Cookies

Drew has been cooking up a storm lately. I went to Montreat this past weekend with women from my church and while I was away he made his special "Long-cakes," which are very delicious pancakes. He also made himself a small vat of chili this weekend, two pumpkin pies a couple weeks ago, and my favorite was the incredibly delicious chicken pot pie he made from scratch to serve me for dinner when I returned from my mountain retreat.

Tuesday night he decided he needed to make cookies. I'm sure I don't understand what a blessing I have, but I have been having to tell him not to bake more than one item a week.. and he has been begging to make these particular cookies for a while. Maybe it is the holiday season that brings out his desire to bake or he just inherited his mother's exceptional culinary abilities and needs to use them when he has free time. Whatever the reason, the result this week was Lentil Cookies. Yes...there were lentils in the cookies. I honestly enjoy them. We have shared them with others [including children] who all enjoy them. They just have a terrible name for a cookie. He coated them with sugar and some with cinnamon this time so they are sweeter than you might think and even packed with protein, but really.. lentil cookies? I tried to sell that to a 3 year old yesterday. No dice. Want a cookie with sugar on it? Yeah, that worked a few seconds later. If you have any ideas for a better cookie name or for what Drew should make next, feel free to let us know.

K

Good Service and Good Pasta

We finally tried the fresh pasta store. Oh my. I have attempted to go back every day since, but have only gotten away with it once. We got some chicken ravioli and a nice marinara sauce as well as some pumpkin ravioli. Yes that's right Pumpkin. I'm not usually swayed by decor but the place has the feel of an old world market. (no I haven't been to the old world, but I'm sure the markets are like this) The best part was the two employees we were helped by. I haven't been to a store where the people were so genuinely helpful in a very long time. I'm talking way beyond Trader Joe's kind of helpful. I didn't know there were people this passionate about pasta.
Anyway the stuff we got was nothing short of amazing and now I'm hooked for good. If you want good Italian food in Charlotte skip the restaurant (and I do Love Frankie's) and head to Pasta and Provisions on Providence Rd. You'll be glad you did.

D

One more video

Thanks to a rather humorous email from our church featuring one of our pastors and two guys promoting man's night with fake mustaches and fake beer guts I found myself once again on YouTube. I did a quick search for any new relevant videos that might be helpful to explain why I don't do much any more and I found one that is pretty good. Again not perfect.. a little dry, but the story is somewhat similar to mine. Hope it proves to be informative. Click here to watch video.
My favorite videos are still these by Chronically Kyli, Part 1 and Part 2.

K

Digory's haircut

Unfortunately my dizziness [& headaches] returned Sunday afternoon and I'm back on the couch for a while, sleeping a lot and Drew is real busy working and taking care of me and the house. So, since we aren't all that interesting at the moment I will share something that is always a source of humor in our home... Digory dog. Here are the photos I've promised of the little guy's first haircut since he's been in our family. Clearly it was about time. .. he was starting to run into things.
I wasn't sure I was getting the right dog at the groomer, but he seemed to like me and they told me he was mine. So I took him home and he pouted a great deal that day as you can see in the photo, but he is now quite content to be short haired. It seems to give him an extra excuse to snuggle up on cold.. or not so cold days.

Digory has also decided that he likes my spot on the couch now that he has a fancy new haircut. Maybe my seat is warm. Every single time I get up, he takes my spot. Here is looking especially adorable as a seat-thief.

Drew and I like our slightly hairless dog, but we must admit we are looking forward to the day when he is our scruffy, scraggly, little Diggy again.

K

Updates on our life

To catch you up on our lives here I will say that things are going rather well. Drew is adjusted to his job and can finally access his schedule on his computer at work and will now know ahead of time [couple weeks or so] when he has days off. He also used for the first time that illusive thing called 'vacation' days which was exciting... for our bank account. He was able to use a week of paid comp-time and a couple vacation days to work a week for his last company on a show in Ohio and be paid twice. He was missed by me and Digory. On one of his recent trips he even got to hear Teller from 'Penn & Teller' speak. I didn't realize this was cool until he told me that Teller is the one that never ever ever says a word. Pretty nifty. Maybe Drew will elaborate when he has more time for blogging.
As for me, I have been somewhat officially diagnosed with a chronic illness, but my doctor [who really is great] isn't 100% sure it is chronic, but pretty sure. Good news, my current treatment is working well and for the first time in forever I left the doctors office today with no new prescriptions! So, we will stay with life as is for a couple months and then reevaluate. I have also been getting out of the house more this past month [thanks to the new treatment] and have made a couple of friends in my neighborhood and even started attending a second bible study with some women from our church. I've even driven on a few occasions when I didn't need to get out of the car much.
So there is our update. We are in a busy season. Drew is working hard, but will finally get a weekend Sunday and Monday and I have been doing a lot of reading (scriptures and medical research) when I can and walking Digory.

