Thursday, May 31, 2012

Eyes on the Prize

You guys wouldn't believe that I was a nerdy English Literature Ph.D. student if I didn't throw in a lame pun every now and then, right?

I went to the eye doctor today for my yearly check up. While I don't actively hate having my eyes checked, today's appointment reminded me that: 1) I'm socially awkward, and 2) some of the *isht* they do to you at the eye doctor is wretched.

Example A: that motherfucking glaucoma test. Which one, you ask? Well, the first, second, third, and fourth one. Apparently if you are neurotic and nervously wait for the dreaded puff of air it makes you blink more, which makes it hard for the machine to tell if you have glaucoma--i.e. slightly glassy grey eyeballs. Yuck.*

*(Sorry if anyone has glaucoma. My grandma's dog had it and her quality of life didn't seem too fantastic.)

Example B: When your eye doctor is assessing your contact prescription and asking "Is option 'one' or 'two' more clear?" "How about between 'three' and 'four'--which one is better?" This might seem pretty harmless, but let's say they both look the same and you're still forced to pick which one is more clear. Then you're stuck with a wonky contact prescription because your eye doctor is basing your new prescription off your guesstimates rather than the actual sharpness of vision in your eyes. (Also, being concerned that you're giving the "incorrect" answer makes it difficult to really tell which slide is more clear. See Example A, "if you are neurotic...")

Example C: You ask your eye doctor what that crap in the corner of your eyes is and even without your contact lenses in you can see that he looks disturbed and put off.

Example D: Someone that you "pre-dated" works there and thinks you're a bitch.*

*Predating=when you've met someone and are in the initial phases of sussing out whether you want to make a real date. Also, in my case, when the person that you are pre-dating tells you on the phone that he was recently put in jail and dislikes the police.**

**This really happened to me. People, I shop at The Gap and worry about what kind of sugar is in my baked goods--do you really think it's advisable to confess your police record to me?

In other news, we had friends over for dinner last night and ate some of the bf's "famous" Spicy Seitan Burritos.

Beneath that creepy mash is olive oil. Frying things in olive oil=good. Though a part of me wants to call it sauteing instead of frying--in case that makes it have fewer calories.
I also made some Ezekiel Banana Bread, and used olive oil!!! instead of canola oil or some other fatty substance. I always thought that olive oil would have too noticeable a taste to use in baked goods, but it wasn't noticeable at all! More olive oil baking experiments to come!!!

Let's call it upside-down banana bread. So.freaking.good. with a peanut butter blanket.
*Do you like going to the eye doctor? Do you feel like a bad person if your contact prescription gets "worse" from year to year?

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

ED Reflections, no. 3

When I last left off, I was talking about cinnamon bears. Cinnamon bears are really tasty. I like hot candies. I'm pretty sure I did some damage to my liver and err...colon?...pancreas? when I was a candy-eating adolescent.

Just in case it wasn't obvious, the "new" body that I achieved after dieting in middle school did not last. Shocking, I know. It turns out that even though I had learned how to count calories, knowing that I was eating too much didn't really stop me from doing it anyway. (This is still true sometimes.) I also had no understanding of a food's nutritional value--only calories, calories, calories. If I had calories to "spend," then I'd rather spend them on a serving of Hot Tamales instead of an apple and peanut butter. (After all, peanut butter is high and calories and thus "bad.")

Thus I began a long cycle of trying to lose weight by being "good," which was inevitably followed by phases of overeating, poor nutrition, and weight regain. I hated shopping, and given that I had received such strong praise for losing weight I began to associate any negative social interaction with my big fatty ass. In other words, if people seemed like they didn't really like me, then it was definitely because I was pale, freckly, and chubby. All the good and all the bad in my life, it seemed, could be quickly correlated to how thin I looked.

Of course, looking back I can see that this thinking was severely distorted and prevented me from relaxing around friends and being myself. Also, as an adult I'm still aware of the fact that in some cases we get treated based upon how we look, especially our relative plumpness:-)

If only people were like raisins and the plumper ones were objectively superior. Sigh.

