Good News Bad News

Good News--

It doesn't seem like the huge bloaty stomach/ gassy ook problem is cause by gluten

Bad News--

It does in fact seem to be caused by onions and garlic instead.

I tested it, you see. I made pancakes--which are full of gluten but totally lacking in onions and garlic. Then I waited. And waited. And waited.

At no point did I look like one of those people having keyhole abdominal surgery. No expando-guts.

Then, later in the day, I made pasta with onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Right after that, my abdomen started expanding. And again last night, after making rice, beans, onions, garlic, and tomato mixture stuff.

The thing is, the onions and garlic don't *always* cause the huge tummy. If they're totally cooked all the way through, I have no problems with them at all. So there's something in raw garlic and onions that is making something in my guts unhappy.

Which really sucks, because I love onions and garlic. They go in almost everything I cook. In huge quantities. I don't want to cut back, and I don't want to cut them out, either. Sometimes a girl just wants a slice of raw onion on her sammich, ya know?

But for happy thoughts, I don't have to cut out pasta or bread or seitan. Or beer. Or whisky made with not-corn. Yum.

For a while there I was worried I'd have to turn into one of those girls that drinks only vodka and pastel-colored drinks. Pleh. Instead I'm going to have to turn into one of those people who thoroughly cooks their garlic, onions, and shallots.

Oh well, any excuse to eat more roasted garlic works for me.

Angry Intestines And Gluten?

So, my intestines have been unhappy lately. Not projectile-vomit/explosive diarrhea unhappy.

No, they've been "swell the abdomen up like a balloon" unhappy. So I started paying attention to what I eat before it happens.

It isn't onions (tho they do cause the odd problem). It isn't garlic, which is good--I think I'd die if I couldn't eat garlic anymore. It isn't processed cheese, or even cream cheese (one causes sticky teeth, the other a different set of problems...)

Nope, the thing that always seems to show up in the meal right before the hugely distended abdomen is wheat.

Which really sucks. I love wheat. Maybe I need to cut back for a while. Maybe I need to cut it out forever. I dunno. Right now it's mostly the sticky-out tummy that I'm noticing. Well, and the gas... But that doesn't mean there isn't more going on inside, too.

But... Without wheat (and other tasty gluten containing foods like seitan) what do I eat? My favorite cookies are made with wheat. And brownies and cake and bread. Totally bread.

Sure, maybe it's not gluten causing the problem (never get bloaty when I eat seitan, so...), but something about the wheat itself. Or maybe it's the combination with something else I'm cooking. I dunno.

I've been hoping it's something else for a while now. I don't want to give up the wonders of tasty baked goods. Sure, there are alternatives, but they almost all taste like crap. Oh, and they cost too much, too.

So what does it mean? It means I should be doing some kind of elimination diet. I should be cutting out everything with gluten in it, and seeing if the magic expando-stomach goes away. Then I should add foods back in until it comes back. More or less.

What will I really do? Probably keep nomming the bread, cake, cookies, and all that other fun stuff until something happens to make me. With my only noticeable problems being abdominal bloating and gas, it's just not worth it to cut back on things I love. 'Specially when it could just be an ongoing stomach bug. You know, like a parasite.

Now, if I end up seeing a doctor at some point and getting blood work that shows that I'm short on all the nutrients I know I'm eating, I'll change something. Until then, I'll just avoid tight shirts after stuffing my face with a pound of pasta. Which is probably a good idea anyway, huh?

My Love Affair With Lactose Ends Now

Ever since I landed in Mexico, waaaay back in February, I've been scarfing down cheese and other milky things like there's no tomorrow. Sometimes I get a pass on the cheese. Sometimes I get a pass on the ice cream. Sometimes I'm a total idiot and have hot chocolate and a cream-based soup.

Those are not good times. Take yesterday, for example. It's been cold and rainy here (something about a tropical storm?), so I thought, "gee, I'd like something warm to drink while I wait for my food."

My choices were coffee, fancy coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.

Smart little monkey that I am, I picked the hot chocolate. Which they make with milk. Which my stomach, intestines, and all the random flora and fauna living therein are not super fond of.

I then followed the hot chocolate of intestinal distress with cream of potato soup. Which was much, much more than my stomach was willing to put up with.

This is the second time in two weeks that I've done this to myself. And I'm definitely doing it to myself--no one walks up and shoves the dairy down my throat.

So I'm cutting back, big time, on the cheese, and getting rid of the liquid dairy entirely again. It's a waste of food and money to eat stuff that doesn't get digested. After all, there are starving children in Africa we can send it to, just like all those things I refused to eat as a kid.

