RA changes and AIP

 About three years ago I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. For about a year I was on steroids and then switched over to tier two medications. (There are three levels of medications for people with RA). I was good for about a year, then late last fall I started to feel worse again, but because of the way my pain manifests, it happened so slowly that I didn´t realize what was going on. I just got more and more exhausted and the pain just becomes so normalized. (This isn´t surprising as I was probably living with RA for more than ten years before I was diagnosed.) In February I did a short bout of steroids and for a week felt so much better. But I had be suffering so much that I was struggling to do my daily yoga routine. I decided about a year and half ago to invest in private yoga lessons and it has made the world of difference for my well-being. (I will do a post on that soon.) I met with a cranio-sacral healer a few weeks ago who pointed out that my gut was a mess. So I decided to make huge dietary changes. I always ate well, but as I got more tired my desire to cook decreased rapidly. It is hard to want to cook when you can barely get out of bed. I started reading the Plant paradox and decided to try the diet which works on removing lectins from your diet. It starts with a three day elimination diet that is focused on eating greens of the cabbage and salad groups and a lot of avocado. On day two I started to notice a break out on the back of my thighs and it moved over the day up my back and on to my breasts. I spent a day trying to find people who had had similar reactions. I finally found one women and she had immediately stopped the elimination process. I eliminated the avocado and avocado oil, and by day four the rash was gone. I switched over the the AIP diet. I have now been on as strict as I can living in Iceland AIP diet. I have gotten lots of supplies, been able to eat most of the things I love aside from chocolate. In desperation I bought carob powder to make "chocolate" cookies. I have made lots and lots of food the last two weeks and I will post about the things that were tasty and memorable, but what really surprised me was I realized that I have been cooking a lot. Much more than I have in the past 8 months, and it is not exhausting. I feel overall so much better. I have more energy for longer walks with the dog, to make more than one meal in a day (although I do have days where I just eat leftovers), I have significantly increased my vegetable intake every day. And so far I have slimmed down a bit, mostly what I think is water weight and I have the energy of thinking about reviving this blog and creating recipes that work with this diet. And most of all my pain has decrease significantly.

Thinking over Christmas, changes in life.

Life sure is funny in how it progresses. I moved to Iceland seven years ago this December. I brought my dog to live with me almost two years later. It was an expensive endeavor (and month in quarantine for him). Since then we moved times, the last time was it as I bought myself and apartment (in the US called a condo). We moved here a little over two years ago and have already redone the bathroom and the kitchen. This coming spring the windows will be redone, as they are most likely over 50 years old. That is a lot in the first two years of owning a home. 

Two years ago I became a tenured faculty member at the University here, some days I think yes this is great, then at other times, all I want to do is sleep. Last fall (2018) I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. At first I was on low grade steroids and an analgesic, but that wasn't enough to relieve all the pain, and then this summer I was told my D and B-12, so now I am on stronger medications and a bunch of vitamins, as well as off the steroids. I am not nearly as swollen as I was. As part of this new journey and learning how to live in this new body, I have been doing things differently.

I started taking a private yoga class where the teacher is designing a special routine for me as I can no longer do the practices I have had for the last 30 years. What I am doing is very simple, but it takes a lot of work to focus on all the movements, and the breathing, it is actually mostly the breathing that is hard. I am so competitive with myself, need to be better need to take longer inhales and exhales, but last week she told me to stop it and just breath for four in and six out and keep the focus on making in like waves and smooth and flowing with no space or pause between the inhale or exhale. So I made myself an agreement that I would do my very short routine everyday that I am off of work (which is two weeks). I only missed one day so far. 

Since the routine is only about 10 minutes long it is hard to find a reason to skip it. What was hard for me about keeping to it as an everyday thing at the same time. I realized that I was thinking of it incorrectly not setting it at a specific time like 10 am, but rather as the first thing I do when I wake up, so no matter what time it is that I wake up, 6 am or 11 am. That has made it much easier to do it without feeling shitty about it. After the new year I plan to get back to swimming, as that seems to have made a huge difference for me. 

Another thing that I have been doing has been trying to journal in the mornings after I do the yoga routine. It is a three page free write activity. I don´t try to write about anything specific, it is really an act of clearing my mind to work on other things. Mostly it is very boring, what I write, but I always feel better when I am done with it. I am hoping it will help me with both my poetry and with my academic writing. I feel like I need a change and moving into 2020 I see no reason why not to start now. 

In general life is fairly easy, I can do pretty much what I want. I set my own schedule for work. Some days I work until late, some days I don't work much, especially when I have flair ups. I am working on my own projects, well kind of, I am telling people what to do on my own projects. I have gotten a huge (by Icelandic standards) grant for a three year project. I have a few smaller projects and have people working on them as well, so in reality I have a few employees. I rather miss doing fieldwork, but I will get back there. 

