Korranation Raids All The Kitchens

[Korranation]

Looks like I’m back again!

A big shout out to whoever posted to the Texas rebel Facebook group about the challenge.

I’m wanting to catch up with the community here and share shenanigans that happened while I was away.

For those of you who don’t know me… Hi I’m Korranation and my life is kinda crazy

 [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PhiYI5GGZA[/video]

Sorry for those of you on tapatalk. The hidden feature doesn’t work and yall are subjugated to a wall of text that is my life. I’ll sprinkle in some pics and illustrations for some pizazz.

 

The last challenge I was writing about had something to do with creating a and maintaining fictitious animal crossing village seen only via text-based story. And honestly, I was using that as a means of escapism to distract myself from my job at the time.

A few weeks after my last post I went to the doctor’s office for a checkup. I was diagnosed with a chronic disease.

Spoiler

It’s an autoimmune disorder called hashimoto. Which roughly translates to base of bridge in English but has little to do with the disease other than it being the name of the person who first discovered it in Japan. No one takes it seriously when I use that term so I use one of the medical terms. I do enjoy the shock when I call it chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis…. Sounds more threatening. But all this mean is that I have a gluten allergy, and if any gets in my system, or there are enough stressors in my environment, it triggers an autoimmune response and my body attacks my thyroid. My symptoms from this have been brain fog, memory laps, anxiety, depression, and weight gain. Golly gee doesn’t that sound swell!

And a few days after my diagnosis I was let go from my job.

Spoiler

Actually, I hit the end of my six-month probation period and my manager decided the productivity issues from my autoimmune disorder was reason enough to not hire me. Which was for the best. The department I was working in had a high turn over rate, the employees were under-paid/over worked/under appreciated, and any who went to HR about a formal complaint were ratted out and faced immediate retaliation.

 

I wallowed around in my apartment for a few months.

Spoiler

I played Kingdom Hearts 3 a few times through, caught up on some anime, and tried to figure out how to deal with this issue I had without medicine. Because I lost my healthcare from my job and it was impossible to sign up with anyone else. When I tried to sign up and speak to representatives on the phone, they’d run me in circles and give me conflicting answers to the same questions on why I couldn’t be under their health insurance.  

After a time of locking myself away in my apartment in self-isolation I decided to get a grave yard shift job so I could get out of the house, have to physically move around, and do something while I listened to audio books.

 

After some more time there, I decided to bust my bum and network my way into a desk job again.

Spoiler

I started going out more on the weekends with my “running” group and asking around. I started cold calling people and reaching out to friends of friends. Eventually, someone saw my resume applied with = for one position and passed it off to a recruiter. From there I worked with the HR department of the contractors that were trying to get me in and I passed my interview with flying colors.

 

Now I have a job with less of a commute time and a great working environment.

 

Spoiler

My lease was coming up and I had issues with the lower income housing/apartments in the area with their shenanigans, so I put in my 60 days in and found a better place closer to work. There’s a tiny dog park, the amenities are much better, the kitchen is bigger, the complex is younger than my previous one and up to code, there are no ant problems, only one neighboring apartment complex (which is the more expensive sister location), and there are plenty of restaurants within walking distance.

11

 

My life has hit a good plateau right now and I feel like I have enough time to be posting regularly here. I’ve finally healed my body and gotten rid of my toxic head space.

 

I want to focus on healing up and prepping my body for the onslaught that is the holiday festive foods. I want to make sure my tummy is all good this challenge, then start reintroducing foods into my diet next challenge. I know you’re thinking “But Korranation, haven’t you been on AIP so your symptoms wouldn’t come back?” And my answer is why yes of course I did. But then just like everything else, I fell off the bandwagon. I did start small with things like rice, then potatoes, then dairy which I can do in small doses. You can’t keep this rebel away from her prized sea salt and vinegar chips!

 

RAID ALL THE KITCHENS CHALLENGE

 

 

 

Water – drink X amount of water

I usually don’t drink much water at work and don’t until towards the end of day where I end up chugging +32oz in one go either because my legs are cramping, my saliva is getting foamy (which means dehydration), or I’m feeling hungry after I’ve eaten but I only want bad foods.

 

Food – try new AIP recipes and post them here

I meal prep all the time. I have morning smoothies every day. Which is kale, coconut water, avocado, banana, and collagen peptide protein. I don’t want to give myself a certain number to do each week or challenge since I can make enough food to last me the entire challenge in one meal prep session.

