Tears in my ears

Today was a bit of a weepy day. In my world, weepy often has nothing to do with sad. I cry when I'm excited, lost, overwhelmed, stressed out, confused, laughing, tired, really hungry, watching a commercial about neglected animals . . . you get the idea. Awesome actress Kristen Bell explains it pretty well in this amazing video clip from the Ellen show (in which she also reveals her intense love of sloths). Some days the weepiness is pretty contained, but other days it's right under the surface all the time (Made-up but pretty accurate example: "Hi Sasquatch, how was your day? I missed you today, yes, I did!" And then there are tears.) Today was that kind of day.

I was planning on going to the afternoon Jazzercise class near downtown, but decided at the last minute that I would go to the yoga class offered at the other Jazzercise location instead. I'm not sure exactly what possessed me to choose yoga over Jazz; I haven't done yoga in years and I always struggled with the meditation/deep breathing/holding poses for a long time parts of it (which, it turns out, make up 94% of yoga). Also, I believe it's no secret that I love Jazzercise. In contrast to the way that I am poorly suited for meditation and deep breathing and holding poses for a long time, doing cheesy, high-energy dance routines to Top 40 hits is right in my wheelhouse.

But today, I decided to try yoga. Maybe it was the weepies making me feel less-than-enthusiastic about Top 40 hits. Maybe it was muscle soreness from all that Jazzercise (and also the ridiculously short run/walks Sassy and I have been going on lately). But I went to yoga, and here are some notes on my experience, as well as some lessons learned:

• First off, I arrived about 5 minutes early, and right as I was walking down the hall toward the studio the instructor peeked her head into the hall as she turned off the studio lights. I, unaccustomed as I am to the idea of taking class in near darkness, loudly blurted out, "are you still having yoga?" The instructor smiled and quietly replied, "Of course- there are lots of women here" as she backed into the room, which I could then see was full of women quietly preparing to relax on their yoga mats. The lights were off, but there were actual candles and even white Christmas lights, and of course everyone was looking at me. Yoga Lesson #1: Enter quietly.
• Everyone watched and waited patiently as I quickly took off my shoes, checked in, and unrolled my mat, at which point the class promptly began. Yoga Lesson #2: Arrive early.
• Today the deep breathing part came pretty easily (thank you short run/walks for improving my cardiovascular fitness, and thank you yoga instructor for not expecting everyone to take super long/slow breaths!). The poses were all pretty simple and most weren't held long (thank you again yoga instructor for teaching what I will now refer to as "yoga I can do!"). And, most importantly, there wasn't a ton of talk about meditating on anything (thank you for the third time, yoga instructor, for telling us not to think about our to-do lists back home, but then leaving it at that). Yoga Lesson #3: All yoga classes are not created equal (also see: Don't pre-judge the yoga instructor because she might turn out to be awesome).
• I normally love stretching because flexibility is a skill I worked long and hard for (I could not touch my toes when I started dancing at 14), and also because it feels really good. But in yoga, all the stretches are a bit wonky, and while it's true that I can dominate the stretch portion of any Jazzercise class, I still cannot touch the floor in a yoga class. True Fact. Yoga Lesson #4: Dance flexibility does not equal yoga flexibility.
• With almost 15 minutes to go, the instructor told us it was time for our deep relaxation, and that anyone who wanted to could move to the wall. I didn't really know what that meant, so I waited until a few women had moved and were lying on their backs with their legs straight up on the wall. Then I decided that that looked really comfortable, so I grabbed my mat to move while the instructor ran through instructions for anyone who had forgotten how to get their legs up on the wall. I noticed pretty quickly, though, that all the wall space was pretty much occupied by relaxing women or purses or shoes, so I went to start scooting some shoes. But then of course the instructor noticed me (she sees all, that woman), and called out for me to move to a wall space that she was clearing out for me. I darted over to that side of the room and was about to get myself situated on the wall when the instructor started going over the "getting your feet up there" instructions again, in full volume, even though everyone else was already in deep relaxation and I was clearly the only one the instructions were intended for. I'll admit that I did like resting with my legs straight up like that, but a few minutes in my toes started to tingle, and after 10 minutes my legs were completely asleep. Yoga Lesson #5: Leave "feet up on the wall" to the pros.
• While my legs were falling asleep, I started thinking about this project I did in the one grad school class I have ever taken (Fun Fact: I am 1/32 of the way to a Master's Degree!). And then that project made me think of something else, and something else, and soon I was in full-on weepy mode again, right in the middle of "deep relaxation." I am a very silent crier, and the tears usually come just one at a time, which is a blessing, but I did learn Yoga Lesson #6: If you cry while lying on your back with your feet on the wall, and you are supposed to be so relaxed that you are not moving a muscle, tears will end up in your ears. 

