Wordless Wednesday - A BIG break in the plateau, right before vacation! :)

More chickens, more injuries

I’m afraid that some of my new babies are mean little assholes.

I came home from work a few weeks ago to find one of my white marans chicks covered in blood with a degloved neck. She was a little over two weeks old. Her buddies caused this injury by pecking the hell out of her. Poor baby. Apparently once they see blood, they keep at it. It can get pretty nasty.

(BTW, do NOT look at "degloving injuries" under Google images - you'll be sorry!!)

I’m sorry for the graphic images, but I hope that this kind of info might help someone else whose chick ends up with a similar injury.

My first thought was that she was a goner. However, she seemed happy, so I wasn’t going to give up on her.

I separated her from the others and put her in a bin in our tub. I crushed up a tiny amount of aspirin for her water and put some triple antibiotic ointment on the wound. In hindsight, I wish that I had irrigated it with saline or watered-down betadine solution to get out anything that may have been in the wound.

She wasn’t thrilled with the antibiotic ointment and shook her head like a wet dog every time it was applied. I ended up wearing a fair amount of it each time I put it on. She also liked to scratch at the wound with her foot, which was just awful to watch. Ugh. I tried to put some nonstick dressing on it, but getting it to stay was pretty much impossible, so I gave up.

I applied the ointment every morning and evening. The entire time she was eating and drinking normally like nothing had happened. She kept flying out of her bin and pooping everywhere. NBD, just hanging out with this giant hole in my neck. She was also lonely and incredibly sweet. She peeped incessantly until you would hold her. Every time I would pick her up, she would run up my arm and nestle into my neck. 

One day I didn’t get a chance to do the ointment in the morning and by the time I checked on her at night, the wound had started to scab over. It had been 5 or 6 days, so I decided to leave it alone and let it continue the healing process.

The wound continued to scab over and heal. After she’d been separated from her tormentors (who were moved out to the new coop) for about 9 days, I decided to attempt a reintroduction. After all, as I mentioned - she was flying out of her tub and crapping EVERYWHERE. She had become quite the sweet annoyance. So I sprayed BluKote over her wound and the area around the wound to discourage picking and pecking. It didn’t go very well initially. The big meanies started pecking at her again and she made no attempt to get away from them.

So I grabbed a cat carrier and threw her in it inside the coop. That way they could see her, but they couldn’t get to her. Yesterday morning I went in to change her food and water and she flew out. She went up to some of the other chicks and started pecking at them and basically acting a little crazy. They seemed to be leaving her alone, so I crossed my fingers and went to work. When I got home, she was doing great. There were no new marks on her and she seemed like she was getting along with everyone.

So that is the happy story of our little white marans chick Lucky. We hope to have no more misadventures with the new flock of babies, who turned five weeks old yesterday.

New coop and attached run

We are hoping to officially introduce the big girls to the little ones this coming weekend. They have had supervised visitation over the last week and the little ones seem to know to stay out of the way. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can get everyone into the same living quarters this weekend – before our trip. Although we don’t actually leave for Australia until next Saturday, we are leaving for NJ and a friend’s wedding on Friday.

Fortunately we have a small army to take care of all the critters. A book club friend's daughter is taking care of the critters, and if she can't make it either my friend or her fiance (who is the E.D. for the Humane Society) will stop by. There are a few other friends who have offered to stop by and check on things too. So I know that we're leaving our house and pets in good hands.

I’ve started to pack and have been making good progress. I had been having nightmares about forgetting things for the past few weeks, so I decided that I needed to take some action.

Exercise and diet have still been good - exercise moreso than the diet. I've had a few cheating days with the diet, but I've still been averaging at or under 50-70 net grams of carbs a week. I'm swimming one or two days a week, walking and doing the elliptical one or two days a week, and over the weekend, I used the post hole digger for a few hours. Let me tell you, that is HARD work. I don't think I could cut it if I had to do manual labor. 

My weight is still at a plateau, but I feel like I'm more fit and healthy than I was a month ago when the plateau started. I don't have any good recent pics of me, because I avoided cameras for the latter part of last year. For real. I felt huge and tried to stay behind the camera instead of in front of it. For my Wordless Wednesday post, I'll be posting some of the few recent-ish photos from the last year or two, plus a current mirror self-portrait. They're all the rage on Facebook, you know. Maybe I'll even do the pouty face!

Wordless Wednesday

The stall continues, but I'm starting to be able to squeeze into some of my old clothes.

This trip can not get here fast enough. I really need a vacation. I haven't had a week off in 14 months and I'm beginning to realize how burned out I am... work and life have kinda got me down right now.

