Quarantine Diaries – Week 1

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Thistle

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a week since San Antonio went into quarantine protocols. I talked a little bit about what happened in the first few days in last weekend’s Sunday Coffee, but with the world rolling so quickly, I wanted to start tracking things more closely for personal future reference. If your mental health is at a point where you cannot bear to hear more about quarantine stuff, skip to the bottom of this post for a list of positives and highlights and Nice Things. We all need some of that right now!

–Friday, March 13th
San Antonio confirmed its first case of COVID-19, travel-based rather than community-spread. Mayor Nirenberg called emergency meetings and began proactive quarantine protocols. From these meetings and protocols, a ton of stuff changed over the course of Friday:

  • public schools extended spring break another week, and scheduled events such as UIL or SAT tests were delayed
  • many community events from the next few months, like Siclovia, were canceled
  • Fiesta (a major SA holiday/event that takes place in April) was moved to November
  • Jason was told to work from home until further notice
  • the public libraries closed their doors for the next week and suspended due dates and fines

(1st day of quarantine in SA! These shelves were filled the day before.)

These don’t include ALL the changes in the city, just the ones that affected us personally. Additionally on Friday, Jason decided to do our weekly grocery shopping a day earlier than normal. We knew people would be out in panic-runs at the stores. Laurence and I had just been at the store the day before to pick up a few mid-week things we needed, and of course we knew the toilet paper would be gone (we didn’t need any, thankfully!). But between Thursday and Friday when Jason went, nearly the entire store had been cleaned out. It’s weird to see the produce section entirely empty except for a few stray turmeric roots and super-expensive varieties of apples. Why are people stocking up on highly perishable foods? Anyway, he got what he could, improvising when necessary. Rice is the big one we’re low on. We’ll just have to make do. Weird grocery store story, though:

Jason was waiting in line to check out when the woman behind him suddenly hopped over the carts to the woman in front (who was currently paying for her groceries). The cart-hopping woman grabbed the wrists of a person who had grabbed some bags out of the paying-woman’s cart. Quick thinking and moving, lady! No one else had even noticed. This is totally unlike normal behavior here. I mean, I get that things are looking pretty scary in the world, but seriously, calm down! Stealing paid-for groceries out of another person’s cart is NOT COOL.

–Saturday, March 14th and Sunday, March 15th
I’m putting these dates together because I can’t remember exactly what came on which day. Over the weekend, several more cases of travel-related infections were reported in SA, but no community-spread yet. I started getting notices from various businesses that I frequent, first telling me that they were reducing hours, and later closing physical stores altogether to move to all-online business. Thankfully, most of them are able to keep paying employees in the meantime, but it’s so odd to see doors closed to Fleet Feet, Lane Bryant, Alamo Drafthouse, Animal Defense League, the SA Zoo, and so many others. HEB (our grocery chain) moved to 12-hour days so that overnight stockers could try to get ahead of the panic-buying, and they implemented limits on specific items.

On a more personal note, I had to convince my mom not to come to Laurence’s birthday party Sunday. She and my stepfather got sick with what they believe is influenza several weeks ago, well before COVID-19 officially hit Texas. On Sunday, she was still coughing like crazy and very tired. She agreed to stay home, but unfortunately she planned to go to work the next day. This is the worst – she works at a preschool in Hondo that’s run by her sister. This preschool is half-school half-daycare, and my aunt decided to keep it open in spite of everything. She and my uncle encouraged my mom to come back in to work, telling her that if the fever had broken (which it had quite early in the illness), she was no longer contagious. This, of course, isn’t true, but sadly this part of my family gets their news from Faux News and they believe a lot of misconceptions that are going to contribute to the problem. Additionally, my mom was meant to spend the night with my grandparents, who are absolutely solidly in the most vulnerable population. Of course, they’re not taking this seriously, either, refusing to let anyone shop for them and going out to stores themselves. Sigh.

Lastly, our murder mystery online dinner party was canceled/postponed, because apparently our Wisconsin relatives were actually planning to get together physically, and decided that was a bad idea right now.

–Monday, March 16th
More cases reported. More businesses closed down. I had to pick up a prescription, so Jason and I braved HEB and managed to get some eggs and iced coffee and tuna, but no rice. My hiking group canceled the big event they had planned for the 28th, and put caps of 10-15 people on their smaller hikes. I canceled my upcoming chiropractor appointment – that can wait until this blows over! We found out that an employee at Jason’s work had contracted COVID but was being treated in another state and likely had no contact with Jason or his immediate coworkers. In the evening, we found out that Jason’s brother and his wife had gone into voluntary quarantine because she’d had contact with her chiropractor who had contact with another patient who later got the virus. It’s unlikely they’ll be affected by such a slight contact, but just in case, they went into quarantine.

–Tuesday, March 17th
Several major things happened on this day. 1) San Antonio’s number of cases jumped from 4 on Monday to 11 by the end of Tuesday. 2) The boys received notice that the schools would stay closed until April 3rd at minimum, and all lessons would start online next week. Events like prom, summa awards, etc would be either delayed or canceled. Depending on how things go, graduation might be as well.  3) Morrigan called because KU closed to all students for the rest of the semester and needed to be picked up and off campus by Friday. (On that note: There have been several cases of community-spread in Lawrence, Kansas, and Morrigan worked in the dining halls, exposed to thousands of students. While he has no symptoms, he could be in the incubation period. So could many other students. It seems dangerous to send them all to their homes across the country rather than sheltering in place. Won’t that potentially spread this disease more??)

