Who knew that brussels sprouts was spelled with an “s” on the end of “brussel” NOT ME!  It’s like Amber and the “a” on “gerbera”-it just makes NO SENSE!

Anywho.  I had a big camera FAIL today and you only get pictures of dinner.  It sucks too because I had Pho for lunch and I’m sure some of you have no clue what that even is. (It’s Vietnamese noodle soup). Here’s a picture from Wikipedia:

[source]

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. :)  I also had some Paper Chiffon Cake from a local Chinese bakery.  It’s basically like angel food cake but they bake it in paper.  Again, it would have been a great picture but no, I suck.  Oh and some of those amazing coconut chunks covered in dark chocolate somehow jumped into my mouth.  I need to get a handle on my sweet tooth and I need to do it NOW.

Anyhoo.  What I can show you is dinner!

Shrimp and grits!

Mine (dairy free):

Shaun’s:

And Lu’s:

I tried shrimp with Lu for the first time and she did great!  No allergy thank goodness!

I have ANOTHER blood test tomorrow so I have to fast for 12 hours.  I wanted something sweet (stupid sweet tooth) and so I had a Tofutti Cutie:

I’m full.

Today, when I went to pick Lu up from daycare I had something very special waiting for me!

Art!

According to her teacher, she wasn’t so into the painting-but I love it anyway!!!  It’s going up on the fridge-stat!

No, I’m not pregnant.  I can 100% guarantee that.  BUT, today I feel just like I did in my first trimester with Lucy.  I am so incredibly nauseous.  Guess what caused it?  The ginger I put in my juice this morning.  Isn’t ginger supposed to do the exact opposite?  Maybe it’s pavlovian because I ate so much ginger when I was preggers?  I don’t know.  All I know is that it sucks and it makes me extremely grumpy.

Moving on.  I got up this morning for boot camp.  I had half a peanut butter cookie Larabar before and half after.  Class was good, though today she was a bit scatterbrained and kept saying “8 more” and then 6 into it would say “8 more”.  That drives me nuts.  I don’t think she was doing it on purpose-I hope anyway.  We did a TON of shoulder work.  I injured my shoulder in high school swimming and re-injured it while training for the Ironman so I need to be careful.  I actually left class 5 minutes early because my shoulder was protesting so much.  It feels fine now, and I’ll be sure to stretch it.

I made the evil juice before leaving the house.  I was running late so I didn’t get a pretty picture.

You get the idea, right?  It was 1 medium beet, 1 small apple, 1/2 lemon, and evil ginger.  Even though it made me nauseous I still drank it because juice is expensive.  Looking back on it, I shouldn’t have drank it. Lesson learned 🙂

On my way into work I saw a pretty rainbow!

We’re supposed to get a few inches of rain again.  It was raining this morning but sunny-which is nice.

I stopped before I got to work to get a bagel to help with the nausea. I just got a pumpernickel bagel heated up.

Meh. It did it’s job.

Once I got to work I made the same tea latte that I’ve been making for a week now.

Exciting stuff, eh?

I need to snap out of this grump.  It’s not doing anyone any favors-especially me!

…than a baby just out of the bath.

But first-eats!

For lunch, as planned, I went to the Whole Foods salad bar.  It has gotten better! YES!  For awhile there it was a little lackluster but they’ve upped their game.

Kale salad (with onion and dried cranberries) and quinoa salad with peppers, cucumber, and mint.

And the other side:

A bed of spinach with roasted root veggies, peas, beets, pepitas, and hummus.

I also had a small cup of veggie black bean soup:

It was AWESOME.  I added a little hot sauce and it was very good.

For “dessert” I had dried coconut HUNKS covered in dark chocolate.  I didn’t get a picture but don’t worry, you’ll see it soon enough-I’m obsessed.

My lunch held me over until I left work at 5.  On the way out the door, I had a few slices of dried persimmon that I also picked up at Whole Foods today.

I had to pick up Lu today AND prepare dinner with no help from Daddy.  He had to work late tonight :(  I sat her down with some snacks:

She ended up eating the WHOLE banana (the rest is off camera) and none of the oranges or the crayon 😉

Pretty soon I had a helper in the kitchen.

(that’s the one door that doesn’t have a lock on it-Shaun broke it).

I entertained her with beads.

I tested out 2 new products today.  I made meat marinara and tried new marinara sauce.

