Insomnia

I have NEVER had trouble sleeping.  There is the occasional night that my mind gets going and I can't fall asleep, but other than that, I typically sleep like a log.  I think even after Jay and I got married and I had to get used to not only sharing a bed with someone else, gettting used to Jay sitting up in bed and turning on the light to go pee.  That took a bit of time, but usually even if I woke up when he got up to pee, I would be back to sleep within a couple of minutes.

I got a call from my thyroid doc last week after going for bloodwork that my thyroid is starting to tend towards hyperthyroidism again.  At that point, when she called I was a little surprised, as I hadn't really noticed any symptoms.  However, since she called, I am definitely feeling more aware of symptoms.  One of which is insomnia.  I don't know if 'insomnia' is the right term.  I feel like I am sleeping most of the night, just not restful sleep.  There have been a couple of nights that I have been aware of tossing and waking up every hour or so.  There was one night that Jay even woke me up to ask me if I was okay because I was tossing and turning and groaning in my sleep.  The last couple of mornings I have woken up feeling tired.  This morning I felt like I had slept better, but Jay said he noticed me tossing when he was awake at night, and by 10am I was feeling ready for a nap.  I have also noticed that I have been hot/sweaty while giving massages and if I get hungry my hands get jittery. 

I know that there are far worse/serious things that could be wrong with me, but this is definitely frustrating.  It seems like my body will go through about a 7-8 month cycle.  In January of 2012 my thyroid went hyper after lowering my dose the previous summer to see if I could possibly be weaned off my medication.  So we upped the medication, and by last August my thyroid had gone hypo.  So lower the dose, and now, in Feb/Mar my thyroid is hyper again so up the dose.  I hope that because we caught this early, and my symptoms seem to be fairly minimal that it will not take my body long to regulate back to a normal range.  I do not look forward to the hypothyroidism that seems inevitable that will likely hit in late summer/early fall because my hair is finally long and I don't want to lose a bunch of hair.  Ugh!  Hopefully if I go for regular blood work each month we will be able to adjust the doses as soon as something seems a little bit off.

One Year

It has been a year since I moved my business home!  I can't believe it has been a year already.  I do feel like it was the right move for me to make and am enjoying being at home.

I think I have gone through some cycles of slow and busy times but I did at my old clinic as well.  I really appreciate the flexibility that I have at home.  I had a lot of flexibility when I worked downtown, but being at home, I don't have anyone to answer to.  I suppose I have my clients to answer to, but I have rarely turned down appoitntments and never for frivilous reasons.  I think, with being at home, I have less last minute appointments, which are the ones when I was working downtown that always seemed to happen when I tried to make plans to do something when I thought I would have some down time (not a bad thing, just frustrating at times).  I appreciate being at home, and being able to throw something in the oven, or grab something out of the freezer if I forget first thing in the morning.  I appreciate being able to run out and get groceries in the morning (seems like I don't have a lot of morning appointments at home), instead of in the evenings or weekends. 

It has been such a long and snowy winter this year.  I feel like, with working at home, that I have been a bit of a home body this winter.  It has been nice to get out at times, but there are times when I realize that I haven't driven anywhere in a week.  No wonder I haven't put even 3000km on my car since we got at the end of March last year!  I am so ready for the spring this year.  I am glad that I didn't need to drive to work this winter and I don't think I had many cancellations due to the snow/cold/etc. which was nice.  

Chicken Stew with Dumplings

I have to write this recipe down because we really enjoyed it, and I would love to have a reference to make it again.  I also would love for you to try making it, if you think it is something you might enjoy. 

We stepped outside our comfort zone this week and decided to make home made chicken stock.  We have done home made turkey broth before, and something about the smell of it cooking on the stove deterred us from wanting to eat it.  My sister gave us the advice to throw in a bunch of veggie trimmings and a whole head of garlic and that it will taste and smell better. 

Since we did not host Christmas dinner this year, and we did not have the privilege of dealing with the leftovers, we decided to roast a whole chicken on Boxing Day.  We had our supper and then I picked the meat off the bones and froze the meat.  I immediately threw the chicken carcass in a soup pot with some water as well as some veggie trimmings from our Sweet Potato soup we made on Monday (ie celery, onion, sweet potato and broccoli trimmings) and some garlic.  I boiled it for an hour and a half and after tasting it added a bit of salt.  It wasn't bad, and the smell was not overwhelmingly chickeny, which was nice. 

