Dang It...

I have written on the first day of the month every month so far this year.

Dang it. 

By noticing it that means that I needed to write today. And the first month that I don't I will feel a little badly that I broke the pattern. And I'm pretty sure I will break the pattern at some point. Unless I go to the calendar right now and put in a reminder...which I am totally not going to do. Because there is no real reason to do so...hold on I'll be right back.

So...what should we talk about today? 

I honestly wasn't planning on writing until I checked and well you know...

Hmm....

I tried that new (new old?) heritage flour yesterday that a lot of people with gluten intolerances can actually tolerate. I made biscuits and gravy for dinner. Thinking that if I could handle it then I would have biscuits this morning for biscuit sandwiches which would be super yummy. I mean, I am sure they would have been but...

I am not one of those people that can tolerate the old style wheat grain flour. I ate one biscuit for dinner, I was going to have two, one with gravy and one with jam but stopped to fold laundry after the gravy biscuit and by the time I was done folding laundry I knew that was it. 

It starts like an allergic reaction, I can feel it in my face and my ears. A little itchy, a little phlegmy, congested feeling. That fades after an hour or so and then about 6 hours later the pain settles in. My joints swell. Puffy and painful. So that happens overnight, I feel it in my sleep when I turn over but really feel it in the morning when I get up and my feet hurt to step on and my knees hurt to bend and my hands ache and...then that fades after a few hours as well. First the pain just dissipates, then the swelling starts to go down, the puffiness fades away. 

I had been thinking about eating what I wanted in New Mexico at the end of the month. Sort of a goodbye to my home foods. But that was because I had forgotten (ALREADY) what a bad reaction felt like. I've had a few mild things. Chicken bugs me a bit. Too much sugar can cause a little issue. But they are small. A little puffiness, a little bit of discomfort. So a decent sized reaction was a moment of oh yeah...this is why I did this, because I felt like this EVERY DAY.

Which is another thing. I mean, every day. Every morning was a waiting game for the pain and swelling to go away so I could get on with things. Every morning was a deep breath before stepping out of bed because that first step was going to hurt and there was nothing I could do about it. Except there was. And I did. And then spent some time recently convincing myself that it wasn't really that bad and I could totally choose to do it if I wanted to.

And I mean, yeah, for sure. I could totally choose to do it if I wanted to. But it was that bad. It really sucked. I had just gotten very used to it. And I have a high pain threshold. So I just sucked it up and moved on. This is the way life goes so you deal with it. 

How many times do we do that? Grasp that something sucks, or isn't right, but then convince ourselves that it's just the way life goes so deal with it? And how many times would there have been a solution if we had just looked for one? 

And I'm not going to say easy. Because this isn't actually easy. It's not hard, like OH MY GOSH THIS IS SO HARD, but it's not easy. I am changing the way I cook. The way I eat. The way I live my life. It's a simple change, but not an easy one, if that makes sense? But how many other things in life are simple changes that we just don't do?

Like I hate to exercise. As most of you know. I will never be one of those people who LOVE to work out. But I also love to not be in pain. (See whole diet change) And if I keep moving my joints are much happier. I also love having visible muscles and the only other time I've had them aside from working out was mothering a toddler who was in the 99th percentile for height and weight but still was a toddler so wanted carried everywhere. I had some rocking biceps then for sure. But I'm not willing to go that route again so lifting other weights it is. And I have a family history that means cardio is important to keep my heart healthy. So the very simple answer to all of those issues is exercise. Which brings us back to I hate to do it. So it's not easy, but it is simple. And I do it five times a week like clock work because it's simple. But I also talk myself into doing it probably four times a week because it's not easy. 

There are other things, big and small, that through my life have had really simple answers. Don't do that. Do this. But not easy. I want to do that. I don't want to do this. Simple but not easy. 

I think I'm going to chew on that for awhile and it's going to become a short story. I can see someone with simple/not easy choices forming up right now. I just am not sure what all is going on there.

So, cool, I had no idea what to write about and did it anyway and now I have another piece starting. 

Simple. 

But not always easy.