I'll end on that philosophical note and show you what I found on my hike with Haruki this morning:








If all this can grow in a burnt-out wasteland then surely I can stop myself from eating a whole box of cereal...right!?? Right.

*How do you like em'--plump or puny? (Raisins, I mean.)

Monday, May 28, 2012

Meat-free Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!

My Memorial Day has been relatively unmemorable. Our first night with Haruki went really well, but I still woke up feeling sleepy. And I neglected to mention yesterday that my neck is doing some weird spasm thing, so lifting my head to check on Haruki during the night was painful. Pain in the neck+sleepy means Nikki naps. And that's exactly what I did--with Haruki by my side, of course!

She seems to have really bonded with me, and I have to say that it makes me feel really, really good. When I was younger I never wanted the responsibilities of taking care of our family dog, but I was still sad that our dog (Annie) seemed to like my Mom more. Maybe Annie could sense that I was only greedy for love and attention rather than a top-notch caretaker.

So, I promised an explanation about Haruki's new name. At the shelter she didn't answer to her original name, which was "Tula." I also didn't love the name, so when we decided to foster/adopt her we thought about changing her name to Lula--similar enough to make the change easier for her but still more pleasant to my ears that "Tula." But, the bf--perhaps subconsciously remembering that I recently read Haruki Murakami's 1Q84--liked Haruki better. "Ruki" for short. And I agree. It's pretty freaking cute and really seems to suit her.

And yes, I know that Haruki is a masculine name, but she's a strong, hard-core dog that doesn't need some girly name. (Besides, she has a hot pink leash, and that's plenty.)

Right now Haruki is resting on her bed while I blog and the bf tends to some of the new trees we planted in our yard. After he's done with that we are going down to town to have dinner outside at Whole Foods with our friend Adam. He's leaving for the UK tomorrow and won't be back for several months:-( That's sad. But the excuse to eat dinner at Whole Foods is always appreciated:-)

*What are you doing for the holiday? Is it totally shameful that I'll be eating tofu and kale from Whole Foods instead of having a rib fest bbq today? Do you think our servicemen and women fought for vegetarians' freedom as well as those who eat like real Americans?

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Haruuuuuuki!

Somebody got a dog!!!!

It's Haruki, aka Tula:

You might remember her from such films as:http://nikkicookskale.blogspot.com/2012/05/hula-tula.html 
I walked "Tula" at the Humane Society several times last week and slowly became more and more attached to her. Luckily, I was able to persuade the bf that she is the perfect dog for us, so now we are "Fostering to Adopt" her. That means that we get to keep her for a week or a few weeks, after which time we can return her to the shelter if it's really not working out.

But how could this not work out???!!

She's squinting.
We had a tense moment earlier today when we were approached by an unleashed dog while out walking, but other than that she already feels like part of our family! Barring any ridiculously bad behavior or unbearable circumstances, I'd say there's no chance we are taking her back to the shelter.

Which brings me to my next point, which is shelters in general. The bf and I have been discussing dogs for awhile in anticipation of getting one. Since I volunteer at the Humane Society, there was never any question about where we'd get our dog, though I know that a lot of people still prefer to get "purebred" dogs from breeders. The bf is very much against this, as there are so many really good puppies and dogs just sitting in the shelter waiting for homes. He even thinks that breeding dogs for money should be outlawed or restricted.

I'm reluctant to go that far, but I can say that my happiness at having Haruki here is quadrupled because I know that our decision to adopt her means that we are making a really good dog's life better.

My evidence:

She has ears just like mine.
*What's your take on breeding/rescuing dogs? Anyone else think it's weird when you ask someone where they got their dog and they say, "Oh we rescued her--she's a rescue dog." Um...sorry, unless you pulled her out of a burning freaking car then you didn't "rescue" her. Saved her from a long "dirt nap," maybe, yes.

P.S. More on why we are calling her "Haruki" rather than "Tula" tomorrow!

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Blogroll...

And I don't mean the list of blogs that I read; I mean I'm on a blog roll--posting, like, everyday and stuff! (Yesterday's p.s. post totally counts.)

