wine (beer is techinically not allowed, but red wine is! We drink a lot of mixed drinks though so this might be tough).

Obviously these foods are in addition to meat, fruits, and veggies, which will dominate (and already do) our meals.

I was feeling really excited so when we got home from grocery shopping I "cleaned out" the pantry and the fridge - meaning- I didn't actually throw anything out, just sort of seperated everything and bagged up a bunch of things to bring to work and attempt to give away.

All of the processed foods that were {and still are) in my pantry. Crazy right! And I thought I was healthy :-(

Remaining "real" foods that were left

Fridge door (a magnet for processed foods). After rearranging, ONLY the top shelf  was left with real food! (organic unsalted butter, plain seltzer, homemade salad dressing, mustard, polaner all fruit jam, sesame oil & soy sauce).

 

And right now, in the crockpot is Honey Sesame chicken from Skinnytaste! Jul- weird that we both had this one on our list, I'll let you know how it is!

Saturday

Hello blog. 

I have a stomach ache today. My stomach usually gets messed up after a bad migraine from all the medication and today is not a good stomach day. 

Today I managed to get up, shower, prep food for tonight, drive into Manhattan, eat brunch with friends, drive back, all before 1:30pm. Amazing for me on a Saturday.

Ava is having a girl!!!!!

My old boots just zipped up very easily (sign of weight loss, a few weeks ago I could not get them zipped past mid calf).

My friend just emailed us saying that on Saturday 2/15 were getting a private tour of the White House west wing! Eeeek! I've never been there! (She works in the White House).

It's snowing again.

M told me this morning that everytime he wake up and sees me, he falls in love again. Melt <3

Lately, I am obsessed with this quote from Dead Poets Society. I put it on my bulletin board yesterday for our poetry unit. Then I came home and saw it on an apple commercial!

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" 

Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Ode to Irony

Its funny how real irony is.

Yesterday my friend asked me why I hadn't posted on the blog in awhile. Little did she know that just that night before I had written a new post. 

I then explained to her that sometimes I get in "migraine depressions" (I actually invented this term) and even though I created this blog for the sole reason of helping me get through those scary migraine depressions...the last thing I tend to do, when deep in the dark, is write. 

But lately, I told her, I've been much "better" (will I ever actually get better?) and hadn't gotten a migraine in almost 2 months. 

Just a few hours later, my colleague asked me how I've been feeling lately. Generally I'm very superstitious about this and when people ask me how I'm feeling (meaning migraines) I just say "okay" even if I'm doing great. I'm scared to jinx a migraine-free streak by getting a migraine. But, I was feeling so great, that I told her, "I'm feeling great." I even went on to explain that the night before, I had exercised for the first time in 2 months (really exercised) because I finally let go of the fear that exercise would cause another migraine. 

I walked out of her office feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. I started thinking about weighing in at WW later that night, and got excited. I sat down in my chair. I took a sip of water. Then, I got a migraine. 

I literally couldn't believe it was happening. I think I may have slammed my fist on the desk and furiously whispered "No." I triple checked to see if I actually was having an aura or my eyes were just dry and blurry. And I finally gave in and downed the migraine meds.

The next few hours were lost to the hole of darkness, silence, and cold rags on my face. I crept out of bed 6 hours later, exhausted from being in pain, still with a stabbing pain in my right temple, simultaneously starving and nauseous, and ordered pizza. Granted it was whole wheat light on the cheese mushroom pizza, but let's just say that's not how I imagined my evening going. I had planned to go food shopping straight from work, walk to WW, come home and work out, cook, eat a healthy dinner, and spend some QT with Marvin. Clearly, none of that happened. 

So here I am now, the next day, in bed, in the dark. Still have a headache, but worse, my fear of irony has grown, gripping my brain with its ugly hands. For me to truly believe that a moderate 30 minute workout caused a migraine is dangerous... Exercise may be the one thing that can actually lower my high(er than average) risk for stroke besides not getting any more migraines. For me to truly believe that my superstition is real... That if I admit and accept feeling "good" I will actually cause myself to get a migraine, is both absurd and scary. 

How can I go on having a normal life?

I know everyone has something. And there's definitely someone whose something is worse than mine. And they go on with their lives. But right now, I just wanna say that my something really sucks. And sometimes I'm just not sure how to beat it. 

Inspired by Julie - Saturday Sixes

Its been awhile, and since I always hate the "catch up" posts... Julie inspired me to write some lists.

Six things I've been eating lately:

-Challah French Toast with seasonal fruit from Rosewater

-Marvin's sister's homemade lentil and corn soup (yellow lentils, corn, vegetables, homemade dumplings, and coconut milk)

-Crockpot pulled pork... LOTS of it

-Eggs & veggie breakfast

-Homemade sorrel (made from the sorrel plant in Grenada)

-Kohlrabi! (one of my new favorite veggies)

6 new things I've bought/received as gifts that I have't stopped using:

-iPad keyboard

-Lots of fabulous OPI & Essie nailpolish

-Diamond earrings

-BKLYN coffee mug

-Fitbit

-WW olive oil spray pump and salad dressing cruet

6 new places I've gone to recently:

-Rosewater (brunch)

-Lefrak Center (new ice skating rink in Prosect Park

-Loki Lounge (Marvin's Bday!)

-Bogota (I'd been there once before, but this time it was for lunch and it was a completely different experience!)

-Scottadito Toscana Osteria (NYE dinner)

-Staples (huge Staples with a parkling lots I dsicovered on 4th ave)

6 places I want to go to

-Whole Foods (a new, multilevel, solar powered, bar-on-the-roof, WF opened a few blocks away... and... parking lot!)

-Brooklyn Larder (basically like a fancy butcher, sells meat and cheese and I have a gift card)

-Old Navy (I need some plain staple clothing like solid sweaters, etc

-Grand Central Oyster Bar (new HUGE seafood restaurant, oyster bar/counter, seafood shop that opened a few blocks away)

-The Bell House (bar/venue in the area)

-Pies N Thighs (local breakfast/brunch spot recently on Diners Drive-ins & Dives)

6 things I'm excited about

-Yelp Holiday Hangover on the Hornblower Infinty tomorrow night! (4 floor yacht on the NY harbor that holds over 1600 people, free food from over 100 local venues, OPEN BAR, magicians, performers, etc. CANNOT WAIT

-My trip to DC in February with college roomies Alex Sarah Kelly & Jamie

-February Break 

-The Bachelor mini viewing party at my apartment Monday night

-The Biggest Loser Makeover week next Tuesday

-Marvin's brother-in-laws 40th Birthday party next weekend