Thursday

 Most of my days are so normal and predictable that most anything that is out of the ordinary seems weird. Today was out of the ordinary and a bit frustrating.

When we lived in Nevada, MO and in Texas, I loved my doctors. Here . . not so much. Every year when I see the doctor for my annual Medicare visit, I say I'm not going back. We do have a doctor that we pay a membership fee and can go as often as we like. I go there for things like ear infection, or allergy shots but I don't go to the doctor but once or twice a year. If it's anything I need Medicare to pay for, I have to go to a Medicare doctor and the membership doctor isn't a Medicare doctor.

We also have a naturopath that we talk to every few months and she does us more good than any MD around here. Obviously, I'm not happy with our medical care.

You know I have alpha gal -- maybe I'm over it. I've read that can happen. I have a colonoscopy coming up and the doctor and anesthesiologist always ask questions about that . . When was my last reaction? Do I ever eat beef? Do I eat any products that contain or were made from beef? Their questioning always makes me nervous, though I know there won't be any problems. Yesterday I was thinking . . what if I get an alpha gal test done and it shows I no longer have it . . then I won't have to go through the alpha gal questions. I sent my doctor's office a note asking if they would order an alpha gal test. I explained that I haven't had any incidents in years, I'm eating EVERYTHING now and would like to know if I can stop going through the alpha gal protocol for every procedure - even dental work. 

NO. They wrote me back and said something like "We have no diagnosis of alpha gal. We can talk about this at your next visit." Next visit is AFTER colonoscopy - two months after. 

I looked back through my records and from my first visit with this doctor in 2020, I told them I have alpha gal and it's on all my records, in the notes of every visit I've made. Not only that but they prescribed an epi-pen for me to keep because the ones I had were expired. What on earth would it hurt for me to get a blood test to see if I still have it??

So, I thought . . fine . . I'll get my medical records. Called the hospital in Kentucky where I went at least three times between 2002 and 2006. Nope, they only keep records for 10 years. Called the hospital in Nevada, MO and they were by far the most helpful. They only keep records for 10 years and we've been gone from there 15 years. They MAY have them in off sight storage so they're checking that. The lady I talked to . . her son-in-law has alpha gal so she was understanding. 

Called the hospital in Louisiana where I had to go once while visiting family. Nope - they only keep the records 10 years.

Called the hospital in Texas, who would have the records from when I did get tested in 2013. Nope . . only keep the records 10 years.

I can go to Quest and get a blood test on my own and pay for it for $149. I will do that next week. I should have done that and not even bothered with contacting the doctor. 

When I think about this whole thing . . I got bit by a tick and got a disease that no one even knew existed. I had numerous ER visits to four hospitals and no one had a clue what it was. The last ER visits was July 15, 2009. I had one more incident in about 2013 when a neighbor gave us ground beef from a cow they had raised and had butchered and they were complaining because there was so much fat. Vince grilled burgers and he was complaining about the fat flaming up. About midnight, I had an episode. The doctor in Nevada, MO had told me he had no idea what was causing it but he told me to take a cold shower and Benadryl and that might help. That night I did that - took a Benadryl and a cold shower and that stopped the reaction. I didn't want to go back to bed because I was afraid after taking the Benadryl, I would fall back asleep and then not wake up if my air passages closed up and I couldn't breathe so I stayed up and played on the computer. I knew all I had eaten that day was the hamburger so I googled "hamburger, hives, itching". Alpha gal popped up, along with Dr. Platts-Mills, who pretty much made the connection between the reaction and the tick and is really one of those on the forefront of so much that's been done to help those suffering with alpha-gal. I sent him an email at about 3 a.m. and said something like "I think I have alpha-gal" and told him my story. He wrote me back and we corresponded a couple of times. 

The naturopath told me that there are other issues alpha gal can cause besides the anaphylaxis issues and she thinks I should get tested before I say I decide on my own that I no longer have it.