Now I just have to figure out how to get my calorie intake back up, without the super-calorie dense dairy.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

Missed My Veggie-versary

My 8 year veggie-versary was last week sometime. I seem to have missed it.

The veggie thing was easy back home. Heck, other than the cook-it-all-yourself thing, even vegan is pretty easy back home. Here, though?

Without a kitchen I take what I can get. Sometimes that means quesadillas three times a day. Sometimes it means over-paying for Italian food. Sometimes it's eating a bucket of fruit and a bag of chips and hoping there's something available in the next town.

Honestly, it's pretty boring to be a veggie without a kitchen in Mexico. I'll probably last, but I don't know for sure. You wouldn't think it, but eating veggie is much more expensive in Mexico than eating meat. A big bowl of chicken soup is 25 pesos, enough veggies to make a meal cost about the same. A can of beans is 12 pesos, for the same price I'm halfway to a quarter of a chicken plus sides, salsa, and who knows what else.

The real problem, though, is that it all smells *so good*. I think about it. I really really do. I don't know that I could actually get meat to my mouth. It hasn't worked the two or three times I've tried in the last 8 years. The food always stops just short of my mouth as the gagging takes over.

I don't know, though... How long until I just can't face another quesadilla? How long until another boring bowl of beans and rice makes me gag too?

Meanwhile, I'm working on finding a way to feed myself that doesn't involve restaurants every day, or sammiches either. Ate about a dozen in the last week, and while the avocado, cheese, tomato, onion and mustard is a good sammich, it too gets dull after a while. Ideas?

Day 355- Strange Kitchen Situation

I'm splitting my time this month between Dad's and Mom's. Which is really not idea, but much better than my car or staying at *that place* an extra month.

The problem is, Dad's house also has his GF, who "is not comfortable" around me. So when she's downstairs, I need to be in my room, and when she's upstairs she can appear at any moment (like a magician or a bad movie vampire). Which makes cooking in Dad's seriously snazzy kitchen tricky. I know very few recipes that take fewer than 20 minutes, and I have no space in the pantry here. So all my food stuff (except one thing in the freezer and two in the fridge) is still out in my car.

Makes the whole cooking/ eating thing difficult, but I'm basically a guest, so what can I do, right?

So while I bought Nate's veggie "meatballs" for fast easy protein, I'm not sure I'll get enough time in the kitchen to actually *cook* them. Yesterday I admit that I didn't even try. I just picked up a bag of Tings and some speculoos cookies at EarthFare and snacked on those all day.

I need to figure something out, though. j. cannot live on chips and cookies alone. Also need beans and rice and the odd bit of pasta in sauce. Or at least some bread and sauce for the meatballs.

Any ideas? My (admittedly incompetent) attempts at peace have all been rebuffed, so I don't think that's going to work. And I'm not supposed to confront her- it's "her" house, after all.... So, fast (veggie or vegan) food?

OBD 6- CHOCOLATE!!!

Who'd think that most of a year without *any* chocolate, and several years without that plasticy stuff by Hershey's would turn me into such a ravening chocolate monster.

I was planning, yesterday, to be a good girl and buy something healthy and reasonable for a dollar. Instead I went to Save A Lot and bought another pizza and a Hershey bar. Both of which I then ate. Over about two hours while chatting with my sister on the phone.

Sorry, T... Didn't mean to make you listen to my naughty eating noises. If you now have the audio track for a adult film, would you please erase it?

so... yeah... I ate chocolate. And pizza. And I think I had something else, too. Don't remember what, though.

And my intestines are punishing me for the dairy, and my bank balance is punishing me for the spending, and all is well with the world.

Well, not quite. Somehow I live in the house of the expanding population. No one is reproducing, but much like the gas in my car, there are *always* more people here than I think should be. I *know* there are more than my lease says there should be.

And yesterday, as I was napping, I think RM#1 said he's renting out the garage. Which makes me wonder 3 things:

• How much is my rent going down by,
• When do I get the refund for this month, and
• Why wasn't I consulted before this was decided?

Now, I'm sure the whole "share house with another person" thing wouldn't throw me off quite as much if I wasn't already sharing one bathroom with two other people. The second bathroom here in my rat-shack, slum-wreck rental abode is the "master" bath, and RM#1- the son of the slum, er, landlord- has that one to himself. 

Or, you know, if they'd informed me of it more than 24 hours before this person is moving in.

Oh, if only I had $2000 in the bank and could take off for Mexico now.

ETA: Make that *5* other people... I've stayed at hostels with higher personal space allowance.....

Day 256- Right Now I Am NOT Vegan

Serious later. First, tho- I tossed the calzones.

I know, I know, there are starving people.. somewhere... who would kill for odd tasting calzones that are both dry and strangely moist at the same time.