I even took pictures of my dinner out last night!

We went to Watercourse in Denver. WC is a vegetarian restaurant where the servers seem happy if you order things vegan, i.e. they aren't upset when your order is made "special" by dietary restrictions. And let's face it, most of us don't _really_ have dietary restrictions, but rather, preferences or neuroses.

To drink, I had the Claymore Scotch Ale, which was like a yummy, hoppy, bubbly Guinness.

So good. (Note: when you don't drink that often, it tastes like a warm hug on your insides.)
Our table also shared some of Watercourse's famous buffalo seitan "wings." If you're not familiar with seitan, then you probably watch NASCAR. Ha. Just kidding. But you probably don't live in Boulder. Seitan is a meat substitute made from wheat gluten. If that sounds wretched to you, I understand. But it's actually quite delicious--when prepared well--and just as satisfying as eating standard buffalo wings.

Yes, this looks disgusting. But it's not the seitan's fault--it's mine for not photographing it before we'd demolished it.
For dinner I had a wrap with hummus, kalamata olives, and other Greek salad goodness. With kale, of course.


Watercourse is the kind of restaurant where all the wraps are whole wheat and the kale doesn't come coated in oil or fried--just simply steamed with sesame seeds. This makes it easier to indulge in a Scout cookie after dinner, since after all, kale is practically food medicine, and warrants some kind of treat to balance it all out:-) I've got no pictures of the Scout cookie that I shared, but let's just say that it's what the Girl Scout Samoa cookie would look like if you made it with real ingredients and plumped it up x3 in size!

*Have you heard of seitan? Cooked with it?

Friday, May 25, 2012

Scrambled!

That's what my day has been! We're on our way out the door to see our friends' new baby and have dinner with friends--Watercourse in Denver--so I'm afraid this "post" is going to be more like a post script.

I will say that: 1) I got my ass handed to me today in my fit camp class, 2) lunch was bright and yummy:

Muffin top unpictured:-)
and 3) we might be getting a dog! She likes to lick faces and have her ears rubbed...!!!


Thursday, May 24, 2012

Une petite erreur

Yah, that's right--I know some French. I even used to live with some French peeps. (I'm still afraid of Nutella, though I fully admit that it is one of the most delicious things ever. Nutella and peanut butter sandwich--enough said.)

The error about which I'm speaking is actually not so small, and I made it last weekend when the bf and I ventured to the cinema to see Dark Shadows. (I will see any movie with Johnny Depp. Except that animated lizard one--blech.)

You see, I was walking into the ladies bathroom, and upon entering the entrance hallway to the bathroom, I spied someone waiting just outside the main bathroom area. This person was of medium height, wearing cargo pants and an untucked polo shirt. S/he also had very short gray hair, and to my eye looked like a man. So, to make sure that I hadn't walked into the wrong bathroom, I stopped and quickly craned my head sideways to check the gender placard on the wall. It said "Ladies." Me: Fuuuuuuck! Of course I didn't say that out loud, but I might as well have, since the woman--yes, it was in fact a woman--noticed my actions and said "Yes, it's the ladies room." I apologized vehemently and said, "Oh my I'm so sorry that was horrid," and she responded--somewhat tersely--by saying "It's okay. It happens all the time."

So, wtf? I have a graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies, I've done research and lots of thinking about gender roles and ambiguity, and still I found myself potentially inflicting pain on someone who didn't (ostensibly) conform to traditional gender roles. I can also promise you that I'm not blind--7 or 8 people out of 10 would've mistaken this lady for a gentleman.

*Has anything like this happened to you? Should I just chalk this up to a silly misunderstanding on my part, or did I truly wrong this woman?

In other news, I made dinner in our new house! It was wild rice with steamed broccoli, adzuki beans, and scrambled eggs. It's no so fancy, but I was really wanting some scrambled eggs and hot sauce, so this did the trick:


I also inhaled some more of the Emerald Sesame Kale from Whole Foods...mmmm:


All that green means I don't have to feel bad about eating more muffin top today...

