A COOKIE FOR YOUR BROUGHTS....

     Day one after the blizzard and I'm feeling trapped.  I don't like cold weather and I like snow drifts even less.  My three westies don't like being housebound either.  When your legs are short it's tough to navigate the drifts.  I know because I have short legs as well.  
     At least with the dogs inside there are fewer surprises being brought in from outdoors. 
         Tucker, the oldest, one day a few years ago came bounding into the house happy as a lark and jumped into the air landing on my visiting editor's lap.  Fortunately, she is a dog lover.  She happily petted him and then asked what that smell was.  With Tucker, who knows.  
     I instructed him to get down and when he did we noticed something on my editor's shirt.  Upon closer examination we realized it was the entrails from a rodent.  Yep, that's right, my sweet adorable little westie rolled on top of a dead mouse...they just love the perfume of a dead animal.  So, embarrassed, I helped clean mouse guts from my editor's shirt.  What's a little kidney or liver bits to a dog lover. 
      My cat, Echo, loves to get onto the dining room table and play with small items like paperclips, pens, pencils, or anything else small enough to play table hockey with.  But eventually she misses and onto the floor it goes.       Emily, my little girl westie, has an oral fixation issue.  She must always carry a toy or stick around in her mouth.  She's the first one to find the items on the floor.  Have you ever seen a white westie after it chews up a black ink gel pen?  Not a pretty sight, nor is anything she may have recently rubbed her face on.
     I used to chase her around the the dining room into my office, back through the dining room, into the kitchen and back again trying to get her to release the stolen object.  Frequently, she would run out the doggie door and then I'd have to search the grass for whatever it was that she was carrying around.  
    Then it hit me.  The magic word...."cookie" would cause her not only come to me, but drop at my feet whatever she had in her mouth to snatch a delicious dog cookie from my fingers.  
    The game was on.  
     Emily would bring a stick into the house to chew to bits on the carpet, but if I asked her to bring it to me for a cookie I could toss the stick into the trash and avoid the mess.  Then she learned to just bring the stick directly to me at my desk while I was writing my latest book and she would get a cookie.  
     Over several months she brought sticks and twigs, rocks, paperclips, pens, pencils, erasers, bread twist-ties, marbles, anything she could find for a cookie reward.  
     I was so proud of my little girl.  I bragged to my hubby each time she traded her find for a cookie.  
    One day I was deeply involved in a scene I was writing when she came to me.  She sat patiently at my feet with something in her mouth.  I told her to wait.  I kept writing.  She whined.  I wrote faster, looking deeply into my screen trying to get my thoughts down before they slipped from my mind.  
     She whined and stood up to my leg scratching it with her paws.  I patted her head and told her to wait once more.  I kept writing.  Then she leaped into my lap and dropped a live baby mouse.  If you have read my other blog entries you know I don't like mice.  I screamed.  She wouldn't take it off, she wouldn't get up so  I could stand and this little mouse was running around my lap heading up my shirt.  I screamed louder and my hubby came running in, grabbed the mouse and disposed of it.  All the while Emily was waiting for her cookie.  
    Of course my hubby laughed and blamed me for teaching her to bring her prizes to me.  After I regained my composure, I went to the kitchen and rewarded her with a cookie.
   She gobbled it up and ran outside.  She quickly returned through the doggie door and raced to my feet with another gift.  This time I stopped typing to look.  There, hanging out the corner of her mouth, was a mouse tail.  I stood on my chair screaming and my hubby coaxed the mouse from her mouth and I, of course, gave her a cookie.  
    Moments later we repeated the scene.  I'm screaming, my husband is laughing and Emily is happily wagging her tail.  
    It appears she found a nest of baby mice and brought a total of five live mice to me in exchange for five cookies. 
    Emily continues to bring items to me in exchange for cookies, but I have learned to be extremely cautious.   If you've ever owned a westie you'd understand how clever and full of surprises they can be.           
       

