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I found this neat site with a special feature area called Other People’s Pantries. I wanted to tell you about it, since most of us cook so much I thought you might like to submit photos of your pantry, too! The website owner has put out a request for more pantries if her readers want the series to continue, so go take a look and see what you think. I thought it was pretty cool. I found the site because I was looking for ideas for my own new pantry area.

I am hoping to have mine completed in August, but it all depends on my husband’s work and how much time he’ll have to devote to putting my pantry together. I have needed a place to store food, linens and my broom, mop and vacuum cleaner. So I’m hoping this area will serve for these three items.

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Tomorrow I step on the scale to see if I have had any weight loss. I think I have, I’ll let you know tomorrow.

I spent several hours cleaning house today. I was out to milk at 7am and worked fairly consistently until 2pm. I would guess I spent at least two hours taking little breaks at my computer.

I opened the front and back door because it was under 80°F outside, and it was raining. I love when it rains, we don’t get much rain where I live here in Arizona. Unfortunately, it was very humid and muggy and I realized I’d made a mistake so I closed the doors again and turned on the air conditioning.

I got the kitchen tidied up again, I believe I washed at least four loads of dishes. I washed three loads of clothes, folded and put them all away. Cleaned the stove, wiped the counters, swept and mopped the floor. Changed the two cat litter boxes, tidied up and vacuumed the living room and dining room floor and cleaned my oldest son’s room, and washed his bedding. And a number of other mundane household tasks.

I am grateful that I had the energy to get some housework done. If I can just stay on top of everything, then spend a bit more time tackling another area each weekend I will be happy and the house will look nicer. I am very thankful that I’m able to keep up with all I’ve done so far.

Also during cleaning I baked two chickens so I could make more chicken broth.

By 2pm I felt tired, so I took a shower, unmade my bed and crawled in to take a nap and slept until 4:30.

Then I got up and used the chicken broth to make a pot of chicken soup.

Food roundup for today:

For breakfast I decided to have a banana-blueberry-pecan smoothie. 2 frozen bananas, a handful of frozen blueberries and a handful of pecans [affiliate link] with one egg yolk.

I had roasted chicken and sauteed spring onions [affiliate link] for lunch.

Dinner was the chicken soup sans chicken. The vegetables in the soup: cabbage, mushrooms, green beans, carrots, celery, and onions.

A few minutes ago I had a handful of pecans and now I’m planning to go to bed. It’s almost 10pm.

Tomorrow I’m planning to work some more on getting my bathroom cleaned up.

‘Night.

Starlene

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

Yesterday I posted about being depressed and tired. Kellycat commented and said previous posts indicated that I’d come out the other side feeling a lot better and this time would probably be the same.

In spite of not feeling like I got enough sleep, I was not exhausted today and the feelings of depression had lifted. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided not to go visit my friend with the triplets. I’d love to, but I think I had better take it easy this weekend. The thing is, I know I’m going to end up staying and visiting for hours (if she’ll have me) and I already told her I’d love to help her with the babies for the day, so I should do that on a day when I’m rested, not after a week of being tired and depressed.

For this weekend, I am going to make a point to take a nap every day, early in the day. If I nap too late in the day then I end up staying up way too late at night.

How about a food round up for the day?

Breakfast @ 4:30am – 1 – 1/2 cups of leftover chicken soup (vegetables and broth only, no meat)

Mid-morning snack @ 9am – medium avocado with sea salt [affiliate link]

Lunch @ 1pm Leftover roast beef, carrots, cauliflower, zucchini

Supper @ 5:30pm Chicken breast meatloaf, fauxtatoes, salad (iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, sliced mushrooms, fresh tomatoes from the garden, sliced cucumbers, olive oil, raw apple cider vinegar, crushed garlic)

I noticed today that it seems I’m eating less and able to go longer without having to eat.