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Noochy kale

That's right--somebody ate a boatload of kale today!!! Finally! You guys were prolly wondering why I named this blog "Nikki Cooks Kale."

But lets start at the beginning, shall we?

This morning I went to my usual fit class at my gym. It's like a boot camp, with lots of running, burpees, pushups, drills, etc. As someone who has always preferred to ride my bike or run outside and alone, I'm still pretty shocked that I've gotten hooked on these classes at my gym. But they really make me push myself, which is something I haven't really done since I was cuckoo and riding my bike for four hours a day.

After my class, I contemplated going to the movies over "lunch," which I ate at 10:30. Yah. That's a.m., people. The bf eats breakfast at 10:30, and today I think I managed to even outdo the senior contingent with my early lunch. For lunch, I ate Whole Foods bonanza of treats:

1) Emerald sesame kale, which looked like this:

Picture courtesy of a less lazy blogger, at http://www.dailyunadventuresincooking.com/recipe/raw-sesame-kale-recipe/
2) A cranberry tuna sandwich on wheat bread. Yes, I know. Mercury. Dolphins. And oh yeah, aren't you supposed to be vegetarian? Well, peeps, lately I've been phasing some fish back in--mostly salmon, though sometimes a tuna sandwich just sounds delightful. Since I'm not currently knocked-up, I figure I might as well dose myself with the mercury now.

3) And finally, the top of this delicious Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffin from Whole Foods:


Yes, all my meals are eaten near my computer.
Instead of the fancy bloggers who use fancy photogenic spoons and bowls, you get the corner of my laptop.

Is it wrong that I usually decide what to eat for lunch based on the fact that I need room for a muffin top? (In, not around my belly.) In my defense, this is close to the Virgin Mary of muffins: whole barley flour, oatmeal, walnuts, vegan, and not too sweet.

After breakfast/lunch, I decided to skip going to the movies in favor of running a bunch of crap errands--hooray! And now I'm at home, cushed-out on my couch having just eaten a dinner of kale chips with nutritional yeast (aka nooch?!! so gross--makes it sound vaginal, doesn't it? or is it just me--the girl who studies gynecology?), cereal with peanut butter, and a bowl of grapes and strawberries.

Noochy-kale:

Okay, scratch that. The bf erased the picture of my n-kale--balls! Instead, a picture of what I'll be looking at for the rest of the evening: 

It's foggy. But so cozy inside!

When I'm eating a big bowl of noochy kale I feel the same satisfaction that I used to experience when I was younger and ate a lot of Snickers ice cream. 

*Ever tried nutritional yeast in your cooking? Tempted to quit reading this blog because I named my dinner noochy kale?

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Hula-Tula

I'm working through my guilt about not posting in awhile, so I can't really apologize for the absence. After all, maybe it's your fault, and not mine, that I've been too busy and lazy to post? Uh-huh.

Anyhow, things are going sha-mashing! It's summer! I turned in the final body chapter of my dissertation! I rode my bike before ten a.m. without any arm or leg warmers!

This may be because now that the bf and I are moved into our new house, my standard road ride is down the canyon and back up--which means lots of sweating and excessive body heat. It's called "Sunshine Canyon" for a reason, peeps!

"Wildlife Sanctuary" seems misleading, given that the bf has declared war on the birds trying to nest in and around our new house. Poor pretty birdies. 
After a little "cyclo-therapy," I made my way to town for some errands and...dog walking!!! It's been at least three weeks since I've taken a shift at the humane society, and it was great to be back and great to feel like I did something useful with my day. (It was either walk dogs or see The Five Year Engagement, so I'd say that humanity really came out on top this time.)

I walked Bobo, a chocolate lab mix, and Tula, a boxer/Siberian husky mix. Tula likes walks:


And she was very well behaved! When I bent down to tie my shoe, she stopped and came back to lick my face! (Much better behavior than the humping/pooping puppy that I played with afterwards!) According to her papers she has a penchant for jumping out of cages, but Tula is so sweet and would make the perfect running partner for someone in the BoCo area!!! Check out her bio here:

http://www.boulderhumane.org/animals/adoption/15518555

Oh, and go adopt her, too. She's really soft.