In the past seven years I have done a bunch of travelling, mostly for work, Istanbul, London, Dublin, Oslo, Hamburg, Lund, Copenhagen, Toronto and Mexico City, oh and Porto, Ayr, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Rome. We took a two week vacation in Madeira at the beginning of 2019, so I have seen a few places. I would really like to go to SA and my aim is to go to Reunion in 2021 for my sabbatical, then I can travel to Africa, from there. But I have to be careful, with the illness I become very tired, so in the coming year I will only travel to Scotland and Calgary, (well I might stop in MN or CO). 

I would love to promise to write more about myself, my work and my illness with more regularity, but I can make none such, my history with that kind of keeping up with myself is not good. If I had full command of my schedule, then maybe but that wont happen for another twenty years when I retire. Lol.

Icelandic labour day weekend

Post from 2014 I think
I am at the tailend of my first long vacation in many years. That said I did work on and submit an article, finally today. I have been taking it easy, which means getting up late after 9.30 (at the earliest) often much later, taking long walks with the dog, updated picture to come. I have been really tired for the last few years, it felt like I came to a wall this spring. I also found out for the last 2 or 3 years I have miscalculated how much time off my job offers. (A lot, enough to make anyone a truly relaxed and some what rational human 24 + days depending on age). This is the first time I take all of it. This morning was one of the first where I woke up thinking I had slept enough, still tired.
As a result of this tiredness, I have gone gluten free again (at least at home). Not really feeling much less tired but I do like the challenge. I think aside for my love of bread, I am mostly gluten free anyway. Tonight I think the menu will be:
Grilled lamb chops marinated in Maroccan spices, quinoa tabuleh and cucumber avacado salad. Been thinking about inviting someone over for dinner and I am too lazy to do that.

Sabbatical trying to be more academic

So I am on sabbatical until August. For the first three weeks I was down with a terrible flu, but am back at it.
I have set myself a bunch of big goals for the next few months, one of them is just resting and getting back on target with self care. It is one of the things that seems to go faster than other things. Right now mornings are for yoga and reading academic texts, the early afternoon for meetings and the later part of the day I write with a goal of 300-500 words a day. I am not too strict on this as this is my first sabbatical and I am rather tired from the last 5 years of heavy teaching.
So this is about rest and writing. I am enjoying the opportunity to read as much as I want and find space for my creativity. I published an article this year (in January) that got comments from the reviewers and editors that was a readable article, which is high praise for an academic article and one of my goals.
I have a hard time reading academic articles that bore me, so I certainly don´t want to write them. This is part of my creative side even though the topics are academic. Overall, I like being an academic, but it is a stunning amount of work, much of which is done behind closed doors in an office or as is in my case at home on my couch. (yes I work best there). Never been a desk person, and certainly don´t do well in libraries or coffee shops, too many distractions. For me a cozy couch  with quiet or good music depending on what I am doing.

Slow cooking tomato sauce and traditional Icelandic apple cake

It has been a rainy fall weekend. Went to the annual staff gala on Friday and danced so much my joints ache. Today (Sunday) I decided to make slow cooked tomato sauce, it is still cooking. And took the time to try a new version of traditional Icelandic apple cake but a gluten free version.

For the tomato sauce:

1 kg of roma tomatoes
2 tbsp of butter
1 onion cut into eights

Put it all in a pan cover and put it on low, simmer for hours. (I will finish it tomorrow)

Traditional apple cake (Gluten Free) Super quick and simple

200 g of butter
1 c of raw sugar
3 eggs
1 1/4 c of gluten free flour (I found Dove's Farm here in Iceland and rather like it)
1/2 c of nut flour (almond or hazel nut, I find adding just a bit of this if you can eat nuts keeps the cakes moist)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 c greek yoghurt (the orginal called for cream but I didn´t have any so I thought I would try this and it worked)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1-2 granny smith apples peeled and sliced
2 tbsp of cinnamon sugar (I shook cinnamon and 2 tsp of sugar on top as I don´t keep this on hand)

Grease round cake pan. Cream butter and sugar until well blended (it wont look light if you use raw sugar.  Add eggs one at a time and mix well. Add flours and baking powder and mix well. Add  yoghurt and vanilla and mix well. Peel apples, slice into pieces. Pour batter into greased form and spread evenly. Push apple pieces into batter, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over top. Bake at 175 C (which is about 350 F) for about 40 minutes. (It is good to check with GF cakes as they can cook faster and get dry). Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Nearing Imbolic and Þorri started on Friday

I am now somewhat settled in my new job as a faculty member at the University. I am finally teaching courses that I have taught before, which leaves a bit more time for writing and thinking, but some how I manage to fill that time with other projects, such as creating a more welcoming environment for the students in our program.