(Even stuck at home, they “dressed” in green…)

–Wednesday, March 18th
Jason left for Kansas very early in the morning and made it there safely. I canceled my upcoming massage even though I could really use it right now. By evening, San Antonio had shut down restaurants (except drive-through), bars, malls, bowling alleys, gyms, theatres, and all “non-essential” businesses. Local positive-virus-count jumped to 25. My aunt finally decided to close the daycare/preschool and Wednesday was their last day until further notice. My anxiety ramped up so badly that I couldn’t sleep, especially with Jason being away.

–Thursday, March 19th
By evening, local case count was up to 29, of which at least six are community spread. Jason and Morrigan arrived safely from Kansas. (Gavroche immediately claimed one of their suitcases. <– ) Texas finally got its act together and banned non-essential businesses state-wide and not just in the major population centers. My mom told me that my grandparents finally began to take this seriously and have agreed to shelter at home and let others run their chores for them. Whew!

So that’s about how our first week went. We’re all back together again and settling in for the long haul. How are things in your neck of the woods? Ready for some more positive things?

Positives and Highlights and Nice Things
I’d go mental – I’m sure we’d ALL go mental – if we didn’t have nice things to focus on at the same time. So to think about the positive, here are some of the more wonderful things from the first week of quarantine in no particular order.

  • Some of the stores that sent me store credit for my birthday changed their rules so that this credit could be used on online orders.
  • I’ve been able to get out to local parks or in the neighborhood for walks/runs to keep my fitness up while still staying away from people.
  • Laurence has been keeping me up to date with football news all week. He’s also been using his time off to rip up our rotten back deck so that we can change that area into something nice.
  • Backyard friends –>
  • I’ve been binge-listening to the Real Life Ghost Stories podcast and that’s keeping me highly entertained.
  • Jason doesn’t have to worry about his job. He can work from home without a problem, so that’s one less worry for our family.
  • The boys are really good at technology, and we have enough old junk laptops for them to use that this online school thing should be fairly easy to handle. (Or at least as easy as the software/internet/teachers can make it.)
  • I realized just how fortunate we were to sell our old house before all this virus stuff happened, because the market is going to be nuts and we could NOT afford months and months of double mortgage payments!
  • Harry Potter Wizards Unite has updated the game to make playing from home FAR easier.
  • Ash has started purring loudly every time I give him treats. He hasn’t really done a lot of purring since our year in Boston, so it’s strange and wonderful to hear after so much time!
  • As someone who has been at home full time since October 2005, the only adjustments that I’m making right now are the same ones I make every winter/spring/summer break. I have some solid routines to fall back on and I’m not worried about getting cabin fever. I did all that years ago. (Also, kinda stoked that people might understand a little better that stay-at-home-moms aren’t “not working,” because that’s ridiculous!)
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Product Review: Lumen

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Thistle

In the fall of 2018, I came across an Indigogo campaign for a product called Lumen. It purported to be a device that, with a single breath, could tell you your daily resting/basil metabolic rate. The campaign also said that with this information, as well as determining the levels of CO2 in your exhalation, the Lumen could tell you if your body was in carb-burning or fat-burning mode, so that you could adjust your nutrition accordingly day by day. Originally, the product was supposed to release and ship in May 2019. I bought into the pre-sales for the campaign.

I’ve long been interested in my RMR, and various tests (electric-pulse tests and water-weigh tests) show mine to be anywhere from about 1450 to 1650. I thought the Lumen could help me see what the variance was day to day, especially as I was still trying to figure out why I sometimes had excruciatingly hungry days in the 24 hours after certain exercises. Of course, eventually I figured my situation out on my own. I learned that eating low carb is very hard on my body, and causes all sorts of metabolic problems – high insulin, high glucose, wildly fluctuating blood sugar, and the problems that come along with depletion of muscle glycogen stores. Those problems went away when I began eating a higher carb diet again about a year ago. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my Lumen would tell me that my body stayed on the carb-burning side. So that part of the product didn’t interest me. I just wanted the RMR data.

May 2019 came and went. No Lumen. Indigogo emails talked about delays and science-y stuff. New delivery was expected in July, then “late summer,” then “sometime in autumn,” and then FINALLY in late January, my Lumen shipped out. I was so eager to do my first day, calibration day, where you eat high carb all day and take multiple breaths to calibrate the device. After each set of breaths, the device would give me a number, one through five, with one being mostly fat-burning and five being mostly carb-burning. In all of my breaths, I sat squarely in the middle at three (equally burning both).

The next day, I took my fasting morning breath, and to my consternation, all I received was another number on that same scale (still a three), no resting metabolic rate. The app calculated my daily plan, and told me to eat low-carb that day, with 5 of their servings of carbs. It also gave me a general number of calories to eat, and an impossible-to-use meal plan that had really bizarre foods on it and no recipes. I spent some time playing with the app and trying to find out when/where to get my RMR. The only thing I could find was that after four weeks of daily morning breaths, I’d get a number to represent my metabolic flexibility (on a scale of one to twenty-one).

Even knowing that eating low-carb is bad for me, I tried to follow the recommendations (if not the meal plan) for the first day. I ended up having more like seven servings of carbs instead of five, but I figured that was okay. Didn’t feel great, but one day wasn’t going to hurt too much. But then the next day asked me to do the same low-carb plan. I tried, until mid-afternoon when my blood sugar crashed and I had a severe hypoglycemic episode. At that point, I wrote in to the manufacturers and asked about my particular situation. I was told that 1) the Lumen would not be giving any kind of metabolic rate because “people don’t understand the science behind it and prefer a simplified method of following a plan,” and 2) the goal of the Lumen was to use low-carb days to kick your body into fat-burning mode, then to switch up the number of carbs each day to increase metabolic flexibility. In “simplified” terms, they were another low-carb-high-fat diet combined with a carb-cycling regimen and intermittent fasting.

