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abiteofnat · 7 years

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SPRINKLES & SPICE & EVERYTHING NICE...

But also for sure naughty. This post is not for the faint of heart, stomach, or soul.

It turns out when I get the flu (and a sinus infection, and an antibiotic cocktail) I can’t work out at ALL, which somehow in my mind gives me a free pass to eat all the treats. It should be the other way around, right? Nope. If I know I’m not getting up at the ass-crack of dawn to do crunches and heavy lifting, I am eating heavy... like anything fried, crunchy, salty, sweet, you name it. Plus I don’t feel well, so I have to comfort myself with delicious foods to make life not freaking terrible! Add in grad school finals, the first freezing week of the year, and the fact Trump is running our country and it’s amazing every single meal hasn’t been churros.

Which brings us to the theme of this post: 2 wintery day plans that mix savory and sweet and promise to be delicious. When it’s gray outside and you’re sick of shuffling to the nearest burrito house to get something warm and filling to eat, it’s hard to figure out where to go that’s worth entering shitty weather. You want to explore with friends... but to where? I’VE COMPILED SOME IDEAS (while swaddled in sweaters and a little delirious from the fever).

WINTER DAY PLAN 1:

Late lunch at 3 Arts Club Cafe and churros from La Bodega de Barrio!

One of my must-have meals in Chicago is the Truffled Grilled Cheese from 3 Arts, and every time I go it’s a no-brainer that fries are the side comin’ along with it. This sandwich is thick slabs of sourdough dripping with cheddar, truffle oil, sea salt, and a healthy amount of butter that will stay on your fingers for hours. Don’t try cutting it with a fork and knife- your efforts will be futile, and you just gotta ruin that lipstick and dive right in. The french fries... are... unreal. Crispy, golden, coated in sea salt and herbs, reeking of garlic, and they come with a garlic aioli to dip in. All this and you’re sitting in the most gorgeous casual lunching venue Chi-town has to offer??? Crystal chandeliers and cozy as heck chairs? That’s as good as it can get... OH WAIT. They’ve completely decorated the place for Christmas, and it’s a winter wonderland (but in a very classy way). NOW it can’t get better.

Then, after you grab a coffee from their sleek, mirrored cafe to wash it all down, you should grab a cab or walk the mile to La Bodega de Barrio for a dessert that won’t let you down. Attached to Barrio, the delicious and kooky Hispanic restaurant in River North, there’s a little bodega that sells chocolate, hot sauces, cooking kits + supplies, and best of all: FRESH CHURROS. You wander up to the case packed with churro options and then pick two, wait 5-10 minutes for them to fry you up some fresh dough sticks and decorate them with icing and toppings of your choice, and then sit at the adorable window bar to enjoy. These churros are the perfect warm, sweet, cinnamon-spiced treat for a cold afternoon and the red velvet one with chocolate topping could not be better. Simple cinnamon-sugar you can’t go wrong with, but when Fruity Pebbles are an option... you HAVE to try it. And they offer tacos a la carte should you still need a bite after lunch!

(Window views at Bodega!)

WINTER DAY PLAN 2:

Heavy Southern eats at Wishbone West Loop followed by a Military Latte at Sawada Coffee!

Wishbone is such a fucking incredible restaurant for vegetarians, seafood lovers, simple food eaters, and those looking for cornbread muffins that don’t taste like dust. Focused on Southern staples such as po’boys, gumbo, shrimp & grits, black bean cakes, and a million savory sides, it’s ideal late afternoon lazy-meal eating. With humble and cozy locations across Chicago you don’t have to go far to find their okra, however the West Loop one became my favorite the second we walked in. It’s old-time diner meets New Orleans and Nashville, and I can’t wait to return for the Vegetarian Platter!!! As a veghead it’s typical for me to create a meal out of meatless sides, however they actually offer a platter of 3 of their vegetarian-friendly sides AND a corn muffin AND coleslaw for under $12. Finally, a whole plate of real food that they WANT to pile together for me! I go for the mac & cheese, home fries, and a fruit salad. The mac & cheese is baked in a pan and tastes homemade in the best way, with dark, gooey cheese on top, and the home fries are big ole chunks of tater with rock salt and onions mixed in. With the moist lil corn muffin and a bite of crisp coleslaw on the side, it’s quite literally the perfect meal. Crazy combo of flavors and you will be full for a hot minute.

