When Your Wish List Includes a Time Machine, a Barista & a Cave

Have you ever toured a wine vineyard & then experienced the wine tasting afterwards?  Before my husband & I had children we had a getaway weekend to Niagara on the Lake.  One  activity available in the area  is to enjoy  the many wineries that you can just happen upon.  It is interesting to learn about the crops & the farming side of the business & then notice all the awards proudly displayed on the Ontario winery bottles. 

Thankfully I have taken myself lightly especially while on mini vacations.  During that first wine tasting, there was no exception to that rule.  Perhaps in fact, my “lightness” was magnified.  While the large enough crowd of people filled the wine tasting room, we were all educated by the expert working at the winery.  For the life of me I will forever remember a few people in the room that were trying to convince me that I tasted honey, raspberries, apricots, dates, cherries and many other things.  It was kind of hilarious. It was great for those folks who had experienced palates & refinements beyond mine.  There was no way though that I would admit to tasting things that I did not & that kind of irritated a few people especially because I just did not think my life depended upon all of that & it didn’t.  What I admitted to was that the wine tasted like delicious grapes.  I know, I know, I may have been a troglodyte amongst the folks who had the experienced palates.  We are all exactly ourselves.  If I enjoy a cup of tea, I taste the full rainbow of tastes & experience bliss but to me grapes taste like grapes.  That is not a bad thing.  The thing is that why do folks feel the need to try to talk us into believing something that we don’t believe?  It is really pretty funny to me (fancy penguin).

You may be wondering what in the world kind of path we are going to land on about now with these thoughts.  Here it comes.  A person that I respect greatly suggested that I try to change my nutrition plan to Paleo.  She explained why it might work for me. I am not suggesting that anyone else should experiment based on my experiences with his or her nutrition plan or program.  Please make your own healthy choices along with your doctor, nurse and dietician.  Remember, I am not a health care worker.  The other thing is that I don’t even know at this point if this is a suitable nutrition program for me or whether I will modify this version or seek a different nutrition program in the near or far future.  The thing I do know is that so far I have not missed white flour & that is a start.  Again, we are each beautiful originals with individual needs nutritionally & otherwise.  Please be sure to make your decisions based on what is right for you along with your doctor, nurse, dietician & other diabetes educators on your team. 

 I have had & continue to have severe abdominal pain & profound nausea.  It has been there for 3 continuous years.  When it is at its worst, plans get cancelled & I writhe in pain with several hot bags & just hope that it will be less painful the next day.  I am going to be going for tests & procedures a great deal of the month of April.  I am determined to find out what this is & conquer it.  So far there is a list of “it might be this or that’s” as well as another even longer list of what I do not have.  It often seems more complicated than I can believe would be possible.  It is what it is for now.  After doing a little bit of reading up on what Paleo is & what types of foods that would include & which ones it would not I decided that I will give it a try.  I am determined to substitute the majority of foods that I enjoy already with the healthier version in the new Paleo cookbook.  So far that is working out to a degree.  Just because I am subbing in something for something else & it even looks the same does not mean that it tastes the same though.  In other words, it is the analogy of the grapes & being told that they taste like honey.  Here’s an example of a food that is not being a success so far for me & that is dairy.  I decided to replace milk with almond milk.  First I tried natural almond milk.  The first thing that excited me about making that change is that the almond milk has 2 grams of carbs per cup vs the dairy milk of 15 grams per cup.  The taste to me though is gross.  I am sure it will be just fine in a smoothie but to drink on its own…well I don’t see it as something that I look forward to put it mildly.  I thought next that perhaps the vanilla almond milk would be scrumptious.  I love the taste of vanilla so it appealed to me in my mind.  I decided to make a cappuccino at home with the vanilla almond milk.  It frothed up beautifully & it looked every bit as delicious as the one I was used to with dairy milk.  Then I tasted it.  Oh my goodness gracious, to my taste buds it was far from a treat.  I had hoped that I would like it & would be able to put it in my coffee instead of dairy cream but I don’t really want to entertain it.  Maybe I will start drinking my coffee black.  I am not ready to throw in the towel yet.  What I need to do is make a friend who is a barista who can give me some pointers on how to replicate a cappuccino Paleo style that tastes like the ones I love.   I still think that there may be a way to develop a recipe that will work.

Speaking of the tests & procedures, the next thing on my wish list is a time machine.  Why a time machine?  In a couple of days, I am having 2 procedures done in the morning.  It is great to have the detailed medical instructions on how patients are to prepare for these procedures.  I will need a time machine though at first glance of the details.  For one procedure I have to take medication at a certain time & for the other procedure I cannot take the medication at all because the time between the procedures is very close together.  In that case, I will need a time machine to take the medicine that I need to take & then reverse it I guess for the other procedure.  Seriously though, it is just one of those square peg, round hole situations & as an adult with type 1 diabetes, I am no stranger to being a square peg.  There will be a creative solution & of course I will ask the doctor’s office for clarification.  My fingers are crossed that I do not on top of it go into low blood sugar because I have to fast for a long time for the procedures.  It is complicated but not insurmountable. 

The thing about April being full of medical appointments & procedures & tests is that I can choose to be responsible & do what I need to do to get my answers & find a way to live the best life that I can with or without type 1, abdominal pain & nausea & other challenges.  These are serious responsibilities yet at the same time, I plan on packing in even more times to take myself lightly in between all the medical stuff.  The plan is to be around Dear Hearts that have infectious laughs, watch more comedy movies, read more “Far Side” cartoons & taste all that life blesses us with.  The plan is to feel the fresh air on my face for a minimum of 45 minutes every day, rain or shine & smile as carefree & as wide as our goldie, Beddy.  She is a kind of my mentor for taking myself lightly.  In the meantime, I will continue to experiment with my new cookbook & hopefully cook up some dishes that taste yummy. 

Last week when I was out one afternoon with our oldest son enjoying 7 delicious bites of cheesecake, Matt said something that I thought was exactly right on.  He said, “Mom, look around this café.  Have you noticed that we are the happiest, most animated people here?”  He said, that with such delicious desserts being enjoyed that it did not make sense for everyone not to be as happy.  Dessert is not a serious business we thought.  When the stress outweighs the bliss of the dessert then that is kind of sad we thought.  There are lots of serious parts of life for sure & everyone deals with challenges & struggles differently.  What works for me will not be the magic formula for someone else.  I am happy all the same to keep being over happy, animated & full of laughter whenever I go out to the café with Matt.  The only reason to want a time machine during those times is to enjoy them over & over again even more so.  (minus of course the carbs & calories).  It is my time machine so I think I could make that rule.

My heart’s hope for you is that you don’t find yourself in a square peg, round hole situation where you are yearning for a time machine.  And may you be the most animated, joy-filled person anywhere you go to de-compress.

Smiles,  Saundie :D

Next Monday's sharing is "Stressing over Spilt Milk, Splitting Hairs & Seeing Dots"  which is another way of describing blood sugars "gone bad" due to amongst other things me breaking out in hives big time.  Oh yikes...but maybe by next Monday they will be gone?  Smiles through "dots" in the meantime :)