One Year Ago

Last year I had every intention of blogging throughout brain surgery recovery… but I didn’t. I do not remember much about recovery but I do remember not having the energy or drive to blog or journal. So now a year later I feel I owe it to myself to record my feelings.

I think I expected to feel a sense of relief today. But today has brought back so many emotions and not even good emotions. I still don’t feel like myself. I do not know who I am anymore.

Seeing photos from last year have made me cry, cry all day. This was the most amount of fear I have ever felt. I was not allowed to have anyone come into the hospital with me. Literally dropped off at the curb. It was so scary. After surgery I just wanted to talk to my parents and had no way of communicating with them. It was so lonely and terrifying. A feeling I think about often… a feeling I can not forget. It is hard to feel THE feelings. Truly hard. And now I have 8 weeks of feelings I did not journal last year. This is hard!

And the world fell apart…

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I have been mentally trying to destress and be anxiety free for surgery on Thursday. It seems like the world is pushing against me right now. Telling me I should be taking care of others before myself. Telling me to postpone surgery for another date. But then I am also being pushed to care for myself. The guilt is unreal. Today I came across this shirt from Etsy. It made me laugh… because it is so true. Multiple times a day I run into walls thinking I am in the middle of a path. Just one symptom of many… that could be solved with one minor brain surgery.

On another hand. My last post I said I would be blogging about feelings and experiences leading up to this moment. I literally forgot what I was going to blog about. Soooo, maybe it will be an afterthought blog.

Meditation

I have been away from the blogger-sphere for a little while. I have been suffering from some nasty depression and anxiety this past month. Something I really do not like to talk about. Even though I probably should. I noticed that there were many things I was doing… things I stopped… that really helped to keep my anxiety in check. One of these is blogging (I even pre-planned posts in my planner. Because it just isn’t legit if it isn’t in my planner)…

The other is meditating. Meditation is something Emese, my health coach, brings up quite frequently. We talk about the benefits: it reduces stress, improves concentration, encourages healthy lifestyles, increases self-awareness, INCREASES HAPPINESS, increases acceptance, slows aging, and there is cardiovascular and immune health benefits.

I have a REALLY hard time quieting my mind. In fact, usually in January I do a “quiet January”. I turn off the radio, stop listening to blogs and shows, and just drive in peace. It has usually been an amazing time of self-realization and making plans for the upcoming year. This January was far from quiet.

So in an effort to re-center my soul, decrease my anxiety, and quiet my mind. I have been reusing some of my meditation apps. Every morning I am beginning to sit up and give myself a moment of quiet reflection after praying, but at night I use my meditation/hypnosis apps. I notice a difference in some of them. The nights when I use the Sleep Well app… I SLEEP WELL! The Migraine app, truly does lessen my migraines… I wake up in a better mood after I meditate, and I don’t feel as jumpy. I know I have a long way to go, but meditation really does seem to help. Have you had any benefits to meditating?

Pork Chops

It is rather late to be cooking but I was sitting on my bed working and remembered I had pork chops that needed to be cooked.

I was going to look for a marinade when I bought them but obviously never got around to it. So if anybody has a good Whole30 pork marinade… or chicken recipe– please send them my way!

This is what I did instead.

Cut one medium onion in quarters and put them on the bottom of the crockpot. Added maybe 1.5 tbsp of granulated  garlic and 1 cup chicken stock plus 1 cup water to onions ( I only had 1 cup of stock left). Added 5 pork chops sprinkled with Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel Seasoning, added 2 dollops of Ghee and plugged her in. I have no idea if they will taste good and no idea why I added ghee… I will just have to wait and see when MY alarm to turn off the crockpot wakes me up at 3:30am.

I really need to get back to one prep day and not this crock potting at night business.

Things That Scare Me

 

I actually do not think scare me is the right words… things I fear might be better!

I think I accidently on purpose signed up for a fitness boot camp today. A 6 week, three times a week, 1 ½ hour per session boot camp.

THIS SCARES ME! And I don’t know if it is because I do not want to appear as out of shape as I am OR if I am legitimately afraid I can’t do it.

I also do not even know if I am accepted into the program yet, so I really shouldn’t be anxious about it yet.

This is the next step in the year of me…. The year of getting my happiness back… The year of getting healthy… and hopefully staying healthy!

 

Food

Sometimes I feel like all I do is cook! But it has been such a blessing eating healthy and prepack food. Last week one of my employees called in sick and it was a RUSH to get out the door. If I had not had my food prepacked… I would have been in trouble. The extra time, work, and energy to be prepared really pays off.

Being with friends this weekend I did not prepack food. I instead threw a quick meal together of broccoli slaw, pineapple, spicy chicken sausage, garlic, and some coconut aminos at their home (while I made acorn squash covered in butter and brown sugar for Uncle Les). I think my “niece” and her boyfriend were shocked the healthy food could taste good too.

I also made lettuce cups with ground chicken, garlic, ginger, onions, water chestnuts and a sauce made from rice vinegar, coconut aminos, almond butter, sesame oil and chili sauce. I topped it with cilantro… because I love cilantro… and scooped it in Boston Lettuce cups.

Lately I have been craving pesto sauce. Most pesto sauce in the store has Parmesan cheese in it. Yesterday I took Paula grocery shopping and could not find basil. Today I went back to the store… to many stores… Carpinitos, Nature’s Market, Fred Meyer’s, Target, Safeway, Trader Joe’s. I was starting to think satisfying this craving was not worth the effort. Thank goodness Trader Joe’s delivered (And thank you Leslie for suggesting it!)