In other dog-walking news, summer has really bloomed in the open space area where I walk the dogs! This was all barren and snowy this winter, but now it's like I'm walking dogs in the freaking Secret Garden!



*Did you read The Secret Garden when you were younger? Babysitter's Club? And/or did you read Stephen King in the sixth grade and count yourself very mature?

Monday, May 14, 2012

Recovery Re-schmovery


One of the most difficult parts of recovery, for me, has been dealing with change and uncertainty. When I was at my lowest point--both physically and mentally--my relationship with food trumped all of the other relationships in my life. Even worse, I often lied for my eating disorder's sake. Family dinner at seven p.m. rather than my six o'clock usual time? Sorry, I can't--I'm vacuuming my couch. Meet for brunch? I can't--what will I do at noon when I'm supposed to eat my regular lunch?!!! Family vacations were especially challenging, because I woke up at six-thirty or seven a.m. and simply could.not.wait to eat breakfast until nine or ten when everyone else woke up.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that scenarios like this felt like torture to me. No, they were not actual physical torture, and yes, I am a spoiled little princess with virtually nonexistent problems. But at the time, these "problems" made my entire body tighten, with a corresponding tightness in my head. That's a weird way to describe anxiety, but it's the best I can do. I felt completely trapped: I wanted to see my friends and family, and yet I felt paralyzed to do anything besides what I was familiar with. I felt like I had traveled to the bottom of the ocean and an unbearable pressure was building up inside my head.

Whew. Even writing about it now makes me wonder why I didn't see that I needed help and that the way that I was feeling wasn't normal or my fault.

The reason I'm writing about it now, however, is that today I had an opportunity to reflect on my progress in this department. After a class at my local gym, I made plans to have lunch with my parents at one p.m. Unfortunately, I was grumbly hungry (that's really hungry for me!) right after my class and thus I had to decide whether I should eat a snack and then have lunch with my parents, or if I should just eat a lunch immediately and tell them I'd already eaten. I chose the former option, and had a crap-apple (yah, crap, not crab--why are most varieties of apples soft and barely sweet??!!) and a few bites of a muffin I bought from Whole Foods:

OK, I ate the top off of it, not just a few bites. 

(We should talk about the muffins at Whole Foods at a later time. I have many, many thoughts on them.)

Anyhow, the snack got me through to my lunch date just fine, and I had a slightly smaller lunch--salad and veggies with lots of hummus--at the restaurant. This sequence of events was not completely painless for me; I still felt worried that I'd overeat at my lunch date and then feel really stupid for eating some muffin earlier. I also worried that that muffin would overpower me and I'd be forced to smash it into my face. But that's okay, because that's still like two zazzilian boatloads better than the place I used to be, especially because now I can see that it is possible for me to rationally observe my hunger and calmly accommodate it rather than overhauling my life in order to suit the demands of my eating disorder.

Gizmo--our friends' dog who is staying with us--sayz "Wruff...arf...kibble...good." She is very supportive.

She also wants to know what happened to the other half of the muffin.

*Does your dog support your recovery? Does s/he only support it because it means that table scraps will be more than just lettuce bits and carrot nubs?

**Disclaimer: I will be a Ph.D soon, but that doesn't make me a "real" doctor. I'm only sharing my story and experiences. You should talk to your own physician about your condition and seek help if you are suffering from an eating disorder.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Soy Milk Sounds Cute


Balls! Blogger just ate my post! It was funny, too!

So instead, here's a photo recap of my day:


A picture! Of my (half-eaten) breakfast! That's a pretty Pink Lady apple, peanut butter, and the healthy version of Crispix with soy milk. Yup, that's non-organic vanilla soy milk, not unsweetened, organic soy milk. When I say the healthy version of Crispix, I'm assuming that you too used to eat "healthy" cereals as a kid, though now you recognize that even mainstream "healthy" cereals are in fact sugar-delivery devices. I've become quite the cereal aficionado, actually, and most recently I'm liking the Nature's Path version of Crispix. With my sugary soy milk:-) (Nobody ever said that disordered eating habits were rational.)

