The Low Acid Diet: Day 1

As anyone who reads this knows, I really like to eat. You also probably know that my choices of what I like to eat are many times not the healthy choice. I eat fast, I eat a lot, and I eat mostly junk. My diet can be somewhat compared to the Gilmore's diet. I was blessed with the Honchar High Metabolism, so I don't easily gain weight. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

In the meantime, most of you also know I developed acid reflux when I was in high school. No shock there, when you look at my eating habits. I take medicine to keep it under control, but lately it hasn't really been under control. I had an endoscopy done, and the doc didn't find anything too concerning, which is good news. Regardless, I still get reflux at least 3 times per week even with treatment. The doctor gave me a diet to follow, but I sort of ignored it.

Basically the low-acid diet means avoiding tomato-based products, caffeine, carbonated beverages, anything with citric acid, alcohol, and ....chocolate. Also, you are supposed to eat several smaller meals per day, and not eat within 3 hours of bedtime. I already don't drink pop, alcohol, or caffeine, so that's not a problem. I'm most concerned about the chocolate part. A few months ago I announced to everyone in my office I was giving up chocolate. I made it ONE day.

Yesterday I finally decided I was going to take on the low-acid diet challenge. Today I ate a yogurt for breakfast (this was the first time I've eaten breakfast in a long time), rice and vegetables for lunch, and pasta, bread, and an apple for dinner. I know its not quite the daily servings for fruits and vegetables, but its certainly better. Alas, no reflux tonight! So I would call Day 1 a success.

Why did I blog about this? Because I thought if I announced to the world I was going to try the low-acid diet for 2 week, I might actually see it through. I've tried this before, and only made it about a week before just giving in.

Neville's Foot

A couple months ago I was carrying some clothes and dropped them on the floor. All of the sudden, I hear painful cries coming from Neville. He stopped, cried, and limped around like he was in so much pain. The next morning, he was fine.

About a month later, I dropped some sheets on the floor. Same thing happened again. He was totally fine the next morning, but that night, you would have thought he broke his foot.

Since then, every now and then he develops a limp. Once he tried to jump in the window when it wasn't open, and then limped around for a little bit before going over and playing again.

Thursday night we found the ironing board on the floor in the basement, and a limping cat. He looked to be in pretty bad shape. I asked him if he wanted a "treat", and magically his foot was cured and he walked just fine. After the treat, he limped for awhile again before playing with his toys really hard for a good 10 minutes.

Tonight again, he started limping again. Yet if I mention the prospect of food, he is suddenly just fine again. If I throw his toy, he can run with no problem to go get it.

So I'm totally perplexed by this behavior. Is this a real or phantom pain? When he was young, did someone make a loud noise and he somehow hurt his foot, so now when something startles him he thinks his foot hurts? He was declawed, so his foot might actually hurt him. He usually sits and licks it obsessively when he's limping. Part of me thinks I should take him to the vet, but I think if something was really wrong with him he would be limping in all situations.


In the meantime, a fire truck just went by. This is a big deal in a town of 1000. I went outside and found all of the neighbors also standing outside trying to find out where the fire truck went. Everyone was yelling across porches. I found it quite humorous.

I also decided I am going to finish the paper. Yea!

Till next time.

Catch-Up Time/Frustrations

This weekend we FINALLY had a weekend at home with nothing planned. This was huge for us. We were only home 4 weekends this whole summer, and I think only 2 of those we had no plans.

This weekend was a great time for R&R, and also some catch up. Friday night we went to HuHot, which is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant. Seriously, all you can eat stir fry, customized by you? It's really awesome. Saturday we cleaned the house and got groceries. That night we had Panera and rented Adventureland. It wasn't a very good movie. I had a Blockbuster gift card from a few years ago, so I used the last of it on the movie. I then decided that $4.99 to keep a movie for 2 days is a waste of money and finally signed up for Netflix.

Today was my catch up day for work stuff. On Tuesday of this past week, I finally taught the "Improving Online Communication" session. I had a breakthrough before Labor Day and decided to use our online course evals as data. I analyzed them for comments related to "Communication" and then placed in specific categories. From there I made several suggestions for improving communication within those categories, both from research and just things I've picked up from my job. It was very prelimary, but gave me something to work with. I was so pumped that I thought, maybe I should apply for a doctoral program in education. I realized I actually really enjoy studying communication in online courses, and I think there is a lot of potential for other areas of research. Most importantly, I did this all myself. I had the motivation to work on this myself, and I didn't have an advisor or mentor to help. That told me that maybe I really could do this EdD/PhD thing...

