This weekend

On Friday night, we went to the local carnival that Ryan and Rachael used to go to as kids.

Enjoyed the farmer’s market in New Castle, DE on Saturday…more candy and Donuts than fresh fruits and veggies were eaten!

Pudding smoothie

I just made a delicious raw smoothie that tastes like chocolate pudding! Here’s what I did…

Place in a high speed blender the following Ingredients:

1 banana
1/2 avocado
1 c. Unsweetened almond milk (you could use any type of milk, and you could use the sweetened kind if you wanted a bit sweeter smoothie – also, the final texture of this was more like pudding than smoothie so add more milk to taste if you want a thinner consistency)
3 tbsp. Cocoa powder
1 tbsp. Chia seeds
1 tbsp. Coconut manna
1 handful ice

Blend and sprinkle some unsweetened coconut flakes on top! This was my dinner tonight and adding a bit of spinach would have rounded it out a bit more, but it was pretty much like eating dessert for dinner. If you prefer a sweeter flavor, you could always add a couple dates to your mix.

Yum!!

One year later…almost

It seems that taking very long breaks from the blog is my theme. Here we go for round….not sure what number I’m on of picking this back up again. Excited for the trip to Europe we are taking next month so I wanted to make sure that I could log in to this without a problem so I can blog while I travel (if I can successfully use my phone while traveling). It’s been quite a whirlwind of a year so far. With two deaths in the family and the sale of our house, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit ungrounded. So here’s to being grounded

Factor V Leiden – Post 4

After a very long blogging hiatus…

I am officially free from taking Coumadin! I feel very mixed about it, but I am overall happy to be off of it. It makes me feel like I can put this whole PE thing behind me, even though I suppose the pain in my legs will always be a little reminder of it. Apparently, I have mild post-thrombotic syndrome, which basically means that I have pain in my legs. On the plus side, I went to have a doppler done of both legs about two weeks ago and was pleased to find out that my left leg looks completely normal. My right leg has “chronic changes in the superficial femoral vein in the proximal thigh and mid thigh consistent with previous DVT…” Basically leftover “changes” (scar tissue, etc.) due to the previous DVT. 

My appointment today confirmed that I am able to stop taking Coumadin. I did express my anxieties about flying to the doctor and she gave me a prophylactic dose of Lovenox to have on hand for when I fly long distances. I have enough shots to take 5 flights, but she said I really don’t need to take the Lovenox unless I am taking a flight longer than 4-5 hours. She also said though that if I feel anxious I can take one for any length flight. We’ll see how I feel before my next flight.

My regimen based on an appointment I had with a naturopathic doctor and lots of research online is daily pills of garlic, fish oil (yum!), aspirin, and multi-vitamin. Daily regimen of red wine, chocolate, and green tea! Oh darn. 

So this begins the next leg of the journey with Factor V Leiden!

 

1/4 Cup Nut Bars

That’s what I am calling a recipe I made up tonight. After perusing several different raw/almost-raw granola bar recipes, I decided to just make my own. I had the basic idea of what I needed to make the bars, but I didn’t seem to have every single ingredient in ANY of the recipes I found. So, this is what I came up with and they taste pretty near perfect in my opinion!

1/4 Cup Nut Bars

1/4 cup flax seeds

1/4 cup chia seeds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds (roasted but not salted)

1/4 cup walnuts

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 cup rolled oats

approximately 2 cups date paste (or enough to make them stick together)

Start by soaking about 2 cups dates in enough hot water to cover (soak at least 15 minutes). While dates are soaking, blend or food process together all of your other ingredients, pulsing so that you get a semi-fine but still chewy mixture. 

Once dates have soaked 15 minutes, remove your nut/seed mixture and place into a bowl. Place dates into food processor and blend up until you have a smooth paste.

Then, pour your date paste in portions into the dry mixture, mixing as you go, until you get a dough that you can form into balls or bars without it falling apart. Take your dough and dump it onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Fold the plastic wrap over and form into bars. You could also roll these into balls, cut with a cookie cutter, etc. 

Put your cut up bars onto a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Put into an oven at 200 degrees until they reach your desired consistency. I personally prefer moist and chewy, so only did 15 minutes. I think if you wanted crunchy you could leave in for about 30-45 minutes but check throughout to make sure they are not getting weird.

Good things about these bars!

-no preservatives, artificial flavorings, colorings, and no sugar

-lots of protein without any fillers that aren’t good for us

-a tasty whole food product in only 30 minutes!

Factor V Leiden – Post 3

Since September I have been able to glean a lot of information and knowledge about Factor V Leiden, pulmonary embolism, coumadin, lovenox, and lots of other fun subjects from the internet. I thought I would share the websites and resources I have found to be most helpful for those of you out there who might read this and be looking for information on one of these topics.

Living with Thrombophilia: The Web’s Resource for Patient-Based Thrombophilia Information - I used this site quite frequently after I was diagnosed. It provides a lot of great basic information and I highly recommend joining the Email Discussion Forum available on their website if you desire communication and interaction with others experiencing similar situations.

National Blood Clot Alliance – Check out their news stories, join forums, share your story! This article recently stood out to me about a woman who had symptoms of a PE for a long time and continued to be misdiagnosed over and over. According to a quote in this article by Dr. Jack Ansell, MD, hematologist and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and member of the National Blood Clot Alliance’s Medical Advisory Board, “The first sign of a PE can be death.”