My mom engrained in my brain that a warm, comforting meal should always be followed by coffee. Whether it be a French Press, black coffee, or a caramel macchiato- there’s no excuse to skip a caffeinated nightcap(puccino). (Ha). So through West Loop we explored and went to Sawada Coffee right across from SoHo House, which you could almost miss if you didn’t know what door to look for! Find the metal door coated in band flyers and Vans stickers and you’ll enter a prime example of West Loop MAGIC: a big brick warehouse turned coffee shop and BBQ heaven, not even kidding. Lights strung all over the ceiling, donuts and croissants offered along with a simple coffee menu, and big picnic benches for communal work + play.

Sawada is known for latte art out the wazoo and most importantly, their Military Latte! Matcha (a green tea powder blended with milk that tastes very grassy but is very good for you) is a big deal to them and while I ~H A T E~ matcha , I’m a sucker for trying new things... so I got the Military Latte. It’s matcha and cocoa powder blended together and then poured insanely elegantly and far beyond my shaky-kinda-lopsided-heart latte art skills, and wow. It was delicious. I think the chocolate offset how much matcha can taste like licking rocks, and the vibes were so good that I would have drank anything they gave me just to sit their longer. New favorite nook? Oh hell yeah.

If you haven’t seen my last post on the in’s and out’s of the West Loop, keep scrolling down!!! It’s the best part of the city right now. So much to try...I’m fatigued by choices.

While eating all of this has been FANTASTIC and indulgent, and even though I am such a big “eat what you want when you want it gurrlll” pusher, I could not be more excited to get back into the gym and not feel like a beignet in skinny jeans. There’s something great about not giving a fuck and just enjoying some fun money & fun times with friends finding new favorite treats while you’re on an antibiotic time-out, but I also need that balance in the gym or running outside to connect with my body that’s now hidden under cornbread. Remember during finals and the stress of the holidays to take some time for yourself and snack to your heart’s delight- but also go for a walk with your family/dog, find a dope neighborhood to explore on foot, and don’t be afraid to sweat out what your mind is spiraling on! You’ll feel good about your choices, your body won’t be sluggish, and the holidays won’t catch up with you by New Year’s “Resolution” workout time. Balance is key entering the winter season, and you’ll probably also avoid the flu if you don’t eat like this. For at least one day of the week ;)

Until next time, Happy Eating!

-Natalie

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momofamiracle · 5 years

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insomnia.

It’s been a while since I last posted! We thought Connor was coming home, but now our discharge date has been pushed off indefinitely. More on that later. When I left off, it was the day after my anatomy scan, and I was distraught. I hadn’t slept at all the previous night, and the weekend ahead was looming over me.

When it came time to sleep that Friday night, my mind was still racing. My parents were flying in the next morning for the gender reveal party, and I felt sick to my stomach about celebrating when I had just received worrying news about the baby. I lied in bed, trying to will myself to sleep. Finally, I got frustrated and decided to try my luck on the couch. I tried meditation, listening to calming music, watching TV, lying in complete dark and silence - nothing helped. All the Benadryl in the world couldn’t make me sleep that night.

By the time the sun rose, I was desperate for sleep, if only to get a break from my relentless thoughts and anxiety for a few hours. I called the emergency number for my doctor and cried as I told them I just wanted to sleep. My doctor prescribed me a sleeping pill for that night, and she said that if I still couldn’t sleep and continued to get worked up, I should go to the emergency room.