All in all, I believe it was a positive experience, and a good alternative to shaking my groove thing on a day like today. I will definitely be going back, and next time I will bring Q-tips for my ears, just in case.

There are some things I have no desire to ever do. This is one of them.

Name Change

Yesterday Sasquatch and I spent some time at the Dog Park at Highbridge Park, and then joined Travis and a few of his friends at the disc golf course (did you know that disc golf is its own thing, independent of frisbee golf? Before meeting Travis, I did not). The group in front of us included a small beagle and also a small boy who was maybe three years old and carrying a replica Captain America shield. One thing you might be able to guess about disc golf is that it is pretty male-dominated, as evidenced by the fact that the little boy noticed our group at one point and yelled, "Girl! Hey, girl!" Normally I would probably not engage with someone who started a conversation with me in that way, but I make exceptions for three-year-olds carrying shields. Here is the conversation that followed:

Little Boy: Girl! Hey, girl
Me: Hello
Boy: Hi!
Me: Is that a Captain America shield?
Boy: Yeah, I'm Captain America. That's an avenger. And Bruce Banner is the Hulk.
Me: Who's your favorite Avenger?
Boy: Captain America.
Me: He's my favorite too!
Boy: What's your name?
Me: Jeannie. What's yours?
Boy: Captain America. I already told you that.
Me: Oh. Can I take that back and say my name's Thor, then?
Boy: Yeah!

So there you have it.
Signing out,
Thor

Do you see the dancers?

A strange thing about me is that I see dancers when they are not there. I'm not certain this is abnormal, but I am certain that I didn't always see them, and that Travis has no idea what I'm talking about when we are listening to music and I start telling him what the dancers are doing. Here are some things I have realized:

• I see the dancers from behind, like I am on stage with them
• They are almost always on stage, and are kind of small
• There is usually a pretty specific number of dancers, in a specific age group
• Most beautiful/interesting music will prompt dancers. Sometimes there is no music. But if I am listening to music that is lame, that is a total dancer-block.
• I never notice what the dancers are wearing, but I'm pretty sure they aren't naked. That would really weird me out.
• It's best if I don't listen to music while driving because the dancers can be very distracting.

Sometimes people ask me if I have been doing anything with dance lately, and I know that I am supposed to say no, because I haven't been teaching or choreographing or taking class (other than Jazzercise). But I don't feel like I ever stopped dancing. I feel like dance is happening around me all the time. 

I have an actual choreography project coming up (a very large one), so we'll see if I'm delusional, or if the dancing in my head (and in my living room every evening, and around the office) will translate to something real. Let's do this, dancers.

p.s. If you want to check if you, too, see the dancers, I recommend this song. The dancers cannot sit still when they hear it.

p.p.s. I'm pretty sure the dancers arrived right around the time my parents started sacrificing huge amounts of money and time for me to take 2-4 hours of class a day, even though I was way too old to start dancing. Thanks mom and dad! Once again I am reminded of how lucky I am to be your daughter.

Surprises

Pleasant Surprise: Last weekend I traveled to Western Washington for work. It was a great trip- I got to see my parents and grandma, two of my siblings and my sister-in-law, and all 7 of our nieces and nephews. (They are the COOLEST kids. All of them are on track to be much smarter and taller than me). Both of the fairs I attended for work were great, too- it was my first time at the Latino Youth Summit and the College Bound Conference, and I met a lot of amazing students at each event. Plus I got to hang out with some awesome alumni at the Latino Youth Summit. I had to work straight over the weekend, but overall it was a win! I ordinarily travel out-of-state and fly when I travel for work, so driving and getting a mileage reimbursement were new. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, after the mileage reimbursement, there were some extra funds left over in our budget this month.

Unpleasant Surprise: This morning we had to take Sasquatch to the vet because she was limping so badly she could barely walk. We think she sprained her foot last night playing with our friend's dog in our apartment, though she never yelped or did anything but limp around and twitch her little paw. It was much worse this morning, though, so we took her in. It took up the whole morning, and the visit (including x-rays) cost several hundred dollars. The good news is that she doesn't have any broken bones, so she just needs to be bandaged up for a few days and won't need a cast. But, in the words of Travis, it was a lot of money to pay for peace of mind.