This stuff is definitely a winner!  It’s a little more expensive ($4.30 for a box) but well worth it.  I think I found my new marinara.  There’s no soybean oil which many of the cheaper sauces do have.  The ingredient list is: Crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, onions, olive oil, salt, garlic, sugar, parsley, oregano, and pepper.

I sautéed some onions, garlic, grass fed ground beef then I added the sauce.  To that I added some shitake mushrooms and about 1/4 cup of white wine. YOM.

I also tried new pasta:

I really do not like Whole Wheat pasta but don’t want to use bleached flour pasta.  This was really good.  It had great flavor and tasted just like regular spaghetti BUT it was $7 a box.  For $7 a box it had better be mind blowing.  Good? Yes. Mind blowing? Not so much.

My yummy bowl:

I went back for seconds of the sauce.  I wish I had bought some spinach at the store but alas I did not.

I added some butter and cheese to Lu’s to make it not as lean.  She’s at an age where fat is good for her.  Her little brain needs fat to develop, so I try to add it in where ever I can.

There were no complaints!

Look at that face!

She definitely needed a bath after this dinner! So into the bath she went.

She multi-tasked!

She thought brushing her teeth in the tub was the coolest thing ever 🙂

My overworked husband is now home, so I’ll see you tomorrow!

Not that he reads, but it IS his birthday and I do love him oh so much!

Yes, I still call my Dad, Daddy-sometimes at least 🙂

I celebrated his birthday by going to spin this morning!  The normal teacher was back and it was a FABULOUS class.  YAY!  I had a VERY exciting half of a Larabar before and half after:

I like the Cinnamon Roll flavor.  Hooray for grocery shopping yesterday!

Once I got to work, I made a tea latte with soy milk, chocolate hazelnut tea, and agave.  I also had some of my Mom’s granola with some soy milk.

Since I didn’t cook last night (or really all weekend-guess I needed a break) I didn’t have any leftovers for lunch today.  Thinking about it now, I could have made a salmon salad sandwich but that didn’t occur to me last night so Whole Foods Salad Bar it is!

To change gears completely, a bunch of you asked about our carrier.  Let’s see if pictures can show you if we like it.

This weekend:

In Hawaii:

In Morro Bay:

In Idaho:

Near home, over Thanksgiving:

This thing ROCKS.  It’s a Kelty TC 2.0.  I think our only complaint is that Lu has such a long body that the shoulder straps for her are getting too tight.  We’re going to look for extenders.  It has a diaper bag that zips off of it (and is it’s own backpack), it holds a ton, and Shaun hiked some pretty hairy stuff in Hawaii with NO PROBLEM.  We did an 8 mile, super steep, super muddy hike while in Hawaii and that thing was great!  We were letting Lu walk the other day and she asked to go on Daddy’s back.  It’s cool.  I HIGHLY recommend it!

When I watch football, I really like it.  I grew up in a HUGE football house.  It was on CONSTANTLY.  My Dad was a high school football coach and then both my brothers played.  Football was IT-I actually get what’s going on-most of the time.  Now that I’m an adult, I don’t watch it all that often.  I do enjoy it but we never watch it at home and only catch it if my family, or Shaun’s family is visiting or the Superbowl.  Tonight’s game was RAD!  So fun!!! 

But first, let’s start with this morning. I heated up the pancakes from last weekend and topped them with Peanut+Flax butter, maple syrup, and banana.

It was a great breakfast to fuel my BIKE RIDE!!!

We got the road bikes out and road about 15 miles today-it was a start.  Shaun pulled Lu in the trailer.  She did great until about 45 minutes into it and then she had a complete meltdown.  She was wailing and screaming and there was nothing we could do.  We just had to get to the car as fast as possible.  Fellow parents were giving us “I’m sorry” looks and people who were not parents were looking at us like child abusers.  It was FAB.

When we got home, Lu and I had lunch.  Here’s her plate:

I had some hummus and peppers too (on a wet plate):

I also had half of a PB+J sandwich.  Lu ate the other half-she didn’t want her cheesy sandwich and instead opted for Mommy’s PB+J. She opted out of her green beans too.

While Lu napped, I ran errands.  I thought Target and Whole Foods would be relatively calm because of the Superbowl.  I was wrong.  People were trying to get everything done BEFORE the Superbowl so it was a madhouse out there!

We went down to my friend Laurin’s house. Laurin is from Louisiana so this was an important Superbowl for her.  Laurin and I met on a Mommy message board when we were preggers so our lil’ ones are a month apart in age.  Sophia is a month YOUNGER than Lu.  She’s about 5 inches taller and weighs 6 more pounds.  She’s 100% adorable.  Sophia kept trying to hug Lucy.  Lu wasn’t so sure:

They really did have a GREAT time together though.  They played for HOURS.