On the way to the grocery store:



An escaped dog, wandering around Sunshine Canyon and barking its face off at anyone who came near it. After slowing traffic down for awhile--you know, so the K9 didn't get his shit wrecked by the grill(e?) of a Subara Outback, it's owner came along and explained why his dog was loose. Another onlooker says, "How did she get out?" and this mister says, "Well, she gets out." Alrighty.

And finally, here's a picture of the beautiful scenery we're soaking up from our mountain house with the amazing view:


Yah. It's not summer anymore. It's winter again. Only its May, not December, and instead of Santa the only thing I have to look forward to is eating too much cereal, followed by self loathing and regret:-) I wonder if Rachael Ray would give that a YUM-O!

*What about you--are you emotionally affected by the weather when it's cloudy or cold? What kinds of cereal (if any) are you eating these days?

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

ED Reflections, no. 2

Holy pot pie this little pseudo-blogger is tired! I'm trying very hard to post once per day but moving, bizness at the new house, and a lack of home internet are making it somewhat challenging. But, I persist. I will not let my reader(s) down! Surely your time is better spent reading my diary than picking your cuticles. (Is it just me that does that while waiting for web pages to load?)

So, the "soup" of the day today is the first part of my post on my eating disorder history. BAM!


Rather than writing a v.v. long post about my past with disordered eating and exercise, I decided that it might be easier (and less of a huge boo-hoo downer) if I broke it up into parts with lots of sarcastic jokes (let's call these "little fatty tidbits"). I’ll start with the “beginning” for clarity’s sake, though when I think about my eating and exercise, I always remember disparate snippets that feel very dreamlike, including little fragments in which I alternately remember being a little girl who hated herself and her body or a twenty-something anorexic who needed exercise to soothe my anxious thoughts.

When I left off, I had just asked you to imagine a chubby adolescent eating candy and simultaneously wondering why she was overweight. That’s me. My parents fed me many, many more things than just candy and Blackjack Pizza, and there were always carrots, celery, and grapes around for us to snack on. But I’m a sensitive freakin’ girl, and being freckly, fairly awkward, and highly insecure made me use food to feel better about things that had nothing to do with food. While I had been a skinny child, puberty hit me hard and left me slightly overweight and very uncomfortable in my skin. It also left me feeling uncomfortable in my ears, which have always been rather “perky”:

1. I do not wax and shine these babies.
2. This picture only makes it look like I'm a werewolf.
3.  If you saw me in person you'd be able to tell that my ear perks out like the handle on a coffee mug. 
But that’s for a different post on a more self-indulgent, narcissistic day. Today's post is about real challenges, not first-world ego problems.

So, the result of all of this is that I began dieting young. At eleven, to be precise. And I can still remember how it made me feel. More importantly, I can remember how it made the people around me feel about me. Friends at school, most of whom I suspected of not really liking me, suddenly seemed to actually like me. A friend’s mom even told me how wonderful I looked and asked me how I had lost weight (F-you Mrs. S!) I know it probably didn’t happen this way, but I truly remember a group of my friends crowding around me on the first day of school when I returned from summer break in my new thinner body. I don’t recall how I arrived at that body, whether it was through extreme dieting or being more active, but I do remember feeling like something important had happened. Like a fundamental part of who I am or would be was in the works with this simple little act of burning off a few of the cinnamon bears I liked to eat.

Stay tuned for more. I tend to be more funny when I talk or write about my intimate feelings and neuroses:-) (Still can't figure out these f-ing emoticons...)

Monday, May 7, 2012

The Roof is Really On Fire. No, really.

Another post that I've been envisioning is one in which I explain my moving/living situation. After a week in Southern Colorado at the bf's parents' cabin, we have returned to Boulder to our "new" house. I say "new" because it's so freakin' new that it's not finished yet. It's like camping indoors but in the mountains--no Internet and no cell service (yet!), random creatures (carpenters and such) wandering around your tent site, and best of all, great hikes straight from your front door!