It's exhausting hopping around on three legs!

And then I realized something. If Sassy had been hurt first, and then I would have gone to Tacoma and found out I was earning some extra money this month, I would have immediately realized that God was providing us with exactly what we needed. Because it happened the other way around, though, we had already become attached to that small amount of extra money and decided it was ours. But in reality, it's still God's money. I received a gift and assumed it was just a "random blessing," but it actually had a purpose. Our God is not a random God.

Catching up

• Last night was the Whitworth luau. I did the faculty/staff dance for the 2nd year in a row, and it was a blast. I love working for a school where professors and administrators and staff will get together for practices and learn a dance because they care about the things their students care about. The student dancers were awesome and the food was delicious (though I steered clear of the poi. Food should not be light purple). The Hawaiian club gave us each a beautiful lei shipped in from Hawaii. When I got home Travis and his friends each took a turn wearing it (Travis didn't realize it was made of real flowers and freaked out a bit, which was hilarious). We didn't want Sasquatch to feel left out!

Aloha, Sassy!

• Also, a few months ago Travis decided to get Sasquatch one of those running leashes that attaches to her harness on one end and wraps around your waist on the other end. I resolved never to use this leash, because all I could picture was being dragged through the gravel (probably down a steep hill) by my monster truck of a puppy and having no way to stop it. Yesterday, however, Travis finally convinced me to try it, and guess what? I am actually stronger than Sasquatch. It's true! For the last 2 and a half years that girl has been pulling me around 2-4 times a day, stressing me out, making my arms sore, and on one occasion making me fall into the mud while wearing a yellow wool jacket. But that is just because my arms are weak. Strap her to my waist, and I am capable of standing my ground, even downhill, and even with other dogs around! She did make me fall over today while I was crouching to pick up her poo and two big dogs walked by (it's a good thing I'm not easily embarrassed, because the owner was a woman about my size who was easily restraining both large dogs with her arms, no running leash needed). But otherwise, it was the most relaxing walk we've ever taken together. Well aside from all the walks we take in Indianola with no leash at all. That place is like dog Disneyland.

No harness, even! Sasquatch is terrified of her harness, so she LOVES walks in Indianola

• I've been having some tests done to help explain some recent fainting (unfortunately, fainting is not as glamorous or romantic as I assumed it would be) and we've discovered that I am awesome at having my blood drawn. The lab technicians always get so excited about my veins! If we were in a vampire movie, I think this means that I'd be the first victim.
• This morning I finished reading The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. I have read several student essays this year recommending this book, but held off for a while because I often avoid books about heavy topics. And The Book Thief is set in Germany during World War II. After reading about 3 pages of this book, I could tell that it was going to make me very weepy (which it did), but also that it was full of whimsy and joy and inventive language and that it was going to be funny in a very dark, honest way.

Okay, time to eat something (my doctor said I should eat every 2-3 hours. Isn't that awesome? I have been all over that).

Gaining it back

A few weeks ago I was skimming through old blog posts (looking for early photos of my puppy), and I found a post entitled Losing It. That seemed like a pretty melodramatic title for a blog post, so I read it, and then I read a few other headache-related posts from the past few years, and I realized that I have something here in this blog. On my phone and on paper I have kept headache journals, but they are mostly just dates and times and numbers and short lists of possible triggers. What I have here is a complement to those notes, a sporadic (and also pretty optimistic, if I do say so myself) journal of they way my headaches have made me feel. In August 2009 I was tough and tired and experiencing so much pain at work that I proposed moving to Oklahoma and eating only soybeans if it would help my head. In August 2010 I was nervous about moving across the country and starting a new job (with no plans to keep dancing), but I knew I couldn't keep teaching or working two jobs anymore. In September 2010 my headaches were coming back with a vengeance after a few relatively mild months, but God was giving me exactly what I needed.
Reading over these little notes really helps put things in perspective. Going gluten free has been hard and has put a strain on my food budget, but three years ago I was sincerely willing to eat only soybeans if it would decrease the frequency of my headaches. Now I'm down to about one headache a week. The new job I started almost two years ago turned out to be a perfect fit for me, and allows more flexibility when I am in pain than I ever imagined. And I haven't experienced anything like the pain of that "worst headache" I wrote about in September 2010 in over a year (I haven't recorded a pain score higher than 8 in my headache journal since Thanksgiving!). A few years ago, I was losing it (my ability to get up and go to work, my confidence in ever finding relief, and probably my sanity), but now I am gaining it back. I don't know how long it will last, but I am grateful for the reminder of where I have been and where God has carried me.