I didn’t buy this product to be given another version of the latest fad craze. For a few weeks, I kept using it, to see if my numbers would change. Sometimes I’d lie and say I followed the plan. Other times I’d put my carb servings up at 12, the highest it would let me, even though I eat more like 15-20 daily. I checked to see if my daily recommended calories changed from day to day (a possible indicator of RMR), or if they changed based on how much exercise I said I’d be doing (nope). Each week, the Lumen would ask me for feedback, and I’d say that I was highly dissatisfied with the plan and wouldn’t follow it. Then it would “recalculate” my plan…only to give me the exact same thing. After four weeks, I never had a day where I was told to eat more than five servings of carbs. And the only time I’ve blown a number less than three on their little scale was when I had the hypoglycemia attack, when I blew a two. Imagine what a one would do to me!

So the device didn’t do what it promised, and no one was paying any attention to my personal feedback or needs, despite supposedly doing so. There was really no point of me keeping it, and I paid several hundred dollars for the stupid thing, so hell yeah I was going to get a refund! Thankfully, it seems that the company kinda knew their product didn’t go over so well. I’d heard other folks say they had a tough time getting refunds, but the company didn’t even bother to try to convince me to stay. I just sent in the device and the money was returned promptly. So at least there’s that. That’s the best thing I can say about this entire situation.

And I need to note one more thing that has nothing to do with my experience with the device, but instead to do with the company and their hype about the Lumen. This morning, I received an email from the developers regarding the Lumen and COVID-19. I appreciated the bits about their workers moving to work-from-home etc, but then they said this (copy/pasted from their email):

Lumen’s method of promoting a flexible metabolism can definitely assist in the journey to building a stronger immune system. Studies have shown that tools Lumen utilizes such as intermittent fasting, can assist in building a healthier immune system by more efficiently ridding the body of pathogens, as well as improving white blood cells in the body.

Imagine making the claim that using their product can help you avoid or lessen the effects of COVID-19. What a bad taste that left in my mouth. If I hadn’t already gone through the refund process, that BS would have sent me straight to it. I could rant on this subject for another full blog, but this is already long enough so I’ll sign off. Final thoughts:

A disappointing product that fails to do what it originally claimed and provides no value that you can’t get from any keto/fasting/carb-cycling regimen on your own.

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Race Report: Shamrock Shuffle (Virtual) 5K

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Thistle

This was my first virtual race, and a major race fail in so many ways. The original event (non-virtual) had to be canceled due to COVID-19 (sadness!). They still gave out finisher’s awards, though, so Jason and I both picked up those. I grabbed a coffee mug, leaving him to grab the pint glass so that we wouldn’t get two of the same thing, ha! And of course, while it wasn’t necessary for us to actually do the 5K, I was determined to do it virtually. And despite what I said in yesterday’s Sunday Coffee, I decided to run this race** yesterday morning.  This is where so many things went wrong for me.

**My toe was fine, though. That’s about the only thing that went right!

One: The weather was god-awful. I woke up yesterday morning and looked at my weather app. While it was cloudy out, it wasn’t supposed to rain until afternoon. The temps were decent – high 60s – though the humidity was a horrendous 90%. It looked like it was going to rain. This is where I probably should have paid more attention to my instincts than to my weather app. But no. I geared up and headed out to my favorite hiking trails park. I joked to Jason that I’d probably be soaking wet by the end of the run.

It began raining on the way to the park. The park is literally five minutes’ drive away. I debated with myself – worth it to just get the 5K over with? Especially since it’s supposed to rain for the next two weeks straight? Or should I just turn around? I wanted to run this and not wait for a few weeks, and by the time I got to the park, the rain had stopped. I figured that a few sprinkles every once in awhile wouldn’t hurt.

(soaked)

Generally, that was true. But about halfway into the 5K, it began to pour on me. I had to be very careful with my steps, especially whenever I ran, to make sure I didn’t slip on mud, or slide on slick rocks. Water poured down my face from soaking-wet hair, and my skin was stuck all over with bits of oak pollen buds. It wasn’t pleasant. Around the two-mile mark, I could have quit and gone to my car (as I pass the entrance to the parking lot). The rain was insane by then. But I didn’t want to quit, not two miles in. I kept going as the mud got worse and parts of the path began to pool and flood.

Long story short: my joke came true, I did my virtual 5K in some of the worst possible conditions ever, and I was soaked through by the end. In a further twist of irony, afternoon/evening dawned with clear skies and lovely temps and no rain in sight.

Two: Thanks to another stupid decision, I ended up doing more than a 5K. I recently downloaded Map My Run. Previously, I’ve been using a bare-bones app called Run Log to track my distance and pace. Its GPS is fairly consistent, though a little low (especially on cloudy days), and it doesn’t track elevation or mile-splits. I also use my Fitbit for heart-rate and step data, but find that it’s often overzealous about distance. For example, the section of the park that I run for my mile timing is actually 1.07 miles long. Run Log says 1.05 to 1.06 depending on the day, and Fitbit says 1.1 or higher. These may not seem like huge differences, but they add up mile to mile. I thought Map My Run could do more for me, but as it turns out, its GPS is terrible. I should have tested it before using it for a race-5K.