Wordful Wednesday – The Dreaded Plateau

So I’ve been rather depressed about my weight loss lately. Or rather, the lack thereof.

It’s been frustrating. I’ve been tracking food religiously, eating under my daily calories, and exercising pretty much every other day.

Using the Lose It app, I should be losing about 1 lb per week.

 No, I haven’t measured my food. Maybe I should. But still, I think that I’ve been doing a great job.

  

That said, with my recent health scare, I haven’t really been doing Atkins. It’s too high in saturated fat and I was eating a lot of sodium on the diet. However, I haven’t abandoned the Atkins principals. I’ve been watching my carbs and have been staying away from refined sugars and that sort of thing. I’m still trying to eat more salads, veggies and lean meat. Over the past 4 weeks, I have averaged between 30 and 50 net grams of carbs per day (fiber is subtracted from carbs for net carbs).

Why the lack of weight loss? As of last week, I had actually GAINED two pounds back from my low weight at the end of March. I think that since I stopped being as restrictive with my carbs (<20 g per day) that I lost the diuretic effect of Atkins. 

Not having the diuretic effect is fine with me, if it means that I’m really losing fat. Next week I’m expecting to see the scale continue its downward climb. I’m at 11 pounds of weight lost over 9 weeks. That’s still pretty good in my book, so I’ll just keep at it.

Steroids are nasty

So I’m pretty sure that my high blood pressure was caused by a combination of pain and the methylprednisolone that I was put on to relieve the pain from my swollen tonsils. This stuff is evil.

I took my last dose of the stuff last Thursday and my blood pressure has been slowly coming back down. But by Friday it had not decreased enough for my concerned coworkers and I had significantly different BP readings from my left and right arms, which apparently is a bad sign. So they gave me an EKG.

Nothing like having to lift up your boob for your coworker to stick electrodes under. The EKG was abnormal, but not heart attack kind of abnormal. My doctor friend who reviewed it said that it was probably nothing and could be connected to the steroids, but that I definitely needed to see my PCP about the high blood pressure. At the doctor yesterday, they took another abnormal EKG and numerous blood pressure readings. By the time I had finally calmed down, it was down to 128/88. Much better than my previous readings of 140/110 and 158/108. Goes to show you how much pain and stress can affect those things. 

My primary care physician agreed that it was most likely nothing, but she is sending me to a cardiologist for an evaluation and stress test just in case. On my 33^rd birthday, I get to go see Dr. Okun. 

This is not how I envisioned spending part of my birthday, but oh well. Jay is probably happy because it means that I’m bailing on book club and now we get to go to dinner instead. And since we’ll be on “the other side of the bridge,” we will have plenty of great restaurant options in Annapolis and Baltimore. I’m sure that everything will be okay, but it will be nice to have him with me at my appointment.

All of that said, I’m not really sure what is going on with my diet right now. I’ve been committed to recording everything I eat with LoseIt, and have remained under my target calories for the past 8 weeks. However, somehow I’ve gained 2 pounds in the last week, while as long as I stick to my plan, I should be losing a pound a week. I think it is probably all water retention from the steroids and that this time of the month isn’t great for me. So I’m trying to be patient. I'm still exercising every other day, if not every day. I've been walking, doing the elliptical, and swimming. Over the weekend I did the stationary cycle and used the rowing machine. So my body seriously needs to get its act together.

Since I’m not sure how the diet is affecting me health-wise, I am trying to keep my saturated fats and sodium low. I caved a bit in the carbs department, but I haven’t completely caved to the point of eating pizza, French bread and French fries. But I did have a rough day last Friday. I had two tater tots, a big slice of delicious pineapple, part of a chocolate dipped banana from Edible Arrangements  and several fried green beans. And too many cocktails at Harry’s. I’m now trying to keep around/under 40-60 net grams of carbs a day and under or around 20 grams of saturated fat a day. My current struggle is with nuts. I am shoveling fistfuls of almonds and walnuts into my mouth. I convince myself that since almonds and walnuts are heart healthy that eating a pound in one sitting is perfectly acceptable.

Okay, I may be exaggerating with eating an entire pound of nuts, but I haven't exactly been counting them out.

In other news, we are running out of time to figure out who is taking care of our critters while we’re away. 

Mind you, this is when we LAND in Brisbane. We are down to 31 days before our flight leaves.