So, I kinda feel like I've done all the work with getting myself through these reactions, discovering what was causing it, and here I am, thinking I'm over it and my doctor will not even order a blood test. 

It's frustrating!

Then . . I got up this morning planning to make sourdough sandwich bread, which I make every week. Then Vince asked me to make the sourdough rye too. OK . . I can do that. 

The rye dough needs to spend about 24 hours in the fridge so I will bake it tomorrow. 

But  . . the sandwich bread . . turned into the dough on steroids! I did everything as I always do - every week!! I always use my wall oven for all the baking. I put the bread in there. It needs to bake for 45 - 50 minutes. About 20 minutes into the baking, I was downstairs and I could smell something weird. I tried to ignore it but decided I'd better go upstairs and check it. The bread had risen so high, it was touching the top of the oven!

It was too big to leave in the wall oven so I had to take all the cast iron out of the stove/oven, turn the oven on, let it pre-heat and finish baking the bread.

When I bake bread or cornbread in cast iron, I don't clean the pan. I just stick it in the oven, then when I'm ready to use it again, I use a brush, scrub it (dry), then wipe it out with a damp towel, oil it, and heat on the stove. Then it's ready to go again. So . . most of my cast iron pans have crumbs in them!

I can't get over how much that bread rose in the oven. Here's what it looked like going into the oven.

Has anyone ever had that happen before? It's just sourdough . . no added yeast.

The bread tastes great. I told Vince it should last twice as long because one slice is as big as two regular slices. Vince did volunteer to try a slice of it and he says it tastes great. Just weird!

America - 250 Progress

 I will try to do my best to not overload the posts with this project but I'm really excited that I may be able to get this one AND A Worthy Patriot stitched before July 4.

Before I start with the good news, I should tell you what happened last night. It isn't the end of the world but I was frustrated. I don't have the called for floss so I found this one and it was already on a frame. That saved me a good bit of time . . almost! I think the piece of linen was something like 18" x 26". I had it loaded on the frame with the 18" side being the width. I had my floss and the chart out and I thought . . I'd better check this to make sure it's right. Nope.

The linen needed to be 19" wide by 12" deep. This piece has been on the frame for a while. I wasn't sure if I had pulled a thread along the sides to make sure it was straight. I only had about 1-1/2" extra on each side and if it wasn't straight, I could have been in trouble. I had no other empty frames and this frame was 19". That would have been too close so I took linen off a longer frame, trimmed about 3" off one vertical side of the linen and sewed it onto the leader and onto the frame.

I had been working in the sewing room on the linen getting it folded and in the boxes so the room was a mess - more of a mess than normal. The sewing machine chair was full of stuff. There was a big pile on top of the sewing machine and there is zero light in that end of the room. I brought in a big flashlight, took everything out of the chair, off the sewing machine and off the cutting table, sat it all on the floor, got this done. I probably make it sound way worse than it was but it was all happening about midnight and I was tired.

So . . I couldn't wait to start so I sat down and made about 64 stitches. Today I made 650 stitches. That could be a record. I'm 3.02% done with this project.

My goal is to finish this one in mid-April, then work on A Worthy Patriot the rest of April, May and June and have them both framed and on the wall for July 4. We'll see. There will be days when I probably won't get any stitching done - we each have medical procedures (routine stiff mostly) and a couple of trips to Kansas City. I don't stitch on 40 count linen when I'm with Debbie so no stitching on this on Wednesdays.

All I can do is give it my best shot and if I don't have it finished by Independence Day, I should have it done soon thereafter.