Perhaps it just depends on what I’m eating. I seem to recall that I used to need to eat more often, a typical day was more like this:

Breakfast 5am

Snack 8am

Snack 10am

Lunch noon

Snack while driving home 3pm

Dinner 5:30pm

Sometimes something right before going to bed at 7 or 8pm, and then sometimes during the night.

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Today I talked with a lady at my job that volunteers for us and we talked a little bit about GAPS. She asked me if I can ever eat “normal” food again. I was telling her how GAPS is recommended for two years, but after not eating “normal” food for almost eight months now, I am finding that I really don’t care about most of these so called “normal” foods. She asked me to give her the name of the book again. I am thinking about loaning her my books for a week or two.

Here’s to a restful weekend.

Starlene

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

I’ve hit a bad patch again. Monday I was stressed out and got triggered. You know what I mean by triggered? It’s a word we use in our family for when we find ourselves overly freaked out over a current situation that isn’t really that bad and then after sitting down and thinking about it we realize there was a past event that was very stressful and the memories of that old event are brought up.

It helps to tell myself this isn’t the same situation as it was back then, this is different, you know how to get through this situation now, so use the tools you have learned and everything is going to be okay. But it doesn’t completely eliminate the feelings. It’s like a fight between my logical brain and my subconscious. My logical brain wants me to snap out of it, recognize this isn’t the past, this isn’t the same situation. But sometimes it only helps a little bit to reassure myself of that, and I know getting so stressed out is a hit to my adrenals.

I can sometimes get a deep feeling of dread as if “someone” is coming to get me and take me away. I took half the day off on Monday because I just wasn’t feeling well. I finally remembered to take some Kava Kava to help take the edge off the stressful feelings. I was tired and I just couldn’t stay up until bedtime which is 6:30pm for me on work nights. So I unmade my bed and crawled in for a nap and slept from 3pm to 5pm. Then of course there was no way I could try to get to sleep at 6:30pm and ended up staying up past 10pm.

I went to bed at 9pm but just laid there. Anyway, I have to get up at 3:30am and didn’t get enough sleep. That compounded the awful feelings I was having, and then the low level depression feeling that I used to have most of the time before starting GAPS crept in.

Tuesday morning on the way to work I was really feeling exhausted, and also upset about a situation involving my job (unrelated to the triggering event). Last week was nuts what with the event and I knew this week wasn’t going to be any easier.

I ended up getting into a confrontation with a coworker. It was brief. I only said one sentence and one was fired back at me.

It was enough to tip me over emotionally. Thank God my boss is an understanding woman. I found her and asked her to look me up when she got a chance, she has known me long enough to see that I was not doing well so she got up right away and we went to her office.

I started crying almost immediately. I hate when the tears flow like that. At least I wasn’t sobbing out loud. I uttered the name of the coworker, and my boss immediately understood. I mean, at least she knew what this was about, it wasn’t something life threatening like someone in my family died or something.

Anyway, after I talked to her for awhile I felt much better. But I really felt exhausted and drained after that. I ended up leaving work half an hour early and made a vow to get into bed early. I did get into bed by 6:30 and slept fairly well throughout the night. I finally got up at 3:35 so I could get out and milk and leave for work.

I was tired driving to work.

One positive thing I can say here is before GAPS, I would have had to drink coffee [affiliate link] (just a few ounces)  in order to continue through the day without falling asleep at my desk. Now when I get tired I can cope. My coworker and I avoided each other for the day and I’m sure this will blow over.

On the way home I was tired and felt like I was going to fall asleep several times on my hour long drive.

I haven’t felt tired like this in a long time. I was planning to visit my friend who had triplets recently on Friday, but now I’m thinking maybe I had better just stay home and try to take it real easy.

I’m thinking the event took a lot more out of me than I thought that it did, and just laid the groundwork for my being stressed out even more about the other two incidents.

On the bright side, I made some chicken soup on Monday and the resulting soup is just so darned delicious. I have been having a cup for breakfast and then another cup at break at work and I had a bowl for supper tonight.