And I say now what I (wish I) said when told that as a kid. If they want it so bad they can come here and dig it out of my trash, 'cause it's gross.

While the items I wouldn't eat as a kid (chicken, string beans, peas, corn without season salt, spaghetti with anything other than butter and garlic salt on it, anything cooked by my maternal grandmother...) aren't what I'm turning down now, the idea is (mostly) the same.

If the texture is that far off, and the flavor is off, I'm going to start thinking I'm eating something I'm not. Like chopped up bits of eel, or twigs, or mushrooms.

Or, you know, all three.

Note- the one thing out of that batch I probably should have eaten was the food cooked by my G-ma, but they didn't let me drink milk during meals, and I'm nothing if not pig-headedly stubborn.

So, anyway, I tossed about 1.2 calzones.

Then I had to come up with something else to eat, 'cause it isn't November, I don't want to get gas, and nothing within 15 miles of me (other than WM, pleh) is open at 2am.

So I fried up an onion, tossed in some chopped garlic. In a bowl I mixed up my random spicy-pancake-thing (1C flour, 1C water+/-, salt, paprika, cayenne), mixed the onion in and fried the thing up in more oil.

Which turned out unusually tasty. I don't know if it was the onion or the bit where it didn't taste like yard clippings, with chunks of slimy eel/mushroom in it.

Um... yeah.

Anyway, it was tasty. I nommed it. Om nom nom.

Begin Serious.

I thought I'd missed the Vegan Month of Food, but it turns out they've pushed it back a month. Just in time for me to accept that maybe I'm not supposed to try to be vegan right now. I'm not going back to egg-eating, and meat's still totally out, but... I'm wondering if giving as much attention to little nit-picky (dairy) ingredients as I am is maybe not in my best interests right now.

I'm not going to go out and gorge on dairy ice cream, or cheese, or any of the other stuff I've (mostly) abstained from for the last 2 years, but...

I accepted that dairy was giving me more and more problems (physically), starting maybe 5 years ago. Since then I've been on a kind of eat/ suffer/ abstain cycle. I tried to break it by cutting off the dairy all together. It's something I was trying to do more for comfort than any real underlying belief.

Until/ unless I find that strength of belief I need to take a step or two back. I think if I have that, I dunno, inside me? It'll make it easier to find the strength/ testicular (ovarian?) fortitude/ guts to ask for what I *actually* want at restaurants. And to pass up TimTams, cheese flavored chips, most Indian food, and all the other stuff I still occasionally crave.

Wow, I feel like a failure right now.

Which is funny, because I'm really not changing much. I'm giving myself "permission" to eat some dairy, sometimes. To not rabidly check ingredient lists for stuff possibly derived from dairy. I'm ditching (maybe) the guilt. That's really all.

I know it's the direction I want to go. I think I'll get there eventually. I need to do it for the right reasons, though. Not just because milk makes me sick.

I suspect that this is about as close to one of those "crisis of faith" things as my goofy Atheist self is ever going to get. I know there are religion-doing people out there (and maybe a couple vegans, too?).

What do you do when your ability to act doesn't meet your belief of what you should do?

Too heavy for a Friday?

Day 239- Important Stuff Happens in November

First there's NaNoWriMo, which has very little to do with food. Then there's US Thanksgiving, which from what I can see, has very little to do with anything *but* food. And I'm going off budget for the whole month.

I'm doing it partly because of those first two- writing 50,000 words is a lot of work, and a girl needs brain food (chocolate, cookies, ice cream, chips, etc) to succeed. And family gatherings aren't as much fun when I can't bring tasty yummy desert for everyone and a big plate of other stuff that looks and tastes good because to do something yummy (to omni-types) means I'd have to use 2 weeks cash...

Mainly, though, I'm stopping the budget in November because I keep slipping, weight-wise. I'm hoping that with more convenience foods I'll get my weight to at least level off, if not go up a little. Losing weight can drop a girl into a rabbit hole, and I'm trying to keep my head away from that place.

Last time I purposely gained weight I did it in a super unhealthy way- I nommed every veggie food in sight, chugged sugary normal soda until I thought my head was gonna burst, and moved as little as possible. I'd have two *packages* of TimTams and a litre of Coke for breakfast, Indian take-away for 4 for lunch (with another 2L or so of coke) and a whole pizza and more coke for dinner. It still took me 8 months to put on 15 pounds.

This time I'm going to try putting on not just fat, but muscle too. It's the whole scrawny/ weak vs. flabby/ weak vs. fit/ strong thing.

So (and yeah, I know this isn't a common problem in the world right now, I watch Biggest Loser too...) has anyone else out there needed to *gain* weight? Did you do it (or are you doing it) in a healthy way? I don't want to turn into a human junk-food disposal system- it doesn't work well, and has possible health problems later in life I'd like to avoid. Halp?

