Mar 26
I wake up feeling sick again. What is this?
Breakfast: sliced yellow squash, slice of flaxseed toast with butter and jam, 2 fried eggs.
Shopping (Safeway): Wheat Chex, Rice Chex, almonds, penne pasta, cooking oil, peanuts, rice cakes, 2 cans Progresso soup, ground cardamom, 2 bags coffee, organic peanut butter, fig preserves, brown cage-free eggs, 18 regular white eggs, cream cheese, whole milk, unsalted butter, Lactaid 2% milk, 3 Amy's frozen burritos, 6 individual Open Nature Greek yogurts, 3 Evol frozen burritos, large Chobani vanilla Greek yogurt, Pepperidge Farm whole grain bread, asparagus, red seedless grapes, sugar snap peas, Italian parsley, 2 avocados, green beans, 5 lbs. of clementines, romaine hearts, dried dates, 2 bags of Snapeas (1 plain, 1 Caesar), store-made guacamole, strawberries, dried mulberries, shredded romano cheese, pesto, store-made tortilla chips, Londoner cheese. $171.
The slightly atypical purchasing patterns above reflect my desire to provide for my husband while kid and I are away in Massachusetts. My husband does not cook for himself, and if left to his own devices will simply eat peanut butter (sometimes with bread, but not always) for the entirety of my absence. I am trying to stock a variety of reasonably healthy foods that will require little more effort on his part than slathering peanut butter onto bread.
Shopping tires me out so much that I spend the next four hours hanging out in my bed with coffees and, eventually, lunch. I am intending to make hamantaschen (specifically, these) as my husband's "pie-of-the-month" (his choice, I realize these are not technically pies) before March ends and we start our gut cleanse. After my return from visiting my folks in Massachusetts over spring break, we won't be eating any hamantaschen for a while. However, I keep forgetting to leave ingredients out to soften (first I softened the butter, but forgot the cream cheese, so that's another couple of hours), plus I am wiped out for some reason. I will make them later, after I get the oil changed in my car for the trip, and stop by our storage unit to pick up my kid's Easter basket.
Lunch: Safeway-made tortilla chips with Safeway-made guacamole, grapes, strawberries, Snapeas.
About 3:30 I drag myself out for the oil change and storage errands. Sitting in the Jiffy Lube waiting area, I can barely suppress my sneezes and snuffles. Uh-oh. This is bad.
When I get home, my husband is there, and I promise to make the hamantaschen, just after I rest a little. A while later, I get up to make the dough. 30 seconds later, I return to bed and confess that I do not want to make hamantaschen right now. My husband is relieved. "Can I get you anything?" he says. "Tea?" "Can you put the butter and the cream cheese back in the refrigerator?" I ask. I know I won't be making the hamantaschen now until May.
For dinner, we order Domino's and watch The Amazing Race while I try in vain to get comfortable on the couch with my aching body and aching head and throat. I doubt that I have any appetite but when the pizza arrives I eat six slices. Five of "my" pizza (green pepper and onion) and one of my husband's (pepperoni and pineapple). Mine was better. My husband eats six slices too, which will turn out to have not been such a good idea.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. For some reason, I wake up starving in the middle of the night, and eat a mandarin orange and some more chips with guacamole. The chips poke my sore throat but I don't care.
Mar 27
A lot to do today, because it is Easter and kid and I are supposed to leave on our trip tomorrow. My husband wakes up feeling sick himself, with significant nausea, which I don't have. He starts throwing up after his morning coffee and this continues periodically all day. At one point his temperature hits 102. This is worse than how I feel.
We don't go out to breakfast the way we usually do on Sundays.
However, I do manage to boil 2 dozen eggs before breakfast. A mother's a mother, no matter how small.
I wake up feeling sick again. What is this?
Breakfast: sliced yellow squash, slice of flaxseed toast with butter and jam, 2 fried eggs.
Shopping (Safeway): Wheat Chex, Rice Chex, almonds, penne pasta, cooking oil, peanuts, rice cakes, 2 cans Progresso soup, ground cardamom, 2 bags coffee, organic peanut butter, fig preserves, brown cage-free eggs, 18 regular white eggs, cream cheese, whole milk, unsalted butter, Lactaid 2% milk, 3 Amy's frozen burritos, 6 individual Open Nature Greek yogurts, 3 Evol frozen burritos, large Chobani vanilla Greek yogurt, Pepperidge Farm whole grain bread, asparagus, red seedless grapes, sugar snap peas, Italian parsley, 2 avocados, green beans, 5 lbs. of clementines, romaine hearts, dried dates, 2 bags of Snapeas (1 plain, 1 Caesar), store-made guacamole, strawberries, dried mulberries, shredded romano cheese, pesto, store-made tortilla chips, Londoner cheese. $171.
The slightly atypical purchasing patterns above reflect my desire to provide for my husband while kid and I are away in Massachusetts. My husband does not cook for himself, and if left to his own devices will simply eat peanut butter (sometimes with bread, but not always) for the entirety of my absence. I am trying to stock a variety of reasonably healthy foods that will require little more effort on his part than slathering peanut butter onto bread.
Shopping tires me out so much that I spend the next four hours hanging out in my bed with coffees and, eventually, lunch. I am intending to make hamantaschen (specifically, these) as my husband's "pie-of-the-month" (his choice, I realize these are not technically pies) before March ends and we start our gut cleanse. After my return from visiting my folks in Massachusetts over spring break, we won't be eating any hamantaschen for a while. However, I keep forgetting to leave ingredients out to soften (first I softened the butter, but forgot the cream cheese, so that's another couple of hours), plus I am wiped out for some reason. I will make them later, after I get the oil changed in my car for the trip, and stop by our storage unit to pick up my kid's Easter basket.