In my ninja I put a 4oz package of fresh basil (stems removed), 1/2 cup pine nuts, lemon juice from one lemon, a squirt of minced garlic, and some olive oil… and a little cilantro (because as I have already mentioned… I ❤️ it!). It tastes so good! I also baked a spaghetti squash, mixed 1/3 of the pesto sauce with it and topped it with fried chicken and pine nuts. My Chicken was easy to make and tasted pretty good… Paula will agree! I mixed 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard and mixed it well. I twice dipped my chicken in the egg mixture and a mixture of coconut flour, dried parsley, dried oregano, dried basil, paprika, sea salt and garlic powder and browned it in the wok with a little olive oil. I then finished it off on the George Foreman Grill. Because I will be staying at Tracy’s house tomorrow night, I packed two days worth of lunch and dinner… and a chopped RX Bar for Thursday morning.

Downside to all this cooking… I still have to finish the dishes…and clean the kitchen…

Finding Humor

Just wanted to share a photo of dear Bob. He is such a loving and trusting dog and after this, I am not sure why he loves me so much.

I had a great laugh with Emese, my health coach, this week. I am finding it hard to get up or stay late to get my physical fitness in. I know this is something I need to get on because eating healthy will only take me so far. And our laughing was over something so silly. We have been talking about doing things on the go… like pushups on the wall, or lunges in the hall…. or squats in the shower. We have all done it, right? I sometimes feel like in the shower is the perfect time for my squats. What made us laugh is the shampoo and conditioner bottle weights I have been using. I am so grateful my roommate sleeps through me dropping them… at least I hope she does…. some mornings I have butter fingers (maybe I should call them soap fingers) and drop them multiple times… oops.

Long Days!

The second half of this week has been long and hard! I am so glad it is over and I only have one more work day until a few days off… My president of the day experience got postponed until Thursday which means next week I will have 2 DAYS OFF IN A ROW! After the past couple days, I really need those two days!

This week was also a hard eating week. I got so tired of eating the same foods since last Friday when I cooked it. Sometimes I just didn’t eat because I was bored of the food. AND, I was massively craving french fries again. 

Making the large wok full or crock pot full recipes is not working for me right now. I need a variety so that is exactly what I did tonight. I really, honestly didn’t think I would even have time to cook this week so I am glad I had an extra hour tonight. I will still need to eat leftovers once a day to clear out the freezer a bit, but at least there will be a variety now!

I found a turkey breakfast sausage that had no added sugar or ingredients besides spices. YAH! It tastes pretty good and while it was cooking it even smelled like Thanksgiving. I just whipped up some eggs, added the sausage, and some of the Healthy 8 vegetable mix from Trader Joe’s and TA-DA, I have breakfast!

At the suggestion of Emese I coated some chicken in eggs, rolled it in unsweetened coconut and instead of frying it I used the George Foreman grill. Combined with brussels sprouts makes me super excited to eat this dish! I couldn’t find smaller shavings of coconut so I will try this again for appearance sake.

I also George Foreman’d some all pork chorizo sausage from Whole Foods. Once again  no added sugar or unnecessary ingredients. I then sauted some vegetables in the chorizo drippings.  See those extra brussel sprouts? Only had a few left so I included them here. To add a little sweetness, I threw in a plum.

Lastly, once again using my good ol’ friend George, I grilled up some steak and put it on top of green beans and a handful of the Healthy 8 Vegetable Mix.

So much more of a variety!!! It makes me incredibly happy.

I also found a really good seasoning mix at Trader Joe’s I used in the steak and vegetables. I will take a picture at another time to share it!

All through the night!

Last night I slept all through the night! I don’t remember the last time I did that! Even with sleeping pills I would wake up. I think the reason is because I was eating unhealthy foods in my sleep… and my brain just wanted to enjoy it.

I am kind of proud of myself this week. This has been a hard week! A busy week. A stressful week. And I stayed strong. I don’t think I was ever fully tempted to eat something I shouldn’t but I did have thoughts like, “Hmmm… I am stressed. Wouldn’t French fries be nice right now?” It was just a thought though and could easily be pushed out of mind.

The next four days will not quiet down for me. I will have tomorrow off to spend with family, have to go into work on Sunday, repair shop on Monday, and dental appointment on Tuesday. It doesn’t leave much time for cooking. So, I did my shopping after work and cooked  tonight.

I made a Whole30 chili and made a random recipe up.

Trader Joe’s did not have my bacon today so I omited the bacon in the chili and added squash I chopped and froze way in the beginning. I am thinking maybe I will throw it on top of a sweet potato and top it with cilantro and avocados.

I also made this random dish. It has a variety of spices, coconut aminos, ground turkey, red onions, green peppers, zuchinni, and cauliflower rice. It is good… tastes healthy, but is good.

Well, I should probably head to bed. My eyes are heavy and I am tired. I need to wake up early to do laundry and pack my food up for the week. Oh, and I am making breakfast for my roomie because I have food I need to cook or throw out.

Sweet Dreams World!

Sweet Potato Breakfast

Oh yum! This was a good breakfast. A sweet potato latke. I am so glad Emese suggested this. I didn’t follow a recipe (Just directions) but it is a no recipe needed meal. I mixed together a total of 1 cup grated sweet potato, onions and cilantro with  one well mixed egg and fried it until crispy with a small amount of olive oil. I did add a little salt and pepper to taste. Next time I will make it into two because one was too much. 

Best news ever: I get to pick my mom up at the airport in an hour and a half!!!