Experimental Granola Bars

Diet changes are always tough. Giving up things I love to eat or nearly giving them up is not on my list of favorite things. Cutting way bock on salt and sugar is a real kick in the teeth. I crave loads of sweet things so I tried making my own granola bars… spoiler alert: the recipes I found all had sugar in them… so I’ll need to work on finding some without added sugar. I like an oat base, which is typical of granola bars, so yay! But with my allergies I need to avoid a lot of nuts, some dried fruits etc. So things I can use:

honey or maple syrup
peanuts
sunflower seeds
dried cranberries
dried apricots
coconut
dried blueberries
peanut butter
dried cherries

A lot of recipes call for chocolate or white chocolate, some have pretzels or other odd additions I want to steer clear of. My first attempt does have some mini chocolate chips included because I am making these in a weird time where we have no credit cards because we had to cancel them because someone stole the numbers and wired themselves a bunch of money. So we have what we have until we get new ones. Sadly we are probably going to have to wait a while because that jackass who took over the postal system is so busy destroying it. Ah well, we’ve got food.

Ch Ch Ch Changes…..

My Doctor says I have a fatty liver and we’ll need to do an ultrasound after the pandemic is more under control. I don’t think this explains my joint pain but I know all the tests ruled out a whole bunch of things so there’s that. So, this diagnosis means lifestyle changes like diet and exercise. I’m to lose between 15-20 LBs. and eat whole grains, fruits, veg, all the stuff they always tell you to eat, and I need to limit dairy, meats, fats, salt, sugar and alcohol… all the stuff they always tell you to limit. No real surprises. Funny how the same diet is good for so many things isn’t it? Not really, I feel foolish because I had a fairly excellent diet years ago and my burgeoning food allergies caused me to more or less give up. It seems I should have stuck with it even though it was getting harder to maintain. Oh well, this is where I am, this is what I have, so I’ll go from here.

Under this new lifestyle I also need to drink more water which, happily, I enjoy. I had fruit and tea and iced mint tea for breakfast this morning so off to a good start there. We’ll see how I do the rest of the day. Olive oil is supposed to be good in moderation and I can have avocados which I like. I’m allergic to almost all nuts and I hate olives so those are out. A Mediterranean diet is recommended but I’m allergic to tomatoes, lemons, nuts… and a host of other things that make healthy eating difficult. Obviously I’ll have to work on this, figure things out, limiting dairy and fried foods is going to suck.

Maybe I need to make a list of foods I especially like that are “allowed” in my new diet so I can focus on that instead of all the things I’m losing and need to curtail. Good foods I love:

Avocados
Mushrooms
Raspberries
Homemade granola
Sunflower seeds
Kale
Chickpeas
Potatoes
Limes
Sesame seeds
Summer squash pasta sauce
Onions
Garlic
Kidney Beans
Blueberries
Mint tea
Rice
Okra
Butternut squash
Apples
Pears
Nectarines
Red peppers
Beets
Broccoli
Zucchini
Scallions
Garlic scapes
Asparagus

So, pleny there to work with, and I am allowed some dairy, though I imagine my holiday indulgences will be way off book. I’m glad fast food is a no-no. I can be really bad about that at times. My weird indulgence in fast food seems sort of cyclical, I’ve gone through phases with it, I either have it frequently or not at all, so not at all it is. Not frying food at home will be weird, I’m pretty sure Sauteeing is frying and I do a lot of that especially my beloved onions & garlic. I suppose I’ll get it sorted out. I need some new recipes for certain and that’s going to be a bit tricky. Mediterranean cookbooks are out as they lean heavily towards many of my allergies. I think adapting to this new diet might be helped by growing some of the foods I can have and enjoy. I guess it’s time to invest in some raised beds and to learn how to vanquish my black thumb.

Some Sort of Update

Apparently I don’t blog so much when it’s boiling out. We finally brought up the air conditioners and we’ve been running them enough to keep sane. I’m still uncomfortable a fair bit of the time but I can sleep so I won’t complain.

Berry harvests are still way down right now. There are TONS of immature blackberries on the bushes but they are ripening so slowly I wonder if they will ever be ready. The sumac berry, /pink-lemonade reportedly came out weird, I think I jumped the gun and they weren’t ripe yet, everyone still liked it but said it did not taste like lemonade. I need to find my foraging book and check when they are supposed to be ripe.