 

Tracking – log in all food into MFP

I need to start logging things into the app anyways. I know if I don’t hit a certain calorie amount at lunch or have a snack buffer to fill that deficient, I’ll end up binging when I get home or go to the snack shack at work and get either caramel popcorn or gummies which has no nutritional value and causes a later crash. I want to use this time to find more nutrient dense foods and snacks that I can always go to.

I may invest in the MFP premium since I’ve been wanting a more in-depth look into nutrients other than the macros (protein/carbs/fats)

 

Lifestyle – Stoic evening routine

I found a video going in-depth about stoic methods important people in history tried. Plus I found a free pdf copy of Marcus Aurelius’ journal called Meditations. It was his private journal that was never meant to be read. But I want to see what the most powerful person in that time period worried about. From the summaries I’ve read it seems to be no different that the morning pages I do.

 

I’d love to do other things like:

 

•  doing a morning stoic routine so I can clear out the flotsam and jetsam in my mind to be ready to have a focused and more productive day
• writing every day so I can be done in time for the end of NaNoWriMo
• maintaining my L.inked.In everyday in hopes of finding a recruiter to move me to a full time employee position so I can get some healthcare
• having an overall evening apartment clean up routine so I have less mess to walk through and deal with
• And start a garden on my patio so I can have home grown veggies I can enjoy

 

But all this is less interesting to discuss on here, it’s mainly maintenance that will not lead to a big reward at the end of this challenge (excluding the professional social media one).

 

Anyways...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, Korranation said:

A big shout out to whoever posted to the Texas rebel Facebook group about the challenge.

[Terah]

Wow, you really got your life together! Congrats on the job and new appartement!

As for AIP: one of my favorite youtubers is following the AIP protocol since a few months and has celiac disease and shows what she eats. You can find her under the name "missfitandnerdy". Maybe that'll give you some inspiration

[Korranation]

13 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

 

9 hours ago, Terah said:

Wow, you really got your life together! Congrats on the job and new appartement!

As for AIP: one of my favorite youtubers is following the AIP protocol since a few months and has celiac disease and shows what she eats. You can find her under the name "missfitandnerdy". Maybe that'll give you some inspiration

Thanks

I'll have to look into this youtuber. I always love a good food rabbit hole.... or hobbit hole

 

 

 

[JuiceeTarget]

Oooooo... I am fully on the stoicism bandwagon myself. It looks like you already have a good handle on it given how you've turned your life around for the better.

[Korranation]

On 10/23/2019 at 12:12 PM, GoodDoug said:

Oooooo... I am fully on the stoicism bandwagon myself. It looks like you already have a good handle on it given how you've turned your life around for the better.

Thanks

I've been practicing it longer than I knew what it was.

I just stopped worrying about things as much once I got my thyroid  under control.

Let's see what kind of world I can conquer and havoc I can wreck if I keep going at this pace.

[Korranation]

WEEK 0 MONDAY

My sister came over after work and we caught up and watched Looking for Alaska. I made popcorn on the stove, used coconut oil, and only salted it . That stuff tastes better than the fake butter stuff that comes in a microwavable bag. I also made an AIP recipe for chicken nuggets. The grocery store had a sale on ground chicken breast the weekend before so I bought all of it and froze all the extras in the freezer. They were really good and didn't need any ketchup.

 

WEEK 0 TUESDAY

I ran out of kale for my smoothies, but I still made one for the day. It looked like split pea soup so when I got to work I had to hide it in a disposable coffee cup and drink it that way. I don't my coworkers asking more questions than they have to. They know I'm weird enough as is and it takes a lot of energy to maintain muggle normality.

I can't really remember much of this day. I just recall having a strong sugar craving and having to stop myself from going to the store and buying some dairy free gluten free coconut cookies and cream ice cream pint. By the time I would have made the trip and gotten home it would have been time for bed anyways. I recalled reading an old NF post about a rebel that use to work as someone who picked up boxes, sustained a work injury, put on a lot of weight and losing a lot of muscle mass. He couldn't maintain his quota when he went back to work and was let go. And it was a downward spiral from then. He had gotten rid of the junk food in his house at one point. Then one night he woke up with a sugar craving, drove 50 miles to a store, bought a whole pack of Oreos, ate the entire box in his car in one sitting and cried. Then started his transformation, lost all the weight, and rode off into the sun set I think.

I always think of that story whenever I have cravings and it seems to calm me down. So I wrestled with my dog until bed time, popped some melatonin, hit the hay, read a few pages of the memoir of Alexander Hamilton, and promptly passed out.

 

WEEK 0 WEDNESDAY

When I got to work someone asked when everyone woke up. I said I woke up in the middle of the night at 4AM. Everyone at my table looked at me weird. The same thing happened to them. The coworker admitted that he had asked others about this and they had admitted to the thing. Maybe it was a glitch in the matrix. For some reason no one could remeber too much of what happened the previous day and had woken up thinking it was Tuesday. Not sure if there was a glitch in the matrix.

After work I went to a fun restaurant after work and met up with a lot of friends. Any reason for someone coming into town is reason enough to all out and get all the people we can pork together for shenanigans. There were amazing gluten free pork belly tacos. They were expensive, but well worth the price. Only problem was that I started burping real bad. Like I could put any man to shame with the decibels I was belting. If my glasses were made out of glass I'm sure I could have shattered them. I got plenty of high five from everyone, but internally I was really upset. There was something in the tacos that was causing inflammation. And to have a reaction less than a few minutes after eating is a sign of a food sensitivity. And this inflammation could have been a autoimmune trigger.

Regardless I had plenty of fun eating good food and catching up with friends.

I went home late and spent a long time hugging the dog. That lil guy loves his cuddles.

 

 

 

 

[Korranation]

WEEK 0 THURSDAY

 

I should have written this the day of. It's harder to get facts straight even the next day.

Not much happened. Got up, made a smoothie, went to work, had chicken and rice for lunch from the cafe downstairs, came home and had leftover chicken lettuce wraps. I've made enough for give days of dinners, but I know it's not enough food.

 

WEEK 0 FRIDAY

I woke up not in the mood of making a smoothie so I went to work and got some cinnamon chex, vanilla Greek yogurt, and a banana. Oddly enough I didn't get any gas from the yogurt which makes me question if I have a dairy sensitivity or back when I was 100% in the AIP diet my stomach wasn't comfortable with that enzyme. I was exhausted from the previous night. My phone had been pinging incessant flash flood warnings.It rained all night and made enough noise with all it's wind, it's a wonder anyone slept through it. I could see everyone else's tired and defeated look at work.

 

I didn't have any coffee since I didn't want to be tired and jittery. I get the feeling like I'm about to fall asleep, but I'm either having a heart palpitation or my body thinks I should be running from a bear. I got off work early since I worked through most of my lunches for the week. I came straight home and promptlly passed out. I took a nice and long two and a half hour nap. Then it was me time for the rest of the evening. I heated up some letfover chicken lettuce wrap filling for dinner.  Then I went to the store and got some gluten free dairy free ice cream (which I know I shouldn't have) and some sushi. I know the meal I had previously was not enough calories and I really should have tried to make something else instead of giving into sugar cravings.

 

[WolfDreamer]

On 10/22/2019 at 8:57 PM, Korranation said:

Looks like I’m back again!

 

I missed you soooo much! And it's awesome to know you're getting things under control and that your gif game is still on point!

 

 

I'm gonna have to break out the big guns just to feel like I can even hold a candle close to you're gif parties.

 

 

 

Seriously, though, I am really glad to see you back with us, and I am proud of you for the growth you've seen in your life. I look forward to hearing more and seeing how much more you grow through this challenge, as well.

 

And, as always, if I can help in any way just let me know.

[Korranation]

18 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

 

I missed you soooo much! And it's awesome to know you're getting things under control and that your gif game is still on point!

 

 

I'm gonna have to break out the big guns just to feel like I can even hold a candle close to you're gif parties.

 

 

 

Seriously, though, I am really glad to see you back with us, and I am proud of you for the growth you've seen in your life. I look forward to hearing more and seeing how much more you grow through this challenge, as well.

 

And, as always, if I can help in any way just let me know.

It's so good to see you too! and I'm so glad to be back

 

 

I'll hold you to that challenge of the gif parties

 

And I'll be doing my best to crush this challenge and see what life levels I can unlock

 

[Sylvaa]

So glad to see you are back! I'm also glad to see that the job situation seems to be better than it was previously. Here's to new beginnings!

[Korranation]

On 10/28/2019 at 10:19 AM, Sylvaa said:

So glad to see you are back! I'm also glad to see that the job situation seems to be better than it was previously.

Here's to new beginnings!

Cheers to that!!!

[Korranation]

I've been dying to try out my NF D&D lens I've used in the past two story-fy my daily life.

In my last last job I gave a lot of people races/classes based on their personality, physical features, and job position. I think I did this once or twice, but I had a lot of fun doing it. And reading back on it makes it seem like some fictitious thing I made up. I had written it on my phone so it was hard to view everything at once and I didn’t add as much detail towards the end.

Lets see how this Sunday portion of the story goes. I’ll leave in the IRL bullet points in the spoilers. Sorry again to all the tapatalk users since the hidden spoiler item is not available.