They wouldn’t stay still long enough to get a cut picture, so there you go 🙂

Laurin, being Louisianan, made some AH-MAZE-ING food.  I ate way too much but I don’t care.  It was FAB.  Lu LOVED it too.  She ate a ridiculous amount of food.  I couldn’t believe it when she kept asking for more-INSANITY.

The star of the night? Chicken and sausage jambalaya:

I’m not joking, Lu ate about 3 cups of this stuff.  There was also shrimp jambalaya:

Some, ridiculously good, cornbread (so worth the tummy ache it gave me):

Spicy Popeyes chicken:

Chips that were to die for:

Strawberries and cream (I did skip the cream):

SANGRIA!

Abita Beer from Louisiana:

Shaun’s gotten Abita in his Beer of the Month shipment before and LOVES it.

For dessert?  King cake:

No one had found “the baby” when we left ;) 

It was such a fun evening.  I can’t believe the weekend is already over 🙁

Today was my day to sleep in and I slept in until almost 10!!!!  I always feel like I waste the day when I sleep that late.  It took me some time to wake up to, so by the time I was ready for the day, it was like 1:30-boo.

I started the day with some cereal: 3/4 cup Trader Joe’s Os, 1/3 cup Nature’s Path Granola, Scoop of vanilla protein powder, and rice milk.

It was actually pretty gross.  I wouldn’t recommend mixing protein powder in cereal.

At 1:30 I had some hummus and carrots.

Followed by some unpictured pork and rice noodles.

After Lu got up from her nap, we went on a hike. It was beautiful but cold!

After our hike I had some TJ’s Nothing but Banana’s Flattened.  It’s just dried bananas.

I didn’t feel like cooking and we were still in our hiking clothes so we decided to go to Red Robin :)  Lu loves their balloons.  She sees them and yells “BA-BOON!”  It was one of her first words back in November :).

Shaun’s had a beef burger with bacon, a fried egg, cheese, and ranch-which he loved.

Lu’s had a chicken quesadilla and melon slices-which she loved.

I had a jerk chicken sandwich with pineapple-no cheese. I only ate about half of the bun, tomato, and lettuce.  I ate all of the chicken pineapple and fries.  It was just okay.

There’s some chocolate that’s calling my name.  Can you hear it?

Chelsea………Chelsea……..CHELSEA!!!!!!

I didn’t get a picture of my lunch today.  It was just leftovers from last night. 

I got home a little early today and had a small nanner with peanut flax butter and some pumpkin butter.

I haven’t been feeling well and the plan was to take a short nap before Lu and Daddy got home.  Shaun had to work late though, so that plan was nixed and I went and got Lu.  We played and had a fun time while waiting for Daddy to get home with SUSHI!!!

When we sat down to eat, Shaun and I said, “Yay! Sushi!” and Lu said, “SUSHI!!!!” It was very cute.

Here’s my plate:

Clockwise, starting at 9 o’clock-Spicy Tuna (I ended up eating 2 more of these), Salmon and Avocado (+1 more), San Francisco Roll=Tuna, Salmon, Yellow Tail, Avocado with crunch on top and a special sauce (+1 more), and Caterpillar Roll.

Lucy ate all 6 pieces of her yam, avocado, and cucumber roll, plus some eggs with veggies and cheese that I made her. Hungry girl!

I think The Wire is calling my name. Night!

My friend, Richard, showed me how to steam milk the other day and I did it!  And I did it well!

Check it out!

YIPPEE!!!  That’s steamed vanilla Silk soy milk with Stash Chocolate Hazelnut Decaf Tea:

Elaina bought this for me.  Here’s where she got it-it’s a 6 pack so she had to share.  For that, I’m grateful!

I had to fast for 12 hours including no exercise before my blood test this morning.  As soon as I got done I had an Apple Pie Larabar.  They had to take 5 vials of blood and for some reason the phlebotomist chose a really small vein, so the blood draw kinda sucked.

Today starts my “Diet Diary”. WOO HOO 🙂

Does anyone have any exciting weekend plans? I’m taking stuff to the Salvation Army-which is exciting for me-I love getting rid of stuff!

The beautification factor for today’s food peaked at the rose colored juice this morning.  Everything else has kind of been UGGGG-LAAAAAY.