Peace is this beach on a partly-cloudy day.

Personal Growth

I'll admit that I am a creature of habit. I remember hearing a few years ago that people do most of their growing and changing between the ages of 18 and 25, and thinking that huge things had happened in that time, but that my habits were mostly the same as they had been in high school. But you know what? Maybe I am just a late changer (goodness knows I was definitely a late bloomer). Because lately there are some things that have seriously grown on me:

• Puppies! Three years ago, I did not particularly like animals. I KNOW. This blog is one big testament to the fact that this is no longer the case. Moving on.
• Chili. Where has chili been all my life? I had chili for the first time a year and a half ago. Now I could eat chili for every meal, especially the steakhouse kind they sell super cheap on the soup counter at Safeway.
• Watching basketball. Specifically, Whitworth basketball. I know obscure things about the players. I look up recaps of games I just got home from. If we can't go to a game, I watch it stream on the computer. I've even gone to a bunch of games without Travis. I am certain I've been to more basketball games in the last year and a half than in the previous 25 years. Does this make me a sports fan? I shudder to think that it just might.
• Using recipes. I have never much liked using recipes, partly because they usually require small amounts of lots of expensive ingredients (I am cheap), partly because I like to stick with what I know (poor Travis- I'd be happy with the same 3 meals over and over), and partly because I am just not that disciplined. But after going gluten free a few months ago, I realized that my repertoire was seriously limited, and we'd be eating the same one thing over and over if I didn't branch out. So I started using recipes, and discovered some beautiful things. Did you know you can wrap things in bacon and cook them on skewers, and it tastes like heaven? Did you know maple syrup makes chicken and potatoes sweet and juicy and tender? Did you know you can make an amazing cookie with only peanut butter, brown sugar, and eggs? Well let me tell you, recipes know those things. And now I do too.
• Wearing makeup. I held out for YEARS, and I'm glad I did, but now that I wear a little bit of makeup every day, I will concede that it makes me look older. Lately, people have been asking if I'm a college freshman and not a freshman in high school. Improvement!

  

  Exhibit #1 that people can change: I take hundreds of photos of my dog, and edit them just for fun.

COOKIES.

So far I've had success with cookies only twice since going gluten-free, and both winners were flourless recipes. I think there's something to that: if the recipe contains any alternative flours (almond, tapioca, rice, etc.), even in combination, something will always taste and feel just a little bit off (though I have just received a recipe that looks promising from my Aunt that contains a little bit of gluten-free flour mix).
I'd like to share last night's cookie recipe because it is so easy and delicious that you might decide to try it, even if you have a good relationship with wheat.
Note #1: Credit goes to my mom, who sent me the Favorite Brand Name Gluten Free 3 Books in 1 Cookbook, and who deserves a huge hug for practically forcing me to go gluten-free even when I was bratty about it and made a hundred excuses, and who hasn't brought that up even once when I've told her how much it's been helping my head.
Note #2: You would be crazy not to double this recipe. I doubled it and ended up with about 40 small cookies. Half of those were gone in a few hours.
Note #3: There were no nutrition facts with this recipe, I think we can make a good guess that these cookies are all fat and sugar, which your body needs a bit of in order to survive.

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chippers

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter, not the natural kind

1 egg

1/2 cup-ish of chocolate chips (I didn't use that many)

A little bit of granulated sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 

2. Beat brown sugar, peanut butter, and egg in medium bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well-blended,

3. Shape dough into 1.5 inch balls; roll balls in a plate of granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Use the tines of a fork to flatten each ball to 1/2 inch thickness, crisscrossing with fork. Press 3 to 4 chocolate chips on top of each cookie.

4. Bake 12 minutes or until just set (12 minutes exactly was perfect in my oven). Cool on cookie sheets 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks; cool completely (that part must be a joke- you should definitely eat some cookies while they are warm).

Makes 1.5 dozen cookies

There was no photo in the cookbook so I did a photo shoot in the living room. Sasquatch was prowling around waiting for me to lift my guard for one second, but I am very careful about my cookies.

Progress Report

Alternate titles for this blog post include "How I became the person with the most annoying list of off-limit foods in the Inland Northwest," "You know things are really bad when you type 'blog toast' instead of 'blog post,'" and my personal favorite, "Will Jesus mind if I eat ALL the communion wafers?"

