Day 13 - It's all Froze up!

Yesterday my in-laws water pipes froze.  It was out all night and into this morning.  We really had no idea how bad it was until this morning.  We had assumed the problems was right up at the house or somewhere under the driveway since both those locations are the closest to the air (it has been really cold – teens or colder – for a number of weeks).  Well this morning my father-in-law began the propane heater on valve near the street; we went and took a peek and realized the whole valve hole was filled with water which had turned to ice.  I think my father-in-law felt like the leak was either his fault or he wanted to fix it on his own.  We convinced him it was likely the cities issue and we should call them.  One quick call and within 45 minutes the water was back on.

Steel cut oats and green lemonade for breakfast.  Since my in-laws water was out this morning we made the juice here and then brought it to their house where my mother-in-law had our steel cut oats waiting.  We did spend some time helping my mother-in-law negotiate some of my father-in-laws stuff.  You see… my father-in-law is a packrat of sorts.  It is actually something that runs in both of our families and is tendency we have fought about every day of our married life.  It is easier that we both want to fight the urge to keep stuff—in that regard it is much more difficult for my mother-in-law since her husband wants to keep as many items as he can, we often joke that he is keeping one of his knick knacks for “Justin.”

We’ve decided Justin is a greedy little man that never gives up—he wants everything for himself: “Justin Case.”  So anyway… how it relates to today is my in-laws use to keep the Christmas decorations in the attic, but this year has proven that it is much more difficult for them to get up into the attic to retrieve the goods (they are getting a bit older) and it is harder for us to get over there to do it for them (we are more busy than ever, so we (my mother-in-law and us) have decided it would be better to keep the Christmas decorations in another place.  We helped organize some of dad’s stuff to allow this to happen.  Those of you who have packrats in the family know that there are volumes of stories in that one word alone (how many boxes of toilet paper do two people need... but we’ll save those stories for another time…

Lunch was quick; fried zucchini, onions, green onions and purple cabbage.  It was a very good lunch.  My wife had the day off work today and we all went tubing early this afternoon.  I was worried about my son going off a big jump a few weeks ago, but decided to let him hit the same jump.  I think all the talk of being careful and hitting his head may have made him a little skittish because when he went to go down the hill he kept slowing himself down a little—he did hit the jump once pretty good and yelled out that he almost did the splits.  I had to laugh just a little because I remember doing that as a kid (all part of the good memories), but he probably thought I was the worst father ever.

Energy wise the days keep getting more consistent—I had quite a bit of energy this morning, but not really until I pulled myself out of bed which is still very hard to do on my own.  However; I have not taken any sort of medication—prescription or over the counter—since I stopped last Wednesday.  While it made things really rough for a few days it has really helped since—I do feel like my body is making progress again and to be honest I don’t miss the sugar all that much today.  Although we did do a trip to Costco and the lucky charms were callin my name from the cereal isle—just one of many reasons it is good to have at least two people do this type of cleanse together.

The most frustrating part of the cleanse now is all the different information and ideas we are getting from everywhere.  So far we love the Mlis program—mostly—but are frustrated at times at how vague the instructions and calendar for the program are.  I’ve mentioned being worried about eating food that is “illegal” which we think we have not done (thank goodness), but that doesn’t help the feeling that we are not doing everything we could be doing.  However; we do just keep going and are sure to take the supplements everyday and are hopeful things will continue to improve.  We may just have to stop reading everything on the Internet—or at least not worrying too much about what we find.

We had my mom and dad over for dinner tonight.  We got a call on Saturday that my mom wanted to have us over to her house for dinner for my wife’s birthday.  I listened to the conversation from my wife’s side, but could tell they wanted us over there.  As my wife kept talking and agreeing with the date and time I kept thinking: “What about our diet…” I couldn’t believe my wife was forgetting about the restrictions we are under right now.  Turns out she just didn’t know what to say to my mom and didn’t want to upset her.  Well right away I knew we could have a problem—and my wife knew it to.

One of the fears that I have with our lifestyle changes are the restrictions becoming burdensome on other people.  I don’t want to be the guy that says “yes” to a dinner invitation but then says—like the Genie in Alladin says—“well… there are a couple of provisos… uh some quid-pro-quos” (picture me talking in a snooty English accent now) “we can’t have sugar, we can have carrots, but not too many we can have stir fry but no sauce or no sauce with all these ingredients…”  You get the idea.  We thought it best to stop by to explain what was happening—oh crap—not home; did they already go out to get the stuff for the dinner?  We had to make the call.

My wife and I are good at putting things off (sometimes), but this forced us to call right away—since the last thing we wanted was for my mom to buy all the stuff for our dinner before we talked to her.  I called and explained our diet restrictions and that we didn’t want to burden her with the cans and cannots so could we have them to our house for dinner.  She was just fine and that brings us to the point of them coming for dinner tonight.

I think dinner was a great success—we had chicken fried in olive oil, lemon, basil, oregano… etc.  (basically our favorite spices right now).  I think the dinner was a huge success, but I’m unsure on whether they liked the dessert all that much—they ate it, but I think that’s about it.  They were very polite, but I got the vibe that they were thinking… “these guys are bat crap crazy” (voice trailing off as they get to crazy) as they choked the dessert down.  Same as last night: cake made with carrot tailings (from juicing), coconut oil, almond flour, walnuts, and 2 eggs—frosted with coconut milk mixed with cashews, lemon juice and lemon zest (with stevia in both)—we thought it was very good again, although we could not eat as much last night.

Tonight was our last meat night for a few weeks since we are coming to the only vegetable portion of the cleanse in preparation for the actual juice cleanse set to start this Thursday—YIKES.  We decided we better finish off the turkey meatballs from last night (delicious).  We also made our favorite dessert (chocolate meal replacement mixed with almond milk, stevia, some pure dark cocoa powder blended in the blend tec with some ice) MMMMMMMMMM!!!  Sufficiently stuffed and bloated now—sufficed to say… we were very happy!

We have—however—noticed that our gassiness has yet to get better and has actually gotten a little worse.  My wife read somewhere (there we go reading the internet again) that this is a sign of die off—I hope those little candida die slow painful deaths full of the misery they put me through for all those years… those little bas!@#%&s.  There is still slow progress on my sinuses, but I am unsure on what to do with the essential oil.  I ran out of my doTerra sample and so went to our local health food store and picked up a different brand—not sure if it is working as well, but still feel like my ears and sinuses are progressing.  I need to decide whether to bite the bullet and pay the 60.00 or whatever it is for the doTerra… what to do, what to do?