what i did on my november vacation

We just got back last night from our post Little Pink Houses of Hope road trip and I'm just too tired to put together very many coherent sentences. I'll write more later this week but I wanted to tell you all that my family had unbelievably fabulous time in Myrtle Beach.

Here are just some of the things I did:

Had my first Krispy Kreme donut.

Discovered real fried chicken and North and South Carolina barbecue and banana pudding.

Gained four pounds.

Spent time in the sun on the beach, walking, playing and just sitting around.

Enjoyed the glorious weather.

Learned how to hula dance and watched a man swallow fire.

Read 575 pages of a book and still have 1000 to go.

Went fishing without touching a pole and had a glorious time.

Blew off NaBloPoMo. I was having to good a time to waste it hunting down wifi.

Went to a concert with celebrity look-alikes who weren't dressed in drag.

Had my first manicure.

Dressed up to have my photo taken.

Played mini-golf.

Learned that southern hospitality is a wonderful thing.

Met many wonderful people.

Enjoyed my beautiful family.

Went for walks by myself.

Relaxed, unwound and chilled out.

Felt supported, cared for, spoiled and restored.

"Lived stronger. Loved harder. Laughed deeper."

I am so grateful to Jeanine, Melissa and all the wonderful volunteers, donors and families who make Little Pink Houses of Hope such a wonderful experience.

questions off the grid

 Last week, I spent several days in a cabin on a very quiet island in Northern Ontario. It was bliss.

We were also completely offline. No phone, no electricity, no internet. I didn't mind one bit but it did serve to underline how often I have come to rely on Mr. Google to provide information. Here are just a few of the questions that went unanswered:

What is the difference between NASCAR and Formula 1?

What is the weather forecast?

What is fracking?

How do I knit cables without making holes in my knitting?

Who bought the Body Shop?

Why does the carbon-monoxide detector keep going off?

What are the health benefits of okra?

What are the ingredients in sweet potato pie?

What dogs are in the high risk group for bloat?

Are coffee grounds good for the septic system?

Is there a specific person assigned to travel with the Stanley Cup?  (The internet has failed me on this one! One link said there are three Hall of Fame staff who travel with the Cup but when I clicked through to the the article itself, the info was not included).

more soup

Starring (in order of appearance): olive oil, onions, garlic, garam masala, chipotle powder, water, vegetable stock, brown lentils, tomatoes, yu choy sum (Chinese greens), lemon juice, ground coriander. Served with a dollop of yogurt.

Loosely based on a Lebanese lentil soup recipe from the Toronto Star. I was out of cumin so substituted the garam masala. Ditto on the chipotle powder instead of cayenne. Soup is spicy but very, very good (if I do say so myself).

soup

Starring (in order of appearance): onions, garlic, tumeric, ginger, coriander, cumin, chipotle powder, cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, salt.

do me a favour: honour my friend by having some fun

My friend Rebecca died this week. She was all of 37 years old (if I've done the math right) and she had metastatic breast cancer. She was also one of the funniest people in my online community. She was also generous, straigtforward and honest. My heart goes out to her friends and family - the people she loved, wrote about and who knew her best.

Rebecca left strict instructions that we were to shed no tears after her passing (I'm afraid I've let her down on that front but I've been doing my best) and that, instead of a funeral she wanted a celebration of her life. I'd love to join the party and to hear the stories that those closest to her would be bound to share. Because Rebecca took her fun seriously.

I won't be able to attend the celebration (Rebecca lived in Cape Cod) but I would like to do something. And I need your help.

1. In the next week or so, please go out and do something fun. Do anything at all, as long as it makes you happy. If you need inspiration, Rebecca loved dogs (especially her pit bull, Diezel), cooking, eating out (her restaurant reviews were among my favourite blog posts), her scooter, her little car, road trips, NASCAR, kick boxing, books, funny movies and music. If none of these things appeal to you, please go out and do your own thing. If you like, bring someone with you to join in the fun.

2. Let me know. You can leave me a comment on this blog, send me an email (laurie dot kingston at gmail dot com) or message me on Twitter (I'm @lauriek). Just a few words to let me know what fun thing you did in Rebecca's memory. I'll compile a list and make sure that it gets to her family.

That's it. It already makes me feel happier, thinking that there will be a little more joy in the world this week. I think Rebecca would approve.