Here is the recipe for the stew that was our reason for making the chicken stock.

Stew
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 stalks of celery, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
3 red potatoes, chopped
3-4 cups of chicken stock
1 cup milk
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4-3/4 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste, or leave it out if you don't like spice)
salt, to taste
2 cups of cooked chicken, chopped (we had one breast and two thighs left from our roasted chicken)
1 cup frozen peas

Dumplings
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 heaping tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp melted butter
1 1/4 cups milk

Directions:
Melt butter in a large pot/dutch oven.  Add in onions and celery and saute until they start to brown.  Add in thyme, turmeric and cayenne pepper.  Once the spices are stirred in sprinkle in flour and stir until it absorbs most of the oil/moisture.  Then add the chicken stock and stir until thick.  Add milk, potatoes and carrots.  Bring to a simmer and allow to cook until .the potatoes are tender, approx 20-30 minutes.  Stir in the chopped chicken and frozen peas and bring to a simmer again.  Allow to simmer for about 15 minutes.  During this time mix up the dumpling dough.  Stir the dry ingredients together then add the milk and melted butter.  Allow the batter to sit for a few minutes to rest.  Then make sure the stew is simmering steadily and drop spoonfuls of batter on top of the stew but do not overcrowd them because they do spread out.  When you are done spooning it on top, place the lid on the top and do not remove for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes you an test the dumplings to see if they are done by poking them with a toothpick.  If it comes out clean they are done.

I am pretty sure that my mom may have made dumplings once or twice when I was a kid, but I don't really remember them.  I don't know why, but I expected them to be much doughier than they were  They were kind of bready, like biscuits, inside and a bit doughy on the bottom from sitting in the stew.  I might play around with different dumpling recipes, but the stew was so flavorful and just had a nice bit of spice from the cayenne pepper.  Yum :) 

Good Friends

For about the last year I have been getting together on a pretty regular basis with my good friends, Karen and Arleen.  We probably plan a get together about twice per month.  It has been so nice to spend some quality time with these girls.  It was more difficult in the past with Karen living in Langham and Arleen living up at Christopher Lake.  But now that we are all within a 45 minute drive of each other the get togethers have been plentiful.

Our next planned get together is in a couple of weeks to do a bit of Christmas baking.  We are planning to make some sort of rolled and cut cookies and decorate them.  It will be nice to spend a day together just baking and hanging out.  I have never had good luck with rolled/cut cookies so I hope to pick up some tips so that I could make them again in the future and not feel like pulling out my hair before they even get in the oven! 

I sure have dropped the ball :P

I haven't blogged in a long time.  Wow. 

Maybe I should do another one of those 30 day blog challenges.  But then I feel obligated and the quality of the content takes a dip (because seriously, when I am inspired to write, it's pure gold :P).

Christmas is sneaking up on us again.  Tomorrow is one month until the 'big day'.  We did a large chunk of our shopping yesterday.  I think I only have to shop for my nephews and one other gift that we know what we are getting, just haven't picked it up yet.

This year must be the least amount of shopping we have ever had to do.  My family decided to just forgo gifts and we were instructed that if we would like we could make a donation, or just buy ourselves a gift.  I honestly don't mind because it usually comes down to asking the person what they want and going out and buying exactly what they want.  And really, where is the fun in that?

Jay and I have decided to only buy each other one small gift to open on Christmas morning (otherwise Christmas morning at home, with just the two of us is kind of boring....), and we are going to shop for some good deals on a new TV on boxing day/week and treat ourselves to a nice new TV.  It's amazing when you think about getting a TV you think, oh, maybe just a little bigger than what we have.  I think ours is a 28 or 30 inch.  I was thinking maybe 42 inch.  Then you go into the store and look at them, and I honestly think we will probably end up getting a 55 or 60 inch now.  I figure we do most of our watching from our kitchen anyway, so we need a good size to be able to see it, haha.  And our eyes are only going to get worse over the years, right?!  If that's the reasoning, maybe we should just jump straight to the 80 inch.  Then when I sit on the couch and watch a movie it will feel like being a movie theatre!