What I'm trying to do is work over to the left side. With the dogs' decisions to sit on my lap, I'm not able to use the lap stand. Using the Lowery, it's kinda hard to be able to reach the left side because of the tight spot where I'm stitching so if I can sit on the bed and stitch using the lap stand, that will work. Any time I put them in bed, they go under the covers and go to sleep. If I could get a couple of hours each day stitching like that, it would help me a lot! Isn't it crazy how the dogs rule my life?  :)

The Cannellini Bean Smoothie Report

 Last night I peeled two bananas, stuck them in a container and placed them in the freezer. This morning I took them out, put them in the blender, added about 1/2 cup of chocolate milk, 1-1/2 cups of whole milk, 1 T. cacao powder, 1-1/2 tsp. vanilla and the whole pint of cannellini beans. The beans were home canned with no salt, no oil - just beans and water. The beans wasn't a lot of space in the jar and maybe 1/2 cup of liquid, which was a bit thick - typical liquid from cooking beans. I ended up adding a bit more milk because it was too thick.

It was absolutely delicious. Both of us kept saying "Why didn't we think of this sooner?" It was quite filling.

For lunch, I made oven BBQ country style pork ribs and this Tomato Baked White Beans with Feta and Lemon Parsley Oil.Vince ate a salad but I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat that much. Those beans were so good! 

I added everything to Cronometer and this is what it tells me.

That may be the first time in the almost three years I've been tracking what I eat that I reached the protein goal and didn't go over on fats. I didn't use any butter or bacon fat today, which is kinda weird.

The carbs are low enough I think I'll have a Dr. Pepper!

Also, we both met our iron (exceeded!) our iron requirements, as well as several other minerals. I haven't been paying much attention to my iron intake but with Vince being deficient (I am not), I'm trying to increase what he gets. According to Cronometer, I got 171% of my iron requirements, which is 13.7 mg. What I'm reading says I need 8.7 mg per day and even if I go up to about 20 mg per day, it should be ok. I'll talk to the naturopath about that.

America - 250 Chart/Project

 Plum Street Samplers created this chart for a summer (2025) retreat project at The Attic in Mesa, AZ. Almost always, the retreat pieces are exclusive to attendees of the retreat for a year. Then, often they will be released for other stitchers to purchase.

With this project, mainly because of the sesquicentennial, every stitcher seemed to want that chart NOW. My understanding is that The Attic and Plum Street/Paulette Stewart decided it was a good idea to release it to the public since so many people wanted it in time to get it stitched by July 4, 2026. They graciously (VERY graciously!) agreed that The Attic would be able to sell it sometime after the first of this year. As soon as I heard that, I called and got on the list and my copy arrived a few weeks ago.

The called for linen is Smoky Quartz by Fiber on a Whim. I don't think I have that linen but I have a couple that are probably close.

The top piece isn't nearly as green as it looks. The cover photo for this piece looks like it's much lighter but when I look at Smoky Quartz online and found this and it looks more like my top piece of linen (plus that one is already on a frame and ready to start stitching!)

This one is 301 wide x 162 high and stitched area will be 15" x 8-1/2". It isn't huge but there's a lot of stitching on it.

It was going to take a lot of dedication to get this stitched and framed by July 4 BUT then look what Plum Street has coming out at market and should be going out to stitchers in mid March. A Worthy Patriot!

The first email I saw about A Worthy Patriot was a kit with linen, floss and the chart, or just the chart. I debated about getting the kit but, knowing how much linen I have, I decided finding something in my stash was a good choice. The called for linen is Coffee Stain by Cedar River Linen. Look what I found while searching for linen for America - 250.

It's sometimes takes a while to get linen from Cedar River so I was very happy to find that piece. Now I'm wondering if I should stitch both pieces on the same linen and make them more like a matching pair or, stitch them on different linens just for variety. Thoughts?

A Worthy Patriot is 191 wide x 280 high. On 40 count linen, the stitched area will be 9-1/2" x 14" so almost the exact same dimensions but one is longer and narrower and one is shorter and wider but just one inch in all directions. They will be a great matching pair.

My confidence is not very high that I will get both of these stitched, especially in time to have them framed, by July 4.