Today, I attempted to sit down and actually write up the paper that I will submit to Central States. Ugh. Now I remember why I DIDN'T go on to UWM last year. I really hate writing research papers! The lit review went ok, but I feel like there is so much research I haven't found yet, that it could take me another year before I could find it all. My method section was a train wreck. I know what I did, and its a loose form of Content Analysis, but its not really an official "published" method. I wasn't even sure how to phrase my method. For those readers not familiar with the academic world, most critiques of research come from methods. I could just imagine presenting my paper at a conference and everyone laughing at me about how my method was so flawed. That's what we did in grad school classes - critiqued methods.

Granted, this is a much more qualitative piece, and my background is in Quantitative methods. So naturally, I'm trying to write it as if its a quant. piece. Perhaps I'm way overthinking this, and maybe I can just organize it as an inductive piece. But then, since I know nothing about how to actually do qualitative methods, all the qualitative people will laugh at me. Or, my paper will just be rejected all together. The parts of my study that REALLY matter is the results and discussion anyway. That part I already have outlined, and those are the communication tips and tricks for online instructors. Overall, I just got a bit overwhelmed and just quit working on it. I'm not exactly even sure if its worth picking up again. I have no incentive for finishing it or presenting it, this was completely my thing. If it's going to cause stress and frustration, is it really worth it?

Then I thought that maybe the doctoral degree wasn't for me after all...the same conclusion I came to in April 2008 when we decided to move to Iowa instead of Milwaukee. I don't like how research has so many rules. I would rather read and do stuff like I did on Tuesday for fun, without having to conform to specific rules so I can present at a conference or be published.

So now I'm going to put the paper on hold for another week and continue doing stuff I LOVE to do...building and developing my online computer and communication courses. I'm so close to being done with computers. Everytime I think I'm done, I think of something else cool that I can do. Strangely enough though, I never get bored or frustrated with it.

So this entry contained a lot of frustration vents, and most of you probably have no idea what I'm talking about and think I'm crazy. If you are still reading, you deserve a cookie. Go get one now...

Back to working on the office next weekend. We are going to paint it blue and the plan is to add a bunch of shelving on the walls.

We did buy some stuff for the dining room from Yankee. They had a whole section of holders and accessories devoted to wine. We bought a plate and two tea light holders. I would like to show pics, but the Yankee Candle website doesn't have them. Must be store only.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Back to School!

The fall semester started on Monday. My first week went very well. This is the first time I have taught 5 days a week, and also multiple classes in a semester. I was afraid of feeling a bit overwhelmed after the first week, but I surprising don't - instead I'm highly motivated and pumped up. A couple notes of new things that worked this week:

• Spent a good 30 minutes discussing email etiquette in Intro to Computers. This was an excellent idea.


• Minimizing lecture on the basics and having a full out discussion. Wrapping class up with a mini 10 minute lecture. I liked this format, and the students seemed more engaged.


• Make email policy clear on the first day: I will not answer emails after 10:00 on weeknights, and rarely on weekends. This makes teaching a day and weekday job, not a 24/7 job.


• Clearly describe the objectives and how we will meet them each semester.


• Establish classroom norms.

In other news, to celebrate a good first week, I bought some new pants. I LOVE the Express editor pants, but they are just too expensive. I went to Express yesterday, tried on probably around 30 pairs of pants, and then decided on the wide waistband in gray and a light pinstripe. I liked the regular editors, but they just didn't want to fit quite right - either they were too short, too long, too tight, or too loose. They needed 1/2 sizes in pants I think.

I did finish taking off the wallpaper in the office. I haven't done anything since. I'm decided if I want to paint the bottom half blue and leave the top half white while adding some sort of wood divider, or all blue. I appreciate any reader suggestions. The room is a huge mess right now because everything is piled in the center of the room.

I'm currently working on researching computer mediated communication in relation to online courses. I've compiled several articles and books. The reading part is fun. This week I'm moving into the more unfun part: organizing information into presentational and paper form. I'm presenting this as a training session on September 8, and hope to submit to Central States to present in April also.

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to blog about next week.

School's Eve

The Fall semester starts tomorrow. Coming in to the weekend, I felt completely unorganized and unprepared, but after spending some time looking over materials, I realized I'm in much better shape than I thought. This semester I'm teaching Public Speaking M,W,& F, and KTS Intro to Computers on T & Th. I have 70 students registered for computers. I also have a late start online computers course that will start in October. One good thing is that I taught both of these classes this summer, so everything is fresh on my mind.

