New blog!

Hey pretties!

I've decided to make a new blog. Click here to go to the new one and learn why I'm making the switch.

Mommy's day

Hello, loves! Told you I'd be back. I've adjusted to not blogging regularly quite well. My obsession with food, magically, is now almost gone! It's so lovely to just be able to eat normal food on ugly plates, without worrying about whether what I'm eating is attention-worthy. That just feeds my disorder and makes me think that I'm not worth it if my food isn't special enough. Don't get me wrong, I still love food! I always have and always will. But I want to just let my culinary creativity come naturally if it means a full recovery.

So today is Mother's Day. Is my mom the only mom who despises this holiday? She always tells my sister and I not to get her any gifts, and just treat her as well as we do every other day of the year. But of course I never listen to her! I love her for all the support, humor and advice she's given me over the years. Not just in my recovery, for the past 14 years she's been the only person I can trust with anything I want to say. I had to do something to recognize that. Since she loves to read, I made her a cloth bookmark embroidered with her initials and flowers. I also made her favorite breakfast in bed: Cinnamon raisin scones, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. No picture, because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Lately I've been feeling very stressed and overwhelmed. I've been anxious all the time and can never get my mind to settle down so I can relax. There are always tons of thoughts and worries building up in my cranium so today I decided to do something about it!

I made two lists. The first is called "Things and People that Really Annoy Me". When I'm stressed I get overly emotional, so just about everything annoys me and weighs my mind down. In half an hour I came up with 58 things, wow! Next I wrote a list called "Major Stresses", which only has nine things on it. These are what were occupying my mind the most and made it impossible for me to quit worrying.

Then I went sort of crazy with my pens.. for the annoyance list I just ferociously scribbled all over the page until all those little problems were blacked out. I didn't need to think too much about it, because they were just useless bits that were clogging up my brain. I was a bit more thoughtful with the stresses list. For every item on it, I thought about what I could do to improve it so it didn't stress me out anymore. Then I scribbled it out. I came up with solutions for some of the problems. But for the rest of them, I just had to think, "That's out of my hands and I can't do anything about it." Too much of my ED came from trying to fix problems that weren't mine to fix. I'm going to just have to relax now and let everything that I can't control run it's course. Things will work out.

A HA, I'm not done yet! After the coloring party I just ripped the papers to shreds and chucked them in the recycling bin. As stupid as it sounds, I feel like I can actually breathe now, like the stress has just fallen out of my head. Seeing my problems spelled out in front of me, coming up with a solution to make myself feel better about them and destroying them might give me the relaxation I've needed for so long.

Okay okay, so I do have some food pictures. I'm sure most of you have heard of Katie's New Foods Challenge! But if you live in a cave and have not, definitely check it out! The new food I choose was edamame. I know, what kind of failure vegetarian has never tried edamame before? ME! But I finally picked some up a little while ago and I'm so glad I did! It has stellar nutritionals, with tons of protein and fiber. It's mighty tasty too! Sort of nutty. I made a lovely salad with cooked edamame, romaine, carrots, black beans, zuccchini, and cucumber. Yum yum yum.

And today I tried my first green smoothie! I've only been reading/commenting on blogs sporadically lately but noticed a definite trend in green monsters. I was skeptical, but today I made my own out of a banana, strawbs, ground flax (another new food for me), 2 handfuls of spinach, and a splash of milk. It was delicious, why didn't I try it before? I'll definitely make it again with different fruits.

Ooooh, well today's breakfast was too cute not to share! Those little Wholefoods chocolate graham bears had just escaped the peanut butter tsunami and were headed for the apricot lifeboats but...

Nope. The Kiki monster ate them. Along with the oatmeal ocean and PB tsunami.

Hmmm, I'm so used to saying "goodnight" to wrap up my posts but it's not even 6:00 yet! Alright then, ciao!

Video Post!!!

Hello, lovelies. I’m baaaack. With a video post, obviously. I felt soooooo awkward while filming this. I kept thinking “What are you doing? Why are you still talking about this???” Hence strange expressions and really really awkward and long silence around 3:48. I had some notes in front of me, you see, and was collecting my thoughts. Hehh. Erase it from your memories.



And here are some of the 365 days of pictures I've taken.

Tulip in my yard

My kitty Shadow, stuck inside a plastic bag. She for some reason has an irrational fear of them so she was running all around the house trying to get the bag off of her. I thought it was hilarious until I had to spend half an hour getting her out from underneath my bed so the bag wouldn't suffocate her!

And this is a thing in my living room that holds our firewood. I thought it was pretty how the sunlight shone through the cobwebs (shows how much we use our fireplace!) and reflected off the copper container.

Okay, I think that covers it. I'll be seeing you around! Love you all loads, night.

Just for your information

…I’m going to be away for a little while. I’ve been feeling really depressed since Sunday. There wasn’t one trigger event that started this. It’s probably due to me staying at home all spring  break and not seeing anyone but my family. Also the weather is gray, cold, and drizzling, which always makes me feel sad. I just want to curl up into a ball and stay there forever, I don’t want to go outside or to school or to cello. School today was atrocious. Everyone was talking to me about what I did over break and it took everything in me to answer them, to not cry because I want to be cut off from everything.