Dry Beans & Nutrition

 For the disclaimer . . I am not a nutritionist. I know nothing about medicine. I think humans should be able to live on Dr. Pepper! Don't believe anything I say!  :)  

Vince had blood work done recently and his iron level was low. I was shocked that it was recommended that he takes a children's gummy vitamin. He isn't going to do that! I checked the ingredient list and the first ingredient is glucose syrup. The second is sugar.  Farther down the list is palm oil. Yes, they do have a good bit of iron in them but I started looking to see which foods are high in iron. I wish that we had been taught more about nutrition in school. We've learned a lot in the past few years but I think back to how nice it would have been had we known 40 or more years ago what we know now and we still have a whole lot to learn.

We also struggle to get enough protein and have both been drinking a protein shake every day. I don't like any of the artificial sweeteners, nor do I like Stevia which is in so many of them. We found one at Natural Grocer that has no sweetener at all but it's about $40 and with both of us using it, we go through at least one, sometimes 1-1/2 containers of it each week. 

Tonight I was looking up foods rich in iron. Because of the oxalates in spinach, we try not to eat too much of that but another recommended foods is cannellini beans - most any beans really. We LOVE cannellini beans and buy 50 pounds of them from Azure, usually once a year.

As I was looking at the nutritional value in cannellini beans, mainly to check the iron they provide, I noticed the protein. I already knew beans were high in protein but it hit me . . why can't I make a protein shake using cannellini beans. When I can them, I don't add anything - no salt, no fat . . I could just dump a pint jar of beans in the blender, add bananas or blueberries or strawberries, milk or chocolate milk . . and have a smoothie with about the same protein I'm getting from some of the powdered mix, plus more iron and LESS money. And, I won't have to store those containers of protein powder!

Why didn't I think of this before now?

There are many recipes online for protein shakes using cannellini beans. We're going to try this one tomorrow.

I'll report back on what we think!

Valentine's Day Eve

NOTE: There are some Amazon links below. These are affiliate links which means if you order through them, I will get a very small commission. Please don't feel like you NEED to do that or that I expect it. Thanks!

This is really funny. I can remember my mom complaining because mom said that my grandma always talked about how busy she was and she didn't seem to do anything. Mom was a teacher, had the two of us kids and we were probably in middle or high school at the time so we probably did keep mom hopping. Now, I get ready to write this post and I'm probably about the age my grandma was at that time - and I'm thinking about how busy I was today. I felt like we didn't stop but then when I go to write what we did . . we weren't THAT busy.  :)

But, here's my "diary" entry for today.

Vince had told me earlier in the week that he wanted to take me out for Valentine's Day but he didn't want to go to Joplin on a Saturday. He said we could go anywhere I wanted to go. So, I said I wanted to go to Louisiana and eat crawfish. Nope, that was a bit too far.  :)  There aren't that many places in town that I like that he likes so I suggested Magic Noodle. I guess you would call it a Thai type place but I'm not even sure. There's a Mexican restaurant in town, very authentic, very nice people, that I went to with Jeremy and Angie before Vince moved here (2020) and I love it. Sometimes when Vince is gone, I'll go there and eat. Vince and I did go there once and I thought he said he didn't like it. But today he tells me that's not true. We were passing there on our way home and he said "We never go there". I said "I love that place but thought you didn't like it." Nope, he loves it too. OK . . Haven't been in 5 years but maybe we'll go there sometime.

I'm kinda getting out of order here . . Vince wanted to go to Michael's and get something and he had a 40% off coupon. It was on the app so I had it too but I only bought stuff that was already on sale. They had quite a bit of Christmas stuff for 70 or 75% off! I got some ribbon, a velvety feeling reindeer and a shaggy red 8 or 10" Christmas tree. I got a little fake green Christmas tree - about 8".  Mostly it was things I could put with my Christmas cross stitched small pillows.

Then Vince wanted new coffee cups so he went to T. J. Maxx, didn't find them there; went to Target and found a couple there. I didn't get anything at either place. In fact, I stayed in the car at Target.

Then we went to eat. Magic Noodle used to be my favorite place but the last few times, it wasn't so great and I doubt we go back. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great.