SWEET DIRT

    Today is day three of our juice fast.  It's also the last day...woohoo!!! How do I feel today?  I'm not hungry at all, just had my cup of tea, and haven't even had my juice yet.  Again, I slept through the night.  The trips to the bathroom yesterday were greatly reduced.  And, I lost 2.5 pounds in two days!
    My hubby was mildly ill most of the day yesterday.  Not sure if he had a bug or if his body was objecting to no coffee, no cookies, and no bread...well, basically no food.  
     As I mentioned yesterday, the morning grape drink was very tasty, but way too sweet.  I ate a handful of walnuts to cut the sugar.  For lunch we juiced sweet potatoes (bet you didn't know they had juice in them), carrots, bell peppers, apples, and beets---4 large beets.  
     The color was amazing---a cross between hot pink and red.  The foam being hot pink.  It was thick like most of the other juices of the weekend.  If you've ever had a desire to be a vampire this is the drink for you.  It resembled blood being poured into a glass.  We should've used a gold chalice or some other ornate container and chanted a few words before drinking it.  But, we said a few words after the first sip.  "Do you taste dirt?" I asked. "Yup" was the response.  
     Neither of us like beets, so what did we expect.  The beet flavor took over and since they were juiced with the skins on, the dirt flavor was strong.  The drink was quite sweet.  Diluting it with water and pouring it over ice, made it go down much, much easier.  At first one might think he/she could drink this one more often, but as the sips continued it went into the never make again category.  
    By dinner we were finished with their recipes.  We decided why juice something that you would never eat so we created our own. Apples, carrots, spinach, and grapes---heavy on the spinach.  It was quite good and we had no problem drinking it.  
     Did we succeed in our attempt?  Probably not.  I had a small turkey burrito both days.  My hubby had one yesterday.  But the majority of our weekend was nothing but juice and, of course, Nancy Drew.  
     I'm not craving fried chicken, or Chinese food like I was the first day.  I'm actually not craving anything.  
    Will we continue?  Yes.  We plan to have at least one glass of highly concentrated juice every day.  We will follow the instructions to make the juice with 80% vegetables and 20% fruit. And since we almost never eat red meat that part will be easy to eliminate.  We plan to increase our vegetable servings at our meals and replace one meal per day with juice while sipping the juice during our other two meals.
     The concept is good, the recipes they provided I believe would set you up for failure.  So no more large amounts of spicy ginger, or raw onions, or tart lemons with the peels on and especially no more sweet dirt drinks.  Thanks for sharing our experiment.   
             
 

FAST IS SLOW

    Well we made it through the first day and I'm still alive.  This is how it played out.  We managed the first drink of the day, but I needed water because the ginger was too hot.  The second drink, our two quarts of "snack", was a nice green slime.  This time the strong lemon flavor hit me hard.  I managed about 6 ounces of my one quart and my hubby finished it all off.  He's such a good sport.  

     To keep our minds off food we locked ourselves in our family room and played a Nancy Drew mystery computer game.  Yeah, yeah, I know, Nancy Drew.  But let me explain.  We started playing these with the grandkids a few years ago and well, we well, oh how do I say this...we got hooked.  So far I haven't found any recovery programs for Nancy Drew addicts and we do limit ourselves to only a couple of games each year.  And we only play them on weekends and they last for several weekends if we play them on senior detective level.  So I think our addiction is controllable.  

    Our friends are all so supportive.  One, invited my husband over for BBQ ribs.  Detective Karst (from my mystery novels) and his wife stopped by and told us about their lunch in town.  Another friend called and asked if that meant no more Hostess cupcakes, and my brother, of all people, who should be offering us the most support wrote to tell me he was having a chocolate carmel ice-cream bar after he finishes his all meat pizza!!!  Really, where's the support, oh and my daughter who started all of this by giving us the documentary is still laughing.  

     By lunch time I was mighty hungry.  The bottles of water weren't doing it for me....let me confess right here and now....I ate a grape.  

     At twelve sharp, I was watching the clock, I suggested we make our next recipe.  It smelled tasty.  It had parsley, red onion, red bell pepper, a lime, celery, cucumber, and tomatoes.  Yum the fragrance of Mexican food was in the air.  I sipped it and it was all I could do to swallow it.  I thought maybe I would warm it just a little, not hot, didn't want to destroy the nutrients.  I thought as a soup it might go down better.  Nope, every swallow wanted to come up as quickly as it went down.  My hubby chugged his down without coming up for air, he says it's better that way.  My went down the drain.  

    He had a migraine appear, (not uncommon) so he could do no more for the evening.  I made this morning's breakfast last night so it could chill by morning.  

    By dinner time, my hypoglycemia had kicked in and I started to tremble.  I had to throw in the towel and eat.  I knew I couldn't go through the night without food.  So I had a homemade burrito.  They're small, with a little turkey, and beans in them.  That was just enough to hold me over until this morning.

    This morning's drink is quite good--apples, blackberries and grapes...lots and lots of grapes, six cups to be exact of these wonderful black grapes.  It went down easily, but then the sugar buzz hit.  I don't eat or drink sugar in the morning.  I can't do the donut or cold cereal 100 percent sugar loaded breakfast.  So to cut the sugar, I'm eating a half cup of walnuts. 

    Am I failure....maybe....how do I feel...great.  I lost one and a half pounds yesterday.  I had more energy. I stayed up later than is typical for me and I slept soundly through the night.  Are we going to continue today?  Yes.  But we are going to adjust the recipes for our tastes.  

    If anyone else is going to follow this program I might suggest a couple things that should be included in your shopping list.  Make sure to buy a couple cases of toilet paper.  I think it was liquid in-liquid out all day.  Every twenty minutes we paused the game to run to the bathroom.  I'm certain that's where my weight loss came from.  Or....if you are wanting to save on TP you can always have a catheter put in.... stay tuned for more episodes.....