Being an elephant....

Or more on perceptions vs. reality. I talk about losing weight and my deflabbification project but it never seems to work. I have decided my job is very fattening. I sit next to the kitchen and then people bring in nasty things like donuts and cookies... or even make special trips to the bakery next door to get more when the homemade stuff is run out or they just want a sweet thing. And of course they get enough to share. Then there is the snack rack where for 90 paltry pennies you can get a bag of premade, chemical and fat filled, empty calories of your choice. All within 8' of my desk and in my sightlines. As well as the parade of coworkers going by for their share. So I decided I look and feel like this:

Or this:

Last week at the reunion, I was talking to a social worker friend about this (who is less than 5' tall and weighs less than 90 lbs) about how I feel fat and I hate the way I look in pictures. Her calm reply was that we all feel that way. It did help but I still feel fat. I know my downfalls - emotional eating, late night snacking after dinner, on the job snacking and I have promised myself I need to do something about this before I have to buy larger clothes yet again. But I do feel very sorry for this elephant that is on a strict diet to lose 500 lbs during pregnancy no less.

what did i do wrong?

OK internet, help me out here:

I've been looking for a recipe for healthy snack bars, to replace store bought "chewy" bars. The bars can't contain nuts or peanuts.

My nutritionist sent me a recipe for Chocolate Date Protein bars. I made the bars, following the recipe exactly and ended up with a very, very tasty paste - too sticky to be rolled into balls, let alone made into bars.

She's away indefinitely and I can't find a comparable recipe online. Can someone figure out how to give these bars more integrity?

I used ground hemp. Could that be the problem? Is it possible to buy whole seeds? Would that help?

I don't want to post someone's recipe online but you soak the dates and then blend them with the cocoa and sweetener and then add the hemp seeds for a few seconds at the end. There's no cooking - you just chill it in the fridge.

Thoughts?

I'm also in the market for healthy and nut-free snack bar recipes. Any thoughts there would be appreciated as well.

On the hunt for healthy food

I traveled home yesterday from the wilds of Wisconsin back to Boston. It was a long day as travel is not the best activity for me. My back hurt to sum it up. We had a two hour drive back to the airport (O'Hare), had to return a rental car and didn't really know where we were going. The weather forecast was also for potential severe thunderstorms....

Our plan (pushed later than originally reserved) left at 645 pm. We wanted to get there two hours prior to allow for car rental return chaos, plus two hours for driving, plus extra time to pad for weekend return traffic. We got to the damn airport at 3pm. No traffic, no car rental return hassles. We had plenty of time.

I was with a friend from college. We took turns sitting with luggage and looking for healthy food options to eat either before or on the plane. Finally she found a build your own salad place. I found a Mediterranean place which had a salad with grilled chicken, a few slivered almonds, and some Gorgonzola on a large bed of lettuce. It looked perfect until I looked at the nutritional information - it was listed as having some where around 640 calories and 55 grams of fat. My jaw dropped. I showed it to another woman who was also looking at food choices. She was equally appalled. Then we decided it must be because of the huge (3.25 oz) container of salad dressing.

We checked another item - a sandwich of turkey, brie cheese and red peppers I think - and it had 630 calories and 70 grams of fat.... I'm not even sure that's possible because there are 9 calories in every gram of fat or something like that. I think. I'm not completley sure.

But either the labels were wrong some how. Or the food was just not good for you.

I ate my salad without dressing and it was just fine. But I really hate travel food. Today I am going to the grocery store and I think we will have some salmon for dinner with a salad and maybe some Israeli couscous on the side. That will be much better.

Red meat, too? Really?

No more steak??? Bummer. Not that we eat that much red meat but I can appreciate a really good steak and sometimes a juicy burger. But really? Living under a rock doesn't work either because of radon as someone commented here recently.

So how much do all these cancer risk factors really matter after all. We have the things we can't affect for any ailment. In the case of beast cancer, we have things we can't change like genetics, family history, child birth, aging, dense breasts, etc. Then there are the things we supposedly can change such as obesity, alcohol use, tobacco (a whole other kettle of fish, so to say in the cancer world), exercise, steak (now), breathing, BPA, blah, blah, blah... but if we have all the primary risk factors we can't change, how much can our diets and lifestyles really make a difference?