 

 

WEEK 0 SATURDAY

I went to family brunch and had a barbacoa plate. Which was just the meat, over easy eggs, refried beans, and some crispy potato cubes. My stepmom was there of course. And naturally she found some way to grill me. But since I don’t live under the same roof as her she doesn’t have as much line of sight previously and has loss her mind flare powers over me.

 

 

Afterwards I ran to goodwill to grab a shirt for a costume. I came home only to find my scissors were too dull to cut cloth, but fine enough for paper. Some construction paper and glue sticks later I had a life size beanie baby tag. I went out with some friends and left one stop early so I could enjoy the end of the dios de los muetros event downtown.

 

 

WEEK 0 SUNDAY

Another lazy Sunday awaited our hero Korranation.

Mornings usually start off with a brisk walk with Naga. They always need excessive walks despite their size. Korra took precautions to avoid other dog walkers and pedestrians. Naga's not a fan of puppies, big dogs, or other boy dogs. But people are Nagga's cup of tea. Only problem was the bark. If people didn’t acknowledge Naga like the kids in the area always do, Naga gets upset and starts barking. It’s not an aggressive one. It’s more along the lines of “Hey! I see you saw me and I really want to say hi, but I’m rather offended that you did not approach me first and are continuing to ignore me.” And most folk don’t like that.

           

After much frolicking our hero returned to their new hobbit hole. This one was much better than the last. No more roaches, no more nosy neighbors, and no more tiny kitchens. Korra enjoyed herself in front of the Dwarven scrying mirror. There were so many fun things to see in it. Everyone seemed to insistently talk about what was new on it and the old visions they love to rewatch. One of the issues with Dwarven magic like this is its addictive properties. Knowing this Korra only watched the new releases for the week before turning to her hand-held scrying glass. These were much more useful and versatile than the larger counterparts that adorned every living quarters. She quickly loaded an app to browse her virtual boards. She added a few cooking spells to her recipe board, rearranged the images to where the successful ones were towards the end and the newer more exciting ones at the beginning of the list. She picked two and curated her list for the market.

 

 

            Going to the marketplace midday was a mistake. A throng of people were there. This meant they were on auto pilot and ornery. Korra made her way through the horticulture district, checking off each plant off the list. This district was dangerous today. Several fighters ran through the area. Lone fighters are usually found in the horticulture district. They plants and medicinal herb here are often used for their concoctions of enhances strength and dexterity.

They steamed ahead with their loot, plowing through innocent bystanders. An diviner was caught in the crossfire of their rampage. They missed the blunt of the blow, but proceeded to yell obscene threats. Their words were garbled and made the surrounding onlookers shirk back. As the crowd dissipated Korra saw a Drawven fastener. These devices aligned a stat to a users taken loot plants for later purchase at the market gates. Korra fastened each item and follow the remaining throng to another district.

 

 

The butchers district was much calmer. It had its usual assortment of exotic meats. Both from sea, land, and air. Patrons kept clear of the land organ meats. Long ago these were sought after for their nutrient rich qualities and powerful stat enhancers. Now they remained ignored. Many have forgetting the long-ago spells that created these enhancers. Those that do remember them dismiss the spells as labor intensive and irrelevant, instead leaning towards convenient meals with the same ingredients irregardless of the debuffs.

 

Korra made her way past the fishermen’s area towards the land meats. She scanned the selections for the needed ingredients for her spells. The incantation called for a cut of white meat from the common fowl, but any bird would do. Then Korra spotted it. A bright yellow fastener was on a bundle of seasonal fowl.

 

This bird would be in high demand a few weeks from now. The throng of patrons flooding this district in sight of this bird. Infighting would ensue. Extra guards hired to prevent thieves from leaving with this valuable item. Casualties outside the marketplace would be great and leaving the area near impossible.

 

But right now, the seasonal fowl was fastened. This cut was a fraction of the price normal fowl would be. Korra quickly made her move and took two pieces, thankful that the surrounding patrons were on autopilot. They did not register anything around them. Land organ meat could hit them across the face and they still not register what happened.

 

Korra continued, venturing into lesser districts. These districts held the cheaper and more sought after items by throngs. Many items had massive debuffs so caution was always advised. No fighter dared be caught venturing too long in these districts lest a debuffed item find its way into their loot. But these districts had to be traverse to get to hero essentials and to the exit gates of the marketplace.

 

Just as Korra saw the light of the exit gates and the reckoners that guarded them, a throng passed through the small area pinning our hero to a location. As she waited for them to pass she spotted bottles with similar yellow fasteners that the seasonal fowl had. The blue bottles were reasonably marked and had only a liquid courage debuff. This was a stat change that many heroes encouraged outside of weekday times. So naturally, three bottles found their way into the loot.