This afternoon I decided to start the next big house project: The office. It is painted white and purple, with a pink and purple flower border in the middle:

I started by removing the wallpaper. I actually finished about half before breaking for dinner. I'm not sure if I'll finish it all tonight or not. Next step will be spackling and then priming over the purple. I have some nice light blue paint we bought for the stairway and decided not to use that I will use for the office. Then, I can start putting my cat and viking decorations up on the wall.

I came downstairs and found Neville playing with a big black & blue wasp. Luckily, I don't think it stung him. Chance fought with the wasp for awhile, but the wasp really didn't want to die. Eventually, we got him. Now the window is dirty full of wasp spray.

UPDATE: 9:00PM. I finished removing the wallpaper on all but a portion of one wall - the one over the computer I'm typing on now. I found the easiest way is to peel off the top layer and then use the spray. It's going a lot quicker than expected. Photos to come...

Before and After

We have a Honchar gathering this coming weekend, so I wanted to take some pics of the house to show all the relatives. While going through the pics I took today and some of the older pics, I can't believe the progress we've made in 4 months. Two areas to highlight: The basement and the backyard. The first yard photo was beginning of April 2009. The other photo was taken today (Sorry the pics aren't aligned. I coded the HTML but I've been having some bad luck with that lately...)

Now take a look at the basement. The first one was taken April 5, 2009. The second one was taken today:

2.5 months later...

I haven't posted for 2 1/2 months, but there is a reason....I haven't done any house projects to post about and I've been super busy. My summer's been crazy with my job, teaching 2 classes, and developing 2 classes. We've been travelling almost every weekend, mostly back to Illinois for different events. We did take a short weekend trip to the Mall of America for our anniversary.

Chance has done a lot of work on his sports bar basement. He put some shelving along the edge of the wall and is currently painting them Cubs blue. I'll post pictures when he is done.

Lindsay came and redecorated the living room and bathroom. She made a country bath theme and the living room is European. The living room is still a work in progress. We need to get her out here for about 2 weeks and use her interior decorating skills.

The lawn is finally looking like a lawn. We hired Tru-Green to come out because we weren't home enough this summer to work at the lawn. Finally, the weeds are gone and the dead patches are filled in. We did fill the sandbox area in with soil and planted some grass seed. Grass is starting to grow there too.

The paper wasps are gone too. I never found the nest...

Paper Wasps and a first attempt at landscaping

I meant to create an entry just dedicated to paper wasps, but now I have more to talk about besides just insects. I also mulched and planted a few flowers. I have lots of pictures this time.

First, the wasps:

I did some research on the internet and found the wasps that chill on our deck are Paper Wasps, and they are eating parts of our deck to make nests. For Sara, these ARE the wasps with the hangy-legs.

But that's not the only place I've found them...The other day I went to fill the car with gas, opened up the door to the tank, and there was a wasp. I about shut the tank door and drove off, but it was raining out so I knew he would be helpless. I beat the area around the tank with the windshield cleaner thing so somehow I must have drowned it. I never did find him, but he doesn't appear to be on the gas tank anymore.

Anyway, so how do we get rid of these beasts? Well, everything that I've found has said you have to get rid of the nest. We have yet to find a nest anywhere around the house, so I have no idea where they are coming from. I'm hoping after we power wash and seal the deck, the wasps won't be able to eat it anymore so they will go away. The other remedy that I read about was using peppermint oil. I'll have to try that, too.

Next, landscaping:

For Mother's Day weekend, we both went home and spent the day with our respective mothers. Mom and I went out to several stores, and got some flowers and mulch. I helped mom plant a couple geraniums, daisies, and a lily. We also put down the red mulch around the house.

Mom bought me some mulch (I chose cypress, but it took a really long time for me to decide), an orange lily, a day lily, and a pot of white geraniums. I put the pot out front and planted the lilies. I did have to rip up some of the landscape lining to get to the soil out front. I put the mulch down in the front planter outside the window, and it blended very nicely. I started to put it down in front of the porch, and it realized it was much lighter than what was already down. I put down the 3 bags, and when I stepped back, I couldn't believe how much it brightened the front of the house. Take a look at some pictures: The first shows the planter with the lily, the second is in front of the porch. Notice the Day Lily planted in the left-hand corner.

