Master Cleanse Day 1

I have started the Master Cleanse today, and it is going well so far. For those who don't know what that is, I will explain. No there is not enough time. I will sum up. (Can you tell we just recently watched The Princess Bride?) Okay, so it's 10 days where you don't eat anything. Every evening you are supposed to drink an herbal laxative tea and every morning you are to do a top-down enema of salt water rinse. The rest of the day you drink as much water as you wish, and 6 - 12 10oz. glasses of "lemonade" made with lemon or lime juice and grade b maple syrup. This is to cleanse your system of toxins and give you a fresh start.

The reason for me doing the cleanse is to help with my knees. Everyone knows that my knees are the standard party trick for grossing everyone out. And before I head to the doctor who will for sure be saying that I need a knee replacement before I turn 30, I wanted to give it a go and try this out. I also need to lose some weight, but the cleanse isn't really a diet per se, but it does have that effect. As such, I did take my weight and measurements which I will not post here, but will post a total lost when I'm through. Christina, my sister, was supposed to be starting today with me, but she ended up chickening out having a migrane and not starting today. My brother, Bruce, is already on day 7, and looking forward to eating again soon.

Okay, so I had my lemon mint laxative tea last night about 11pm, and woke up at about 5am with stomach cramps. Thinking they would go away, I curled up in a ball and attempted to go back to sleep. At 6, I just got up and eliminated and felt much better, no cramps. Went back to sleep. The salt water rinse, was bad. I only drank half of what I was supposed to. I seriously though about it coming back up, but it did it's job. I dropped Melissa off at my parents this morning, and felt a few hunger pangs on the way, so I slurped up some more lemonade and water. So far so good.

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Evening update.....
Neil made rice to go with the curry chicken I made on Sunday, and it smelled so good! I never knew plain rice smelled so yummy! Even with a stuffed up nose. I am pretty hungry at the moment. And I did speak to Christina who is going to start tomorrow. I was expecting to be running to the bathroom every hour, but so far it has been going pretty good. Just as you would expect if you drank a bunch of liquids, I have peed a whole lot. Bruce said that the second day was harder for him. I feel like I may be able to do this for the full time, but I'm taking it as it comes, one day at a time. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. But at the same time, I feel prepared for it. The week I spent in the hospital on a liquid diet was so much harder than this. Granted, I was really sick, and drugged up and feverish, but I couldn't get up and move around much, and Melissa was away from me. It's about 8:00 now and I am finishing up my 6th glass of lemonade. I may have 1 or 2 more.

Food, Act II

Okay, so in addition to those lovely poor man's crab cakes, I also made Seed Cheese. We didn't really like it so much as a cheese, but it wasn't bad as a dip. What we really enjoyed it as, was a salad dressing/remoulade to those crab cakes. So, here's the basic recipe, and you can add anything additional to it you would like. I added some relish and chives to make it more like remoulade.

Seed Cheese
1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked 4 - 8 hours, hulled
1/4 cup almond milk
1 generous Tbsp. Ume plum vinegar, apple cida vinegar or rice vinegar
1/4 tsp. celtic sea salt
2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
Pepper to taste

Preparation
Additional almond mild or water to blend as neeeded. Ume plum vinegar contains high amounts of sea salt.

Put sunflower seeds in bowl. Cover with several inces of water, and let soak 4-8 hours. Pour water off. Over again with water. Gently rub seeds between palms of hands to remove skins, which will float to the surface. Pour most of the water and the floating skins off, and repeat process several times. To minimize loss of seeds, pour through a strainer. When most of the skins have been removed, Drain. Place seeds in a blender or food procesor with almond milk or water, lemon juice, garlic, vinegar and salt. Blend, adding more liquid if necessary. When using a food processor, scrape mix down from the sides once or twice. Add Pepper to taste. Transfer to a serving or storing container. Cover leftovers and refrigerate for 2-3 days. Enjoy!

Food Glorious Food

A few weeks ago, I made Poor Man's Crab Cakes, and they were so good that I had to take a picture!!

The real truth of the matter is that the first batch came out so badly that I got mad and threw them in the sink making a huge mess, and then had to go to the store to pickup ingredients. My wonderful husband cleaned up the mess, and I came home and made these beauties.