(on the trail)

In the end, I don’t know the exact distance that I went because I was using Map My Run primarily. I could tell something was wrong because the all-run mile split was much higher than normal (16:19 pace) and went much further than the 1.07-mile spot. In the end, MMR told me that I did 3.09 miles at an 18:11/mile pace. Contrasting that was Run Log, with 3.2 miles at a 17:42/mi pace, and Fitbit with 3.35 miles at a 16:52/mi pace. I’d personally guess that I walked/ran 3.25 miles in about 56 1/2 mins (each timer is slightly different due to turning them off one after another), putting me at a pace of ~17:23/mi. But I really don’t know, because my primary GPS was so wonky. (The data it gave was similarly messed up – sometimes I was going a 4-min-mile pace, sometimes a 33-min-mile pace; not to mention I started and finished in the same location but it says that I ended at an elevation 169 feet above where I started, etc.) So Map My Run is right out, and I’ll be trying RunKeeper next.

Three: This is actually a funny story. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’d begun listening to the podcast Real Life Ghost Stories. I had an episode on while on this 5K, and right as I entered a dark corridor of trees with a malignant sky above me, the hosts began to play an audio of a possessed child. Hoax or not, it freaked me out and I kept jumping at birds and squirrels rustling in the woods. Plus I kept looking back over my shoulder to make sure no one was there. I’ve literally been to this park hundreds (if not thousands) of times over the last 15 years and have never once been spooked. Ha!

So there you go. My total fail of a virtual 5K. I have another virtual 5K coming up in April, a Run Across Morocco 5K that I’ve already received my package for. I plan to have tested out RunKeeper and any other apps prior to running that one. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish that one without so many FAILS. But on a brighter note, I got to cross out another square in my running bingo!

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Sunday Coffee – Noteworthy This Week

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Thistle

There’s been quite a bit happening this week, so today’s Sunday Coffee will be one of those rambling posts on many topics…

Coronavirus
Obviously this is a big one going on right now around the world. San Antonio had its first case (unrelated to our quarantine center), and immediately things began to shut down. School is closed for the boys next week. Siclovia has been canceled. UIL is delayed. Fiesta (a major holiday/event here) is moved to November. Libraries are closed for the next week. Jason was sent to work from home on Wednesday and will remain so until further notice. Beyond San Antonio, Morrigan’s school (KU) has gone to online-classes only. Then, of course, there’s our Planniversary cruise to Alaska scheduled for late May. It leaves out of Seattle, and we have no idea if the flights will still be happening, or the cruise, or if the ports will change, etc. I guess we’ll see. And while some of this might be frustrating for some – is the toilet paper and egg hoarding really necessary?? – I’m glad our city is taking proactive steps to contain the spread of the virus.

Spring Break
In the meantime, the boys were already home from school this past week because of spring break, and due to virus protocols, we didn’t really do anything but stay home. (I’ll be honest – we probably wouldn’t have done anything anyway. We all kinda wanted to just relax at home.) This meant a lot of movies – we finally saw the new Aladdin movie, for instance, and Laurence watched Knives Out – and other cooped-up activities. I’ve not really felt like reading for the last month(ish), so I found other things to do with my time. Which leads me to:

Real Life Ghost Stories
I’ve never in my life been able to get into a podcast before. I’ve tried dozens and dozens. They’ve just never done anything for me. But then Andi mentioned Real Life Ghost Stories, and I began listening this week, and I fell completely in love. I love the hosts and the stories and how they combine the creepy and the silly all at once. I think it helps that it’s more storytelling than anything else, so it’s like having mini-audiobooks. Plus, I have SO MANY ghost stories and paranormal creepy experiences from my own life, and I love hearing what others have experienced. All that ads up to be perfect for me. So YAY for finally finding a podcast that I actually enjoy! Thanks, Andi!

Solar Panels
This is a weird one, and a bit of a long story. On Wednesday, a solar panel installation company showed up in the morning to install panels on our roof – only we hadn’t approved any panel installation. The city has a partnership program with several companies and essentially it goes like this: You take out a loan for the cost of the panels you need, based on your electrical use plus 10% more energy for the city’s use. The cost of your loan is the same cost as your average electrical needs, so your actual payments don’t change and you eventually have no electrical bill at all. It’s a great program, and we signed up to be considered, but our sales guy stopped contacting us at one point. We never received the plans for putting panels up, nor signed any loan paperwork. Plus we haven’t lived in this house long enough to know what our average electrical use will be (summer bills are crucial here).

So on Wednesday, we made a lot of phone calls and texts, and sudden our sales guy tells us that we signed papers and that if we don’t install now, we’ll be out a $2500 fine. None of that was true or legal, and we’d signed nothing but pre-approval paperwork to make sure we qualified. The sales guy then claimed to be the owner of the company, when the real owner (it turns out) was on vacation this week. We talked to the contractors – a different company than the sales one – and they said to absolutely under no circumstances continue working with that guy, that the real boss was informed and would be dealing with the situation next week when he returns. Also, they encouraged us to wait until we had several months of a/c summer usage here to get an actual estimate of our needs. We ended up speaking to the real boss via phone on Friday, and it turns out his sales guy was lying to him, too, saying that someone had come to trim back our trees already and that we’d ordered the system etc. The whole thing has been crazy and I have a feeling there’s a certain sales guy who might be in a frick-ton of trouble right now…

Injury
So late last week, I smashed my pinky toe into an ottoman, cracking the nail and causing a blood blister to form under the nail. Yikes. Thankfully, I didn’t actually break the toe! I really needed to rest and let the injury heal, but y’all know me. I don’t really like to do that. So on Sunday last week, I taped up my toe so protect it while out on a 5.6-mile hike. And it felt fine…until the last mile, when I developed a blister on the underside of the toe because of the tape. Really?? Then on Monday, I had this huge compulsion to run despite injury, rain, and heat/humidity. It’s been so long since I’ve felt that wonderful sensation, so I gave in to it and did my next C25K session. I left the foot rest on Tuesday, but was back out on Wednesday. After that point, the toe swelled up and got really red and itchy. Clearly, I needed to stop being stupid! Honestly, I was planning to still do my Shamrock Shuffle 5K yesterday, with my toe taped…only then the 5K was canceled due to this COVID thing, so I guess that was a blessing in disguise. Though I’m still sad about it. I’ll do it virtually at some point. After my toe heals, yes, I promise.

