Aprovechar

I don’t mind spending a lot on food relative to some other people and relative to what we spend on other things.  Healthy food is important; buying local foods, buying organic foods, buying fresh foods, buying grass-fed meat, etc.—all of those are important to me.  And some dairy/wheat-filled-food/etc. analogs are also important to me, and [...]

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The first week of the no-spend month has come and gone.  We spent more than I thought we would, yet I’m still pleased, because we’re on track for the month:
$31—groceries at the farmer’s market
$13—headlight bulb (plus a spare) for the car and a bag of chips
$21.50—eating out ($2 taco and $2 margarita night at a [...]

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This experiment has been a long time coming.  Many threads have woven together over time to bring me to this point.
Back in 2002, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, I asked my doctor, “Are there dietary or environmental links to ovarian cancer?” “No,” he responded. “It’s just bad luck, a fluke.”
I felt powerless with [...]

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Perhaps you are a lucky soul who lives in a time and place where, during your day, each day, you get to take a lovely stroll through stalls or shops selling fresh vegetables, fruits, breads, cheeses, meats, etc.  You carefully inspect each in-season fruit or vegetable to pick out the highest-quality combination of tastes and [...]

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You might think from my earlier Thanksgiving post that traditional holiday foods don’t do much for me.  Au contraire—one of the more difficult things about food allergies has been dealing with family holiday gatherings where everyone, including me, has specific ideas about what we should be eating, how it should be constructed, and how it [...]

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This weekend was insanely busy and pleasurable–it was the kind of weekend where you run around all day, stay up late, then get up early just to do it all over again.  For once, I had enough energy that even though I was tired at points, I didn’t absolutely have to go take a nap [...]

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This morning it hit me that I have one more week of work before my life transitions full-time into my long-time dream of writing for a living.  I called my husband into the living room, grabbed his hands, and spun around with him like we were five years old and on a playground.
I’m so happy. [...]

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Do you ever have moments when your brain is so mashed full of thoughts, ideas, and feelings that when you open your mouth to speak or pose your hands to type, you pause to collect your thoughts, and then can get little of use to come out?
That’s me today.  I’m sitting in a chair by [...]

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I’m finishing up this week’s meal plan while I sit in the cute little coffee shop that’s catty-corner from my office.  It is so pleasant to come in here (with my new laptop!) and take a break with some good music, a tasty hazelnut-milk latte, and a couple of the yummy little peanut butter cookies [...]

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Despite the lack of energy that surgery brings, extrovert that I am, I knew I would be seriously jonesing for some company by two weeks after the date, so we planned our fifth monthly wine-tasting party for July 6th.  Every month, I mean for us to take extensive photos of the food and wine so [...]

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