Meanwhile, here at bedbug-ridden Casa de j., it's no carb left behind time. Yesterday I made (and totally nommed) a batch of bread stick/roll thingies. Swiped them through the EB instead of sauce for extra fatty goodness. Then lay on my back making full noises for about two hours.

But they were good.

Day 225- Bread, Fried Rice, and the Return of the Parasites

So I finished the fried rice. I don't think I'll be making any more for a while. Then I cooked up a batch of tasty pizza-dough bread rolls.

I think I did something wrong with them, though, because they turned out more like bagels in taste and texture. It was odd. I didn't boil them, either, tho I did coat them pretty well in oil/ salt/ herb/ onion stuff. Maybe the oil made them change? Never has before, but there's always a first time for everything.

Or something like that.

So anyway, I covered them in bits of chopped onion. The oniony bits on the bottom cooked to a tasty dark brown, salty crisp. The bits on the top got soft and yum. the sides browned a bit, and crisped a bit, and softened and saltied a lot.

So very yum.

Then I scooped them through the EB I bought at the store and they were soooo good.

In other news, I'm once again finding bedbug bites. I don't know where they're coming from, unless they're making it onto the bed somehow... The bedding touched ground once for maybe a minute. I baked it since then, though. I guess I'll have to bake it again.

I suppose it's also possible that they're infesting my closet, too, and have gotten into my clean, double bagged clothes. I think I might have to invest in some of those super ziplock baggies, and try double bagging my clean stuff in those. Seems kinda crazy, but it's gotta be better than finding little blood sucking nasties all over the place. And I think at this point anything's better than finding the bites from the little bastards all over my me.One bit a nice line, right across my spine, just above bra strap level.

Do you have any idea how flexible you have to be to scratch that effectively? My poor shoulder's mad at me again over it.

Santa needs to bring me a powerball jackpot winning ticket for September the 29th-mas so I can burn everything I own and kill this bug problem once and for all.

I know I try to be all peace and love, and non-harmy. Dude, though, seriously? Parasites don't count. If I want to be a host I'll invite people over for dinner, not let some bugs or whatnot munch their way through my skin and suck my tasty self.

My blood is for (non-existent) hot vampy guys and me. I'm just picky that way.

Why, oh why did it have to be the house across the street that burnt down. Why couldn't it be this one?

ps- the Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce for an example of the packaging. It's insanely spendy on amazon, though- try to source it locally, it's much cheaper. Oh, yeah, that's an affiliate link.

Day 218- The Food Goes In

I think the biggest major negative point about not really getting much down over the last couple days is now that I *can* get something in my stomach, I can feel where it all is.

Wait, let me back up a bit. So yesterday I told you about the noodles with veggies. I think I forgot to tell you guys about the diced sushi ginger I tossed in with the veg, though. I know ginger doesn't work for everyone, but it usually does a pretty good job of settling my stomach. Yesterdays noodles were a good example of that. I got them down and they stayed.

Then in the morning, I went and spent most of the day with Mom, Bear, and Temporary Dog (different one this time).

Mom, being a mom, fed me. I managed I think about 1/2 C of black beans and Spanish rice (combined, not each). Took about an hour to eat it, of course, but I ate it. Later (between TD showing off his 1 and only trick--give paw-- and being body slammed by Bear) Mom snacked me into a small bowl of salad and some more rice.

You know when you're eating ice cream, and you chew it, because it's just solid enough to need it, then you think about what you're doing and kinda gag a bit? Yeah, that's eating for me right now. So long as I don't think about it or do do much of it, I can manage.

Which is good, because it means I'll be able to eat (sort of) and bad because I don't know a whole lot of high calorie, healthy, low bulk veggie-type foods. Um, other than maybe avocados, actually, I don't think I know of any...

With my tetchy stomach, I can feel exactly where the food is, and it's kinda distracting. If there's more than a little there the ginger doesn't stop the nausea. So small (very small) bits of food at a time. As many calories each as possible. As often as I can manage without over doing it.

So if things show up this week that shouldn't (by budget) be there--like the chips I've been snacking on overnight--please just ignore them. I'm adjusting to the medicine, but it's taking a bit of time. At least I've figured out how to deal with (most of) the nausea- gingered "dinner" followed by pills. Magic-ness.

And if being on this stuff means I have to eat more but smaller meals... Isn't that what everyone was lobbying for anyway?

Day 217- Food/ Fuel

Through careful snacking management I was able to actually eat something yesterday. Not enough, but better than 2 rolls. I think.