From there, we went to Walmart. Vince needed something. I stayed in the car again. My knee is fairly ok but definitely not perfect. I try to stay off it as much as I can so I don't ever mind staying in the car while he goes in and shops. From Walmart, we went home. Said we weren't leaving again probably til Tuesday. Yay!

A while back, on the old blog no doubt, I had mentioned that I was folding linen and wrapping it around comic book board and securing the linen with alligator clips. I use the 2.2" clear ones with teeth. Then I stand the linen up, kinda on its side standing up so when I open the bins, I'm looking down at the folded edge and I can see exactly which linen is what color. These are the bins I've been using. They're Hefty 40 quart Hi-Rise. When we bought the first ones, we got them from Lowe's but Walmart has them marked down now so, for six, it was about $30 less from Walmart.

Before using these, I had my linen stacked in Rubbermaid totes and it took a lot of digging to get to the linen in the bottom of the tote. I love the Hi-Rise totes. It's so easy to find the color of linen I need. I still have several totes that have linen so I'm going to get it all in these Hi-Rise bins.

So . . back to what we did today . . the totes are heavy when loaded. I can pick them up but I had stacked them three high so if I needed the bottom one, I had to move two, then lift the bottom one up onto a table to get to a bottom tote.

A couple of days ago, I asked Vince about ordering another wire shelf unit. In my current sewing room, the lighting is not good. The corner in the back is way dark. Vince has said he'll have lights added but we aren't staying here. I don't know when we'll actually do it but I don't want to spend the money having more lights added. The room/lighting is fine for what most people would want. I could get a floor lamp of some kind and be fine. There was nothing in that corner and I had planned to move the sewing room recliner into that corner, put a magnifying light there and I could sit in there and cross stitch if Vince wanted to watch something on TV that I didn't want to watch. Then I realized almost every wall in that room has shelving units against them and the bottom shelves would be so much fun for the dogs to grab things to destroy. I would never to have the dogs in there and they would not be quiet if I stayed in there and they were not with me. That got me to thinking . . what could I do with that corner to maximize storage.

I had measured and knew I could fit a 60" long, 48" deep shelf unit in the corner. Vince had two he had ordered and had not used so he said I could have one of those. 

When we got back from eating lunch out, we started putting the shelf together. We had the bottom shelf on and Nicole called. She had been to town today and went by Crumbl Cookie to get cookies for Addie for Valentine's Day. They had a Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Brownie today but when Nicole got here, they were sold out. When Nicole told Addie that they had been out of the Dubai Chocolate Brownie, Addie looked online and they had them listed again so Nicole wanted me to run to Crumble, get the brownies and she will come here tomorrow to get them. We stopped putting the shelves together, went back to Joplin, got them, came home and finished putting the shelf together. 

There's a start! I will be able to get 6 of the linen tubs on each of the third, fourth and fifth shelves. I won't need that many tubs for linen. I probably will need three or four more tubs for the linen but I can store other things in those Hi-Rise tubs. They stack so nicely and six per shelf is a perfect fit. That will give me the second shelf and the top shelf for things. Now I have sewing machines stacked on the top shelf and still have four more to get up there but I was running out of steam. 

Lots of work left before I get that sewing room organized but I'm making progress!

Finish #3 for 2026

 I had been working on a WIP but when Debbie and I stitch together, we're working on patriotic pieces. It's hard for me to see 40 count linen without a magnifier so I've been working on small pieces on 36 count linen. After stitching on this piece with her this week, I only had a bit more to get done so I finished it last night.

And why go to bed even though it was 2 a.m. when I could learn play with Chat GPT, I stayed up a bit later and came up with this:

I didn't want the white mat but I just said "straighten photo and add a frame" and that's what I got.

I tried again and said "straighten photo and add a blue frame and this is what I got.

Next, I asked it to straighten and enhance photo, no mat, add a 2" brown border with 1" between the edge of the stitching and the border. I think the space between the stitching and the border is more on top and bottom than on the sides but for the first time I've used this, I think I did good.

It was fun. Something else to play with instead of doing other things I should be doing!