 

 

Mostly unscathed Korra made her way to a reckoner. He bore the red chain mail marked by all those under the coin of the marketplace. His face was soft with no trace of stubble and his eye lit, the light not yet extinguished as his veteran counterparts. He gave a cheery greeting and proceeded to unfasten the items with his dwarven scour. The items appear on the adjacent scrying glass accompanied with their numerical counterparts.

 

Once all items were in their loot bags Korra flashed her marketplace card. These cards allowed additional yellow fastens to be applied to scried items in the current scour. These were only for marketplace reckoners. But they could bestow one to a non-reckoner. It pays to have friends in the marketplace

 

 

With ingredients in hand, Korra pulled out her compact scrying mirror to select an phonic visual. Wild kitchen magic not only consumes the ingredients but also the users time, energy, and oftentimes sanity. And phonic visuals provide key buffs to combat this. Musical phonics provide the user an increase in stamina. But for those adept at wild kitchen magic, stamina drain is not often an issue, so story phonics are used. These help maintain sanity level, especially for recipes that require a copious amount of time and or multiple ingredient preparations.

 

Korra saw a new selection to chose from, “Way of the Kings.” This phonic had been in use for many tasks other than kitchen spells. But it had been reclaimed by the void halfway through it’s use. This is a common issue for users borrowing phonic from legal sources like scrying public libraries. There were two choices when a complex phonic appeared, but the story threads were tethered. The user could either start the phonic story over or dive down a scrying hole and find a location with all the phonic threads and reassemble a semblance of the original phonic to the point where they left off which was time consuming. Korra chose the latter.

 

Because of the remaining daylight only one dish can be summoned. Naturally is it the foul inspired dish “chicken pesto spaghetti squash.”

Korra prepped the fowl, seasoned the pan, and began searing.

 

Spoiler

• caught up on anime
• cleaning up pintrest board
• picked two recipes
• went grocery shopping mid day
• got all the produce
• meat heads in the produce sections were running
• snagged a few half off pre-cut fruit
• found turkey breast cutlets 25% off
• caved in on clearance wine
• cashier newbie
• unpacked, walked dog, picked an audiobook
• way of the kinds loan was back on shelf
• spent a good minute on the phone reading on the wiki synopsis of each chapter
• started meal prepping
• stabbed spaghetti squash to create holes for steam
• threw in pressure cooker manual for 16 minutes
• put sat and onion powder on cutlets
• coconut oil on skillet to brown meat on both sides
• forgot to run the fan on above the stove and the place got smokey
• had to open balcony door
• dog enjoyed the ability to go from the balcony to the kitchen and back with no barrier issue
• took out spaghetti squash to cool
• prepped pesto
• measurements went out the window
• threw in whole bag - all 10oz of walnuts - into food processor
• discovered blended mix of walnuts, olive oil, fresh garlic, and nutritional yeast tastes like fresh parmesan
• had to empty out the processor once for the basil and twice for the baby spinach
• spaghetti squash was cooled by then
• shredded the whole thing
• per instructions dried off the fake noodles with paper towels to prevent furure sogginess
• cut up chicken and tossed everything into a big pot
• ad enough for 16 oz for five meals
• I'll be hurting myself come next lunch
• dealt with tornado of a kitchen post meal prep

 

 

That’s it! I’m tapping out!

I can’t finish the rest of this story. I wrote a majority of it yesterday, but I forgot how time consuming it can get. It takes time to transition a real location into a D&D theme place. And more time to change the names of items, especially tech. And that changing may require a backstory. And the names need to not be mundane. Plus there’s the people I interact with that need a class, race, and possible alignment based on their actions and appearances.

Heck I was wanting to do a whole thing about work. I gave my team nerdy makeover too. One of them was a chaotic neutral witch/wizard halfling, a chaotic good warrior human, and an neutral good bard elf. I even did one of my managers as a lawful evil paladin theifling. It’s not that he’s inherently evil or anything. It’s just that he’s a scopio… if you know what I mean.

For those that don’t, he’s stubborn, very up front with his issues about you, and follows the letter of the law. Not that our department have much law to follow since we’re making and remodeling processes as we go. But he’s also a jokester when he’s not stressed and gets carried away with his shenanigans. To the point where it’s almost bullying except it looks more like he’s beating a dead horse with the broken one liners he has for certain people. Maybe he wants them to open up more. He certainly doesn’t get under my skin. He stopped on day one when he knew I could dish out what he was throwing. And honestly he needs to follow the model “don’t dish out what you can’t serve.” I love the guy regardless, he knows how to boost moral and get everyone laughing in a huddle meeting.  