Hacked
I woke up on Friday morning to a message saying my appleID had been used to log into some unknown-to-me MacBook at 4:51am. So I spent most of Friday morning changing passwords and strengthening my security measures. The worst part was that I’m a dummy and had that same password for about 75% of my accounts. Even though it was a fairly safe password, one hack means potential multi-hacks. So now I have a bunch of crazy-safe passwords that are all very different, which is more difficult to remember and keep track of, but hey. The irony is that I started with my appleID password, and didn’t write that one down on my temporary password index card. By the time I finished all the rest, I had no idea what I’d changed that one to, so I had to change it again. Of course, as I was typing that last sentence, I suddenly remembered. Too late! Heh.

Birthday
Laurence’s birthday was on Friday! My baby turned 16, and will have his party this afternoon. We had lunch out on Friday at Magnolia Pancake Haus, mmm, and let him open one of his gifts. The rest will be saved for this afternoon. We were also supposed to have an online murder mystery dinner party tonight with Jason’s extended family. The mystery was set in a mansion in the 1930s. I was playing a former fashion model famed for her “far east eyeshadow” and Laurence was playing my rich husband (ha!). The online party was to celebrate a whole bunch of birthdays – Laurence, his grandmother, and his aunt’s boyfriend all have theirs on the 13th, and his grandfather’s is on the 23rd. Unfortunately, with the virus canceling everything, this party has also been canceled/postponed. I’m not sure exactly why, since it’s all online, but apparently there were travel plans involved that are no longer happening. So that will all have to wait. Ah well.

So that’s our week. It’s been insanity without much actually happening – how’s that for weird? I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe and out of the panic zone!!

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Sweet Sixteen

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Thistle

At 5:10 pm on March 13, 2004, my giant 10-lb baby finally came into the world, cord wrapped around his neck and skin blue. It was not an auspicious start, but sixteen years later, Laurence is healthy and as happy as you can expect a hormone-addled teen to be.

He’s a huge fan of football, Marvel movies, video and phone games, necklaces, electricity schematics (yes), mock-drafts, role-playing games (especially creating his own), history, theatre (both acting and tech), and cheesy romantic comedies.

He’s not yet sure what he wants to do post-high school, and he’s intent on exploring many different career avenues in the meantime. Over the years, he’s explored the idea of being a dentist, a chef, an electrician, a musical theatre performer, a doctor, a sportscaster, a small business owner, and a few others that aren’t coming to mind at the moment. It changes about twice a year.

He prefers adults for company, especially older adults (we’re talking the 70+ age group), and dislikes the angst that is so prevalent among teens.

He also gets angsty himself whenever he doesn’t have a goal to work toward, or when he’s secretly not behaving the way he knows is right, or when he doesn’t get enough sleep. (Also, don’t joke with him in the mornings. He doesn’t truly wake up until noon, no matter how early he went to sleep. Even as a baby, he wanted to sleep in. He would cry through opening presents at Christmas if he got woken up too early.)

Laurence has always been his own person, an old soul. He’s my baby, and it’s been wonderful to see him grow all these years and to become more accepting of who he is. I look forward to the next few years of having him at home before he leaves to create a life of his own.

Happy 16th, Laurence!

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Coffee Experiments: Part 1

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Thistle

Since coffee is now a potential suspect in my health, weight, and medical problems, I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject and have set up a few experiments to try. For more details on why coffee is a suspect, see the above link.

Background: Prior to 2013, I didn’t drink coffee at all. That fall, I would occasionally get a chocolate coffee drink while at a cafe write-in with friends. For Christmas that year, Jason got me a Keurig. I began drinking coffee a couple times a week, highly diluted with milk and homemade chocolate sauce. By the end of April 2014, I was drinking a small cup of chocolate-coffee each morning. But in May that year, because of Whole30, I cut the milk and chocolate from my coffee and began to drink it black. Since then, I’ve either had my coffee black or with just cream (no sugar), and I drink far more than a single small cup daily, with a few exceptions over the years of cutting back to once a day for a month or two.

A sampling of things I learned during my research:

  • For most people, coffee is anti-inflammatory, which makes it an unlikely candidate to cause inflammation unless I have a particular sensitivity to it.
  • However, newer studies have correlated coffee amount with increased inflammatory blood markers in women, and more research needs to be done.
  • For people who already struggle with metabolic problems, studies have shown that caffeine can cause blood sugar instability. (Personally, I cannot drink coffee in the late morning, or I will have a hypoglycemia attack within half an hour. It’s been that way since 2015.)
  • Hot coffee and cold-brewed coffee are very different products, mostly because there is far more acidity in hot coffee, and said acidity can cause gut flora problems in sensitive individuals.
  • Coffee and/or the heat of hot coffee can become a hot flash trigger in peri-menopausal and menopausal women.
  • Most people don’t weigh their coffee beans and so usually end up getting more caffeine than recommended per cup. (I weighed mine just to see, and it turns out I’m getting LESS.)

Experiments: (Not necessarily in this order.)

1) Replace morning hot coffee with iced coffee. Reason: After drinking hot coffee in the morning, I experience a hormone and body temp shift that causes me to feel overheated, accompanied by lots of sweating. It’s not a hot flash, but it’s still unpleasant. Research suggests that this is a reaction to caffeine overdose, but since it doesn’t happen any other time, I suspect it’s the result of the heat itself and want to check my suspicions by drinking iced coffee in the morning instead.