I felt calmer once I had the prescription for the sleeping pill (that had to put me to sleep, right?). That morning I wandered around like a zombie as I got ready to pick up my parents at the airport. Once we got back home, I spent the day trying to nap. My mom tried lying outside with me on a blanket, I tried sleeping on the couch again as everyone watched TV. I just couldn’t do it. Every time I started to drift off, my body would jolt me awake as if something terrible would happen if I fell asleep - as if I would miss something. I don’t know if this is how other people get, but when I haven’t slept in a while, my body feels like it’s vibrating from the inside out. I can almost hear a humming inside me, like every cell in my body is strung out. Between the anxiety, the vibrating, and the startling awake, the sleep just couldn’t come.

I was a mess - I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop stressing, just wanted to sleep. Finally, I decided to cancel the gender reveal party for the next day. I was in no shape to pretend like everything was okay. I couldn’t fake a smile as something as trivial as the gender was revealed. How could I feign excitement as part of me would wonder if there would even be a baby boy or girl in our lives for much longer? I felt guilty for cancelling a party that everyone had been looking forward to for months. I mourned the fact that I couldn’t indulge in the fun, exciting, “gimicky” parts of pregnancy.

As the day wore on, I waited patiently until nighttime so I could take my sleeping pill. In the meantime, I read the warnings that came with the drug: Fall asleep within thirty minutes of taking [whatever sleeping pill it was] - staying awake could cause hallucinations. Is it just me, or is that a terrible warning to give someone who already has insomnia? I was already anxious about going through another sleepless night of wandering through my quiet, dark house alone. I didn’t need to put a thirty minute time limit on my ability to fall asleep with the risk of hallucinating. I got myself so freaked out about taking the pill, that my mom had to basically force me to take it. She stayed in bed with me that night in case I needed her.

I fell asleep within thirty minutes of taking the pill, but my mind was fighting it. I had only been asleep for an hour or so when I was forced awake by my own body. As I opened my eyes, i felt like I was in a Salvador Dali painting (pic below for reference). Everything was distorted, and the bathroom door looked like it was melting in front of me - twisting and turning. I remember yelling out for my mom and asking her to turn on the light. I was stuck in between this false reality and broken dreams for a few hours, unable to sleep but unable to comprehend what was actually going on. Finally, when I was fully awake and the hallucinations were gone (sometime around 3 AM), my mom decided to take me to the emergency room. We didn’t know what they would be able to do for me there, but we just had to get out of the house and try something.

My time in the ER was basically spent being monitored in a room while they tried to get me to fall asleep. If I couldn’t fall asleep in my own bed, I definitely wasn’t going to fall asleep in an ER. My heart rate and blood pressure was pretty elevated, but the baby appeared to be fine. The doctors told me that I could only take melatonin or another over the counter sleep aid. They suggested meditation, reading, listening to soothing music, etc - all things I tried already.

By 6 AM, we decided we should just go back to my house and try to get me to sleep there. I was starting to get delirious. It had been three nights without sleep, and I could barely function, not to mention the depression of going through the day in a haze rather than at the gender reveal party I had excitedly planned and mournfully cancelled. The day was spent trying to sleep in my bed, sitting zoned out on the couch, and forcefeeding myself for the sake of the baby. By bedtime, I could barely keep my eyes open. My brain was so fried, I don’t think it had the capacity to fight sleep anymore. It was Sunday night, and for the first time since Wednesday morning, I gave in to sleep.

For the next couple of weeks, my sleep was still broken - I would average a couple of hours a night, but after that weekend, a couple of hours felt like a lifetime. On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, John called the doctor and told him he couldn’t speak to me like that again and that I didn’t sleep for three nights after our appointment. Even now, if I have trouble sleeping for a few nights, I start to get panicky that I’m going to go through another insomnia spell.

After that sleepless weekend, I had ten days to wait for and agonize over my next ultrasound to see if the baby had grown enough. Stay tuned!