The back story behind this house and its location is that the bf's original house, located west of Boulder in the foothills, burned down 1.5 years ago in the Four Mile Fire. After a dollop of consideration, the bf decided to rebuild in the same location, since, after all, real estate in the rest of Boulder is pretty much scandalous. After living in a rental house for the last year and a half (during which time he was uber-ly blessed to have me move in with him), the house is finally (nearly) ready. Yesterday, we decided to celebrate our first few nights in the new house with a run/hike.

While some of the burned area still looks pretty charred:



We saw bundles of wildflowers growing everywhere!

I swear I never posed like this. . .the camera made me look like a snotty diva. The real me was prolly two seconds away from tripping over some wildflowers and wrecking my face on that rock you see in the foreground.
I'll show more pics of the house itself in a few weeks when it's finished. For now, I'm blogging from Whole Foods and dreaming about having Internet at home again. At least WF has better snacks than we do at home:



That's a cumin kale salad with tofu, tomatoes, and some (likely) non-organic blackberries. I also had a yummy date nut muffin, but I can't find it now to photograph:-)

*What would you grab from your house if you knew it was going to burn down? I'd take my computer and at least a few of my own books...let the library books burn!! Muwahahahahaha!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

ED Reflections

One of the major posts that I've been envisioning is about my history with eating disorders. This is not that post, per se. But as I sat down to write a post I realized that I hadn't posted pictures of my eats for the last few days. This prompted me to think again about what kind of blog I want this to be--i.e. do I really want to catalogue everything I eat and/or generally make this a blog about a person recovering from disordered eating? Yes, but no. That is, when I decided to start a blog, I felt like part of what I could offer is my experiences working through recovery. And I mean _working_, because changing old, destructive habits and continuing to choose recovery even after zazzilians of setbacks is HARD.

On the other hand, I do not want my relationship with food and exercise to act as the foundation of my life or this blog. I am also very mindful of the fact that posting pictures of what I eat or how far I ride my bike may not be healthy for me or for readers who might be struggling with the same issues.

The only conclusion that I've come to about this issue is that--just like everything else I've learned in recovery--it's never as simple as yes/no, black/white, or disordered/healthy. Things are much more murky and just as it wouldn't make sense for me to totally ignore the issue of food and exercise, it is also not productive for me to focus on them to excess. I can't say what "excess" is right now, except that I'm hoping it's like pornography and I'll know it when I see (write) it. For now, while I'm still getting the hang of blogging, I'm going to continue to show pics of my eats and my activities intermittently. What that really means is that when I do a badass ride/run or eat something worth showing (PEANUT BUTTERRRRRRR!), I'll let you know. I'll also finish writing and post about my past with eating disorders. For now, just imagine a freckly adolescent eating too much candy while simultaneously wondering why she was kinda chubby. (Even at that age my reasoning skillz were pretty fantastic.)

*In the meantime, how do you feel about bloggers who share all their eats and exercise? Does it draw you to a blog or turn you off? Do you think it is healthy or unhealthy?

Pictured: Veggie quesadilla and pesto pizza salad that the bf and I ate on our way up Cucharas Pass. All I'm going to say about these items is that later, when my belly hurt from eating them, I felt rather perturbed with David, who had forgotten our peanut butter sandwiches at home and thus compelled us to eat at a restaurant where canola oil is an appropriate salad dressing. 

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Blogging Ain't For Chumps

When you start a blog, you have to write stuff or your blog becomes a lot like that old bottle of hairspray that you haven't used much because it made your hair feel dry that one time and now it has a thick layer of gooey stickiness in the spray nozzle and lots of crunchy stuff around it. In other words, you might look at it again, consider using it, but then decide that it's just easier to throw it away than to clean it properly.

If you're male, it's like old porn magazines--you can't throw them away, but you'll never "use" them again. So sad.

