It's 5 am ...!

Blog#1

Jan 4, 2021

It’s  5 am and I’m up blogging.  Hey – Hemingway was an early writer too!  I think I successfully let my sleeping dog lie –my little, most adorable Gracie, a perfect yorkie-poo is still zonked out in the middle of the bed. (why have all my dogs insisted in sleeping the middle and forced me to the side of a queen size bed?)

 

I’m awake because of the Prednisone, I imagine, and the itching and skin-crawling; but I just took 30 mg of Hydroxyzine to work on that. (I’m afraid it’s also going to make me a bit groggy this morning just when I’m trying to go see one of my doctors.)

 

As I was lying there debating in my head about the merits of “Oh hell, I may as well get up …”

I did come up with some topics for the blog and featurettes that I’d like to add in this blog occasionally. These include:

 

• Questions for YOU dear reader
• Quick quizzes – either about the Autoimmune spectrum or various odds and ends
• Interesting (and hopefully sometimes fund) facts – about anything
• “Yeah, you’re right, it’s a good thing, Martha” – tips, etc.
• Recipes – my own and comments on others
• What I ate today
• Update on what meds I’m on and what impact they are having
• How I’ve felt in the last 24 hours or so
• Daily accomplishments 

 

This morning, however, I thought I’d give you a bit of info about the name of this blog:

 

I’m calling this blog “Wellness Explorations” because I am new to this whole autoimmune thing and am just beginning to explore how to handle it.  I also think that smart people would agree you can never stop learning, investigating, researching, exploring …about anything, but we’ll try to stay on track here mainly about autoimmunity and general wellness, physical and mental.  I hope that you will interact with me and share what YOU have learned, heard, read about, and picked up from the official medical community and even on the street.  Let’s explore together!

 

 ***

 

Recipe:  I concocted this last night, right about midnight, while I had “Deadpool” on You Tube TV for the 50^thtime in the background. (Ryan Reynolds, so cute.)  and drank the whole glass without gagging (which is more than one could say about that stuff you have to drink before a colonoscopy!)  Actually, it was surprisingly “not too bad.”

 

Midnight in the Garden of Good … Quick Basic Green Smoothie

        Fast but nutritious for lazy or busy people who can’t get their butt in the bed at a reasonable hour

 

In a blender, starting on the grind / chop salsa setting, drop in:

 

• A handful of kale
• Handful of spinach
• About 1 cup apple juice
• About a third of avocado 
• Enough distilled water to make it drinkable – add a little as you grind to get the desired consistency. We'll talk more in the future about WHY distilled water.

 

Grind down the big pieces on chop/ salsa setting, then mess around with the settings on your blender to get a well-blended drink.  I ended up on “puree whip” to get some froth.

 

Drink it. Now. Not later.

 

Let’s say for now that this is my baseline for my green smoothie. You could throw anything additional in there.  I’ll post more successful recipes that I concoct as we go along, OR post some great ones I find from other folks, crediting of course.  Any ideas, please comment.

 

Quick Quiz:

Why do I call the above recipe the Midnight in the Garden of Good … basic smoothie:

 

1.     The first time I concocted it, it was midnight

2.     It’s got a garden of good in it and safe for autoimmune folk

3.     I just liked the movie

4.     plus I was born in Savannah, and my people know/knew the people in the book

 

 

Answer:  ding, ding. All of the above.

 

Time to go take the levothyroxine. See you later alligator  (Which are also green, like the smoothie!)

 

Question for YOU dear reader - Garlic

 

So, what’s the deal with garlic?  Some places I read autoimmune folk can eat it, other places say it’s a no-no.  What’s your experience?