#insomnia #IUGR #severeiugr #pregnancy #anxiety #panic attack

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yewtongue8-blog · 5 years

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a date with the desert

Alternate titles:

The Whole Enchilada with a Side of Nachos

In Over my Head

Baptism by Fire

We threw the last duffle in the car around seven. It was ninety something degrees and I had sweat seeping out of every pore.....and we were headed south. What were we thinking?

Our weekend adventure was a last minute plan--the kids were at grandma’s, we had a few days to cram in some fun. By the time we gassed up, filled the cooler, and did all the other un-glamorous tasks that are part of road tripping, we got a late start and didn't roll into Moab until midnight. We slept--kinda-- flat on our backs, spread out, "don't touch me!", because it was exactly one million degrees.

Our shuttle up the mountain left at 6:30 a.m. I piled in with eight guys; the van smelled like a locker room and stayed fairly quiet on the hour drive. The guy in front of us had gotten into the van with a Salted Caramel Talenti container half full of a lightish brown liquid. Melted ice cream? No—that would be weird at this hour (or any hour), so I assumed it was his coffee. But then he finished it up and pulled out a raspberry Talenti container full of a very melted, very raspberry colored thick liquid. He nursed it all the way up the mountain. Between watching him sip away at two pints of melted ice cream for breakfast, the smell of the van, the windy mountain road, something sticky on my seat, and my enormous case of nerves….. I felt sick.

Yeah, I was nervous. I’ve been out on my bike quite a bit this summer, but our trails are nowhere near as technical as what I was about to ride. Our trails are smooth, fast, and flowy. There’s an occasional rock, some roots, and I know them all pretty well, both on foot and two wheels. But Robby assured me (repeatedly), that I’d be fine….he’s usually more confident in me than I am in myself. So I trusted him….I think.

Click. Click. I was in my pedals. Started my watch. The Whole Enchilada…..let’s do this! The air was crisp, the forest floor was wet from the previous night’s rain, and we settled in to our seats. Ice cream guy was GONE. Just as I began to shake my nerves out, we began to climb. And climb. And climb. I was trying to focus on the view—the flowers were like fireworks, the smell was intoxicating, but all I could think about was my legs. And my lungs. They were on FIRE. We were somewhere above ten thousand feet and I was feeeeeeeling it. I looked up the trail, and one by one riders were hopping off their bikes, pushing them up the mountainside. Pedal, peddddal, pedddaaaalllll, they just wouldn’t rotate anymore. I was off. Push, push, push. I passed a few riders in my hustle to the top, all making comments like “nice day for a hike”, and "this is the worst", and then topped out at 11,150ft on Burrow Pass. I should have taken a picture, but digging my phone out of my pack would have taken a few extra breaths that I just didn’t have at the moment, so instead we headed down.

And then I wished we were climbing again. The trail wasn’t dirt--it was slippery, broken up pieces of rock, and it was STEEP. The switchbacks were just about as close to a complete 180* degree turn as you could get—I had to unclip to get around most of them, and even that was hard. We were three or four miles into the ride at this point—and I called ahead to Robby—“am I in over my head?”

“You’re fine.”

I trusted him. I think.

The trail leveled out, we wound through aspens, cows, bushes and flowers that completely covered the trail. I was relieved to have a bit more climbing to give my legs a rest from standing on the pedals. We crossed creeks that soaked our feet, and eventually made our way out of the forest to a wide open view of the desert below.

WOW. This is why I signed up for this ride! The green meadow in front of us seemed to drop off into nothing, as red desert towers rose up into the blue sky. It looked fake. Was this real?! I wanted to spend the day taking it all in, but we had miles to cover.

We began our descent, the green fading away and slowly turning to red stone and sand. We had a few miles of relief on a smooth(ish) jeep road where we were able to make up some time, and let the wind whip around us as the desert air began to heat up.

