Crisp

From blurry to crisp

The gluten seems to have cleared my system.  I'm feeling much more energized, awake, and focused.  As I described it to Stacey at dinner tonight, comparing my life with gluten to my life without gluten is like comparing a nice, crisp, colorful, vibrant photograph with one that is of the same object, but is instead blurry, unfocused, and generally a bad picture.  Yes, it's a picture of the same thing, but the effect of it is entirely different. 

This gluten sensitivity discovery is seriously a life changing thing for me.  Why else would I still be blogging about it when I've done, what?, 20 or so posts about it already?  I have little doubt that this event will be like 9/11, my wedding, and Avery's arrival: an event that has a definitive before and after. 

I also realized how truly and utterly grateful I am to have discovered this sensitivity.  I am so freakin' happy I'm gluten sensitive.  That means that I wasn't crazy, I wasn't lazy, I wasn't pathetic!  I really had started to think that maybe I was all those things.  After all, who else needs to nap 2 hours a day plus sleep 8 hours at night and is STILL tired?  RHG sent me this article from CNN, which at first glance appears to be about celiac disease, but is more about gluten sensitivity.  It made me feel so much better.  There are other people that feel like they've been hit by a bus when they merely eat gluten.  That is precisely how I felt for years.  For whatever reason, I never had any gastrointestinal distress (TMI: I never have any problems in that area - something to constantly astounds my naturopath and acupuncturist).  But I'm putting together that I'm much more prone to headaches and general unwellness when gluten is in my system.  It may not be the gluten triggering it, but it definitely does something to my body that makes it less able to fully function.  And it definitely robs me of all my energy.

Oh, and the woman in the article also experience acne.  Guess what also cleared up when I stopped with the gluten?  Yep, acne. 

The 38

It was just Stacey and me for dinner at Ned Ludd tonight.  If anyone in PDX is looking for a great place to eat, I highly recommend it.  The entree was very good, but it was the salad and the dessert that stood out for me.  I got the sour cream panna cotta with rhubarb sauce.  I don't particularly like sour cream, nor do I usually order panna cotta (boring), but the rhubarb sauce was irresistible.  Thank goodness it was because it was divine.

I should note that everything about the restaurant screamed Portland.  Portlandia could film there as is, without even making fun of it, and it would be hilarious.  Air plants everywhere, the waiter was quintessential Portland hipster/foodie worker, the bathroom looked like a homesteader museum, and I shit-you-not I swear the notepad the waiter used to take our order had a bird on it (maybe it was a pine cone or something, but it was in that genre).  And there were nettles and soba and farro all over the menu.  So Portland.  I love Portland.  I love to make fun of Portland.  And I love living in Portland.  

Go Timbers

Before dinner, Avery and I stopped at D's office to get her changed into her Timbers gear and pick up D.  I dropped them off at the McDonald's near the park.  Avery was so freakin' cute in her Timbers gear.  In McD's, D warned her that it would be very loud in the stadium.  I told her that meant that she could yell, "Go Timbers!" as loud as she wanted any time.  I meant during the game, but she turned and yelled, "Go Timbers!" to the patrons of McDonald's.  I swear, there is nothing cuter than a 3yo in full-on Timbers gear.  It's enough to make me a sports fan. 

I just checked and it looks like the Timbers won!  Woohoo!  Hopefully it wasn't too rough on D and Avery sitting through the game in the pouring rain.  D was told their seats are under cover, but D wasn't overly confident they were, so fingers crossed.