K

We are nerds

The real title of this post should be I'm a nerd because officially Drew doesn't like this chair. He thinks it is impractical. I suppose part of me agrees that I would be scared I might spill a drink on my books or that I would lean back and hit my head or the fact that this is incredibly heavy & a bit on the expensive side. Beyond that... doesn't it just make the bookworm inside of you drool with desire of how close you could snuggle up to your books? Aaah. The thought just makes me feel like a warm fire and a cozy sweatshirt-blanket have just been put before me. Ooh, some hot chocolate would go well with this fantasy.

K

The Office weigh-in

Did anyone catch the season premiere of the Office? It was pure comic genious. If you missed it, please do yourself a favor and watch it online on NBC.com. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it [or finished all but the last 15 minutes.. Drew, you are really putting a strain on communication in our marriage. please, finish it.] The episode was all about weight loss as an office and essentially that meant adopting a healthy lifestyle, but really the focus was on the pounds. Each person had some 'great' strategies for trying to shed the pounds.
As one of about five women in the US who wants to gain weight I am trying to brainstorm the opposite problem... how to put the pounds on. It's harder than it seems, well at least to do it in a way that is healthy, i.e. not just eating junk food. If anyone has any tips on how to gain weight feel free to pass them along. Otherwise, just don't hate me for asking and watch the Office for a good laugh to forget I even mentioned it.

K

Our Neighbor Skip

Digory and I made a new friend.. well, technically we made two. Skip and his dog Blue. Skip lives down the street and rules the neighborhood from his red truck or preferably from his riding lawn mower, which he frequently rides up and down our busy street. In either vehicle he prefers to be sans shirt and is accompanied by his shepherd mix dog with one blue eye. Blue walks leashed beside the mower proudly and Skip waves at everyone he sees. I wave too if I'm outside. It's a one-man, one-dog parade. He's probably in his sixties, retired and is extremely hospitable, honest, and kind. I have yet to meet his wife, but from the praises he speaks of her I am looking forward to it.

Blue and Digory are officially best friends. Really, while I've tried to get Digs to befriend my friends' dogs he just hasn't quite bonded as quickly to them as he has to Blue. He and Blue are both boys and about the same age and they run and chase each other and just have a grand 'ol time. Some days I walk by Skip's house and he is sitting out front with Blue and Digory drags me across to play. Skip pulls up a chair and we talk about dogs, birds, churches, and of course the neighborhood. Skip really does rule the neighborhood in my opinion because he seems to know everyone and everyone knows him. He's a great resource. I now know the ethnicity of most of my neighbors. I also know that one of my neighbors has a temper and I should be careful of upsetting him. I learned not to pet a certain neighborhood dog because it bit Skip on the hand and there used to be chickens and roosters living across from Skip, but someone complained [not Skip] and they're gone now. Oh, and I also learned that souring milk isn't bad for dogs to drink... Skip had some out for Blue and Digory decided it was his. That was fine except Digory is very furry and food tends to stick around his face. You probably see where I'm going with this...

So, after a lovely visit with Skip yesterday I saw a hummingbird, some swallows, learned a lot, and I left with a tired dog, four very muddy paws, and a very sour smelling dog in desperate need of a bath.

K

Movies!

My latest hobby has been making myself dizzy while doing internet research on POTS. It is loads of fun as long as I don't have to get up afterwards. I may have even found a specialist in North Carolina today, but I have some phone calls to make to see if it is accepting of our insurance. So yippy skippy.

If you feel inclined to watch, this two-part video gives a pretty good description of my current life. If you want to understand me better, this is a short [approx. 10 minute] way to understand more about what I have so much trouble explaining. I didn't make them, but I'm glad "chronicallyKyli" did.

Part 1
Part 2

K

Mystery solved??

Maybe this will be the last 'medical' post for a while and we can get back to posting about more interesting things, like Drew's new job or our cute little dog. But, for now, since I don't want to explain what my doctor said several times over the phone because I am still napping a lot.. here goes. I have POTS. No, they, aren't just on the cool pot rack Drew built me for Christmas last year..

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome plus vestibular migraines. So, I was already being treated for the migraines, which can cause dizziness, but the POTS explains my low blood pressure, fatigue, inability to walk straight, and it also explains the randomness of the episodes. Well, that's the hope at least. I was told I had this a couple years ago, but then told maybe I don't, and once the migraines were treated it seemed a little clearer that I do have it. So I guess that makes me a winner. My prize? A new prescription AND just because I was so patient (pun intented), I also got a prescription for thigh high medical support hose. It is supposed to keep blood from pooling in my legs and help it flow to important places like my brain so I don't pass out. Fun. Feel free to google it yourself or check here for more info on POTS http://www.potsplace.com

I am really thankful that we are starting to get some answers and hopeful that this new treatment for POTS will work better than the last one I tried a couple years ago. My current doctor seems much more educated on POTS and willing to try the latest treatments for it. So, we will just continue to pray that I will be back to normal soon. Then I can stop posting about napping and start writing about looking for a job.

K