One of the things that I have been thinking about a lot lately is religion and spirituality. This is in a sense in the wake of the warm out pouring of sympathy the Western world has shown in the wake of Charlie Hebedo.  I have been feeling somewhat disconnected lately from my spirituality. I downloaded a book to that end that has a number of chants and rituals. I have managed the one for the shower, but the walking out the door one is apparently much harder. I will get there eventually. But this disconnect means that I am also having a hard time socializing or wanting to join classes or anything that might make me have to be attending something with any kind of regularity. So I think I will start small and work my way up to something bigger.

This winter has been harsh here. A lot of snow and high winds. Over the weekend the wind whistled in the windows even when they were closed. It was oddly comforting to hear the wind and know I was snugged up inside with Mómó, who has made me very lazy in this terrible weather. One day the wind was so strong it actually picked him up and moved him, hey he is only 5 kg. Most of the time when it is windy, cold or really wet we get about half way up the block and he lifts his paw, stands there shivering and gives me a really pathetic look. The only time he gets super excited when he sees cats.

Maybe the dark is bugging me, but I don´t think so. I have been so tired that my cooking has been rather drab. I made oven fried chicken, mash potatoes and carrots and turnips with a gluten-free mushroom sauce. Eatable but nothing to write home about.

What if we ate things like horse, lamb heart, kidney...

Last week at one of the cheaper (this being overall relative here in Iceland), I saw a woman buying lamb hearts. In the check out lane I asked her what she did with them, or rather, how she prepared them. She said there are hundreds of ways, just sauteing them butter is one way, that is quite good. I have eaten stags heart, which we way over cooked, but I liked it, so one day very soon I will try the hearts. It is in my opinion a real shame that we don´t often use the insides. I hope it goes into things like dog food or cat food, but personally I have nothing against eating other meats. Sure I have a limit. I doubt I would eat cat or dog more than once.
I heard a story just recently, about eating weasel in Vietnam and wonder what I would do. I have eaten bugs, stags heart, and horse sausage and steak, whale...I will try most everything once although I have drawn the line at shark.
So in light of this we get to the meat/heart of the matter. One of the other cheapish food stores had a sale on pony meat this weekend. I thought about it, especially after the whole horse meat ordeal last fall in Europe where they found horse meat in food that was not supposed to have them. I like the horse meat sausages we have here and mortadella is also quite good. So a long way into this story, I decided to try making Hungarian goulash with horse meat or more specifically pony meat. I figured if it was a really strong flavor the goulash would take care of that. (I know I know I have a few friends who would be very mad at me, those who love horses, don´t get me wrong I love horses, I know how to ride and would do it more often if I could afford it, maybe if I eat more horse I can). Horse meat is much cheaper than beef, which I almost never buy anyway and lamb which I love and I have no plans to give up red meat anytime soon. So at the store I bought one pound of (1/2 kg) of folalda (pony) gulas (stew meat), some tomato paste, a red pepper, beef bouillon and some sour cream.

Home I went with a lot more than just these things as it was the shopping outing for the week. Then I did work (listened to a focus group interview and took notes and cleaned the kitchen). Finally, I got to the task of cooking the goulash.
Pony meat goulash
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp bacon grease
1 onion coarsely chopped
2 carrots chopped
the afore mentioned pony stew meat
3 tbsp of spelt flour mixture with salt and pepper to coat the meat.
2 tbsp hungarian paprika
1 tbsp smoked hot hungarian paprika
1 1/2 cup of beef broth bouillon
2 tbsp of tomato paste
1 tsp majoram
1 cup sour cream or greek yoghurt

1. heat fats in a pan over medium heat and brown onions in the fat
2. Add carrots and saute quickly
3. Roll meat in the flour mixture and brown with the onions and carrots. (I had intended to put some garlic in but forgot. I would put it minced in after I browned the meat otherwised).
4. Add a 1/2 cup of leftover wine if you have it pour in about 1/2 of the bouillon and scrape the bottom of the pan to get the good stuff up. Then add the rest of the liquid and the tomato paste. stir well and lower heat to a light simmer.
5. Take the dog for a walk, since he has been barking at the washer and the vacuum.
6. Stir again and put water on for noodles, flat ones egg noodle are the best.
7. Right before serving stir in the sour cream, just make sure the sauce isn´t too hot or the cream will separate.
 Serve with a fresh salad and a light dressing...