Made a Menu

Monday means I'm down to the last week of the 2ww and the last week of my detox. Yay!

Since we're currently out of Dream Dinners till our next session, I had to make our meal plan the old-fashioned way, aka stare at food blogs till I find something that a) fits with my detox, b) looks good, and c) doesn't look too complicated.

This week, I'll be borrowing heavily from A Year of Slow Cooking. I highly recommend this site for anyone looking for slow cooker ("CrockPot") recipes.

Here's the plan:

Monday: Angelhair rice pasta with meat sauce (ground turkey, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce)
Tuesday: Applesauce Chicken (CrockPot) w/ steamed broccoli
Wednesday: Hoisin Drumsticks (CrockPot) w/ brown rice and stir-fried veggies
Thursday: Indian Chicken Curry (CrockPot) w/ quinoa
Friday: Holiday Party at our building
Saturday: Dinner Out OR Fish w/ spiced quinoa mix & steamed veggies
Sunday: Salsa Chicken (CrockPot) w/ brown rice

Food, Folks, Fun, Fearsome Anger, Fehr Scores, Furniture Care

I hope that everyone in the US had a happy Thanksgiving, or at the very least, you've survived the long weekend. To everyone else around the globe, hope you had a nice weekend!

Our Thanksgiving was pretty good. We spend odd years with my family, so of course, that's always great. I successfully stayed on detox diet, but it really sucked to not eat stuffing or the four million desserts that were served.

For Thanksgiving, I had:
-Turkey (expertly made by my mom)
-Salad
-Butternut Squash Soup (also made by my mom, which I thought was awesome and everyone else thought demonstrated how long it's been since I had good food)
-Quinoa with Dried Fruits & Nuts (made by me)
-Butternut Squash Brown Rice Pasta Bake (made by me, not successful, will not be repeating)
-Baked Apples with Oats & Almonds (made by BFF, so I had my own dessert, yay!)

I did prevail upon my mom to give my containers of stuffing, green bean casserole and the pumpkin bread made by the Princess (my brother's wife), all of which are residing in my freezer awaiting post-detox feasting.
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On Friday, BFF and I finally made it to the tailor's, to get a bunch of stuff altered (hems, zippers, what have you). We then got lunch and braved the mob at DSW to get some shoes. Then, we just hung out at her house. We always have such a great time together and it was nice to just chill.
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Saturday, SIL and her family came over to use our pool. Then, we all met up with JD's parents to have lunch and celebrate SIL's birthday. My in-laws have now successfully ruined another one of my favorite restaurants. All they do is bitch, bitch, bitch. Nothing is ever right. I love them, but sometimes they really suck. Then, we had to sit at the mall's play area with them and four million little kids and babies to watch my nephews frolic in the chaos. It was not fun.

The night improved though, because we had Chinese food and I watched Eric Fehr (whom I met at Hockey 'n' Heels) score a goal 10 seconds before the end of the third period, helping the Caps win in an overtime shootout against Montreal. Yay!
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Sunday was spent in lounging around, picking price stickers off our china, washing our china, putting away our china (one day my house will be clean and organized; I hope) and watching TV. Oh, and we had Thai for dinner.

Four's On Board

We went for dIUI 4.1 yesterday and 4.2 will be on board today. My acupuncturist wasn't available this week, so I'll be seeing a different acupuncturist today after the procedure. I hope that I get the same peaceful feeling even though the acupuncturist is different.

Last night, JD and I met my parents to go see The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock. It was a really fun and heartwarming movie -- perfect for the holiday season.

I'm taking the day off work today. With the scheduling of the dIUI, it wouldn't make sense to go into work afterwards. I'll probably do some housework, watch a movie or two and read blogs.

Ooh, I also need to cook for Thanksgiving, since I did a total of zero work this weekend.

Comme Ci, Comme Ca

Nothing much going on here. Just wanted to let y'all know that I'm still here and doing OK.

JD is also doing OK. A month into his new job, he's concerned that he doesn't really know what he's doing (the code is something that he's not familiar with), but he does think it's cool that he got paid to watch Mission Control launch Atlantis.

Yesterday, my friend, BB, and I went to Hockey 'n' Heels, a Caps event for women. It was awesome! We got to go out on the Caps' practice ice with some players and try to score a goal, win a faceoff, and learn stickhandling. Then, we got to try on some equipment (pads and gloves and helmets, oh my), we spoke to 2 TV analysts, then we got time with Bruuuuce "Gabby" Boudreau, the head coach, who taught us about prescouting teams with game films. Will show pics as soon as BB sends them to me.

I'll be cooking and freezing some detox-allowed food for Thanksgiving this weekend. I'm planning to make: quinoa with dried fruits and nuts, whipped/mashed sweet potatoes with pumpkin and a butternut squash-brown rice pasta bake. I'll let you know how those turn out and provide recipes after the weekend.

In TTC news, I'm just waiting around for the ovulation thang, so we can get going with IUI #4, also known as There's No Place Like Nausea-town for the Holidays.

WFMW - Evaluating

At the end of every year, most people take stock -- of their lives, their families and themselves. Have you done that with your blog?


This year, there is a new tool to help you take stock of your blog, assess your best posts of 2009, and meet new bloggers. The Golden Haiku is hosted by Mel of Stirrup Queens. Every blogger from every corner of the blogosphere can join and should!