Yes we cab be healthier and make better choices for our bodies, but if the main factors can't be changed how much does it matter if we do? And the statistics can be hard to decipher.

Red meat consumption can raise a risk factor I think 13% for each serving per week. That doesn't mean that if your risk is 10% over your lifetime of getting breast cancer, it doesn't mean that a steak a week puts you at 23%,  or 11.3% etc., it probably means 10.13%, if that much.

I am ready to give up on all this risk factor business now because I can't figure out where I can hide from it all either...

I assume it was only Chinese take out.

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling fine. I went to work and felt fine. At lunch, a co-worker and I decided to have Chinese food delivered. Partly because our lunch choices were lame (me) or non existent (her) and partly because they would bring it to us instead of us going to pick it up. We get take out every couple of weeks from the same place and we get two days worth of food for one day's price due to the portion size.

We both ordered the same thing pretty much - a lunch special of pork lo mein but we had different appetizers. I ate the mushrooms, she picked her's out as she doesn't like them. After lunch, my head started to spin and I couldn't focus. She felt fine. I ended up going home from work early and took a three hour nap. I slept solidly.

My husband came home and couldn't find me. He thought I had gone to run an errand or something. Finally he looked up stairs and found me asleep.I slept through the phone ringing, him calling me, the cat walking on me. I was out like the proverbial light as they say.

We had soup and sandwiches for dinner. He had 2/3 and I had 1/3. It helped the nauseous feeling I had. I slept all night as well and could barely drag myself out of bed this morning.

Why is she blogging about this?  Why am I reading this (you are asking yourself)? As I left work among comments about bad food, someone said the fateful words 'or are you coming down with something?'  That is the problem. Compromised immune systems and all that.

Yesterday was Wednesday (in case you forgot) and that is methotrexate injection day around here (and methotrexate is what suppresses my immune system). A few months ago, I had a stomach flu thing that laid me up for 9 days. I was told after I should skip methotrexate if I am sick at all.

So yesterday I thought about it and decided I am going to pretend I am a normal person and do the injection and assume it was a minor Chinese food mix up and not something that can do me in for more than a week.

If I am whining about not feeling well for the next week or so you can feel free to comment and say "I told you so" but sometimes its nice to pretend our ailments do not keep us down and a bad bit of Chinese takeout is all it is. Sometimes we do live in the shadow of our ailments as they interfere with all the little things in life. It was only Chinese take out.

brain slurry and eye candy

I seem to still be recovering from the weekend, with a brain full of mush. For those new readers I picked up after my post on Angelina Jolie - you might want to come back tomorrow.

Here's some of the random slurry from my brain:

Speaking of slurry, my 10 year old's baseball team voted on a name over the weekend. The results came in yesterday.

After one failed experiment, I made my own eye makeup remover yesterday. I don't wear makeup very often but when I do, I want something that will take it off without leaving me with more wrinkles and fewer eyelashes. My second try yielded great results - Burt's Bees baby wash, olive oil and water. It wasn't an original recipe or anything, I'm just thrilled that I was able to avoid buying a small, expensive bottle of something I was convinced I could make myself.

Finally, we had our Mothers' Day on Sunday (delayed because half the family was at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival last weekend). Pancakes and Star Trek Into Darkness were my two requests and they were happily fulfilled. The pancakes were delicious and the movie had Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Benedict Cumberbatch. 
I loved every single second of Star Trek...

SPOILER ALERT!!

It was fun, fast-paced and had snappy dialogue and lots of nostalgia. Also did I mention Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Benedict Cumberbatch? 
It wasn't until I got home that I started to brood about the fact that there don't seem to be any women running Starfleet. And the movie fails the Bechdel test.
At the time, I didn't even notice. I blame it on Quinto, Pegg and Cumberbatch.

The Weighty Question

Here I am feeling old and fat. I am fat. I know it. I wore a dress when we went out to dinner the other night and it made me look pregnant. I am too fat. I know I have to lose weight and believe me I am trying.

Here are the problems I have with losing weight:

1. My newest medication, Lyrica, added 10 more pounds
2. My hormonal breast cancer medication was good for another 10 pounds
3. I can only exercise three days a week or am in pain and uncomfortable for a couple days
4. I like food, I like to cook, and I like to eat
5. I am an emotional eater and eat when stressed 
6. And, last but not least, I work in an office which has a candy basket that is usually full, a snack tray full of tasty and fattening foods, and people bring in goodies a couple times a week. The last two are in full view of my desk and so going back to # 5 on a bad day at work, I am doomed.