The original recipe came from my mother who got it from someone else. We used to eat these all the time growing up in Maryland. They taste just as good as the real thing! Here's my newly tweaked recipe.

Poor Mans Crab Cakes

2 cups grated zucchini

1 large egg

1/4 cup italian bread crumbs

1/2 cup cracker crumbs

1/4 cup ground flax seed

3/4 - 1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning (the more the better)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. melted butter

Mix all ingredients well. Fom patties and fry in vegetable oil until browned. Drain, and enjoy!

Poopy on the Potty!

Well, Melissa managed to actually poop on the potty!!! It wasn't much but it is a start! So, I've been meaning to go to the mall and pick up a potty book for her for a few weeks. Neil and I finally made it to Books A Million this weekend, and I was reminded why I hate them! I don't understand why, but they have complete and utter morons working there. After spending about 10 minutes trying to locate a book in the childrens section, I went and asked an oh so pleasant guy about finding a potty book. He looked at me like I had three heads, and walked me over to the parenting books. After telling him about a hundred times that I was looking for a children's board book for my 21 month old, he continued to point out adult books on PTing your child. At that point we said thank you and he walked away. Another 30 minutes later and having walked the entire aisle looking at every learning book, another woman asks us if we need help and low and behold she actually knew what she was talking about!! We ended up getting a book that Melissa loves and has a little flush button on it that she pressed 27 times before we left the store.
Neil and Melissa are at the doctor's now, and I'm waiting for their update. She's been sick for almost 2 months straight now, and she had a fever of 103° last night. He just said that she has a temp of 100° now. I wish my baby was well!

Well, the verdict is....................Strep Throat. The doctor said he could see a few white spots on her tonsils, so we get another round of Keflex, and in addition to that, he added in Singulair 4 mg chewables to try and clear out her lungs.

Well, I finally did it

Went to the dentist that is.... My poor tooth had to go, as it had an abcess and was causing me terrible pain. And lets face it, who needs teeth who needs pain? So now, I'm just waiting on the swelling to go down so I have my face back. But really is the swelling that bad? At least it makes the bags under my eyes disappear. ;)

Asthma, Nebulizer, Co-pays Oh My!

Well, since Miss Melissa has been sick for so long after having antibiotics, she went to the doctor again on Friday. She's had this chest congestion for over a month now, and nothing has helped. So, the doctor believes that it is asthma, and prescribed two nebulizer treatements for her. Albuterol and Pulmicort. We are also pulling her off all milk products as a precaution. So we are going full on soy. Which I was wanting to do anyway.....but you wouldn't believe all the things that have milk in them! Premade cinnamon rolls, her favorite cheese crackers, ranch dressing, chocolate it's all in there lurking! Plus no more cheese for her, which she has been asking for all the time! :( We picked up her expensive meds on Friday, all $320 worth of them.

Turns out that we had a $250 deductible to pay, so since she had to have them and we would have had to pay it now or later, it's now. She did really well for her first few treatments, and didn't fight us until yesterday's treatments. She screamed for most of both of them. Plus she woke up late today and I had to hurry and give her the treatments which she wanted nothing to do with. I believe that we're only doing a week of 2 treatments per day of both meds, then going to one per day of both meds. I only hope that she learns to deal with them. Anyway, here are two cute pictures of her from Saturday before we went to her cousins b-day party.

That is one stinky diaper!!

Happy Easter

We had a pretty good weekend! Melissa had her first real easter, and got to pick up lots of eggs! She really loved that, and didn't care that they were empty. We did a test run at home on Saturday.















Then we went to Neil's Aunt & Uncle's house to hang out with the cousins, and she got to get some eggs with candy in them.
















This is after her bath that night, just hanging out with Mommy & Daddy.





















And here she is on Sunday in her easter dress. Daddy went trespassing on someone's property to get this picture with all the pretty wildflowers.





















And here she is at Nana & Pap Pap's picking up eggs with Auntie Tina and Uncle Greg.



















Auntie Tina gave me purple peeps, and I had to stuff the whole thing in my mouth to get my hands free to pick up eggs!!















After she picked up all the eggs, she decided to dump them all out and pick them up again.
