The next twelvish miles or so all blurred together. When I think back, I imagine rock. After rock. After rocky rock. The sections of smooth broken slickrock were my favorite. Choosing a line up and over this rock—around that rock. Robby would holler “stay right!”—I’d keep right and sit all the way back over my seat as my tires dropped over edges and landed with ease. This was FUN! I was finally getting it. Choosing my own lines—it was like a playground—which way should I go?! Weeeeeeee!

And then there were the sections I didn't love--no lines to choose—no way to go around. Up and over, up and over, times where I was like, “yeah, I’m not riding that”, so I’d hop down and carry my bike around, over, through. But then times where I was like “yeah, I’m not riding that”, but I could not for the life of me get unclipped in time, so I just held on tight and tried not to close my eyes. And yes I screamed a little lot.

And I surprised myself so many times. I still don’t really consider myself a mountain biker—I’ve been on my bike quite a bit this summer, but there is so much about the sport I'm still figuring out. As I learned to trust myself and my bike, I think I earned my mountain biking badge this trip. At one point in those impossibly rocky sections, I had a thought—it quickly became my cheesy motto for the remainder of the ride. I remember thinking I was so wise--like Ghandi or something--or maybe it was on a No Fear shirt I saw in middle school, but I just kept thinking:

“You can’t DO, what you don’t TRY.”

It’s making me laugh so hard right now—does that even make sense? Not really. It sounded a lot more profound and inspiring when I was on the verge of dehydration and ridiculously exhausted, but I repeated this to myself over and over as my wheels rolled over drops and boulders. And as I kept trying, and trying--I continued to surprise myself with what I could do with each turn of my pedals.

I ran out of water with two miles of trail to go. It was 104* and I could see the river ahead, taunting me. My brain was done—I kept shifting the wrong direction and I swear the rocks were moving. The trail spit us out on the road—we had 5ish miles back to town on the hot asphalt. We stopped at a little spring dripping out of the rock and drank until our bellies were bloated and full. And then we filled up our bottles and dumped them over our heads—again and again. We were soaked and I’ve never felt so good. I got my second wind—“let’s do it again!!” We laughed, deliriously high on endorphins.

We went and showered at the rec center in town. I think I may have fallen asleep while the cool water ran over my sore muscles. I took inventory: three new bruises on my legs, some skin off my legs and an elbow, a blister from gripping my handlebars so tight, and a baseball size goose egg on my arm from a hard spill onto the rocks.

All worth it.

We ate our fill of Mexican food (nachos for me, and the very appropriate choice of enchiladas for Robby), and drove towards our next destination: Capitol Reef.

this picture says it all. absolute, complete exhaustion.

The rest of our adventure was fairly easy going. We threw up our tent and crawled into our sleeping bags, not even noticing how uncomfortable our air pads were. We crashed.

We woke up with the sun, and headed out for our next ride. My legs were toast from the previous thirty four miles, but our second ride would be fairly gentle in comparison. We had cloud cover, a few rain drops even, and an oasis to dip in halfway through our ride. As we peddled our way across the desert, I wondered why I love this so much? My body was tired, my brain was mush, and for some reason, I still couldn't get enough. There’s just something about physical suffering that I crave, and I love doing it together. Robby pushed and I followed—trying not to question if I could do it—if he says I can, then I will. We pedaled on and ended our ride right under twenty one miles. It felt good.

our secret oasis

done! 55 desert miles in two days.

We checked in to our cabin for the night, showered in the outdoor shower surrounded by willows, and went to eat. And eat and EAT. Burr Trail Grill is hands down one of my favorite restaurants on the planet. We had fried green tomatoes, wings, burgers with potatoes, and their famous pie. We sat on our little porch as the sun set, and talked about our last fourteen years together, and what the years to come may bring…..fingers crossed, they bring more bike rides.

mmmm.....peach pie

....the end....

Source: http://inthelittleredhouse.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-date-with-desert.html

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