Basically, I ate a couple chips an hour until they were gone. Around bedtime I realized I hadn't tried to eat anything else, so I made some noodles. (I still have noodles, crazy, right? And now I have soy sauce for them, too...) Sliced up a couple cabbage leaves and some onion and fried them while the noodles cooked. Tossed it all together with oil, salt, soy sauce, and some sweet chili sauce.

Over 3 hours I managed to choke down about 2/3rds of it.

My stomach seems willing to deal with around 1/4C of food every other hour. More than that is tough, and really unpleasant- like trying to drink glue. I'm not having too many problems with liquids, so at least I'm well caffeinated?

At least I had some kinda hungry feeling yesterday. It didn't last long, and the amount I was able to eat wouldn't make it feel better anyway, but at least I felt it. I might actually be adjusting to the damned crap. Or else my body's just decided to hate me.

Meanwhile, I think I have the beginnings of a plan for dealing with the whole "don't feel like eating, food makes me want to puke" thing. I'll try and have high calorie, low bulk food around. It means cooking, of course, but if I can keep stuff going into my guts, eventually it might kick-start my appetite.

I tell ya, though, this'd be a great diet. If I needed a diet, that is.

Oh, yeah, and taking the druggies with food didn't help with nausea, it just gave my stomach something to bat around. Santa is *so* bringing me a new body for my birthday.

Day 216- This Medicine is Kicking My Butt

First- Weekend schedule change. Most of you (and almost all of me) probably sleep a bit later on weekends, or don't plan things as closely, or just kinda relax your schedules on the weekend. I'm doing that here. I'll try and get Saturday and Sunday up by 10am, but may sometimes push back all the way to noon.

Right, food.

I do not like the medicine I started taking. It's making me pukey and actively unhungry. Yesterday I managed to choke down the two rolls over about an hour, but it was really late at night before I even thought about food again.

Now, normally, if I go a bit too long between meals, I'll get a little pukey, and that's a really good sign that it's time to scarf down the nearest eatable anything. This stuff isn't leaving me that option. I feel worse *after* I eat than before.

So, this is a problem, obviously. It *may* go away in a couple weeks. It also may stick around for however long I'm on the stuff (and if I can't eat, it won't be that long...). For an idea of how bad this is, I bought a bag of chips last night. I managed to eat about 10 before I had to stop.

I'm going to hunt down a scale today and get an idea of where I'm at there. If I'm not *really* eating again by Wednesday, though, this experiment might have to take a short break. High calorie/ low bulk, not-dairy veggie food is tough to find and kinda spendy.

Normally, if I haven't eaten and I'm either pukey or just *not hungry* feeling because of it a couple bites of *something* will kick the hungry back on. Not with this stuff, though. I get one good shot, probably 1/2 to 1 cup of food before I can't get anything near my face. I don't even want to eat spring rolls. I love spring rolls.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

Day 207- Misbehaving Blogger

Not me, the site. I don't know if anyone else is having problems with this or not, but for most of this week blogger comes up 503 about half the time. Try to comment? 503. Try to post? Same. Even checking my dashboard has been iffy.

So if you've been trying to get here and see what I've done lately, or you've tried to comment, or you actually *did* comment, and I never responded, sorry. If I ran google I'd fix it.

That's a lie. If I ran google I'd retire and have someone else cook for me, and get massages every day. But I'd tell someone to fix it before I left. Srsly.

In boring food news, I ate more pizza yesterday. I'm through with pizza for a while now. Though I admit that if a pizza I'd eat threw itself at me, I'd probably eat it. I won't be making anymore pizza for a little while. Like maybe a month.

The carrots weren't so good the second time. Pizza was still tasty, though.

This afternoon I'm supposed to visit mom and the SD for dinner and to help SD work on a project he has. It's been pushed off a couple times now, 'cause other business comes first, but hopefully it'll happen this time. I need to cook the pinto beans anyway, and get the gnocchi made, at the very least. Or, you know, one or the other.

So, yeah. Sorry if you're having trouble connecting. It's totally not just me. I think. Not sure, but I hope it's not just me.

Oh, and mom has offered to email me some shiny new Bear the Dog photos. I think food would be better, but Bear will work in a pinch. I'm still working on the camera situation. Teach me not to check stuff before I do laundry again.

Day 161- Cupcakes and Cameras

I did a bit of shopping yesterday, picking up all the food (or just about) that I wanted. I got cabbage ($1.01 for ~3lbs) and veggie oil ($1.99/ 48 oz) from Save-a-Lot. A pound of onions ($0.99), 3/4's of a pound of sweet potatoes (.59/ lb, $0.44), a head of garlic (2.99/lb, $0.33), and a splurge of 1/3rd of a pound of Brussels sprouts at $1.49/lb ($0.49) from the vegetable bin.