Given my stellar (and subtle) use of simile, now seems like a good time to discuss what I do when I'm not reading blogs or remembering what I used to watch on the Food Network when I had a TV. I'm a Ph.D. student in English Literature, writing my dissertation on nineteenth-century British literature. (Yes, I know Dickens got paid by the word for some of his novels. . .please don't tell me this in order to justify your illiteracy.) More specifically, I'm writing on the ideas of sympathy and knowledge, especially as they are represented in Victorian literature and GYNECOLOGY! Yah! (My dad is so proud!!) (Really, though, he is.) In addition to reading about Victorian gynecologists, I'm also an editor for the academic journal English Language Notes. I notice when commas are missing--it's my jam! Feel free to ask me about my career prospects it the comments:-)

In other news, the reason I was absent for two days is that we've made our way back to Boulder to our "new" home and things have been exceedingly busy. In addition, because I failed to call about internet until yesterday, we will not have internet at our house until next Friday. This is a good thing for the dissertation that I mentioned above, but not so good for Nikki Cooks Kale. Right now the bf and I are completing e-tasks at Whole Foods before going home for the night. This is our view:


Gah Boulder is beautiful!!! I have several posts in the works, and will be seeking out free Wi-Fi everyday this week so that I can share them--stay tuned!

For kicks, here is someone that we met while still in So. Colorado:


She is staring at my food bar. Sorry, little pony.


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Nikki Eats Dirt (and some roots)

So we're two days into our small-town living / internet free lifestyle, and it's going. . .great!! Waking up to this:



isn't too shabby:-) (P.S. How do I get real emoticons??!! Mine are like ghetto-icons compared to the ones the other blog girls have. . .whine)

Perhaps the biggest highlight thus far has been Olivia, the 145 lb. potbelly pig that we came across at the local library yesterday. Olivia likes plant roots--so much so that she's willing to eat mostly dirt to get a few root nuggets.

Olivia is not unlike me quickly eating the best parts of an entree when the bf and I are eating out and sharing.

Highlight no. 2 is the bike ride that we took this afternoon. La Veta, CO to Cuchara, CO and up to the top of Cuchara Pass. I'll check Mapmyride.com later to see how much of a badass I am.

I do not drink 7UP. Maybe if I did I wouldn't look this surly.



If you've ever been to Colorado, then you prolly know that the small mountain towns are absolutely *the best* place to be--yes, in the winter, but I think even more so in the summer! Touring around on a road bike makes for so much fun--both while on the bike, and later, while consuming extra calories, or as I like to call them, "I'm like two weeks away from going pro, so I'd better eat this banana bread" calories.

*How _do_ you get those emoticons? Where else in the US has small mountain towns that rival those in Colorado?

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

When You Get Old, Your Skin Looks Like Shit

That's right, friends, it starts to look like the tread on your car tires, especially if you've spent the day scrubbing foot prints off of white walls, utterly incinerated pepitas(!) out of your oven, and strange sticky stuff out of your refrigerator.

Yup, we moved. By we, I mean my fiancé David and myself. But I'm not going to call him fiancé anymore, because that's too fancy for us. I'll just call him my bf (boyfriend) for now, and once we're married (in August), I stick with fuckface. I'll show you a picture of him soon, once I've gained your trust.

For now, however, we are staying at his parents' cabin in Southern Colorado, until the construction peeps finish our house in Boulder. Lest you think I'm a spoiled, selfish brat (whaaaat?!!), I should first tell you that we're building a house in Boulder because David's house burned down in the Four Mile fire 1.5 years ago. (Fire victim  brat). I should also tell you that on the morning of the fire I peed on the trail right above the canyon where the fire started. I was trail running and at that time I was still pretty impressed that I was willing and knowledgable enough to pee in the wilderness without a toilet or tp. Not the only time knowledge has saved me from peeing all over myself.

I'll let you guess why I'm showing you this picture in the comments.


So. We should should be moving into our new house at the end of this week, though there will still be a lot of work going on even then. Until then, David and I are desperately soaking up the internet at the local Inn since the cabin is internet-free.

The second half of my breakfast:

Eggs and toast. That little bowl just passed my dry and cracked hand was the first half, and used to be full of fruit that had soft notes of bleach.


A shot of downtown with the Spanish Peaks in the background:


***Plea for comments (aka question section):

How long could you go without internet?