I have been working on losing weight. But it is much harder to lose these days.  Having the stomach flu where I didn't have any appetite (or go to work) for 9 days, helped me start. I am down a few pounds that seem to be staying off but want to keep them off and take off more.

I can't live on lettuce. I do like salads and healthy food like Greek yogurt, home made granola, bananas, and other healthy foods. My husband is intent on losing weight as well. Tonight's dinner will be fish with vegetables and maybe some quinoa. Tomorrow night we will probably have fish again. That will be a good start.

I know losing weight will help with fibromyalgia, back pain, RA, and reduce cancer recurrence risk so there is lots of incentive, never mind the emotional side of not wanting to go up another clothes size, again.

The weighty question is it possible for me to lose weight by changing eating habits and food choices for the two of us long term? I certainly hope so. I have blogged about this several times over the years and the scale seems to keep going in the wrong direction. Maybe its time to throw out the scale.

sesame challenged

My younger son was a diagnosed with a bunch of food allergies when he was very young. He's outgrown some of these (eggs, milk) and some seem to be around for the long haul (peanuts and tree nuts). 

Among the most insidious of these is sesame. It was the first allergy we suspected and has always been the one we find the most frustrating. It's in everything - try reading labels on bread products for a few days and you'll see what I mean.

Last year, we were offered the opportunity to do a blood test that can determine the degree of reaction to some common allergens. Out of a possible 100, Daniel's response to peanuts was as high as could be measured (this allergy is not going anywhere any time soon). His sesame reaction was 0.84. That's barely a reaction at all. When Daniel had no reaction to this year's sesame skin test, the doctor suggested a sesame challenge.

This, as I remember it, was our experience:

Sunday:

2:00pm: Tim goes out to buy Sesame Snaps.

3:00pm: Tim tracks down Sesame Snaps, discovers that they "may contain peanuts."

4:00pm Tim makes own version of snaps, with sesame seeds, sugar, ginger and lemon.

10:00pm-2:00am I have insomnia, partly due to sesame challenge. This may also be due the fact that I discover my free games of Chuzzle were re-newed when we reformatted my computer.

Monday:

9:00am: Daniel and I arrive at the allergists office.

9:10am: The doctor explains to us how the day is going to unfold.

9:12am: The nurse is blown away by our home made sesame snaps. Apparently most folks just bring in seeds.

9:20am: Daniel's arm is scratched with a bit of sesame. There's a bit of redness (which might be from being scratched but nothing more). Daniel says that it's itchy but remarks that "it might be psychosomatic."

9:25am: The doctor gives us the go ahead to continue.

9:45am: Daniel eats a bit of sesame snap.

9:50am He insists that his lips and tongue are itchy and swollen. I suspect anxiety (we have never been helicopter parents but I can only imagine how he must feel after practically a life-time of hearing the message - from many directions - that a food allergy can KILL you). The nurse sees no evidence of a reaction.

9:51-9:59: I attempt to distract Daniel with hang-man, offer him lunch out and cupcakes as a reward if he sticks it out.

10:00am: The doctor examines Daniel and sees no evidence of a reaction. Daniel is still anxious. The doc holds up a mirror so Daniel can tell that he looks fine. He soberly informs my eight year old that he can walk away now "but you will have to continue to abstain from eating sesame."

10:05am: I tell Daniel that he can have the whole day off from school.

10:06am: Tim drops off Daniel's DS.

10:10am-12:00pm: Testing resumes. Ever larger amounts of sesame are consumed without hesitation or reaction.The last couple of times, Daniel barely looks up from his Pokemon game.

12:00pm: We are dismissed, with one fewer food allergy on Daniel's list. The doctor (who remarks that Daniel is "a different kid" now that the test is over) instructs Daniel to eat lots of sesame in the next little while.

12:30pm: We celebrate!

Anyone know a good falafel recipe?

it's not easy be(com)ing green

"You know what would make this kale smoothie better? Get rid of the kale."

-Tim, March 9, 2013

"I've added flax to my green smoothie. Now, all I need is a protein."