There have been no ED side affects from this, so far, and I’m hoping to keep it that way. For once I don’t actually care about food and am just seeing it as a necessity. I’ve been eating everything on my MP with no problem and don’t feel like giving it any extra thought right now.

I won’t leave you all without any pictures though. I decided to start a 365 days of pictures thing on Monday, so I can get some use out of my camera beyond food pictures. It’s exactly what it sounds like, taking a picture a day for a year.

Day #1, April 13- My family decided to go to the National Zoo. I hate zoos, I find it very depressing to see animals confined into such small spaces with people gawking at them from every direction. This orangutan was enjoying some orange slices before a mob of people came to stare at it. When he noticed, he put the paper bag the orange was in over his head to hide. :[ 

Day #2, April 13- Photograph of a poster, how lame. I forget the details, but my uncle was some how involved in planning a concert with Yo-Yo Ma. He got a chance to talk with Yo-Yo (what a fun name!) and told him that his niece played the cello. So Yo-Yo signed a poster thingy for me. It says “To Kiki, with _____”, something I can’t make out. Probably not with love, maybe with good luck? Cool none the less.

Sorry for such a non-post. I don’t know how long I’ll be away, I just want to get back on my feet before I start food blogging again. I have group this Thursday, perhaps it will help. I was supposed to have made progress since two weeks ago. Fail.

I haven’t been commenting but I’ve read up on all your blogs. Much love, night.

A doughy day

Hello, world. I’m feeling pretty good today, which is why I’m posting three days in a row! Last night I ended up skimping on 100 cals that I meant to add to my PM snack. I was standing in the kitchen, granola bar in hand, and then I thought “No, I don’t need this.” So I put it back and went to bed. I think I’m okay with the size of my snack now and would be fine with keeping it this way. I know that’s letting ED win, I know I should be eating all of it and then sitting with the crappy feelings. But I just added back hundreds and really don’t want to push myself anymore. Arggg I don’t know!

My breakfast was delectable this morning! Among other things, I had chai banana coconut oatbran! Which is oat bran cooked in 1/2 milk and 1/2 water with TJ’s chai tea mix stirred in, topped with half a caramelized nanner and a sprinkle of coconut. Yum!

AM snack was two multi grain rice cakes topped with PB and the other half of the banana, smashed a la Jenny. Along with some lovely geometry homework.

For lunch, I made a grilled pesto, hummus, and black olive sandwich. Olives olives olives I love olives! I also had cauliflower, plain yogurt with homemade apple butter, and a NP flax bars. I love these bars. They remind me of big, honey and raisin filled rice krispy treats.

I did homework and practiced my various instruments for a while then got bored. Which means I baked. I wanted to make granola bars, but we are out of oatmeal! *Gasp* So I made toaster pastries! I haven’t tried one yet, I’m saving it for breakfasts/snacks. They were quite difficult to make, I actually had to throw the dough (rhyme!) of one away because it wouldn’t stop falling apart :[

After baking I went on another walk. Brought my camera with me of course. It was so gorgeous out today, close to 70 degrees, breezy, and sunny! I found these flowers in my yard, I think they’re purple lillies of the valley. I think it’s good for me to photograph something other than food. I’m thinking of doing a 365 days of pictures type-thing on here, what do you all think?

My afternoon snack was slightly different than usual because I only had enough CC for one half of my muffin! So the other half had cream cheese. Along with strawbs and sunflower seed butter. 

Dinner was amazing! My sister helped me make whole wheat pizza dough. It was the easiest and quickest dough I’ve ever made (only took 10 mins!) thanks to a food processor. We I topped my portion with Nature’s Promise pasta sauce, mozzarella, OLIVES and green pepper. It turned out exceptionally well. The crust was just the way I like it- soft and chewy, not “crackery”. Also had a salad of romaine, carrots, cucumber, broccoli, and papaya poppy seed dressing.

My dad’s job involves doing techie stuff at big conventions in DC. Since he works after the shows are over, he often gets to claim the leftover freebies that they put out for the people going to the conventions. Today he came home just as my mom and I were setting the table for dinner. He plopped down a box of donuts on the table and said they were leftover from a convention. There were four, one for each of us. My mom said “Well, Kiki won’t want hers, so we’ll just let Allison have it.” My dad asked why I didn’t want mine, which I obviously didn’t have an answer for. After a moment of awkward silence he said “Are you ever going to eat doughnuts? Are you ever going to be normal again?” Thankfully I was saved from answering this because the oven timer went off. I don’t know how to explain to them that there isn’t a way to know what a normal me would be like. I don’t have a clue of what I’d be like, or what foods I’d like, if I had never gotten an eating disorder. And now, I don’t know if it’s normal for me to want to eat healthily and never touch a doughnut, or if that’s my ED speaking. Maybe the real me wants to eat junk food when I felt like it, like  I did before this all started. This frustrates me because I used to be so sure of who I was and what I wanted.

Good night, loves! Oh, and I need Easter dessert ideas. I need something like and springy!