Randomly, good GRIEF, gluten-free stuff is expensive.

You ain't never lied. It's made me gradually shift my focus of eating, so that sandwiches are a sometime thing. (Udi's is GOD, but it's as expensive as you'd expect god-bread to be.) And GF flours, baking mixes, etc., are damn expensive. I'm at the point where I'm so inured to it that I get excited when I find a 4-pound bag of Pamela's baking mix for $12.

why is my neck welting up? I haven't had any gluten, and I've been extra paranoid/careful about cross-contamination? Excuse me, I'm going to sulk now.

I've started getting welts recently (on my hip, of all places), when I didn't use to get them before. It could possibly be something else (although, sweet Christ, it had better not be bedbugs -- and there's not actual evidence that it is), but the temporal relationship to my deliberate choice to eat gluten and the appearance of the welts is making me suspicious.

On the one hand, if isn't gluten, that means waffles and cupcakes can be mine once again! On the other hand, if it isn't gluten, I need to get some sort of tests to figure this out. Whaaah.

But, to counteract my whining: because my last round of bloodtests showed that I am OVER the Bartonella (yay!), I got to stop taking the evil-but-effective Rifampin. And surprise surprise, now that it's out of my system, I'm suddenly clearer-headed! My brain isn't lost in fog! I'm able to sit down and write and have words be there, instead of nothingness and tears! This is a big, big deal to me. The Rifampin was Not Fun. Useful, but ugh.

Jilli, seeing your progress is great -- I'm so glad your doctor has been able to treat you appropriately and effectively. Yay!

Yay progress.

Super yay for SJ!! Let me know how it goes. I hope to be in your shoes soon (no, haven't heard anything yet, just real hopeful).

IOmeN...

What I was going to do today: go to the bank, go to Laga's moving sale, get haircut, goto Staples and get banker boxes, start filing stack o papers in office, get good head of steam cleaning apartment.

What I did do: go to bank, go to moving sale, buy Fender Strat at sale, get haircut, go to guitar center and buy new strings/picks/iPad interface, play with guitar, take a couple lessons from a couple different apps, do dishes.

Hey, at least I did the dishes, right!

Jilli, glad you are finally recovering. Not glad that you have welts.

I am awake and most displeased about it. Spent an hour on the yoga mat with the foam roller and such. No joy. Popped half a Xanax. Still awake. Took a Zantac b/c my reflux was bothering me. Here I am. I'm out of ideas.

Ice cream

For a second there, I thought I killed the thread. But then I realized, it's a Saturday night, and I posted rather late. Whew.

For what it's worth, my left fingernails are trimmed really tight, and the left fingertips really hurt. I suppose that is day one of trying to play guitar, right?

Jilli,

do you think this is something external to you? might you have a wool or detergent sensitivity (for example)?

Good. Your left fingertips should hurt. The very tips, not the pads. And they will continue to hurt. But you want that soreness, not wrist pain, and if you are achy there you should stop. But the fingertips will be sore. Practice a little every day, rather than a whole lot once in a while, because your regular practice will help you build up your calluses. I put some exercises on your fb page.

Since everyone posted how productive they were yesterday, I feel the need to add to the tally. I wasn't as productive as I could have been, but I got done what I wanted to do, plus got to visit with people and do fun things, so I felt like it was the perfect Saturday.

Around the house I did the dishes and vacuumed both upstairs and downstairs. Put a load of laundry together to do if I had time, but ended up just a little too busy to get to it. Ran out and got my grocery shopping done before meeting a friend to see This Means War.

After the movie we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Singapore Noodle, where I got the Vermicelli Noodle Bowl with Lemongrass Beef and Eggroll. I could eat that every day for dinner, yum. After dinner I swung by Target to pick up a yoga mat (I've been working very hard on losing weight--8 pounds so far--and I've found yoga very helpful with my back problems) and a measuring tape for those weeks when you don't lose any weight, but often find you've lost inches. I find that extra encouraging. (Did a fist pump for getting out of Target for less than $25.)

I got home to find a message from my daughter and she ended up coming over to watch a movie with me. We ended up watching The Libertine with Johnny Depp. Boy, that Second Earl of Rochester was one messed up dude.

So, busy day, productive, had fun, and now I have Sunday to do laundry and sweep the kitchen floor and I'm done. I may or may not do some yoga later, but I like to take at least one day off from formal exercise. If you put enough effort into your housecleaning, it really does count as burning a decent amount of calories. Just vacuuming 20 minutes yesterday had me sweating. You're pushing around a 12 pound weight, back and forth, over and over; it's exercise, plain and simple. I even log it in my online exercise diary. Every little bit helps.

Oh, and I meant to say, congratulations, sj! That's great news about the house. I'm so happy you're getting out of the nightmare of apartment living. And that you got great sellers this time. Whoohooters!