A blog entry wouldn't be complete without a Neville story. Neville was by himself for the first time this weekend. When we returned, he had thrown up in the living room and ate very little all weekend. He didn't leave my side the whole night. When we went to bed, he came up, but around 1:30 he decided to meow and wanted playtime. Well, in the past we would just kick him out when he gets playful at night, so last night wasn't any different. Usually, he comes downstairs and we don't see him until morning...but not last night. After we kicked him out, he stood outside our door, howled, and pawed on the door. Because I didn't want to give in, I let him cry, but after an hour of it I knew neither of us would get any sleep if we let him continue. So at 2:30AM, I crawled into my old twin bed in the guest bedroom, played with Neville, and let him cuddle with me. He did eventually fall back asleep, and left on his own at 5:00AM. I usually get up at 6:00, so I had an hour to sleep. He was back outside the door at 6:00 looking for food.

So the bottom line of the Neville story: He still has separation anxiety. He acted like he was attached to me when we first brought him home, but then he got over it and started to become more independent. I guess when we left for the weekend, he thought we (when I say "we" I really mean "I" because he doesn't really care whether Chance is here or not) were never coming home. Not sure if in the future we will be able to leave him or have someone come in on Saturday to feed him and give him some attention. I hope this separation anxiety doesn't last too long!

Mulch

Yesterday I went to go get mulch from Walmart and paid for regular brown mulch. Who knew there were so many different kinds of mulch to choose from? When I went to pick it up outside, they were actually sold out of brown and all they had left was black and red. I went ahead and got the red because I didn't really think it made much of a difference.

Now I'm having second thoughts...

I'm afraid the red mulch will really stand out. The house is tan and brown in color, so the brown mulch the previous owner had out front blended in well. I know ma uses red mulch because I've helped her mulch the front and side before, but my parents have part brick on their house so the red matches a bit better.

The picture below shows the front of the house (before we moved in obviously, notice the Packer sign in the front yard). You can hardly see the brown mulch because it blended in so well. I'm talking about the part behind the birdbath in the photo, right in front of the porch (I know its hard to see, but that's my point exactly).



I'll probably stew about this for a couple of more days and then eventually decide just to go for the red mulch or return it to walmart and find brown mulch at Menards. Suggestions anyone??

Finally...a nice weekend!

Both Saturday and Sunday were sunny with highs in the upper 60s...so it was beautiful weather - for starting yardwork!

Saturday I sat out on the deck for a few minutes, but found that the hangy-leg wasps also enjoy the deck wood. I would kill one, and another one would fly in. That made me uncomfortable knowing they were around, so my outside sun time was short-lived. I know we need to wash and seal the deck, but I doubt that will stop the wasps. I thought maybe we could seal with wasp-spray too.

The rest of Saturday was spent catching up on grading. I am now caught up so I can cross that part off of the list...for now! Zach was visiting us from DeKalb so we went to the Kernals vs. Peoria Chiefs baseball game Saturday night. I actually enjoyed myself. It was nice to be outside and eat ballpark food.

Sunday we took down the swingset that the seller's left us. Now it will be much easier to mow the backyard. We also had the tire-sandbox, so I cleaned all of the sand out from inside the tire and we moved the tire into the shed. Now we just have a pile of sand in the middle of the backyard. What do we do with that?

I also start raking out the leaves and pulling weeds from the front yard area. I really should have taken more before-pictures. This is the area in front of the front porch. There was some old mulch down, but mostly it was all covered in leaves and sticks. I raked out the whole front and the side. I filled 5 bags full of leaves and sticks. Next, I'll need to get some new mulch to put down. Then I'll move to the rest of the front and side yard, which has more weeds than grass.

Neville was naughty tonight and tried to jump up the dining room table as soon as I put dinner down. I was standing right next to the table- and he knows he isn't supposed to go up there. I picked him and put him down, yelled, and used the water sprayer. He ran into the living room and sat on the floor facing the opposite direction from us for the next half hour. He would not respond to his name. He's been on my lap for the past 3 hours so I think he's over it. I thought it was funny he responded to punishment like a child.

We are heading back to IL next weekend for Mother's Day. We will need to leave Neville here by himself (though I'm not opposed to bringing him back and living in my room with me for the weekend). I'm a bit nervous about leaving him by himself since this is all still new for him and he is so hungry for attention. I don't really want to ask anyone to come look in on him because anyone who I would trust to give a key to the house would have to make a 10 mile + trip out here.

This week will be spent finishing up end of semester activities, and more prep for summer. House projects for the week include mulching and hopefully getting some hanging baskets for the front porch.