Lovely Lovenox Ladies – This is a forum I joined because I am interested in learning more about having Factor V Leiden if and when I become pregnant in the future. I find it interesting and helpful to learn about what these women are going through.

Facebook Pages of Interest – Stop the Clot, Piss on Factor V Leiden. 

In my personal experience, the pain in my legs and lungs continues on a pretty much daily basis. It is nothing like what it was 7 months ago, but it is definitely still there. I have found that having a group of people I can talk to about the continued experiences has been very helpful.

 

To-Do List is Happening

Let’s see how I am doing on my post-graduate school list:

• Use this book Lesly gave me and make some art for the house! – NOT YET! 
• Make kombucha - Re-thinking it…future post to come on this.
• Organize files – it is a total wreck right now – DONE!
• Update my LinkedIn profile, currently outdated from probably 2008 – Done! LinkedIn profile.
• Look into teaching a student success skills course online – Applied!
• Yoga teacher training! – In it now!
• Paint my pitiful half-painted walls…currently they have patches of mis-matched yellow that was actually made to match at Home Depot but doesn’t! BOO. – Working on this in the next few weeks
• Plant some flowers! – Soon!
• Make dinners again – Sort of.
• Run a 10K – not even running right now! Ryan hurt his knee and I got off track when yoga teacher training started. Not sure if I really want to do this or just focus on my yoga stuff for the moment.

P.S. CT Scan results came back a few weeks ago. There are still nodules there but the doctors are not alarmed. Recommendation…another re-scan in 6-9 months. I get my leg ultrasound in late June. If all checks out, then goodbye blood thinners! When I went for my last blood test, I was a 3.3 which is actually too thin. So, I have been eating lots of Vitamin K rich foods and they also dropped by dose down so we’ll see what my magic number is next week.

Have a lovely evening.

Fork And Wrench

This post is a bit late coming…we went to a new restaurant a couple weeks ago with Rachael, Shane, Kathy, Robin, Melissa, and Kevin. It’s only a short walk from our house and I am definitely looking forward to going back very soon!

Food and drinks included: Field Mouse, Rabbit Pie, Charcuterie Plate, and White Bean & Relish spread! So good…find them on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/theforkandwrench

On another note, this morning Shane, Rachel, Ryan and I went to the JFX farmer’s market. While there, the Women’s Industrial Exchange had a table set up selling some wares and they had a menu advertising their brand new brunch! The Women’s Industrial Exchange first came into existence in 1880 and was a way for women to make money by selling homemade goods. The Exchange supported them in their endeavors (and still does today). Inside the Exchange is a kitchen, which re-opened in Fall 2011. They have been serving lunch only but today was their first day serving brunch! And brunch was awesome. They focus on homey food that you would find…at home.

We were the only people there because no one really knew it was open yet. It was so awesome and I highly recommend it. We had sausage gravy and biscuits as an appetizer (tee hee). I had the breakfast pot pie, Ryan and Shane had peanut butter, bacon, and marmalade french toast (ohhh lawd), and Rach had an awesome spanish tortilla thing. THEN, the owner and chef brought us out some hominy to try, and some other “soups” they had in the back: sangria in a bowl and bloody mary in a bowl You can apparently serve alcohol as a soup without a liquor license…smart ladies figured a way around that small problem! It was great to talk with the chef and owner and get to try lots of great things on their menu and give feedback! Our feedback was that everything was delicious. Can’t wait to go back!

And now, because I actually fell asleep in my yoga class today, I am heading for an early bed with some reading on the menu.

1st Weekend of Yoga Teacher Training

Whew! What a whirlwind weekend. I took Friday off in order to finish my final paper for grad school (woo hoo!) but I was ahead of the game a bit and only had 2 pages left to write. I took advantage of being ahead of the game and went to an early morning yoga class, then worked on my paper until it was time to meet Megan and Chris for some Joe Squared pizza! It had been probably about a year since we had seen them, so it was great to catch up. Then it was off to the grocery store before coming back home and doing some much needed house cleaning.

Teacher training was 7:30-10:30 on Friday night. It was so exciting to be in the room and doing something I have wanted to do for so long, but it was still pretty scary! It felt like I was going to the first day of high school or the first day of college again. I kept having doubts, anxiety, etc. but kept reminding myself that this is why I am doing this…the only way to conquer fear is through action (I remember that quote from somewhere…I think a magazine, haha). So I faced my fear and holy cow…I feel so different after a weekend of making myself do things that are uncomfortable. The teachers did a great job of making the entire experience more comfortable though. Kim is the primary teacher and she kept telling us that doing a pose perfectly will NOT result in enlightenment.

Saturday was a bit of a killer work out but not toooo terribly physical. It was more emotionally/mentally challenging because we 1) had to touch people we didn’t know..meaning our fellow classmates (ewwww?!?!) and 2) had to teach in front of the class, speaking in sanskrit.

Today was the physical killer. We did about 66 sets of Surya Namaskar B, which meant 66×3 chaturanga dandasana’s (low push up). I have to say though that after touching people all day long (we’re talking faces 6 inches from butts) and speaking out loud in a language I don’t know all day long, I actually feel super excited and ready for next month already. I am off to make my flash cards to help me memorize and buy my yoga anatomy book!

Goodbye, grad school – Hello, FUN studying!

Break Time!

Final Paper time! I am diligently working on my final this week and have my first weekend of yoga teacher training this weekend. I am taking a break from writing this week but have a delicious new restaurant to write about when school is over…