Normally I’d be fine with asking our friends to take care of the chickens, but three weeks is a lot to ask of someone. Plus this vacation is going to require cleaning litter boxes, and I don’t want to ask that of my friends. When you’re spending over ten grand on a vacation, another few hundred bucks for a pet/house sitter shouldn’t be an issue. However, Jay still won’t make a decision on whether he is going to ask a slightly odd guy he knows from the Masons. So I think he just wants me to take care of it. I sent out a message to our book club to ask for recommendations… some of the women have college age kids who might want to earn a few easy bucks. Fingers crossed.

My aunt Nancy has been sending these photos almost daily. I can almost smell the salt in the air.

This picture was taken FROM A McDONALD'S! Seriously, how beautiful is this place that even the McDonald's has this kind of view?

Another fabulous day

Today, Jay and I are consumer-debt free. Jay is also an official home-owner. I figured that he deserved it after all of his hard work on "my" house.

Tonight we are booking our flights to Australia and New Zealand. We depart for our trip in just 51 days! The itinerary has changed somewhat, as we begin making actual inquiries and plans.

My aunt and uncle will be picking us up in Brisbane and taking us to her home in Surfer's Paradise. We'll stay with her for two days, then the four of us will go down to Coolangatta and stay at the Sebel for three days in a lovely 2 BR apartment. There is a place called Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where we can cuddle koalas on the way to Coolangatta, so there is no need to visit the place in Brisbane when we arrive jet-lagged. Another thing that we're planning to do in Coolangatta is try out diving . I'd rather realize that I hate diving early in our trip rather than dive for my first time at the Great Barrier Reef, have a panic attack and then be eaten by sharks. We'll then travel back to Surfer's with Nancy & Darryl for our final night. The next morning (Sunday May 19th), we'll be at the airport early for our flight to Airlie Beach and our Whitsunday Cruise.

So that is the trip update!

I've thought a lot over the past year (especially with having a blog) that I would like to get back into photography. It kinda runs in the family. My dad was an excellent photographer, my cousin is an incredible photographer... my mom is an avid photographer,  so hey, it's in my blood. I was into photography in my youth and even won a few prizes entering my photos in the county fair. Back then we shot with film, of course. A month ago I asked my photographer friend Laura for advice on  buying an inexpensive but decent DSLR. After considering her advice, I've decided to go with a refurbished Nikon D80 from B&H photo with a 18-55mm zoom lens.  My new toy should arrive before the weekend! So hopefully my next posts will have some REAL photos in them.

On to the diet... I am down a total of 9 pounds. I think that I'm actually down 10, but the scale wasn't as friendly to me today.

I'm debating whether I should go to the next step down in Atkins - the OWL stage. In OWL, you gradually increase your net carb intake to 25 grams of net carbs the first week. The next week, you increase the net carbs to 30, and so on until you find the right amount without gaining weight.

I'm 22 pounds from my ultimate goal weight, but only 11 pounds from no longer being considered overweight.

I'm happy to report that I've been consistent about exercise as well. I've been to the gym or exercised every other day for at least the past two weeks. My exercise buddy has an injured knee and can't do the regular machines or classes, so tomorrow we are going to attempt to swim laps at the Y. And hoping to not look like complete fools. The doggie paddle is my best stroke, so I might be in trouble!

Oh and I almost forgot - we will have new babies coming next week! My boss is hatching out some of our eggs, so we will have silkie and gold/black star crosses hatching around Friday. Should be some interesting looking chicks. Those are on top of the 15 chicks that I ordered back in November. It sure seemed like a good idea at the time! I'm thinking of giving away or selling 5 or 6 of them, plus a few of my girls that are already laying. A few people I've talked to were interested in trying out chickens. I told them that they could borrow some of mine and if they discovered it wasn't for them that they could give them back.

That's it for now. Fingers crossed for some decent photos to appear next week!

I haven’t had a slice of bread in three weeks

It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without having bread, rice, or pasta in my life. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh crusty piece of French bread slathered in mashed potatoes and angel hair pasta. Mmmm.

In reality, Atkins is not that bad. The first week was the worst for sure… I felt so bad on the fifth day that I had a PA at work check my blood sugar because I thought I was dying. Turned out that I just needed some delicious salty chicken broth. Your electrolytes can get all out of whack on Atkins, especially during that first week.

There have been some other discoveries, like when I realized that this delicious Caffe Breve that I’m drinking is full of carbs. Crap. I looked at a carton of half & half and assumed that they don’t put that much in the drink. Well… yeah. This drink has at least 16 grams of carbs in it. Crap. Crap. Crap. I decided to search the interwebs about the amount of carbs in a Caffe Breve and it was bad news. So no more lattes, breves or anything. From now on, I’m sticking to brewed coffee with heavy cream and sugar free sweetener.