"Like a side of steak?"

-conversation between Tim and me, March 10, 2013*

Really unappealing but tasty, I swear.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about meeting with Heather, a cancer coach at the new survivorship centre. Her background is as a nutritionist and I have chosen to focus on that topic with her.

She's impressed on me the importance of making small SMART goals. I've chosen to focus on getting at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day for the next month (after which I will buy myself a small present, as directed by Heather).  I was sure it would be laughably easy.

It is not.

Heather also gave me some recipes and encouraged me to try them as a way of increasing my consumption of fruit and vegetables. I tried a version of one yesterday with kale, mango and mixed berries. It was delicious but the blender didn't do a great job with the kale, leaving chunks of it to get stuck between our teeth (see first quote from Tim, above).

After a wonderful conversation on Facebook (it seems that lots of people find the topic of making green smoothies to be of passionate interest), I decided to put the water in first and blend the kale before adding the fruit. A video on "How Your Blender Uses Physics to Make a Smoothie" posted by my friend Hélène, was fascinating and very helpful.

Today, I put water and the kale (more than yesterday) in first. This helped my blender to be much more effective. I added fruit gradually, until the bitterness of the kale was masked by the berries and mango. I also added a tablespoon of flax seed.

The result wasn't pretty but it did taste pretty good.

I also found out yesterday that my friends have very strong feelings about their smoothie-making appliances. It made me covet a new appliance but Tim has rightly suggested that I should wait until I have a proven commitment to smoothie-making.

I think I'll ask for a Nutribullet for Mothers' Day. Andrea and others rave about it and it is the cheapest of the lot. It's bound to be less labour intensive than what I'm currently doing (I have to keep removing the lid and stuffing the unblended bits down). Also, there probably shouldn't be a burning smell when I'm done blending.

I'd love to hear all your adventures and advice about smoothie making. Recipe advice would also be welcome, along with other suggestions (what do you use for protein, besides a side of steak?). Andrea shared a link to the Almost Raw Vegan, who has 50 recipes that look pretty good to me.

*I've just figured out that flax seed is a great source of protein. See how little I know?

reluctantly gluten free

Last fall, I got tired of feeling crummy all the time. I'm sure the fatigue and the gastrointestinal issues were exacerbated by the round of antibiotics I'd had to go on after my surgery but I just wasn't getting better. I needed to give myself a chance to heal.

In the spring, a cousin and her spouse had been on the Brown Rice Diet. Laura also happens to be a naturopathic doctor, so I had asked her about it at the time and got her to send me the info. It's not a diet in the weight loss sense of the word but more of an elimination of all potential allergens. For three weeks, the only grain I ate was brown rice. I ate chicken, fish and a bit of lamb but no other red meat and no shellfish. Alcohol, dairy, sugar and all processed food were also verboten - but I could eat as much of anything as I wanted.

At the end of the first week, I was ready to chew off a limb. Despite consuming lots of food, I was hungry and irritable. I almost gave up. Instead, I increased my protein intake and two days later I felt flat out amazing. I had tons of energy, no cravings at all (I sat in front of a table full of wine, chocolate and cheese at book club and sipped sparkling water, not minding at all). I lost 10lbs, which I'm told was water weight, as I let go of sugar induced inflammation.

At the end of three weeks, I reintroduced grains, like quinoa that don't contain gluten. I was fine.

I introduced bread and got sick. My son was also ill, so I decided it might be a coincidence, and that I should take gluten out of my diet and reintroduce it later.

I had no reaction when I reintroduced yogurt. Or cheese. I re-introduced gluten and got sick again.

Over the holidays (Chanukah, Christmas, New Year's...) I ate pretty much whatever I wanted. I felt sluggish, bloated and irritable and by the new year, was ready to eliminate gluten again.

After a couple of weeks, I didn't feel fantastic but I didn't feel terrible. Mostly, I was irritated that I couldn't eat gluten. I missed Tim's home-made bread. I missed the chocolate cookies from the Wild Oat. I missed beer. I started to wonder if there was a point to all the deprivation.

Then came Tim's birthday and I decided to make Too Much Chocolate Cake. And, after three weeks without gluten, I had a giant slice. Then I had another one the next day. And the day after that, I was  a mess. My distress was not so much gastrointestinal as emotional. I was irritable angry furious. I was depressed. I was in despair. It was awful. And then, suddenly, it was over. I felt fine again.