I roasted the two chickens first, then used the drippings in the soup. Between the two chickens there were three hearts (I love heart) and two livers. I brought the livers with me yesterday and ate them at work. I kind of pretended that I was devouring them as if I loved them. LOL. They weren’t actually too bad, I just wish I liked them more.

I don’t know why the soup tastes so delicious to me. Maybe because I haven’t had broth for some time (maybe even two-three or four weeks!). It is just a typical chicken soup that we make, with onions [affiliate link], celery, carrots, sliced mushrooms and sliced cabbage. Hmmm… I wonder if I am enjoying it so much because I didn’t put the chicken in there this time. Sometimes meat tastes gross to me the day after it’s been warmed a second time.

And that reminds me! Did you know there is actually an official term for that day old taste? Here from Colgin Liquid Smoke* site:

“Because liquid smoke also functions as an antioxidant, it prevents warmed-over flavor (WOF) in products. WOF, common in cooked meat that is not consumed immediately, is caused by lipid oxidation reactions. Sensory and analytical studies indicated that the smoke eliminated WOF in ground beef patties.”

I have not used this product, but it was discussed on one of the lists I was on and looks to have natural ingredients, except for the caramel color.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting to learn there is actually an official term for that nasty taste of rewarmed meat. I’m one of those weirdos that doesn’t really care for leftover turkey sandwiches because the meat “tastes dead”. 😉  Well, that’s how I always termed it.

But back to the soup. I sometimes prefer to add the chicken separately, or just have a chicken vegetable soup.

Not too many more days until I step on the scale again. I find myself looking forward to it, not dreading it, but just curious. Especially since I’ve gone from size 16 to 14 jeans this month. I’m still wearing the size 16s. They are somewhat baggy but they are practically new so I want to get some more wear out of them.

Well, it’s 6:26pm. I guess I should head to bed. The sun is still shining brightly outside. I don’t mind. I love beating the sun to bed.

Today at work one of our volunteers asked me, “Don’t you EVER cheat [on your diet]?” and my boss was there and said, “No, she is VERY faithful to that diet.” She said it in a proud way, and then pointed to my body and said, “And it shows!”

Again, I should get off this computer and get into bed.

Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. Oh, I have some kind of bites on my legs. I think mosquito. But I don’t know how they could get into my bedroom to bite me. I wake up with two or three new bites. I have to put tea tree oil on the bites to keep from scratching my skin off.

Really this time. Night.

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

Yesterday was the big event at my job. We had around 150 people attend, it was busy and went fast. I ate lunch around noon, or 1pm and then I had a banana I’d brought with me around 4 or 5pm, and then I didn’t eat until the event was over. I ate a large avocado, one that I’d bought earlier in the day from Costco.

It is a long day, we get to work around 9am, work throughout the day, and then the event lasts for about three hours. Once it’s over, we have to “break down” the room and that takes another hour or so.

You’ll never guess how I finished out the evening… one of my coworkers was mopping the floor and I know she has some of the same problems I had before I started doing GAPS, namely her feet hurt really bad. I asked if I could help with the mopping, and she was happy to hand it over to me. So I mopped an area I would say about 50 feet by 50 feet square?

And I was totally fine doing it, not tired at all.

I got to bed around midnight and was up again this morning around 7:30.

Some people in attendance have not been to my place of employment since our last event which was in December. I received a lot of compliments about how I looked. I have been gathering some photos of myself and I think I’ll make a before, during and after gallery at some point in time.

The nice thing about my blog is I can keep the focus off the weight loss, which is all that anyone else seems to care about. Sure I have to admit it’s fun and encouraging to get the feedback and compliments, but I find it so frustrating because most people don’t understand that doing GAPS has changed not only my body, but more importantly my outlook on life and the way I feel and cope with day to day life.

I have lately been feeling so very grateful that I took a chance on GAPS. I’d sworn off dieting fifteen years ago. I was never going to diet ever again, and also I was totally certain I’d never give up carbohydrates.