2) Replace all coffee with cold-brewed coffee for several weeks. Reason: Because the acidity in brewed coffee can cause problems with gut flora, it stands to reason that several weeks with cold-brew coffee only can help determine if the hot coffee is causing problems for me personally.

3) Cut coffee to a single cup per day. Reason: In the past, switching to only a single cup per day has correlated with easier weight loss. It’s possible the weight regain and inability to lose are tied to coffee or caffeine, or a particular threshold of either. It’s also possible this is purely coincidental, so it’ll be good to test.

4) Switch from coffee to tea. Reason: If coffee itself is the problem, and not caffeine, switching to a caffeinated tea should show improvement in my symptoms without causing as many withdrawal symptoms as simply cutting coffee. Potential issue: I cannot stand tea.

5) Switch to decaf coffee. Reason: If caffeine is the problem rather than coffee, switching to decaf should eliminate or at least greatly lessen symptoms, and can do so without disrupting my habits/patterns/rituals as much as cutting completely or switching to tea. It can also be done more gradually.

6) Cut coffee and caffeine both out totally. Reason: If none of the above experiments help, or if a partial cut like experiment #3 help a little, it stands to reason that I should cut all coffee and caffeine for at least several weeks to see how my body reacts and changes.

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Sunday Coffee – A Perfect Day

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Thistle

I had a really good birthday this year, so I wanted to document it in detail. Feel free to ignore me, heh.

Morning time was taken up by the Get Your Rear in Gear 5K, which of course I already talked about. And as I said in that post, the 5K was followed by gluten-free pancakes with nutella on top. Mmmm.

I didn’t have any big plans for my 41st birthday. Of course, last year was my huge Buzzard Party, and after that, I figured we’d just have a nice, quiet day this year. Jason and I watched a few episodes of the Great British Baking Show in the late morning/early afternoon, and I made deviled eggs for my afternoon event.

My hiking group was founded on March 2nd last year, and so the group got together for an anniversary potluck on Sunday afternoon. I only joined the group in December, but it’s already made a huge impact on my life, health, and emotional wellbeing. Even though it was my birthday and even though I really don’t like driving long distances to unknown places, I knew I had to go. The potluck took place in a nearby town called Boerne, which might not have been such a long way away (45 min drive!) if the entire trip hadn’t been under construction. Oy. I’m just thankful my GPS got me there in one piece without any real trouble! Food, speeches, gift exchanges, group photos…it was worth the drive. I love these ladies.

(Sadly, I had to leave before the big group photo was taken. Photo courtesy of the SA PS Women’s Hiking Group.)

One really cool thing happened there that I have to write about. I didn’t expect to eat much at the potluck (gluten free and all), but one woman, Alia, made this Middle Eastern chicken and rice dish called biryani. Lebanese food is my favorite ever, so I got a little of this dish to try. Because it had onions in it, I didn’t think I could eat it. I haven’t been able to eat onions since my anosmia distorted in October 2018 and made everything smell of rotten onions. (Thankfully, it’s now only oniony scents that smell this way, not everything!) Indeed, much of the food at the potluck must have had onions in it, because the whole area smelled rotten. BUT. The onions in Alia’s dish tasted sweet and caramelized and exactly like they’re supposed to. Maybe it was just because my nose was partially stuffed up, I don’t know, but you can believe I went back up and got a bunch more of the dish!! Onions were my FAVORITE before this stupid anosmia issue!

I ended up eating enough at the potluck that I decided not to go out for dinner that night like Jason and I originally planned. Our birthdays always include one special prepared meal and one restaurant meal. Nutella pancakes were obviously my prepared choice, and I saved my restaurant for later in the week. So instead of eating out Sunday, we had cake for dinner. Mmm, cake…

You might notice the sloppiness of the above cake. That’s because this particular dessert was an experiment of Jason’s and Ambrose’s, chosen by me. None of us are really huge traditional cake fans. Morrigan always chooses a cookie cake, Ambrose likes pie, Laurence likes muffins, etc. This year, I wanted an entremet cake using my very favorite dessert, chocolate bavarois. So this cake had four layers: a gluten free shortbread crust, a blood orange curd, a chocolate bavarois, and a chocolate-orange mousse. Extremely decadent! Unfortunately, the curd didn’t set. Boo. That’s what you see slopping around in that photo. But messy or not, the cake was amazing and the sort of dessert where a little goes a long way, meaning there were lots of leftovers to enjoy all week! (And yes, I did eat all my layers separately, so that I could save the bavarois for last. If it wasn’t SO bad for me, I’d have asked just for a bowl of bavarois for my birthday “cake.”)

Then there were the gifts. Jason is the most amazing gift-giver and always has been. This year, he decided to theme my gifts. He called them my “year of adventure.” There were glass coasters with photo inserts so I could celebrate my past adventures. There was a Pop doll of Anne Wheeler (love her!!) from The Greatest Showman, to share others’ adventures. (It’s also kind of a wishful thinking adventure, as I’d LOVE to be able to do acrobatics one day!!) There were hiking poles, a map of the nearby countryside, and a membership to REI for my current adventures. Last but not least, there was a travel guide to Hawaii to plan for (distant right now) future adventures. It was so perfect.

I also received a few other great gifts and cards from friends and family throughout the week. Plus I won free leggings from my Lularoe dealer (ha!), and got gift cards and movie tickets from various businesses I frequent. It was all quite nice.

My birthday night ended quiet and calm. Lying on the couch with Jason, watching more silly baking shows, getting my legs and feet rubbed post-5K, enjoying my first birthday in our new home. It really was absolutely perfect.