So the gluten is gone for good (Tim says that the scientist in him would love to give me a slice of chocolate cake, just to see what happens but, out of self-preservation, he thinks that would be a bad idea).

I'm still figuring out what it means to be gluten free. Sometimes, I'm surprised by how easy it is. Other times, I feel frustrated that it feels complicated.

I don't feel amazing.. To do that, I guess I'd have to cut out the alcohol, sugar and processed stuff. Maybe that's next but for now, I'll just try and keep it to a minimum.

questions off the grid

 Last week, I spent several days in a cabin on a very quiet island in Northern Ontario. It was bliss.

We were also completely offline. No phone, no electricity, no internet. I didn't mind one bit but it did serve to underline how often I have come to rely on Mr. Google to provide information. Here are just a few of the questions that went unanswered:

What is the difference between NASCAR and Formula 1?

What is the weather forecast?

What is fracking?

How do I knit cables without making holes in my knitting?

Who bought the Body Shop?

Why does the carbon-monoxide detector keep going off?

What are the health benefits of okra?

What are the ingredients in sweet potato pie?

What dogs are in the high risk group for bloat?

Are coffee grounds good for the septic system?

Is there a specific person assigned to travel with the Stanley Cup?  (The internet has failed me on this one! One link said there are three Hall of Fame staff who travel with the Cup but when I clicked through to the the article itself, the info was not included).

sesame challenged

My younger son was a diagnosed with a bunch of food allergies when he was very young. He's outgrown some of these (eggs, milk) and some seem to be around for the long haul (peanuts and tree nuts). 

Among the most insidious of these is sesame. It was the first allergy we suspected and has always been the one we find the most frustrating. It's in everything - try reading labels on bread products for a few days and you'll see what I mean.

Last year, we were offered the opportunity to do a blood test that can determine the degree of reaction to some common allergens. Out of a possible 100, Daniel's response to peanuts was as high as could be measured (this allergy is not going anywhere any time soon). His sesame reaction was 0.84. That's barely a reaction at all. When Daniel had no reaction to this year's sesame skin test, the doctor suggested a sesame challenge.

This, as I remember it, was our experience:

Sunday:

2:00pm: Tim goes out to buy Sesame Snaps.

3:00pm: Tim tracks down Sesame Snaps, discovers that they "may contain peanuts."

4:00pm Tim makes own version of snaps, with sesame seeds, sugar, ginger and lemon.

10:00pm-2:00am I have insomnia, partly due to sesame challenge. This may also be due the fact that I discover my free games of Chuzzle were re-newed when we reformatted my computer.

Monday:

9:00am: Daniel and I arrive at the allergists office.

9:10am: The doctor explains to us how the day is going to unfold.

9:12am: The nurse is blown away by our home made sesame snaps. Apparently most folks just bring in seeds.

9:20am: Daniel's arm is scratched with a bit of sesame. There's a bit of redness (which might be from being scratched but nothing more). Daniel says that it's itchy but remarks that "it might be psychosomatic."

9:25am: The doctor gives us the go ahead to continue.

9:45am: Daniel eats a bit of sesame snap.

9:50am He insists that his lips and tongue are itchy and swollen. I suspect anxiety (we have never been helicopter parents but I can only imagine how he must feel after practically a life-time of hearing the message - from many directions - that a food allergy can KILL you). The nurse sees no evidence of a reaction.

9:51-9:59: I attempt to distract Daniel with hang-man, offer him lunch out and cupcakes as a reward if he sticks it out.

10:00am: The doctor examines Daniel and sees no evidence of a reaction. Daniel is still anxious. The doc holds up a mirror so Daniel can tell that he looks fine. He soberly informs my eight year old that he can walk away now "but you will have to continue to abstain from eating sesame."

10:05am: I tell Daniel that he can have the whole day off from school.

10:06am: Tim drops off Daniel's DS.

10:10am-12:00pm: Testing resumes. Ever larger amounts of sesame are consumed without hesitation or reaction.The last couple of times, Daniel barely looks up from his Pokemon game.

12:00pm: We are dismissed, with one fewer food allergy on Daniel's list. The doctor (who remarks that Daniel is "a different kid" now that the test is over) instructs Daniel to eat lots of sesame in the next little while.

