Warning:  Apparently one of my die-off symptoms is crankiness.

Today has been somewhat of a disaster with regards to intro. I'm still on intro, but doing poorly at it. I'm debating telling y'all the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or should I gloss over the epic fails or just omit them altogether?

Alrighty, honesty it is.

I realized one day, I don't remember which one, and I don't have time to go back through my emails to see when, but it was one day since I started intro that Dr. Natasha explicitly says to omit cabbage and celery from intro soups, at least stage one.

Well, in my meat stock there is celery blended into liquid.

And in my first pot of soup I made on Friday, I put more celery and cabbage. Last night I thought what the heck, cabbage is going into this pot, too.

I worked for about fifteen hours yesterday and finally got into bed around 10pm. No detox bath for me. No time.

I got up late this morning, rolled out of bed about 4:25am, went through the kitchen to the porch to retrieve my clothes that I put in the dryer last night, and noticed to my dismay that my soup I'd made the night before never got put in the fridge. You see, as the only woman in this household, there is only one person who knows how to put food away after everyone has eaten. Yes, you guessed it. That would be me.

I felt the pan… it was burning hot when I went to bed. I guess I thought maybe my husband, who got home after I went to bed would notice my soup on the stove and put it away. No. Why would I think that?

Anyway… so it sat out about six hours and it still felt lukewarm. Great. Great for bacteria to breed. Especially since this batch of soup was made with three day old stock. Just great. Lovely in fact! We have lost 8 quarts of chicken stock on two occasions for not cooling it soon enough, so I was really worried that it would go bad if I just set the whole pot into the fridge to cool.

I thought the best thing to do would be to hurry up and get it all into the freezer. I kept out enough to bring to work for lunch. I put that bowl into the freezer too, to get it chilling.

Notice I have really big dark circles under my eyes. That's not normal for me. Either I'm just too tired, or it's die off.

I scrambled myself three eggs [affiliate link] for breakfast. I sprinkled on some of my homemade jalapeno pepper powder. Whoops, that's a spice. There I go again, failing. All right, no time to make more eggs, just eat them.

I get to work late, of course. That's what happens when I get up half an hour late. I reset my alarm for 3:30am. Maybe I'll be able to get up on time tomorrow morning.

I was hungry not too long after I got to work, but too busy to stop and eat. Thankfully I can do that now, without suffering the consequences of my blood sugar crashing. Finally at 11:45 I tell myself I need to go heat up my soup. My soup that has cabbage in it. And no meat. Just veggies. I guess I didn't prepare well enough.

An hour later I'm hungry again. Too bad. No time to eat the remainder of my leftover soup. I leave on time, instead of working an hour late to make up for being an hour late.

I had to go to pick up the bookwork for the elderly couple whose books I keep. The wife had a stroke a couple of months ago, and is now housebound. Her husband is legally blind and she was the one that drove them everywhere. So now she is bored and depressed and lonely. I couldn't just run in and grab their bookwork and leave. I visit for just over an hour.

Finally, I'm on my way home.

Realize I started some homemade salami (experimental recipe) marinating yesterday which needs to be baked for four hours today… call home to see if my son, whose first job was as a cook, could put the meat in the oven. No, it's too complicated.

Okay. That's okay. I'll just start it when I get home.

Get home.

The kitchen looks like a small explosion hit.

Put the homemade salami meat (now dawning on me I cannot have it yet, not even sure how many days, which stage can I have baked meat?) in the oven at 225°F.

Realize that won't work since I had planned to cook husband and older son baked chicken thighs. Yes, one of the things I cannot eat and love very dearly… crispy chicken thigh skin. Okay. I can do this. Remove the salami to the toaster oven, slide the thighs into the oven to bake.

Take the package of skinless thighs and place in an inch of clear broth with an onion. That will be my dinner, once I add in a couple more vegetables.

Really want a detox bath. It's already 7:05pm. Really need to just go to bed.

Can't go to bed. Dinner isn't ready. Hungry. Very hungry.

Grumpy. Cranky.

Feel about two years old.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better. Can't see how!No food cooked to eat!Everything frozen! FAIL.Epic FAIL.

Okay, maybe the boiled thighs will suffice for tonight and tomorrow. Think “I better the heck lose some weight for all this hard work.” Wish I had time to show you my two shadow photos. Gotta get off this computer.

Good night.

P.S. I'm probably actually still on Stage 2 since I gave my last avocado to my husband last night, and have had no avocado today. Just soup and eggs. Oh, and dinner was a couple of boiled chicken thighs with onions [affiliate link] and mushrooms. And now I'm going to bed. 8:12pm.