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Favorite Photos of February

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Thistle

I had a really hard time narrowing down my February photos to my favorite dozen. I tried to choose a wide spread rather than all wedding, all nature, all 5K, etc. In no particular order:

Top left: Jojo looking contemplative. Top right: Gorgeous Esperanza flower at early dusk. Bottom: Woodlawn Lake at sunset.

Left top: blurry full moon taken while on a walk with Jason after we received some bad news. Left bottom: happy me on a hike with my group. Right: Laurence and Ambrose pose on the beach.

Top left: Jason and I the night before our 5K in matching hoodies. Top right: wedding kiss. Bottom: Periwinkle blooming in our new yard.

Left top: blood orange. Left bottom: giant hands sculpture at Morgan’s Wonderland. Right: shadow on bridge. (I love shadow photos. I’m not sure why, as no one else really likes them. But I adore them to pieces.)

That’s kinda my February in a nutshell – beach wedding, lots of exercise, 5K with Jason, flowers, and cats. Yup.

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Race Report: Get Your Rear in Gear 5K

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Thistle

On Sunday, I walked a 5K with Jason and Stephanie. In my last Sunday Coffee post, I discussed the nostalgia aspects of this event. The thing I didn’t say, and the thing that makes this event double special for me, is that my aunt Cheri passed away from colorectal cancer in 2014, mere weeks after my family arrived in Boston. We were too broke for me to come back to Texas for her funeral services. It was one of the first heartbreaks of moving to Boston. So yes, this particular 5K and its cause is close to my heart for several reasons. And I almost didn’t get to walk it. –>

Rewind to last Friday. I went out for a walk at my normal trail park, and decided to take a benchmark running test. In September, I’d twice run 1.1 miles nonstop on a particular route, and hadn’t done the run again since then. With making a current personal best in last week’s Chocoholic Frolic 5K, I thought I should test my mile time as well. These tests are run on a 2/3rds downhill route at a comfortable pace, no pushing. And I did end up improving my September time by a significant amount. More relevant to this post, however, is that I injured something in my right ankle-knee-hip connection during the run. I didn’t feel any injury or pain or slip, but a couple hours later, the outside edge of my right foot began to hurt, and the pain traveled upwards. I foam-rolled and iced all those areas, and thought some movement would help. Jason and I went grocery shopping Saturday morning, and I had to go sit in the car for the last 20 mins because I could no longer put any pressure on my right foot.

So that’s where I was at on Saturday, foam-rolling and icing like a mad-woman, because I REALLY wanted to walk this 5K on my birthday!! Sunday morning, I immediately put on a compression sleeve over my ankle (see above photo), and made sure my shoes were on tight. A few videos of me walking barefoot and in my shoes showed me the issue. These shoes are made for hiking, and while they’re called trail runners, they’re not supportive enough for my troublesome feet when I run. I roll outward – a problem I’m trying to slowly correct – and so my foot is literally shifting so that I’m walking on the outside edge with the shoe almost diagonal on my foot. The compression sleeve (for support) and the really tight laces were crucial for the day’s 5k. And I still knew that I might not make it.

The 5K was very early. Jason and I were up before 6am, me with a whole giant glass of iced coffee, heh. (see above) We got to Morgan’s Wonderland (starting location) right as the announcements had begun, and met up with Stephanie. Everything ran fast after that – kid’s run, the runners’ start, and then the walkers were going under the starting arch without any real call for us to go yet. Heh. The walkers were untimed for this 5K, but both Stephanie and I put on our fitness devices for personal accuracy. Because of course.

(before the 5K)

The good news: After about a half-mile, my foot stopped hurting completely for the rest of the 5K. Clearly, that sleeve and tight shoe worked! So what’s the bad news? There isn’t any!! The rest is just more good news. We walked our 5K (or actually 3.2 miles) in 58:41, an 18:29/mi pace, and that’s even with stopping twice at water stations AND being stuck in a slow crowd for the first half-mile. Clearly, we’re getting faster and stronger!

(Why yes, we DID walk through a giant inflatable colon)

We didn’t stay long once we were done. Just long enough to get some bananas or breakfast tacos or cereal or granola bars and sit down to eat (below). (Thank you, sponsors, for having some gluten free granola bars, and thank you KIND brand for making so many delicious choices!) Then we all went off to the next parts of our day. Jason and I headed home to make some nutella pancakes for my birthday breakfast…but birthday celebrations are the subject of another post.

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February 2020 in Review

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Thistle

There are a couple months in the year that I expect to be insanely busy. Late November through December (holidays!), May/June (end of school!), October (October!!). What I don’t expect is for February to be absolutely nuts. February. Normally quiet, no birthdays in my household, only one small holiday, only one school holiday. It’s a month where I tend to recover from my headlong rush into goals in January, heh. No time for that this month, though. February was insanely busy. But also awesome:

  • Feb 1st: 3.8-mile hike on Cibolo Creek with my hiking group AND Jason replaced our back French doors
  • Feb 2nd: Super Bowl Party
  • Feb 8th: Laurence got honored at the rodeo for helping to set up the electricity for the booths AND I hiked 3.5 miles at Eisenhower Park with my group
  • Feb 9th: 3.1-mile hike at Comanche Lookout Park with my group
  • Feb 14th: sold our house AND hiked 3.2 miles with Jason at Eisenhower AND went out for Valentine’s Day
  • Feb 15th: Port Aransas for my cousin’s wedding
  • Feb 16th: wedding festivities part two AND a 2.7-mile walk around Woodlawn Lake with my group after returning to San Antonio
  • Feb 22nd: saw Howl’s Moving Castle in theatre with a friend while Jason took Laurence back to the rodeo (he got free passes for his volunteer work)
  • Feb 23rd: Chocoholic Frolic 5K AND the HPWU Community Day
  • Feb 26th: VOTING!
  • Feb 27th: abdominal ultrasound

And that’s just the events. It was a crazy month!