Lunch: Safeway-made tortilla chips with Safeway-made guacamole, grapes, strawberries, Snapeas.
About 3:30 I drag myself out for the oil change and storage errands. Sitting in the Jiffy Lube waiting area, I can barely suppress my sneezes and snuffles. Uh-oh. This is bad.
When I get home, my husband is there, and I promise to make the hamantaschen, just after I rest a little. A while later, I get up to make the dough. 30 seconds later, I return to bed and confess that I do not want to make hamantaschen right now. My husband is relieved. "Can I get you anything?" he says. "Tea?" "Can you put the butter and the cream cheese back in the refrigerator?" I ask. I know I won't be making the hamantaschen now until May.
For dinner, we order Domino's and watch The Amazing Race while I try in vain to get comfortable on the couch with my aching body and aching head and throat. I doubt that I have any appetite but when the pizza arrives I eat six slices. Five of "my" pizza (green pepper and onion) and one of my husband's (pepperoni and pineapple). Mine was better. My husband eats six slices too, which will turn out to have not been such a good idea.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. For some reason, I wake up starving in the middle of the night, and eat a mandarin orange and some more chips with guacamole. The chips poke my sore throat but I don't care.
Mar 27
A lot to do today, because it is Easter and kid and I are supposed to leave on our trip tomorrow. My husband wakes up feeling sick himself, with significant nausea, which I don't have. He starts throwing up after his morning coffee and this continues periodically all day. At one point his temperature hits 102. This is worse than how I feel.
We don't go out to breakfast the way we usually do on Sundays.
However, I do manage to boil 2 dozen eggs before breakfast. A mother's a mother, no matter how small.
Breakfast: two slices of flaxseed toast with butter and jam, mandarin orange, Snapeas. I now can at least count my blessings that I am not throwing up.
Lunch: chips and guacamole, Snapeas. Do Snapeas count as "protein?" I am counting them.
My kid comes home in the afternoon and we dye eggs and make short egg hunts for one another. Short because I am running out of stamina. I forgot to mention something very important about this day: for the first time in our history, Easter coincides with another holiday that my child invented when they were seven years old and which we have continued to celebrate to this day. March 27 is Green Day (no relation to the band. At least until this year). On Green Day we celebrate the color green. We eat green foods (Snapeas? Guacamole?). We create scavenger hunts for one another involving green items, and race to see who finishes first. Whoever wins gains possession of the "Green Day crown" for the next year.
That's pretty much it.
Lunch: chips and guacamole, Snapeas. Do Snapeas count as "protein?" I am counting them.
My kid comes home in the afternoon and we dye eggs and make short egg hunts for one another. Short because I am running out of stamina. I forgot to mention something very important about this day: for the first time in our history, Easter coincides with another holiday that my child invented when they were seven years old and which we have continued to celebrate to this day. March 27 is Green Day (no relation to the band. At least until this year). On Green Day we celebrate the color green. We eat green foods (Snapeas? Guacamole?). We create scavenger hunts for one another involving green items, and race to see who finishes first. Whoever wins gains possession of the "Green Day crown" for the next year.
That's pretty much it.
Upon returning home, kid dons protective apparel. That's their dad in the background.
I made these Easter eggs from a set I bought at Target. So, today, on combined Green Day and Easter, we listen to Green Day (yes, the band, which kid now likes) while dying Easter eggs. Then we hide our Easter eggs in green places (under green blankets, in green boxes, attached with rubber bands to green lampshades) and prepare lists of clues. And race. Although I would rather be lying down, I win.
Then I lie down.
Later I get up and prepare Easter/Green Day dinner: deviled Easter eggs (with green parsley on top instead of paprika). Penne with green pesto, containing green vegetables (asparagus, green beans, and sugar snap peas). Salad of romaine lettuce, parsley and avocado. My poor husband does not eat Green Day dinner, but is enough recovered that he can sit up at the table and drink a glass of water and eat a saltine or two. Kid scarfs down so many deviled eggs that they cannot eat their avocado salad.
Then I lie down.
Later I get up and prepare Easter/Green Day dinner: deviled Easter eggs (with green parsley on top instead of paprika). Penne with green pesto, containing green vegetables (asparagus, green beans, and sugar snap peas). Salad of romaine lettuce, parsley and avocado. My poor husband does not eat Green Day dinner, but is enough recovered that he can sit up at the table and drink a glass of water and eat a saltine or two. Kid scarfs down so many deviled eggs that they cannot eat their avocado salad.
Deviled eggs, Green Day-style.
 Avocado salad. |  The whole spread. |
It is clear by now that we are not driving to Massachusetts tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday, if I feel better and my kid doesn't get sick. On Tuesday, we are supposed to have dinner in a restaurant in Northampton with my stepmother at 5:30. Maybe we can still make it.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. A fair variety of Easter candy (several Dove peanut butter eggs, 2 Lindt hazelnut frogs, a couple of jelly beans before I realized the pure sugar was going to hurt my throat, 5 or 6 Cadbury mini-eggs, a Lindt coconut-filled egg). Cup of black tea with milk and sugar while watching TV in the evening. Another slice of pizza before bed (why do I get so hungry when I am sick?).
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. A fair variety of Easter candy (several Dove peanut butter eggs, 2 Lindt hazelnut frogs, a couple of jelly beans before I realized the pure sugar was going to hurt my throat, 5 or 6 Cadbury mini-eggs, a Lindt coconut-filled egg). Cup of black tea with milk and sugar while watching TV in the evening. Another slice of pizza before bed (why do I get so hungry when I am sick?).