A Cast of Thousands

Last night DW went to her EMT/ambulance driver course from 4:00 - 9:00pm. With my staples in and feeling lightheaded for most of the day, I wasn't up to riding herd on our two boys, "3-2B" and "lucky number seven", and our girl, "the feisty fiver". No worries - we farmed out "Lucky" and "Feisty" to friends from 16:00 to 18:00, and one of "3"'s day care aides volunteered to come over the house and keep him entertained. At 18:00 all boats came home to port, and then a friend came over and helped me through dinner, baths, pajamas, books and bed. Not half as bad as I had feared; I apologized to DW for kind of hinting to her that she should stay home, what with "me being only four days from an operation". Wanting to be treated special is definitely another binge trigger for me - something to be aware of and to work on.

35 Pinches

Staples came out at the clinic: 35 little pinches, in and out of there in fifteen minutes. I kept the staples and the disposable scissors to show the kids, who were duly impressed. On the way out of the clinic, the head nurse, who has weight issues of her own, threw me a wink and said, sotto voce, "just remember, honey, they operated on your stomach, not your head". What great advice, exactly along my lines of thinking. There are lots of tough decisions to make in the future, new ways of thinking and acting to be developed. I'm just counting on the lap-band to level the playing field, and make it easier for me to make the right moves.

Planning on Puree

From tomorrow on, I'm on mushies: mostly dairy products, cooked vegetables and purees for a week. I lost 16 pounds on the liquid diet. Are the rest of you also moving on from liquids? What are you all eating out there?

Rededicating the Temple

In a few weeks, Jews will celebrate the holiday of Chanuka, in which the desecrated Temple in Jerusalem was cleansed and rededicated. Before I put that first forkful of pureed carrots in my mouth tomorrow morning, I want to rededicate my own temple, which has been renewed, and cleansed for a week now, after years and years of abuse. May I use it as it was intended: to provide me with strength, nourishment, health and pleasure; not as a black hole for fear, insecurity, anger and depression.

Your recipe sounds great, bandpal! And for those who don't know, you can get canned chickpeas to save a little time. They have them on the veggie aisle at my regular grocery store.

Yep - you can use canned chickpeas just fine, without much of a compromise at all in taste. Save the liquid in the can and use it in place of the leftover cooking liquid in the recipe. Once you get the hang of it, w/ canned chickpeas you can make a batch from scratch in ten minutes. Yummmmm.

How lucky we all are to have Lapbandpal in our November group!

Wonderful with words & quick on the recipe! I can't wait to try this one - Thanks Friend!

Also, I just wanted to thank you on your words about re-dedicating the Temple. You are so "on target" about cleaning up this Temple that God gave us. I wish you a happy Chanuka!