Seven Quick Takes

Seven reasons to love living in paradise:
1. The rainbows. I see a rainbow more days than I do not see a rainbow. Many days I often see a double rainbow!

2. The sun, the sand, the water, the weather. Need I say more?

3. The view. I'm surrounded by incredible beauty! Trees, flowers, birds, blues skies, and blue seas. I just want to drink it all in!

4. The spam. No, just kidding. I will never understand the Hawaiians' appreciation for meat in a can. But I do adore all the fresh products I can get year round from local farms! Pineapples (of course!), bananas, tomatoes, eggs and goat's milk...

5. Costco. Ok, so as much as I love those bananas I get from a local family-owned farm, I love those gigantic packages of nuts flown in from California. And Costco is so close to the house! Right next to Target.

6. The people. It's an interesting cultural experience to be a racial minority. I was watching a group of school children walk, and out of 30 kids, there were only two Caucasians. I was worried when we first moved here that the Hawaiians would be resentful of our presence, both as whites and as mIlitary members, but I've found them to be a very warm and kind people. It's been a pleasure getting to know them and their land.

7. The company. If you live in paradise, you'll have lots of friends come out of the woodwork to visit. It's been fun hosting our friends and family. We hope to see more soon!

For the "original" seven quick takes click here.

Some Sample Meals

What we eat on the SCD:

Breakfast:

Scrambled eggs (with roast chicken, peppers, cheese, bacon, avocado, spinach, etc)

Fruit and yogurt smoothies

SCD pancakes or waffles

Cinnamon rolls with sausage

"Oatmeal" (cooked almond meal with yogurt, honey, and cinnamon)

Lunch:

Sandwiches on scd bread

Costco sausages (made with chicken and minimally processed! Read the labels carefully though, not all are legal)

Hamburgers, no bun, but with lots of fun toppings: cilantro and cheddar, guacamole and provolone, chile mayo,

Drumsticks, made the night before and served cold or reheated

Tuna salad with legal mayo, pineapple and macadamia nuts, served over lettuce (I just had this for lunch today, with fresh ahi tuna! Yum!)

Fresh veggies: carrots, peppers, squash, sugar snap peas

Dinner:

Peanut butter pork (one pork loin, several "glugs" of legal soy sauce and several "dollops" of legal peanut butter in the crockpot on low, all day. Serve over shredded cabbage.)

Curried shrimp (saute a few pounds of shrimp, add 1 cup coconut milk, a few tsp. curry, serve over grated cauliflower)

Bacon Ranch Pizza

Broiled Halibut with creamy parmesan and roasted veggies

Quiche

Steak, chicken, or fish on the grill

Meatballs (made with eggs, legal bread crumbs and seasonings)

Dessert:

Strawberry shortcake (a la Grain Free Gourmet)

Almond butter brownies

Ice cream

Vanilla Bean Cake

Food, Food, Food!

I thought I would give you an update on how it's going with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. I can say with honesty that it is getting easier with time. I am tempted to "cheat" once in a while and do drive-though, but then I consider the incredible progress we've made and it completely quashes the temptation.

When we leave the house, we've gotten good at planning ahead and bringing snacks along. Or if we're occasionally caught unprepared and we need a quick bite to eat, there's this thing called the grocery store...:) It's really easy. You get out of your car, go inside and put a few choice items in the cart: cheddar cheese (hard, aged cheddar has very low levels of lactose), grapes, almonds... Sometimes you can find scd-legal meats that you can roll up in a lettuce leaf like a wrap. It's pretty simple, it's just been a matter of changing how we think about our food choices.

We eat at home most of the time because it seems when we eat at restaurants the only choices our scd kiddos have are: hamburger, no bun with steamed veggies, chicken with veggies, or steak with veggies. That can get pretty tiresome for our children. Especially when they watch us chowing down on french fries or pizza. Though Ruby Tuesdays has a great salad bar. The dressings are all illegal, but A doesn't care because he doesn't really like dressing anyway, and M doesn't care because she is fruit-obsessed and only wants to eat the grapes and pineapple.

As time goes on, I am seeing more and more signs that baby Z has the same gut issues as M. He has far too much trouble in that area for a little guy who is 95% breastfed and only about 5% established on solids. My choices are to wait until he weans and begin him on the scd, or (gulp) put myself entirely on the diet right now, since he's probably reacting to all the non-scd foods I'm eating. This will be a struggle because I really, really, really (really, really!) enjoy the weekly/monthly (depending on work/travel schedules, you know?) pizza and ice cream dates I have with my husband. I will try to be a big girl about it and NOT WHINE. But that will be hard for me because did I mention that I really like pizza and ice cream?

How to Fix Bad Attitudes...in Yourself

I saw these two blog posts, and thought they were too wonderful not to share!

Ten Keys to Patient motherhood

Cultivating a Kind, Gentle Tone of Voice