As Mel writes, "we all have a best post tucked into our archives. We all have words that have moved another person or have ideas that have kicked off a series of musings. Bloggers are writers and all of us deserve to be celebrated."


For more information and to sign up, please visit Mel's introductory post here.

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For those whose blogs deal specifically with adoption, infant loss and/or infertility, you can also sign up for the Creme de la Creme, a similar blog carnival just for the ALI community.

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This post is part of the Works for Me Wednesday blog carnival every Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

Yoga for Fertility Retreat - DC Area

Hi all! Just wanted to put in a plug for a Yoga for Fertility Retreat taught by my yoga teacher!
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Join us for this day long retreat into the healing power of Yoga for Fertility...
Yoga for Fertility Retreat
Sunday, December 6th 8 AM-4 PM
Pulling Down the Moon -- Rockville, MD

Join Pulling Down the Moon Instructor Sara Shelley for a day long retreat exploring the healing power of yoga for fertility. At this unique event you will learn the program that literally thousands of women have used to help them get pregnant since 2002. At this retreat you will learn:

Asana - a specific yoga posture practice to increase blood flow, reduce tension and detoxify body tissues.

Pranayama - yoga breathing techniques to manage stress and improve the overall vitality of your body and mind.

Meditation - an in-depth exploration of the "yoga way" of coping with negative thoughts and emotions.

In addition, we will explore teachings from yoga philosophy that will help you frame the fertility journey in a manner that reveals your personal strengths, reinforces the joy of everyday life and empowers you to create the family you're meant to have. Through this experience you will also join the positive, healing community of Pulling Down the Moon and enjoy the community of the amazing women who use our programs.

PDtM Yoga for Fertility is appropriate for any level, any stage of the fertility journey, during medicated or natural cycles, and is unlike any other yoga experience. Register online or call 301-610-7755 for more information.

**Retreat Participants can take an advantage of a 20% discount for our services (yoga, massage, nutrition, acupuncture), when they schedule their appointment for December 5th or 6th.**

When: Sunday, December 6, 2009. 8 AM - 4 PM

Where: Pulling Down the Moon, 15001 Shady Grove Road, Suite 210, Rockville, MD 20850

Details: $150 covers the cost of the one-day workshop, a light lunch, and PDtM's DVD Yoga Practices for Fertility.
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If interested, please sign up and please tell your fellow IF sisters about the retreat!!

Day of Detox

To follow up on yesterday's post, I thought I'd give an example of a typical day on my detox diet.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with rice milk and berries

Mid-Morning: Detox shake; Clementine

Lunch: Quinoa-Vegetable Soup & rice crackers and Superfruit shake

Teatime: Detox shake; Apple

Dinner: Pecan-crusted chicken breast with brown rice mix and broccoli

It is entirely do-able, but requires planning. The only problem I've had has been in getting off caffeine. I had some bad migraines the first two days, but only had a light headache yesterday afternoon.

It's also hard thinking about having to do this over Thanksgiving. Yet, there will always be a reason not to do this, so I've just gotta do it now. For Thanksgiving, I will be making a quinoa and dried fruits dish to have in place of stuffing (my favorite food, waa!) and my mom is going to give me some stuffing to freeze that I can have once I'm off the detox. I'm also going to try and see about making some mashed potatoes, dessert and maybe, bread that I can eat as well.

In Which I Drink Chalky Liquids

For the past couple of months, my weight has been yo-yo'ing up and down -- I gain a lot during the 2WW and then have to lose it all before the next cycle. In order to get past that, I'm going to try something new. Well, I've done it before, but this time it's sort of different.

Anyways, remember how I started seeing a nutritionist for fertility and did a detox diet and lost about 25 pounds earlier of this year? Well, my nutritionist moved and I had completed the detox and then I started cycling, so I was just eating like normal (normal for me, not normal for average humans). Guess what? I gained weight. duh. Then, we got pregnant, had a miscarriage, waited to cycle again, yada, yada, yada. I went low carb for the few weeks before the next IUI, then would gain the wait back, then lose, etc., etc.

So, I'm trying to get off that train. There's a new nutritionist in town (read: my integrative care for fertility place) and I'm starting a new and improved, fertility-friendly detox with her. "Fertility-friendly" in that you can be on this while cycling, even while pregnant.

It's a lot of cutting out of bad foods and incorporating good foods and drinking supplements and downing vitamins.

What I'm On:
-My standard happy pills (1/day)
-Prenatals (6 horse pills/day)
-Vitamin D (2/day)
-Probiotics (1/day)
-Chalky Liquid shake #1 (Nutritional Support for Healthy Body Composition) (2/day)
-Chalky Liquid shake #2 (Organic Superfruits and Greens dietary supplement) (1/day)

Food I Can Eat:
-All fruits and vegetables
-All beans and legumes (except soy)
-Rice, oats, quinoa, amaranth, teff, buckwheat
-Lean proteins (chicken, fish, lamb, turkey, small amounts of lean red meat)
-Healthy oils (olive, flaxseed, sesame, almond, pumpkin, etc.)
-Condiments (vegetable salt, sea salt, vinegar, tamari, herbs & spices, brown rice syrup, fruit sweetener, stevia, limited amounts of honey)
-Herbal tea, non-caffeinated tea, green tea
-Water, unsweetened juice

Foods I Am Not Eating:
-Caffeine
-Sugar
-Wheat & Gluten
-Dairy
-Eggs
-Beef
-Soy
-Standard Bad Foods (anything fried, processed or fried & processed)