The other discovery I’ve made is that the Atkins bars and shakes have made me stall. I bought them probably a week or week & a half into the diet when I thought I was going to die. I needed something crunchy and sweet, and they fit the bill. Depending on my cravings, I’ve been eating anywhere from 1 and 3 of those Atkins shakes/bars/treats. Well, the last week hasn’t been good. I drank too many sprite zero & vodkas at a party over the weekend and have probably not been counting carbs as well as I should. This weekend will be another challenge – a one year old’s birthday party and a fun night out with my girlfriends in Baltimore. I think that I’ll choose a drink like vodka and club soda so that I can pace myself better. Those Bacardi & diet cokes and sprite zero & vodkas just go down entirely too smoothly.

My results? The first two weeks were great! The first week I lost 4 lbs and the second week I lost 3 lbs. Week 3 = 0 pounds. In all fairness, I haven’t been great about going to the gym. I’ve only been going about once a week. Starting today, I’m going to be more disciplined. No more Atkins shakes/bars/treats or fancy coffee drinks. Gym no less than three times a week. No alcohol other than vodka & club soda – and those sparingly.

So last weekend I faced a dilemma… what to make for a party. I googled “low carb appetizers” and came up with a bunch of different recipes for stuffed mushrooms. Most of them called for mayo mixed with cheese and artichokes. YUCK. Straight mayo? No thanks, I’ll make my own concoction.

I ended up making shrimp cocktail and my own version of artichoke dip stuffed mushrooms. Both were gone in fifteen minutes… so I’d say that people liked them!

Here is the recipe… it was incredibly simple!

Artichoke Dip Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

 8 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup Italian blend cheese – parmesan, romano & asiago

14 oz. can of artichoke hearts

2 lbs baby bella mushrooms, cleaned & stems removed

This made about 40 stuffed mushrooms with 1/4 cup of dip leftover.

Drain and finely chop artichoke hearts. I removed a few of the outer leaves if they were too fibrous.

Mix cream cheese, artichokes & cheese.

Stuff mixture into mushroom caps.

Bake on foil-lined tray at 425 for 25-30 minutes, until tops begin to brown.

Enjoy!

Tom Petty had it right

The waiting really is the hardest part.

 The good news is that we are officially approved for the refinance and the commitment letter has been signed. The bad news is that we are still waiting for the appraisal, which is a condition of the approval. As each day passes, I get more anxious about our home’s value. On Wednesday, our loan officer said that the appraisal was in the review process with the in-between company and that hopefully it would be released tomorrow. Gah!! Well, it’s Friday and the main thing standing between an incredibly fast closing is this stupid appraisal. The appraisal could make or break this refinance. If the appraiser wants to be picky, she could throw in a bunch of things like we have to install railings for our steps or repaint/cover the fascia and soffit. Or maybe she could throw in other things that I haven’t even thought of or noticed.

We’ve wanted to finish the fascia for quite some time, but didn’t know anyone who had a brake. We were not planning to repaint the wood yet again. The plan was to cover the wood with metal, which stands up to the elements much better than wood. It also stands up to birds much better. And squirrels. These critters love to gnaw and peck through wood and nest in our attic. We also haven’t installed railings yet because we are planning to get rid of the brick steps and replace them with wood. So obviously we will do those things, but we just have been busy with the inside of the house. So if we have to do those things first, it will probably put us out another few weeks with the refinance. We’ll have to get the work done and then the appraiser will have to come back out and confirm that those things have been taken care of. I would hope that she would be more lenient since it’s a refinance and not a new purchase.

Part of my relentless obsession over the dollar amount of the appraisal? How much was all of this work really worth? The blood, sweat, tears, stress and the amount of money that we actually put into the house. Will it pay off? Would it have been cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start over? Emotionally, I don't think I could have done that. This was the place I grew up and the place I want to raise my future family. We have put about $80,000 or more into this project, so I am going to be heartbroken if our appraisal doesn't equal the amount of money we put into it.

So… if the appraisal comes back today in the amount that we need with no “subject to” repairs or conditions, I will be a happy camper.