 

WEEK 1 MONDAY

Welp, this day did not go as I wanted.

I forgot to get kale and forgot to add protein powder to my smoothie. I was hungry long before lunch time even hit. I started snacking on my coworkers candy con pumpkins. And when it comes to candy, if you get me started, I can’t stop.

I ate my lunch and was still hungry afterwards and did not pack any snacks except a tiny orange and small apple. I continued to eat the cursed candy and was offered white cheddar popcorn too.

It was late in the afternoon so the team and I went for a coffee run. I tried to use my app, but it had offloaded since I hadn’t used it in a few days. The app store wasn’t working and nothing the internet said to try was working. So by the time I had tried the majority of the suggestions my team had gotten to the front of the line, they had all ordered, I had let several people go in front of me, and the team had all their orders ready to go. So I gave up and finished up for the day.

 

I was tired when I got home and took an hour and a half nap. My dog was not happy with this, but he was a good enough boi to not to anything nasty. So by the time I was done with out walk and awake I realized I didn’t have enough time to make the soup I wasn’t able to make on Sunday. So I cooked some pork chops I had defrosted. They had a weird BBQ rub on them and it gave me some burps for two minutes. Thank goodness there was no heart burn or prolonged burping or pipe problems.

So I watched more cowboy bebop with the dog and went to bed early.

Goals

·         Water – didn’t drink much of it or log it

·         AIP – forgot to cook recipe

·         Tracking – didn’t update MFP with the new food

·         Lifestyle – didn’t write in my stoic journal

 

Boy howdy we’re off to a great start!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

You're braver than I am going to HEB on a Sunday.

[Korranation]

46 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

You're braver than I am going to HEB on a Sunday.

I know what I need and go in guns blazin.

 

Plus it helps that what I need are always on the outer perimeter of the store, so I can circle around back instead of cutting through the middle or weaving through the other aisles.

But I did get caught in the frozen veggie section. Not sure why they put discount wine in carts with a florescent sign saying "half off" in that section. All the red wine was gone, so I know plenty of folk were having fun sauteing asperugus or green beans with it.

 

 

[Korranation]

WEEK 1 TUESDAY

 

GOALS

 

Water

     I forgot my water bottle in my car again and didn't do much hydration except all the herbal tea I had at work. Awesomely enough, I'm right next to a

keurig so I can just swivel my chair, put my mug under the water boiler thingy, clean out the kcup area, press a blue button, and presto chango ya girls go some how liquid with a dried leave flavor bag.

     The "color" post excessive tea drinking was still indicating dehydration. I always strive for being in the all clear if I'm going all out with hydrating properly.

 

AIP

     I cooked an AIP mulligatawny soup. It looked popular on pintrest and the ingredients list didn't look to difficult to do, mins all the veggie prep, so I took a swing at it. I was lazy with the garlic, onion, and ginger by throwing them all into a food processor. But with the sweet potatoes, apples, califlower, and cabbage I chopped it all by hand. And since I'm a slow chef it  a lot longer than I would have liked. Throwing the spices together was fun. The recipe had an AIP curry blend, but the mix made 12tsp and since I doubled the recipe it only needed 4tsp, so I had to half that part which made 6tsp which was odd, but an extra 2tsp wasn't gonna kill anyone. Especially when the spices don't cause inflimation. Honestly I love curry, but I hate the way it makes me burp, causes heartburn, and later... issues.

     But this recipe. Let me tell you. Is amazing! It's hearty and feels like a comfort food. The sweet potatoes, apples, and spices made it slightly sweet, the cocnut milk (I used coconut cream since it doesn't have additives) makes it creamy and smooth. I could go on till the cows come home on how awesome the dish is and happy that I found another good recipe to use.

 

Tracking

I updated my Tuesday list today. I brought some snacks so I wasn't too crazy. I had kale and protein powder in my morning smoothie this time so I was a happy camper. I did have some liquid courage last night. White wine goes good with veggie things

 

Lifestyle

I did the normal journaling. I asked the questions of good, better, best. Meaning: what did I do well today? What could I have done better? And, What can I do to be the best version of me?

I went all out with the better section. Sort of mixing it with the best section in the process, but it gave me a long list of things to do. And I kept on adding to the list this morning. I was listening to for Stoic philosophy videos and Stoic morning routine videos, and lists of Stoic XYZ... And whenever I listened, something else would come to mind on what I need to do. So now I have a fun task list to tackle that might take from now to the end of forever.