For lunch I had leftover Bul Kogi, green beans, and a piece of pork from Lucy’s dinner last night (Lucy and Daddy had a date at the local Vietnamese restaurant last night).

Around 4, I got hungry and wasn’t really digging my options so I decided to make a shake.  The shake consisted of: 1 small banana, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1 cup rice milk, some ice, 2 TBSP uncooked oats, and 1 TBSP chia seeds.

It was tasty.

For dinner I made some Indian food from Trader Joes.  Here’s what I used:

+ chicken breast simmered in the crock pot for 4 hours (2 hours on high, 2 on low).

Plus.

Plus.

Plus.

Plus.

And some rice. To make this:

Plus this:

I gave some to Lucy and at first she gobbled it up.

And then she started making the “This is yummy but it hurts” face.  It did have quite a bite at the end.  So I made her some rice, veggies, and beans-poor mite.  At the end of the meal she started shelling her peas. Check this out.

To create this:

Silly girl!

About 5 years ago a woman who worked with my sister offered to give me Indian food cooking lessons and I happily took her up on the offer.  She took me to an Indian market and then bought packaged food like I ate tonight and heated it up.  That was my lesson.  Needless to say, I felt pretty duped.  That’s how she made her food though.  I would really love to learn how to make great Indian food.  My friend, Megan, her Dad makes the best curried green beans.  He gave me the recipe and it’s on my list of things to do but it is quite involved so I haven’t gotten my courage up yet.

~~~~~

I’ve been debating all day with myself whether I should post about what I did  today and I decided to spill it. 

I saw 2 doctors today.  I saw a traditional GI doctor and a Naturopathic doctor. I am SO incredibly thankful that Stacy brought up a Naturopathic doctor in the comments on Monday.  If I had only gone to the GI doctor today I would be one defeated person right now. 

The GI doctor basically told me that I have IBS but that I could possibly have Celiac Disease.  He thinks it’s more likely that I have IBS but he is taking blood to be 100% it’s not Celiacs.  His remedy?  Eat more fiber and take a laxative.  Stop taking the laxative when I get diarrhea.  Thanks helpcat!  When I said that I was already eating fiber and that I was really frustrated he told me “Try not to stress.” Again, thanks helpcat.  That appointment lasted about 15 minutes.

The Naturopathic doctor, on the other hand, met with me for an hour and 15 minutes. I must say that I am hopeful that something is going to change. I did feel extremely exhausted just talking about all my issues. When you’re living them you don’t think they are that bad. But, talking through them and seeing the doctor’s reactions made me realize that my quality of life is really suffering right now. She thinks that she can help and she’s excited to work with me since I’m already on top of the exercise and eating department-she actually believed me! So many people/doctors don’t-they think I must be exaggerating and that I just don’t know how to eat healthfully or exercise. They just see a fat person and assume that I eat bon-bons all day.  She even wanted to look at my blog to get a better understanding of me!

Anyway, I have to go get labs done tomorrow and then fill out a very detailed food log which deals with input AND output and also deals with state of mind throughout the day. I go back to her in 2 weeks and at that time she’ll have an action plan all set up for me and we’ll go from there. She said that it’s going to take time and that I have to have patience. That’s a hard one but at least I’m actively changing something.  The same old thing just isn’t working so trying something new is a great thing. 

She did give me some castor oil to rub on my arms at night to help with the pain I’ve been having there.

Overall, it was a very good visit-it felt nice to be listened to and to be taken seriously for once.  I’m really happy and optimistic. We’ll see what happens.

Dinner last night was good.  The food was beautiful and would have photographed well but I’m glad that I put the camera away.  🙂

I’m working from home today so I’ve had a more leisurely morning than normal. 

I made some juice-it’s been almost a week!    Here’s what went into it:

And look how it turned out!

Rose colored!

To go with my juice, I made some Ezekiel toast with this stuff.

They weren’t lying when they said crunchy!

I topped the toast with some of my pumpkin butter.

The peanut butter was good but the real star was the pumpkin butter. I love this stuff.  I wish I could make vats of it and send it off to all of you.  Unfortunately pumpkin and home canning don’t mix and it has to be refrigerated at all times 🙁

If you look at the above picture you can see that the juice had started to separate.  I got interrupted with work stuff (dang that work! 😉 ) and didn’t get to drink it for about 15 minutes.  I see now why the recommend drinking your juice within 20 minutes of making it.  It was good but I think it would have been better if I had had it immediately.

With that, I bade farewell.