Here are all of the rest of the pictures, but be warned, there are quite a few!!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=19t2ajd6.8lasre6&x=0&h=1&y=-apmn0q

Back at Daycare

Well, after the sitter fiasco from the other week, Melissa is back at Daycare. In case you didn't hear the story, here it is.

We had been coming increasingly distressed with our sitter. With Melissa being aggressive, hitting, learning not nice words, and coming home dirty. We started looking for a new sitter after the beginning of the new year. On March 3, I was home sick, and Melissa went to the sitter as usual. The sitter, being pregnant again, had a doctor's appointment, and took Melissa along with her. After the appointment, they went to the mall which is about a 10 minute ride from our house. The sitter called me at 5:15 and left a message, and at 5:30 I called her back and she said they were finishing up and wanted to know if I wanted to come pick her up, or if she should just drop her off. Of course, being sick I didn't really want to leave the house, so I opted to drop her off. So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Until 6:30 when they weren't here, so I started trying to call her, and there was no answer. No answer at her house. No answer on the cell. No answer on her sisters cell. By then it was 7:00 and I was really getting worried, so I called Neil who was still working, asking what I should do. He left his parents house then and drove home, a 45 minute drive. During that time, I got a hold of the sitter's mother, who called her sister who was with the sitter. She said they were still at the mall, and they were leaving then. Feeling a little bit minuscule bit better, I sat down and waited. Neil showed up at about 7:40, and the sitter still hadn't made it here. Finally about 10 minutes after that, she showed up. I was so upset, that I couldn't even go out and get the baby, I had to let Neil get her. In addition to that, she didn't even apologize, or say anything that night or any of the other subsequent days. So, we decided for our own sanity, and for Melissa's development that she should return to a regular daycare for 3 days a week. My mom is going to watch her for 2 days to help us to keep the cost down until she turns 2, and then she'll go full time.

So, it's been quite an upheaval. And to top it all off, Melissa has been sick going on 3 weeks now. She had her regular doctor's appointment today, and I thought that she was getting a bit better, but the doctor said that the cold is in her chest, and she's on antibiotics again. He has also advised and started her on the pneumonia vaccines, since she is prone to getting sick and back in daycare. He said that she's under the 50th percentile on everything now. She's 31 1/2" and 21 1/2 pounds, so she's skinny, but still a little taller.

Easter is coming up so we're looking forward to that, and hoping that we're all well by then!


http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=19t2ajd6.nctgfli&x=0&h=1&y=1v2nag
Here are a few pics of Miss cutie!

18 Month update!

Melissa is 18 months old now, and into everything. She eats just about everything that we eat, she has all of her 1 year molars and is working on her 4 eye teeth which are all just right there ready to come through, so that’s a total of 16 teeth for her now. She hasn’t been back to the doctor to get a height/weight check yet this year. I know she got a little taller, as she’s fitting into her 18 month clothes for length. She’s still pretty skinny too. She’s still hovering around 20 / 21 pounds. She loves to run around outside and play. She’s helping get herself dressed too. Her new favorite word is “NO” and she says it all the time. She’s too cute with her play phones, and our cell phones. She loves to talk to daddy on the phone and says “Hi Daddy!” She really is loving Daddy more now, since she had the chance to really play and bond with him when I was on the 1-9 shift. She is saying a ton of words. Here’s the list: Mama, Dada, Daddy, Nana, Pap Pap, Pop, Dog, Kiera (Kiewa)(our dog), Pepper (Peppa)(Sitter’s dog), ruff ruff (dog noises), Up, get up (geup), juice (joo), eat, more (mow), shoe (she loves her shoes!!), sock (sa), cold (cowl), hi, bye bye, baby, uh-oh, yes, no, spongebob (bunbob), outside (ousie), poo poo, bath (ba), drink, two, eye, nose (now), what’s that (sat), want that (wandat), duck, quack, fish (ish), meow (maow), oooh ooh aaah aaah (monkey sounds), vroom (car sounds), tooth (toot). She has also picked up two things that we don’t say, s-h-i-t and shut up. We’re not very happy about that and if anyone has any ideas of how to get her to stop saying it, I’d be pleased to try it out. We’re just ignoring it now.

Here are the pics.

You can click this link to see all the photos, just click on slideshow. http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=19t2ajd6.bfmuvim&x=0&h=1&y=-zfl3lg