12:30pm: We celebrate!

Anyone know a good falafel recipe?

mental health day

My youngest son is home from school today. He's not sick. He just didn't sleep very well last night. He's been out of sorts lately - hard on himself and everyone around him. It just felt like a day off would be a really good idea.

We've a windchill of -35C at the moment (that's an almost as cold sounding -31F). It's warmer than yesterday but still not really warm enough to play outside.

This morning, I pretty much left him to his own devices. As per my stipulation of "not a lot of screen" (I'm convinced that watching videos and playing video games compound his bad mood, which would defeat the purpose of a day off), he asked me if he could make "pure juice" in the kitchen. I was hesitant but Tim said I could trust the 9 year old with a hand juicer and a paring knife (this is when I'm glad that the kids have two parents. The 14 year old would still not be leaving the house by himself). 

A short while later, Daniel brought me a tray in bed. He came back a few seconds later with a snack.

As we sat together and drank and ate, Daniel observed that food tastes better when you make it yourself. 

It tastes just as good when your child makes it for you.

I have just a little more writing to get done, then we're going to make soup (he bought a big bag of sweet potatoes for me with his own money, on a recent trip to the Farmers' Market in Guelph) and then do a yoga DVD. If there's time after that we may do a little spelling homework.

Or maybe not.

I'm having a mental health day, too.

do me a favour: honour my friend by having some fun

My friend Rebecca died this week. She was all of 37 years old (if I've done the math right) and she had metastatic breast cancer. She was also one of the funniest people in my online community. She was also generous, straigtforward and honest. My heart goes out to her friends and family - the people she loved, wrote about and who knew her best.

Rebecca left strict instructions that we were to shed no tears after her passing (I'm afraid I've let her down on that front but I've been doing my best) and that, instead of a funeral she wanted a celebration of her life. I'd love to join the party and to hear the stories that those closest to her would be bound to share. Because Rebecca took her fun seriously.

I won't be able to attend the celebration (Rebecca lived in Cape Cod) but I would like to do something. And I need your help.

1. In the next week or so, please go out and do something fun. Do anything at all, as long as it makes you happy. If you need inspiration, Rebecca loved dogs (especially her pit bull, Diezel), cooking, eating out (her restaurant reviews were among my favourite blog posts), her scooter, her little car, road trips, NASCAR, kick boxing, books, funny movies and music. If none of these things appeal to you, please go out and do your own thing. If you like, bring someone with you to join in the fun.

2. Let me know. You can leave me a comment on this blog, send me an email (laurie dot kingston at gmail dot com) or message me on Twitter (I'm @lauriek). Just a few words to let me know what fun thing you did in Rebecca's memory. I'll compile a list and make sure that it gets to her family.

That's it. It already makes me feel happier, thinking that there will be a little more joy in the world this week. I think Rebecca would approve.

brain slurry and eye candy

I seem to still be recovering from the weekend, with a brain full of mush. For those new readers I picked up after my post on Angelina Jolie - you might want to come back tomorrow.

Here's some of the random slurry from my brain:

Speaking of slurry, my 10 year old's baseball team voted on a name over the weekend. The results came in yesterday.

After one failed experiment, I made my own eye makeup remover yesterday. I don't wear makeup very often but when I do, I want something that will take it off without leaving me with more wrinkles and fewer eyelashes. My second try yielded great results - Burt's Bees baby wash, olive oil and water. It wasn't an original recipe or anything, I'm just thrilled that I was able to avoid buying a small, expensive bottle of something I was convinced I could make myself.

Finally, we had our Mothers' Day on Sunday (delayed because half the family was at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival last weekend). Pancakes and Star Trek Into Darkness were my two requests and they were happily fulfilled. The pancakes were delicious and the movie had Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Benedict Cumberbatch. 
I loved every single second of Star Trek...

SPOILER ALERT!!

It was fun, fast-paced and had snappy dialogue and lots of nostalgia. Also did I mention Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Benedict Cumberbatch? 
It wasn't until I got home that I started to brood about the fact that there don't seem to be any women running Starfleet. And the movie fails the Bechdel test.
At the time, I didn't even notice. I blame it on Quinto, Pegg and Cumberbatch.