 

[Korranation]

WEEK 1 WEDNESDAY

 

GOALS

 

WATER

     I was drinking water like it was going out of style yesterday. I didn't keep track of how many I drank, but I know I filled it up three times and left it half full at my desk. So at least five cups yesterday, which usually is only half the intake I need according to some random sites that measure water intake to body weight. 

 

AIP

     I had the usual smoothie, pesto spaghetti, and soup for food. I did cave in and have some candy corn pumpkins. Work wanted to celebrate a milestone the team made, so they brought nothing but pasteries and cookies. All of which are gluten. So I couldn't have any of that. And it didn't help that they brought the leftovers near my desk, so I smelt nothing but bread and sugar for the rest of the day.

 

TRACKING

     I haven't changed the foods to match the candy intake and snacks. I'm not sure I want to use MFP. I got a free month of their premium, but I'm not impressed. Sure I have a access of basic functions that were behind a pay wall, but they're lackluster and not what I was looking for. I'm not that much into being a health nut or tracking macros. I just eat normal, real, unprocessed food. I did download an app called eatpad which goes more in depth with micronutrients which I'm all about. I'd like to know if I'm lacking in certain vitamins in my diet.

 

LIFESTYLE

     I went to go see a movie with my sister last night so I got home late and fell asleep before I could remember to do my stoic journaling. I may or may not have been avoiding it  yesterday too since I wasted so much time looking at memes on my phone and didn't do anything on the list I had written down from the previous stoic session. But I brought my book with a copy of the list so I can get some things done for Thursday.

[Sciread77]

On 10/24/2019 at 2:35 PM, Korranation said:

Thanks

I've been practicing it longer than I knew what it was.

I just stopped worrying about things as much once I got my thyroid  under control.

Let's see what kind of world I can conquer and havoc I can wreck if I keep going at this pace.

Crap, I just lost The Game. 
 

Welcome back and congrats on all that you have accomplished!
 

Following for autoimmune solidarity and some stoicism. (Not that I’ve been good at practicing stoicism).

[Korranation]

21 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

Crap, I just lost The Game. 

Dang, I thought that game died long ago in the ravages of time.

 

21 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

Welcome back and congrats on all that you have accomplished!

Thanks!

A lot can happen in a year. Can't wait to share with y'all what accomplishments I can get done this year.

 

21 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

Following for autoimmune solidarity and some stoicism. (Not that I’ve been good at practicing stoicism)

High five for chronic illnesses...

Do you have an autoimmune issues too?

I've learned in these two weeks that I'm not the best at being stoic. I'm way to quirky and turbulent for that. But their practices are good for getting things done and keeping on the path.

[Korranation]

WEEK 1 THURSDAY

 

WATER

I didn't touch my water bottle at work again. And by the end of the day I realized I was dehydrated by the foaming of my saliva and cramping in my legs.

I've been taking my vitamin D so it wasn't from a deficiency.

 

AIP

There's no cooking that needs to be done. I've got pesto in the freezer and more soup than I could drown in. Plus I found some old meals in the back of my freezer. I might go for some Sheppard's pie I made a few weeks ago. There was a discount on some ground sirloin. The store didn't have white sweet potatoes, so I mixed regular sweet potatoes with parsnips. and I mixed some other veggies in there. 

There's also a serving left of the chicken lettuce wraps I made last week. They're flattened in a bag and got lost under my premixed avocado/banana smoothie puree.

I know I should start looking into other recipes to try, but I'm never in the mood to preplan that far out in advance. I like to plan around the discount I have and see if my pin.terest boards match up with a recipe.

 

TRACKING

I had a lot of candy from Halloween. Can't remember what all it was, but it was mostly gummies and those individual cola bottle ones are hard to track if the number isn't right.

Maybe I should take this tracking off? I know the weight would fall off if I just tracked, cooked more food, possibly ate more meals bordering on the hobbit meal fashion so I would not mindlessly snack on weird stuff that's more filler than nutritious. etc, etc.

 

LIFESTYLE

I wasn't able to do the evening routine because I went to my parents house for Halloween to hand out candy to cute kids. I stayed later than planned and fell asleep before I could think to review my day. I should start doing this part earlier in the day, especially if I have a late evening in the evening that starts encroaching on my sleep time.

 

Goodness gracious I can't get my stuff together. There's a lot of stuff I want to do an routines I want to follow, but I never follow through with them or implement.

Hobbit meals sound fun, but there's a lot of brain storming on what meals and snacks I can have on an AIP diet, then more time figuring out how that can be done within my budget, and more time finding the right stores that carry the items I want that will not price gouging.