So, the camp-out went well. Five kids showed up and three stayed until midnight. We read spooky stories, talked about and showed off our pets, and the kids thanked me multiple times for putting it together. They asked me if we might be able to have similar events on some kind of regular basis and I’m thinking about it. I think I’m zeroing in on something, maybe the ideal sort of job for me, something that takes advantage of all my strengths and talents. I enjoy creating events, parties, planning activities, and running craft and other workshops, contests, book clubs etc. So, teen librarian is phenomenally close, my current job is phenomenally close, to what I feel I should be doing. But…

Other things I want to do just aren’t allowed in that box, not the way I want to do them, not on the scale I imagine them. Like the “All Hallows Read” where I wanted to run an overnight campout in the library. I thought we could do a sleepover with pop-up tents, sleeping bags etc. The plan was to have toaster oven s’mores, cocoa, etc, read aloud some spooky stories or Halloween related stuff, play some games and let the kids have the unusual experience of sleeping in the library. The teens loved this idea and my boss thought it was great and was willing to split the night with me so each of us could get a little shut-eye but the trustees didn’t feel comfortable with it. They also don’t allow us to show PG 13 movies even if we would limit the attendees to 13 and up and obtain explicit parental permission for each child attending. They won’t even allow PG 13 movies for adult audiences at the library. It’s just weird that I can show the first two Harry Potter movies but not the others.

That is all for now. I’m feeling ill and overwhelmed.

Not Digging Phasing Back to “Normal”

We’re easing back into the work routine, it’s going fairly well, despite one abusive patron already, during my second shift back. Keep it on the road lady, I haven’t used the system or tried to locate a book or dvd in months! Oof. I have caught up with making all the flyers I need to and am working on assembling materials for the take-home crafts, and packets of information for the contests I’ll be running and things like that. I’m learning all the new protocols, all the new procedures, etc, even as we wait to phase most of it out whenever that happens. I’m enjoying being back in the building, being among the books, getting to casually chat with a coworker, even at a distance and through our masks. I’ve got my new materials budget starting next month, it’s been slashed, but I will make do. I’ll hunt for what bargains there are to be had, solicit more donations of gently used books, etc. That’s all good. And yet I am still contemplating quitting my dream job.

I get stressed out having to go there, stressed by the extra steps we need to go through to track curbside pick up, stressed trying to talk on a phone through a mask, while the phone slips against the mask as I try to use the computer, stressed by all the cleaning, the cleaners make my skin peel, the gloves make my hands wildly sweaty and uncomfortable, I’m just very stressed by work right now and by the pace at which people are rushing to “get back to normal” without adequate time between steps to see what impact the lifting of restrictions will have on virus spread. They are just going to create a new surge of this horrible virus and we are all going to be forced to quarantine again. 😦

Stress is a big factor in my negative feelings toward working, but it isn’t the only factor. I got used to a new, softer rhythm of life, I have been able to be a better wife, better mother, better pet-mom, vastly more prolific artist, and despite all the stress of the pandemic a generally happier person in a bunch of ways. I had more time to read, more time to learn new things, I liked it. Normalcy kind of sucks. Being stressed, rushing places, having to plan dinner for my family and a stupid, sad separate dinner for myself. (usually a couple of granola bars and some water for me. bleh) Not working allowed me to reach out, online of course, and keep up with my friends more, connect in new, untried ways that have turned out to be hella cool. I feel more of a sense of community with all my friends than I did when we were all rushing out to jobs all the time, driving kids around, constantly running errands and busy, busy, busy! Not that I was idle at home, I mean now I am cause it’s a billion degrees out, but I was painting, writing, working from home, cooking a lot, reading, planning, dreaming, just living. And it was good.

We’ve been lucky, we’ve been able to continue to work from home through this nightmare, we have been getting paid when others have been laid off temporarily or permanently, lost their insurance and suffered hunger while not being able to pay their bills. We have friends who are struggling through this and it’s just so stressful. We help where we can but I wish we could do more. I want to fix all the problems and it sucks that I can’t, that I have to choose where I feel like we can make the best impact at any given time. When the virus comes roaring back and we are all forced to go back home I think it might be worse the second time around. Folks that lost jobs will probably still be out of work and how are they supposed to eat and live if our damn government doesn’t support its citizens? Doesn’t ban evictions and suspend the machinery of rent and mortgage collection and tell the greedy utilities they aren’t allowed to shut people off? If our government was more functional we would have universal health care, a strong safety net, and much else that the rest of the civilized world already has. We need to fix that!