Then, because I was in the general area, and I want to make the gnocchi with creamy sauce again I went to Whole Foods. I picked up the exact amount of blanched, slivered almonds I need for the sauce (.03 lb, $0.18), checked to see if they sold bulk Daiya (they don't), and headed over to the bakery case.

It's a new week, you see, and that means I got a cheat. And cheat I did, with vegan chocolate cupcake the size of my head. Om nom nom. It was so big the bakery lady put it in a 6" cake box. It was also $3, not $5 like I'd thought. Still, huge cupcake. I drove it all the way home, not nomming it even once. Not even licking some of the frosting off. And there was plenty of frosting. I even chilled it a bit to re-solidify the frosting. Then I took it outside and got a couple pictures of it.

Then I washed my camera. Well.. not quite *then*, but close enough. Before I got the photos uploaded. I'll know if I killed it forever and ever in a couple days. It was on the bed, you see, waiting to get uploaded. And I washed my sheets, and sure, they were a little heavy, and something kinda went thunk, but I was *certain* I'd gotten all the stuff off the bed and out of the pile of sheets. Srsly.

Only I didn't. Oops. So no photo today. I'm going to see if the data card is still good later on. I want to be sure everything is dry before I try to get it to work. Chances are it's all fried, but if not, I don't want to fry it now by trying to use it before the insides are all dried out.

Can I just say that yesterday was a no good, very bad kinda day? But I'm all loaded up with veggies (and for only about $5.75), so it's all good. I have, what, $5 left for the rest of this half of the year? That's plenty. Only things I maybe see me buying are another cabbage, an onion, and maybe a zucchini- and making spring rolls with them. Om nom nom. But that's for next week or the one after, I think.

Day 140- BedBug Eradication League

Ok, not really. But since just about everything I did Saturday was directly related to the containment and slow painful death of foul me-eating insects (dude, I'm scrawny, pick on someone else!) there wasn't much eating going on. There still isn't, which is part of my problem.

You see, I let the RM's control the AC and heat. It's included in the rent, and I don't feel like arguing about it. Now, in cold climate areas I'm quite happy (when I pay a gas bill) to keep the house just warm enough that the pipes don't freeze, and wrap up my me and heat just the space I'm actually *in*. And in places where it's hot I'm usually content to go someplace else if I really *need* to be in the AC for a couple days.

But here the electric is bundled, and I gave up control of the AC. And now I'm freezing! It's South Carolina and I need winter blankets to sleep! Now, I admit to being a bundling/ heavy blanket, always cold type. No problem there- I freeze when I sleep. It's 70 now, though, as I write this, and I have no blankets. I was too tired to bother with the sleeping bag, which needs serious time in the drier on low heat to get hot enough to kill the little buggers, or very close watch on high heat to make sure it doesn't melt (which would suck). So I figured I would just sleep. It's 90 outside I should have no problem, right?

Nope. No food yesterday means no fuel to keep my little j. furnace going at night. My toes are almost blue. It's summer. So I'm heat-treating my sleeping bag (and have been for the last couple hours) and as soon as it's done I'm rolling up in it and going back to sleep.

I still have *sooo* much to do to even start to control this. And that's just in my room. I'm thinking that when I move out the dozen or so things I actually care about and want to keep (and that I can't heat treat) can go into storage pretty much forever, and everything else is getting tossed. I'd rather move and replace *everything* then move and have to do this again.

So anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that my dessert with every meal plan is kinda sidelined at the moment, since I haven't really eaten (pasta and leftover pasta, and coleslaw don't really count) there is no "after meal" to eat dessert in anyway.

I do have photos of food, though, and some eating stuff, and even some math I want to write out. Monday, though. And I promise, after this weekend, no nasty more bug posts. Gluaah.

Right now I just want to grab a (non-infested) towel and hitchhike my way right out of here. I hear that if you have a towel you can borrow just about anything else you'd need. Not sure I want to test that, though.

I hate bugs.

Day 139- Bedbugs and Broomsticks

I was going to write all about the whole eating thing today, but that's now totally fail. I won't be sleeping between when I'm writing this (about 3 am) and when I fix my "little" problem.

You see, I seem to have bedbugs. Like literally. I pulled a decorative pillow out of the corner, and there, in the middle of the back of it, were this nasty looking bug. and black specks. and little white egg things.

That pillow is no longer living in my house. But now I can't use my bed. the whole thing is infested. I might not even have brought them in with the pillow- this is not the best house ever, and it's totally possible they were here before in the carpet. everything else was.