I had thought about putting up the Christmas tree today.  But I think I would enjoy doing it more next week.  I have been feeling a bit 'blah' lately, and I think I would rather put up the tree once I am feeling more cheerful.  I am starting to feel a bit more optimistic about life and Christmas, so I think next Saturday, December 1st, Christmas (decorations) will arrive in the Finkbeiner household!   

Glad that things worked out

You may remember this post from the summer when I had a client come to see me at home who made me feel pretty uncomfortable.  I would say that for at least two weeks after that I would get feeling anxious and get knots in my stomach when I thought about him calling back to rebook.  I went over and over and over and over in my head what I would say to him, if he were to call back.  Then for probably another couple of weeks after that I still felt anxious, but not quite as much, but I still practiced what I would say if he called.  He didn't call back, until today.

I had just walked in the door from running and errand and my cell phone rang.  I checked the call ID and it said 'private number' so I answered.  He identified himself by his first name, and I don't have any other clients with that name, so I asked him for his last name as well.  He said he wanted to book an appointment.  I said, "I have to say that the last time I treated you I felt uncomfortable, and I would prefer if you found a different therapist." He said "Oh, okay, no problem, sorry." And that was that.  I felt like it came out very naturally for me, and sounded professional, and he didn't seem too upset, maybe a little caught off guard.  I am thankful that he called at a time that I was available to answer my phone, because I think if I would have had to call him back, I would have been much more nervous and would have fretted about it quite a bit.  It worked out perfectly, and hopefully I will never see or hear from him again.

My Not So Gluten Free Weekend

I started to do some research last week about how long a person should do an elimination diet before you notice a change.  Everything I have read said that six weeks should be more than enough time to see a change if you are going to.  Today would have been six weeks gluten free.

I have been asked by a number of people over the last six weeks if I have noticed a change in how I feel.  Each time I thought about it, and tried my best to find something that was different, I couldn't.  I felt pretty much exactly the same.  My energy levels were the same, my digestion felt about the same, my thyroid didn't seem to be making leaps and bounds in the right direction (though I did get a call after my last blood work a couple of weeks ago that my levels are back in the normal range, so I am to keep on the same dose of medication and do blood work again in a month).  I really think that has more to do with the medication than the diet. 

In my research I also found that once you have cut something out of your diet for a period of time, that you can 'test the waters' so to speak by eating some of the product and see how your body reacts to it.  I decided to test this out this weekend, mainly because we were invited to the Samurai for supper for a friend's birthday on Saturday.  I figured at a place like that where they are bound to use soy sauce and other gluten filled sauces to cook everyone's food on the same grill, right in front of you, that there was bound to be gluten at least in the form of cross contamination.  I decided to take my chances.  I made that decision on Friday, and Friday afternoon, one of my clients just happened to bring me a decadent cupcake from Crave in Saskatoon.  I figured since I would be testing things out on Saturday at the Samurai that I might as well eat the delicious looking cupcake that my client so kindly brought me for dessert on Friday evening.

I ate the cupcake and felt rather nauseated afterward.  However, I chalked that up to the ridiculous quantity of icing on top of the cupcake.  I ended up feeling kind of crampy and uncomfortable during the night but again kind of chalked that up to the richness of the cupcake.  After that passed I felt fine all day.  We had an AMAZING supper at the Samurai and again, I felt just fine.  I felt great on Sunday, so after church we decided to BBQ our last package of premade hamburger patties that we made in the spring (with soda crackers in them) and I had it on a wheat bun.  I still feel fine.  So I think after six weeks of gluten free eating, I am going to go back to eating gluten.  I just don't think that my body is benefiting from the gluten free lifestyle.  I am sure that it wouldn't hurt me, but it is definitely inconvenient.

As for the whole thyroid/autoimmune disease/etc.  I don't know.  I have another appointment with my thyroid doctor next week, so maybe I will ask her what she knows about gluten free diets in regards to autoimmune diseases.  I do not count this as a failure, I just wanted to give it an honest try, and I feel like I did.