It was such a confusing place to be in. On one hand I’m thinking putting all kinds of focus on one’s body size is vanity, on the other hand I’m disgusted with my size. Not wanting to be vain, I tried to be happy with my size. It was so difficult.

It has been great help, the body work I have done in the past, for now I can look at the bulges and bumps and not hate them. It’s my body, it has been with me all my life. It houses my soul. It houses me. I have abused it for many years, not really understanding how badly I’ve treated it.

Now it’s like I have given my body a big break, and I hope I never go back to eating crap, not even sometimes.

OH, I have to tell you this. Last night my younger son attended the event. We have always stopped at this one Burger King and I remember in December how difficult it felt for him to get something, and I did not. But you know what? Try as I might, I could find the smell of the food to be enticing. It actually had a stinking smell to it. I was really surprised. And that was kind of helpful that it didn’t smell good to me.

Well, I’ve lost a day due to the event yesterday, so I had better get off this computer and get busy. I have already messed around on the computer long enough, I have been saving some photos to folders and trying to figure out what all I’ve lost.

How is your GAPS journey going today?

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

I am sorry I have been missing my daily reports and today’s report is going to be short!

Today I am working our summer event. Usually I’m literally worn out by this event, and it takes me a couple of days to rest and relax before I bounce back.

I’m anxious to see how my energy level is today, and also to see how I tolerate the extra work and long hours. I won’t get home until late in the evening, much later than my normal bedtime so we shall see how GAPS serves me.

I also have to bring enough food for the entire day. I usually bring enough food to last me for about twelve hours, this day I will need a couple of more things to eat probably for sixteen hours.

Last night I baked an almond flour [affiliate link] treat to share with those working the event. Only a dozen. I hope they are appreciated since almond flour isn’t cheap!

I hope you have a wonderful day! I have to go and make my milk, go out and milk and water my garden and get ready to go to work!

Hugs,

Starlene

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

I was dreading this weekend, since I knew I’d have to buckle down and work many hours a day to recreate data I’d lost during the backup disaster.

Yesterday I made excellent progress. I managed to recreate my husband’s invoices in Quickbooks. Thank goodness I got into the habit of writing the check number and amount with customer name on the duplicate copy of the deposit register so I could recreate the bank deposits. For that matter, thank goodness I invested in duplicate deposit registers! Otherwise I would probably have ripped my hair out by the handful.

As it was, I had to take Kava Kava yesterday because I could feel myself tensing up.

Today I resolved to spend at least two hours doing housework, which ended up extending into three hours. But I did all the chores I’ve been doing, got everything neat and tidy again, AND… tackled one portion of my bathroom floor. My dear husband leaves the newspaper all over the floor in both bathrooms and my bathroom floor was covered with newspaper. And I have a cat litter box in there, so litter was kicked around. My bathroom is a mess, but thanks to this morning it is a little tidier. I also poured some vinegar into the toilet so it can start working on the lime and calcium deposits that have built up. I know it just takes time to get everything in order. And as long as I have the energy to keep it in order… this is going to be so interesting to see if I end up losing steam like I have in the past. Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen this time. I only hope my feelings are right.

I also tidied up our bedroom again, I don’t want it to turn into the disaster area it was a few months ago.

Also, my youngest son cleaned off the table, which was stacked a foot high with all kinds of stuff. Now if we can just keep that tidy.

Today I finally remembered to swallow some frozen liver – after I’d worked on the house for almost three hours. I swallowed some chunks that were just a tad too big, and too frozen! Agh. Brain freeze from frozen liver.

Some of the liver was melted and when I put it into my mouth it didn’t seem to have any flavor at all. It wasn’t too bad at all.

I also took my cod liver oil, the first time I’ve had that in days. I also need to buy some Vitamin E oil and maybe some of the other things suggested to me to help with these hot flashes.

Well, I just wanted to give a quick update on how I’m doing, but now I need to get back to work.

GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.