If anyone out there is wondering, that's what it looks like on a mattress. there's a couple random bits elsewhere. I'd just figured I was getting ink on the mattress writing in notebooks late at night. Then I saw a bug, and it all fit. Can I just say how totally grossed out I am right now? How tired I am, but totally unlikely to fall asleep? How much I want to scrub every inch of everything I own, including my me, with boiling bleach?

Once they've invaded, of course, there's no real way to get rid of them. They take over, and you can try bug bombing them, but good luck. Or you can toss the mattress, which is going to happen eventually here. But before that, you can spray the hell out of it with bug spray (for bedbugs) and then wrap the damned thing in a fully enclosing plastic mattress bag-thingy, and the boxspring too, and hope for the best. After all, they can't really chew through that, right?

So anyway, no sleep just now for me. Not even a little. I have to wash everything I own in the hottest water I can find, then dry it all on high, and hope some of it survives. And I have to vacuum my whole room again. And scrub my whole body with something strong. And then wash everything again. And then See if I can find someplace not-gross to sleep until I take care of the bug problem here.

GROOOOOOSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Day 83- Slightly Off Topic

So I cheated again yesterday, with about 3000 calories of tasty junky junk food. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Back at the beginning of this whole thing, one of the rules I came up with was that I couldn't lose more than 15 pounds. Now, I know that on most people, 15 pounds is great, and just what they dream of to look like whatever. For me though, not so much.

So 15 pounds.... I don't actually know what I weigh right now. I don't own a scale- partly because I don't want to spend the money on one, and partly because I don't want to know. Heck, it takes about 6000 calories a day and me being almost totally sedentary to put on any weight at all. Which is not a "woe is me" kinda deal, just giving a bit of perspective of what it's gonna take me to get back to where doctor types say I "should" be. Gotta wonder, though- if it takes that much dratted effort to stay at a Dr. appointed "healthy" weight, is it really healthy?

Slowly moving toward the point-

I was at the mall yesterday, filling out job applications, people watching, skimming books. While I was there I figured I might as well start getting an idea of where I can get jeans. I've got these freak giraffe legs and no butt, so it takes some effort to find stuff that fits. I'm down to two pair that aren't ventilated, and had been planning to replace one or two pair back in February. Obviously that's going to have to wait a bit.

Anyway, I haven't bought jeans in about 2 years because that hunt is my own personal hell. It's time to start looking, though- my two remaining pair are starting to look pretty ratty. Note that I pretty much live in jeans because, though though they are to find, they are easier to pick up and last longer than slacks. So I was hunting. Hollister first. I'm not fond of them, but I found a pair there last time, so I gave it a shot.

Wow, they use cheap cloth...

Not the point. I started with the size I got last time. Not working. Next one down, closer. Next size down, great- no butt in any of them.

Now to the point. I shouldn't be two sizes smaller than I was last time I went looking for jeans. Unless they've changed their sizing around big time, I should be the same size. With as much cheating as I've done there shouldn't be that much of a calorie deficit. I'm now actually smaller than I was when I got back from Africa- where I'd climbed a mountain on sweetened tea and granola bars and caught malaria.

What I'm really saying is this- I think I'm getting close to that weight deadline. Really close. I'll try to borrow a scale this weekend, so I know for sure. Funny thing is, I have plenty of food here. Like, enough to probably get through the next three months with a small pile left over. I'm just not interested in cooking it. So my disinterest in spending heaps of my life in a kitchen cooking for myself might be the downfall of my little "experiment."

Also, I'll be babysitting my extra-furry wacko half brother this weekend (I think it's this weekend, anyway), so be prepared for pics of crazy yellow dog-ness.

Day 77- End of Month Blahs

I was kinda down yesterday, so instead of making and eating healthy, tasty, good for me food that might make me feel better I grabbed a bag of chips when I was restocking my soda supply. And that's what I ate- a big bag of chips. All day long.

While I was eating them, I though about what I'd be eating if there weren't a budget- what I want right now.

It's actually kinda silly. I want a meatball sub.

Well, ok, so not a *real* meatball sub. I want a baguette I didn't have to make from scratch, a jar of good spag. sauce, and a bag of Nate's Meatless Meatballs. Fry the meatballs with a bit of onion, dump on the sauce and a bit of red wine... I think I ate this twice a day for three weeks before moving.

The part I really crave, though? It's the pasta sauce. I *love* pasta sauce which is probably a strange thing to my mother, since I insisted that spaghetti be served with nothing but butter and garlic powder until I was about 15....

Back to sauce- I *love* the mid-range good ones- five brothers, barilla, the odd jar of newmans. I don't feel bad adding a pile of stuff to them like I would with the $8 stuff, and I don't have to read carefully through the ingredients like with the "cheap" stuff. I put it on pizza, top polenta with it, mix it with a dozen yummy things to make it better and toss with pasta. I love sauce.

