The day after the day after

Aug. 31 was a wonderful day.  I gave myself the day off and splurged.

I fixed a small, healthy breakfast and fed the cats.  I did my small chores, got some laundry going, showered and dressed.  Did not have any tea.

Left the house about 10 a.m. and went to Starbux with my book (a Miss Julia by Ann Ross), presented my coupon and ordered a grande Pike Place with heavy whipping cream in a mug.  Went outside and sat at a table with an umbrella and savored my first cup of coffee in 31 days while I read about Miss Julia's latest adventure.  Coffee is a drug of sorts and after 31 days I noticed it enhanced my appreciation of small birds looking for crumbs under the table, a young women training her young German shepherd, the slight breeze, the sun on my back, and my book.  I sat and read for about an hour and a half, then ran some errands and met a friend for lunch.

I ordered the salad Nicoise which had a "basic vinaigrette" dressing.  It did not occur to me to ask if there was sugar in the "basic vinaigrette" dressing.  We live and learn.  It was served on the side and I spooned a couple of teaspoons onto my salad and took a bite.  Uh oh.  I could taste the hefty sugar ration immediately.  But, I figured, "What the hell, I'll see how it affects me."  I had to spoon several more spoonsful onto the salad and ended up taking half the salad home for dinner.

Dinner was a small rib eye steak, the rest of the salad and an avocado.

Well, I went to bed early but woke up at 12:30, unable to get back to sleep until a few minutes after 5 a.m.  Slept till 7 a.m., got up and felt like shit.  I'm annoyed with myself that I didn't think to check my blood sugar two hours after lunch and dinner on my free day.

For the next four or five hours my sinuses were painfully stuffed or alternately, draining heavily, my eyes watered, I sneezed repeatedly, I felt slow and puffy, slightly depressed and exhausted. 

The way I should have done day 31 was to add cream (my coffee with cream is the thing I missed during the Whole30 Challenge) to coffee with breakfast, cream to something at lunch and cream again at dinner.  Then, on Sept. 1 I would have known what was responsible for the way I felt.  That's the instructions all of us on the challenge were given by our hosts Dallas and Melissa Hartwig.

So, I'm back on schedule.  Carol and Jim had me for dinner last night to share the beautiful fresh-caught trout he took out of the Walker River.  Jim asked exactly what I could eat and prepared sauteed onions and mushrooms, a fabulous salad with vinegar and oil dressing and trout.  They sent me home with a good-sized piece for lunch today.

I feel so much better today and ready for the next phase which began yesterday and ends Sept. 30.  I am going to test the cream in 14 days and see if that accounts for the sinus problem.  It definitely could be since dairy and sinus problems are often related.

Speaking of Miss Julia's books, they are a hoot.  Ann Ross has produced a woman in her late 60s, recently widowed who is confronted by her late husband's nine-year-old love child, little Lloyd.

She is very proper, as was her hypocritical husband who kept her firmly tied down to severe rules about how a good Presbyterian woman, wife of the town banker and owner of multiple properties both business and residential, is supposed to conduct herself in the world (a small town in North Carolina).  She is left a millionaire who decides to enjoy her money as well as deal with little Lloyd.  The books are often laugh out loud funny, full of appropriate bad, hypocritical folks as well as endearing friends and neighbors.

First in the series is Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind.