Ten on Tuesday

1- I saw the movie J. Edgar this other day. He is such a fascinating character. The movie was okay, but I want to get my hands on a good biography of him. I'll have to do some searching on Goodreads.

2- I saw this print on Pinterest, and I feel like I have to share it here. I hope it eventually makes its way into the blog book I still need to make (a 30 before 30 goal).

3- Tomorrow starts my month of eating vegetarian as another one of my 30 before 30 goals. One of the reasons I chose that as a goal was to try to increase variety in my diet. Also, meat is an inflammation trigger for RA. Dairy is as well, but I'm hoping that at least reducing my meat intake will help. Anyone have any must-try vegetarian recipes? I plan on a lot of soups made with veggie broth rather than chicken.

4-I'll be making my first donation to Planned Parenthood tomorrow after we get paid. I've wanted to donate ever since the fiasco where they almost lost government funding, but never got around to it. After reading this today, I'm going to do it.

5- I lost 5 lbs my first week back on WW! I'm hoping to have lost at least 10 lbs by the time I start back at the library.

6- I so want to do this run. In fact, I just now showed Adam the video clip of the race, and we decided to plan our vacation around it. Neither one of us have ever been to Boise.

7- I've made a variation of this smoothie at least 4 times since she posted the recipe. I just use 1 cup skim milk, 1 tablespoon real peanut butter, 1 frozen banana, and 2 cups of spinach. It is awesome! If you like the Peanut Butter Mood smoothie from Jamba Juice, it's like that (just green and a little less sweet). I've been making green smoothies for years, but never like this one. When I go grocery shopping next, I might try to find a light chocolate soy milk or almond milk to try it with.

8- Yes, the sign above him says "Kid Use Only- adults: please don't sit on the log." In the picture, he's smirking like he knew what it said and did it anyways, but he didn't actually see the sign.Another parent and I had a good laugh about this at Gymboree.

9- One of my friends posted one of my favorite Colbert quotes on Facebook: "If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it,"

I got into into a mostly polite discussion about it with one of her friends. A discussion in which he called Christ a capitalist. I'm still laughing about it. With the help of some friends, I found this article to link him to. I especially like the ending: "In the end, though, it’s silly for anyone to argue that Jesus supported an economic system that he had never heard of or encountered—whether it’s capitalism or socialism. What Jesus did encounter was an economic society with a large gap between the rich and the poor, and at every turn he advocated one thing—that we care for the needs of others as much as we care for our own needs. Now, that’s a revolutionary economic theory."

10- One of my best friends had her fourth baby and first girl yesterday. I'm so happy for them. She had a planned unassisted birth. It's not something I would choose for myself, but if anyone is capable enough to do it, it is her and her husband.

RA

It's been a long, hard six weeks. Sometime in early June, my joints started hurting all over, all the time. It's only started to ease up this week.I don't like to feel like I'm begging for sympathy, so I've only told a handful of people outside of family. After two blood tests, it's been decided that I have Rheumatoid Arthritis.

It makes sense. My dad has it. I've know for a few years that I have bursitis, something that often goes hand-in-hand with RA and can become chronic when combined with RA. Even when I was at my lowest weight since high school three years ago before being pregnant, I couldn't run more than one mile.

It's really hard to have such an invisible problem. Other than slight swelling that is usually only visible to me, I look like I should be fine. Therefore, I tried my hardest to act like I was fine (to most people). I popped Ibuprofen like it was candy. I didn't tell my boss, which led her, understandably, to wonder why my writing wasn't so good this month.

I'm adjusting though. I'm eating foods and take supplements known to help (and thinking of trying an elimination diet), I've set up a chiropractic appointment and should be getting a specialist referral in the next week or so. I'm trying to get more sleep and take better care of myself.

Another part of my action plan is to keep doing the things I enjoy- like blogging. I didn't want to complain about the pain, but I should have kept blogging about about other things- like Brayden's birthday, Harry Potter, and politics (of course).  I think I'll backtrack and write about it all anyway. It's like therapy, and I think my personal writing helps me with my paid writing as well.

I will start posting my random musings again tomorrow hopefully. I don't want this post at the top of my blog for long. I want to get back to being my nerdy, all over the place self.

12/365

Daddy and toddler exercise!

Weigh-in Wednesday: Down 1 lb. I was short of my goal from last week, but I'm still down 10 lbs overall in 5 weeks. I wasn't able to exercise this week (chronic flare-up). I also didn't always make the best choices for eating. Adam was sick from Saturday on (and when he's sick it's the end of the world) and then Brayden was sick for a few days too.