Books
With as much time as I spent doing other things, I didn’t get a lot read this month. To be honest, I did have several books out from the library from my to-investigate list, and they all went right back to the library as not-for-me. I guess after reading some really brilliant books this year so far, I didn’t want to add any that were just meh. So I ended up reading three books in February: a really good one (A Beginning at the End), a so-so nonfiction (Caffeine), and a re-listen to one of my favorites (Howl’s Moving Castle). I try not to choose rereads as favorites for the month, but I can’t help it this time. Howl is just the best.

Goals
Both my career and writing goals were 100% neglected this month. I did work quite a bit on health stuff, which I’ll talk about in my health section below. My other big goal category for the year is finances. There was of course some good progress here. We sold our house, so we no longer have two mortgage payments. With the proceeds of the sale, we were able to pay back any debts accrued from the several months of double-houses. We also got Jason’s annual work bonus and a small tax refund. Those paid off the credit card debt accrued due to unexpected vet and dental bills. They also paid for our May Planniversary vacation up front. Whew! Beyond that, we researched and found a car insurance plan that was more reasonable – our previous one skyrocketed 500% after the boys got licenses, even though one lives in Kansas – which cut down a major bill. And then we rebalanced our monthly budget to include the new circumstances and made a plan to pay off our debt consolidation loan by June 2022 (instead of October 2023). Faster if we put future work bonuses, tax refunds, etc toward it.

Health
Let’s start with the not-so-great stuff. I was tested for autoimmune disorders this month, and came back with all positive indicators and off-the-charts inflammatory markers, but no individual disorders tested positive, so my doctors blew off the rest. Then I learned that I need surgery on my wrist to remove a fibrous ganglion cyst. I also finally received my Lumen this month, a device I backed and purchased on indiegogo 18 months ago, only to discover that 1) it no longer gives the information it promised to give (basil metabolic rate), and 2) it advocates a combination of keto/low-carb diets and carb-cycling, rather than actually testing an individual’s metabolism. Grr.

On the positive side: I did great on my nutrition and fitness this month. Smashed all my 20-20 mini-goals! I ate tons of good fruits and veggies, avoided sugar, only had one glass of alcohol (at the wedding reception, of course!), exercised 20 days for 18:21 total hours, walked/hiked/ran a total of 45.2 miles, started to incorporate more strength-training, and kept my phone off after 9pm almost every night. I also walked/ran a 5K with Jason and smashed my previous 5K times (post-regain), and got a current PR for a one-mile nonstop run a few days later. Sadly, I didn’t get much further on my running goals this month between all the hiking on clear days and the many, many other rain days. But I’ve done some indoor running whenever I turn on old SVU reruns or other junk TV, so that’s good. I also removed gluten from my diet for a big portion of February, as autoimmune disorders tend to be exacerbated by gluten for reasons unknown. Better to be safe than sorry. I’ll admit, I definitely have felt better being off gluten, and each time I caved and ate it again, my throat/nose/sinuses would flare up and I’d feel like I was getting a cold. That seems a clear indicator that I’m doing something right by removing it, yeah? In terms of weight, I lost about 3.5 lbs this month at a slow, steady pace, so I hope this won’t turn out to be part of my normal fluctuation range!

Highlights of February
Of course, the big highlights are listed above – my cousin’s wedding, all those hikes with friends, Howl’s Moving Castle, my 5K, etc. But there were a lot more wonderful things this month that I don’t want to forget!

  • We completed our taxes and actually got a small refund this year. Nothing compared to before the asshat Trump took away credits for having dependents, but at least we don’t have to pay extra like last year!
  • Jason also got a decent bonus at work which helped us pay down our debts.
  • After two months, we finally FINALLY got the keys to our new mailbox!
  • Got to hang out with my longtime friend Nat for the first time in months.
  • After closing on the house, Jason and I used a small amount of the proceeds to upgrade our phones, so now we both have 11s and passed our iPhone 8s down to Ambrose and Laurence, who were still using (very broken) iPhone 6s.
  • Discovered how to make my own small batches of iced coffee to save both on money and on the environment (no more plastic bottles from the store!)
  • Found out we have a gorgeous variety of periwinkle in our new front yard, just started blooming this month
  • Early voting!!! (Even though in the end, my candidate dropped out before the main voting day, so my presidential vote was wasted. Ah well.)
  • That broom-standing stunt. Totally a hoax but so hilarious to punk my boys with it.
  • Jason got me a Choose Your Own Adventure board game for Vday.
  • We also bought together a 52-date-night ideas canister that we plan use each week. We’ve already had our first night, a “luau” involving Hawaiian music, a hula dance lesson, and really delicious virgin daiquiris.
  • Crossing off the first of my running bingo squares!
  • Seeing measurable progress in both my walking and running times this month compared to several months ago
  • Delicious GF treats like blueberry muffins and chocolate cupcakes (I appreciate the companies who make these things so much!)

Coming up in March
Birthday season! Not only was my birthday on the 1st this month, but my stepmom, brother-in-law, youngest son, and both of Jason’s parents have birthdays in March. Laurence and his grandmother actually have theirs on the same day! There’s also spring break this month – always happens the week of Laurence’s birthday, heh – and primary election day, and a whole heck of a lot of planned hikes and 5Ks, and the next Siclovia. So it’s probably going to be another busy month, which will hopefully be just as lovely as February has been!

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