So, I have been gluten free (mostly) for two months now. I say mostly because I'm a little bit mellow about it. If a product does not have anything gluten-y in its list of ingredients, but comes with a disclaimer that it was packaged in a facility that also processes wheat, I will eat it. If I am making gravy with flour for Travis and I need to tell if it tastes good, I will sample a tiny bit (it was REALLY good). I've been known to use a little bit of soy sauce here and there. And I definitely partake in the regular old communion wafers at church. So I think I am 99.42% gluten free, approximately.

The following is my progress report of the experience so far, compete with letter grades and teacher comments.

• Side effects: C-. There are far worse side effects out there (also, did you know that if you take prescription Lastisse to grow your eyelashes your eyes might turn brown and stay that way? Not bad, per se, but definitely strange), but all-the-time nausea is bad enough to pull a solid C-. I've been feeling a lot better for the last few weeks, but for almost six weeks I felt pretty nauseated every day, especially between waking up and 2 p.m. (No baby on the way, sorry), and I still feel nauseated some mornings. People on the internet call this gluten withdrawal, though by "people" I mean bloggers and the types that frequent food-allergy message boards, and not actual health professionals. Throughout this entire process, actually, I have been keeping it classy by following the suggestions of people on the internet rather than my doctor. But did you know that 0% of the dozen or so doctors I have been to have suggested I go gluten free? I have become one of those people who say things like "I know my own body best" and ignore their doctors' advice.
• Substitute foods: B-. I have been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the substitute foods available, especially since I tried some of my friend Amy's gluten free pasta about 5 years ago and I am fairly certain it tasted like soggy cardboard. But at the time I had something to compare it to, and now the gluten-free version is my only choice, so I think it's pretty good! A few of my favorites are Bob's Red Mill pizza dough mix (Travis says I shouldn't call it pizza when it's wheatless and cheeseless, but it's really delicious!), Lundberg Brown Rice penne, and Udi's hamburger buns. These foods are really pricey, though, which brought the grade down to a B, and I have had no success with cookies, so the grade dropped to a B-. My saving grace in this category has surprisingly been WinCo Foods (if you are not familiar with WinCo, it's like a combination of the WalMart food section, Cash&Carry, and Grocery Outlet, but less fancy and with a lower-income clientele). WinCo has a lot of gluten-free products, and they are much cheaper than they are anywhere else. The only downside is that they are spread out throughout the store so you have to know where to look, but it's been a fun treasure-hunting experience.
• Cravings: C. I am finding myself more addicted to wheat than I thought possible, but I am also discovering that I have pretty well-developed self control after years of migraine diets and working with headaches. That said, this has been hard. Travis brought home some Krispy Kreme donuts in December and I called him a jerk (and meant it) for the first time in our marriage. In retrospect, he was not being a jerk, but he was over-estimating my ability to handle having Krispy Kreme donuts in the house and not eat them (he's actually been a really good sport through this whole thing). After two months I still feel hungry almost all the time, no matter how much I eat, and have cried actual tears more than once when I was really hungry and couldn't find something to just throw together. Pre-gluten-free, my average snack was 4-6 pieces of toast (don't judge). There was nothing cheaper and more delicious! I still think about bread several times a day, and wonder how it's doing, and if it misses me.
• Results: A. The ONLY reason I have kept this up so long is that it has been so ridiculously effective. It could be a fluke, but I have had 8 real headaches in just over two months. That's less than 1 headache a week. (I define a real headache as something pretty painful that sticks around, since I still get the occasional 30-second cluster headache or very dull background headache, but these barely register in comparison with the "big bads"). For the last 2.5 years, I'd say my average was 4-5 bad headache days a week, with months on end of 6-7 headache days a week. Nothing else I have tried (there's a list here) has ever come close to making such a huge change, especially in such a short amount of time. I have been keeping a pretty detailed health log in case my brain is just playing tricks on me, and sometimes I go back and count my 8 headaches to make sure it's really just 8. It is! There are some things I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do as a person with bad headaches 5/7 of the time, but those things feel very possible for someone with bad headaches only 1/7 of the time! I might just take up water skiing.

Me and my gluten-free hamburger bun on a date at Five Guys. Travis chaperoned.

Cumulative GPA: 2.6 (B- average). My gluten-free diet would probably not make it into Whitworth, but it would do just fine at a larger state school. I bet there are even schools out there with water skiing classes.