 

And I want to create routines that I can fall back on when things are getting crazy, but I don't an habits built on them so I can't fall back on autopilot and I don't have any routine blocks I can pull up on an app that I can just use. I love things like workout videos because there's someone or something there guiding you through it. It's easy to just listen and go along since there may not be habits to autopilot on.

 

I've got a lot to think about.

 

[JuiceeTarget]

44 minutes ago, Korranation said:

I've learned in these two weeks that I'm not the best at being stoic.

No one is. All we can do is try our best and get better a little bit at a time. Remember that even Marcus Aurelius spent a bit of time writing about how proud he was of himself that he didn't treat his slaves as badly as that other guy.

 

I feel like stoicism is like meditation, we call it practice because we are never really that good at it, but we are getting better as long as we keep up our practice.

[Sciread77]

1 hour ago, Korranation said:

High five for chronic illnesses...

Do you have an autoimmune issues too?

I've learned in these two weeks that I'm not the best at being stoic. I'm way to quirky and turbulent for that. But their practices are good for getting things done and keeping on the path.

*perfect high 5 noise*
 

I do. I have psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The skin stuff is annoying but really not that big of a deal in the limited coverage I have. The PA is like rheumatoid arthritis and it is absolutely crippling without treatment. In 2012, the year before we started having kids, I walked with a cane. It’s a lot better now and I’m more proactive in managing it, but it still flares up from time to time. That’s why you’ll see me celebrating things that may seem normal alongside things that seem more like the usual things here. 
 

I’m aware my situation is much better than most with chronic illnesses and I’m always here to learn, support, and encourage. 
 

19 minutes ago, GoodDoug said:

 

I feel like stoicism is like meditation, we call it practice because we are never really that good at it, but we are getting better as long as we keep up our practice.

 

True. I struggle with extremes between feeling and expressing all the feels all the time and immediately and burying them and pretending they don’t exist. Actual stoic practice is somewhere in the middle. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

2 hours ago, Korranation said:

Goodness gracious I can't get my stuff together. There's a lot of stuff I want to do an routines I want to follow, but I never follow through with them or implement.

Hobbit meals sound fun, but there's a lot of brain storming on what meals and snacks I can have on an AIP diet, then more time figuring out how that can be done within my budget, and more time finding the right stores that carry the items I want that will not price gouging.

 

And I want to create routines that I can fall back on when things are getting crazy, but I don't an habits built on them so I can't fall back on autopilot and I don't have any routine blocks I can pull up on an app that I can just use. I love things like workout videos because there's someone or something there guiding you through it. It's easy to just listen and go along since there may not be habits to autopilot on.

 

I've got a lot to think about

It sounds like you are trying to change too many things at once. Give yourself some grace, you are changing your lifestyle and it's ok if that takes a long time.

[Korranation]

On 11/1/2019 at 11:39 AM, Sciread77 said:

I’m aware my situation is much better than most with chronic illnesses and I’m always here to learn, support, and encourage.

Same here. My flare ups are much more manageable than when I first had them. The brain fog, memory lapses, and anxiety were the reasons I wasn't hired on at my last job.

Thanks for the support. I've only gotten diagnosed a few months ago, so it's been a change.

 

On 11/1/2019 at 11:18 AM, GoodDoug said:

No one is. All we can do is try our best and get better a little bit at a time.

I thought these goals were small enough to take on at first. The kind of ones that leave you thinking they're too easy and you could take on more.

I was hoping the stoicism would keep me on track with the rest of my goals and keep me on track.

 

On 11/1/2019 at 11:39 AM, Sciread77 said:

I struggle with extremes between feeling and expressing all the feels all the time and immediately and burying them and pretending they don’t exist. Actual stoic practice is somewhere in the middle. 

Same here. I think oversharing sometimes will lead to someone relating and offering a solution to fix a problem that isn't really there.

I have a copy of Marcus' Meditation book, but haven't gotten around to reading it. And here I was thinking of a happy medium between Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope.

 

On 11/1/2019 at 1:35 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

It sounds like you are trying to change too many things at once.

I might be. I'll look into changing or modifying some of these goals.

[Korranation]

I was writing my friday and saturday goals updates on my laptop when my cursor wandered and clicked outside the box while I was clicking backspace and it went back a page. It didn't save anything I had typed up.

I'm too tired to write it up again. I went running this morning, had brunch, and came home and took a nap. I woke up with a low grade fever, sinus drainage, and a lot of sneezing. I'm not sure if it's a cold or allergies. I'll keep y'all posted. Night for now.