It's really the biggest change in my eating. I know the way I started off might give the idea that I ate nothing but ice cream and chips before, but I wasn't quite that bad. Like anyone else, I like good food. Most of it I can make with a bit of creativity and some work (tofu ricotta-stuffed ravioli), but some things are just tough on this budget. Tomato sauce seems to be one of them.

I'd pick up a jar, but it's really no fun without wine and tofu. It'll be a while before I can add those in. Maybe I'll save up for new years, or something.

In other news, I think I might be coming down with a bit of appetite exhaustion. Even onions and garlic aren't interesting at the moment. I can't think of anything fun to do with them and what I've got. I'm trying to come up with ideas that sound good, but I discard everything as either un-interesting. Well, other than the meatball sub, and even that's not really all that interesting ATM.

Any ideas? I might shoot them down in my head- nothing really sounds good right now (I blame the split peat thing), so it's tough to imagine getting excited about food. But ideas are joyfully accepted.

Day 59- Bread and Tacos

Bread and circuses might have been more fun, but I have stuff to make tacos. Circuses are tougher to come by these days.

Finished off the chips for breakfast, then the left-over bread rolls and oil/ vinegar for "lunch".

I think the pizza recipe would convert to bagels pretty easily- the outside gets that odd waxy texture like soft pretzels overnight. Only a short step from that to bagels.

Made soft tacos (2) for dinner with the last of the cooked pinto beans. Would have been at least twice as good with avocado, but then, anything is better with avocado. Topped them with 1 torn up leaf of lettuce, 1/2 a tomato, and a couple slices of onion. oh, and some catsup. Om nom. It ended up tasting pretty spicy.

I have 2 plantains I need to use. I was planning on making fried plantain with them, but they are over-ripe now, not green anymore. Never seen anything ripen that fast in my life.... probably going to still try it. The only recipe I've got is an alton brown one, and the man is all about extra steps. Not saying that's bad, sometimes it's great. but I'm lazy, and i just want to get them fried and in the freezer for eating later.

In other news, the roaches have launched a new offensive. Or perhaps we've stopped defending quite so energetically. It seems like every time I go into the kitchen lately there's a dirty paper towel on a pile of spilled something or other, coffee grounds, and a cockroach all in the middle of the cutting board. I'm planning to wipe down the stovetop again and get rid of any spilled food or splattered grease, but really? I live with boys, and they are busy reinforcing that knowledge.

Back on topic-

I'm thinking about doing a (super cheap) island theme to go with the fried plantain. Black beans, rice, sweet potato, chili powder... maybe mix up a batch of seitan (wheat-meat) and "borrow" some jerk spice from mom... It'd be better with fresh coconut, mango, and avocado, but everything is better with those three.

Less than a week until I start

With only four days, really, until I start this crazy thing, I'm beginning to have doubts that I can do it. I'm running into some things that have a potential to develop into total road blocks. One problem I'm encountering is that the price of rice has gone up- a lot- in the last couple years. Pricing it out at the Asian market has shown me that if I can't find a much cheaper source, my bulk starting point is going to be much lower than I had hoped.

Another problem is that sometimes a cheap place to live means carry over from the previous tenants. In my case that means I have several million six legged pets. Gross, food crawling on, infesting pets. So any bulk stuff I get I'm going to need to be able to secure from roaches. Wish there were a faster way to solve this problem.

So. Potential ways to solve my problems.

• I can buy smaller portions more often, still using the 78.50 to pick up bulk stuff a month at a time.
• I can change the balance of money. Instead of $3 a week (about) for grains and protein I can have $4 a week, leaving $3 for fresh veg and fill ins.
• I can drop rice totally and just buy flour as needed. This would be much more affordable, as white flour is $12.50 for 50 pounds.
• I can eat less- fewer calories, and more unhealthy ones
• I can increase my budget. This is not happening yet.

I need to get excited about this. I need to do my shopping. I need to find cheap beans. I only have three days left between now and the start of my shiny new food budget, it's time to get serious. Or at least cheap and creative.

I'm also thinking about changing the allocation of weekly cash around a bit. I'd like to have some money to get spices and seasonings at the beginning- I was thinking of pulling $0.50 a week from the veggie money, for $13 at the start for seasonings. That should give me enough of my most used spices to get through the entire year, or at least spread the replacement cost over the end of the year. Also, I'm lucky in my timing of all this- I should be getting some kind of tax refund in the next week, so that gives me a good amount of starting cash. If I didn't have that, I'd have to buy smaller amounts more often, and that'd lead to waaaay fewer calories- one thing I really don't need.

Anyone out there have ideas about how to work around or solve my price and bug problems?