On to the more gooderer stuff!  I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a long time - this is the first weekend since the beginning of November that we a) haven’t had guests b) have no plans and/or c) Jay hasn’t had to work. We are making a trip to the grocery store tonight and after we get home, our cars are not moving until Monday. I might make it to the gym sometime this weekend, but we’ll see. The Atkins diet is crazy hard, but I’ve had amazing results already. I lost 4 pounds the first week! I know that a few pounds might be water weight. However, I’ve been tracking my exercise and food using LoseIt, and according to that app, I should have lost at least 2 or 3 pounds last week. My clothes feel looser (hurray for less sausage legs) and even though it hasn’t been easy, the quick results have been worth it! I’m hoping that I can stick with the induction phase for at least a month. I do have some challenges coming up – wine and chocolates for the Women’s Club event next Wednesday,  a birthday shindig for a friend next Saturday, more festivities the following weekend. There are plenty of things to get me off track. My plan is that if I’m going to cheat in any way that I have to make up the difference at the gym. I’m going to try hard not to cheat and to stick to a single drink at each event – or have no more than two rum & diet cokes. Or club soda and vodka. Which is disgusting and makes me not want to drink anyway.

So that’s what is up in my world this week. What's up with you?

Oblong eggs, rowdy roos and getting fit

I’m sure that this one wasn’t much fun to lay!

In other news, I found a new home for Dresden. Last week, I contacted the people at Cedar Run Cattle to place an order for the meat for our party in October. On a whim, I asked if they knew anyone in the area who might be interested in a rooster. Their response:  “We will be happy to take your rooster, we have done this for others who could not keep a rooster & wanted a good home.”

Woohoo! So that problem was solved. It’s a win-win and I'm so happy that I asked them. I’m buying meat from a local farmer who raises happy and healthy animals without antibiotics and steroids, and Dresden gets a happy home full of new hens to chase. 

It was all just going entirely too well. When I got home from work yesterday, I quickly changed into my workout clothes for my Pilates date with HotFrugal Angela at the Y. I ran out to the coop to check for eggs (where I found the behemoth egg that begins this post). I’d just gathered all of the eggs when Dresden ran up to me. His head was COVERED in blood. Great. After some panicked moments, I hunted down Mouse, whose head was also covered in blood. Well, at least I figured out that they were fighting with each other instead of being attacked by another animal.

When I got back from the gym, I got a better look at both of them. Their wounds looked to be just from their combs and wattles… apparently those bleed a lot, so the blood made things look worse than they really were. But seriously, what are the people at Cedar Run going to think when I bring them a bloody rooster? One of my girlfriends already joked about me running a cockfighting ring in Hobbs. :-P 

So now I’m likely going to have to give Dresden yet another bath before we take him to his new home. I’m hoping that some peroxide will work for getting the blood out (I poured tonic water over their heads last night, but it just got them wet and pissed them off). It wouldn’t be so bad except that he’s white and has those furry feathers, so it looks really gross.

My next planned post will be about meeting our dinner (tomorrow night when we drop off Dresden). We’re ordering beef, pork and chicken from Cedar Run, and I get to meet some of their animals tomorrow. I don’t want to feel as disconnected from my food… meat doesn’t come from the grocery store, it comes from real animals. If I’m going to be eating them, I should at least have the courage to meet my dinner and say, “Yup, you’re cute, but you’re also delicious.” I want to see that they’re being treated humanely and not living in cramped quarters. I want them to have access to plenty of fresh air and pasture with room to run. When I talked to the owner, they said that they’re thinking of adding some ducks to the mix. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they do! I’ve wanted to find a good source of fresh duck for about a year now.

I'm also hoping to blog more about getting back into an exercise routine. I slacked off after I started the new job, but I'm getting back to it. Although getting through Pilates yesterday was brutal, I felt great afterwards. I also felt great this morning. My plan is to get to the gym tomorrow morning before work. We'll see if I can drag my sorry ass out of bed at 6 a.m. I have no excuses now - somehow I managed to get to the gym 3-6 times a week when I worked in Baltimore. Now that I'm local, I get two hours of my day back. I can use the Y in Easton (in walking distance of the hospital) or I can use the Y in Denton. No more excuses not to be fit and healthy.

This time I'm going to get in shape without obsessing over the scale or tracking my exercise and calorie intake. The best shape I've been in over the past ten years was when Jay and I first started dating. I didn't even watch what I was eating all that much. I exercised nearly every day. Back then I was running, but I don't know if I really want to get back into it. I found that I was more likely to hurt myself, plus I don't have the great trails like I had when I lived in Piney Orchard. For the first year that Jay and I were dating, both of us lived in the city and we walked everywhere. I figure that I'll walk a few times a week at work, take some classes at the gym and use the elliptical machines. I am also not going to weigh myself more than once a month (if at all). The scale is going to fluctuate every day, sometimes by multiple pounds up or down. Getting on the scale makes me crazy and discouraged. I'm not going to do it.

That's it for now. Hopefully when I get home, the blood will have mysteriously vanished and I'll have a coop full of normal sized eggs.