Friday, December 21, 2012

The Weather Outside is Frightful

If we had a fire it would be so delightful!

We actually got off pretty lightly with this storm. The snow was combined with rain so the accumulation was not the 25 to 30 cm predicted, but instead we got heart-attack producing heavy rain drenched snow. Oh, and high winds. At times the trees were lashed so violently against the house it seemed that it might come down around our heads!

(as a side note to the weather, the city weather station mentioned that they got 27cm!)

I took the opportunity of being trapped in the house all day to do a bit of healthy cooking. First, I showed Carm how to make the "lemony lentil soup" so that he can make it while I'm away (fyi 19 days till I leave!). Then I made some vegan peanut butter oatmeal "cookies". This year for New Years Eve I'm going to go with an Italian theme, so I marinated some olives in rosemary, and some in thyme (and other stuff) - I've never made it before, and of course didn't use a recipe, and always I do these things for guests, so my fingers are crossed that they turn out tasty!

The other thing I made was "Italian Stuffed Peppers", adjusting the recipe to fit our eating guidelines. They turned out great and will be a good vegetable accompaniment for New Years supper.

It seems that we have escaped oblivion! No end of the world after all! I didn't actually see that much hype about it, although I'm sure if I surfed on over to some survivorist blogs there would have been lots to see (remember how much there was for Y2K!). I wonder how many people sold all their stuff and moved to the mountains for nothing? I laugh about it now, but do remember being upset by a similar end of world scenario when I was 10 or 11.

I know I have mentioned it, and you might be able to tell by what I write, but I haven't been feeling all that great for the last month or more. The last few days have finally seen some change, but it has been a long haul. One of the things that is recommended to help with managing my illness is to keep a mood log. Mine keeps track of weather, sleep times, awake times, weight, medications, and mood. It is very useful to keep this information on a daily basis especially when things start to go off track. I keep it on a file in my tablet, but print it, and my diary entries off into a book that I can take to my doctor to discuss how things are going. Sometimes I'm a bit slow... but the other day I went back to last years entries, and sure enough - right there in writing - I could see that from mid November until the beginning of January things were rough. So what I am going through is a normal part of my mood spectrum and nothing to really worry about. Just knowing that made me feel a little better. Anyway, I highly recommend anyone with mental illness problems keep a log like mine. If I were really smart I'd figure out if any of the triggers could be mitigated... like maybe doing all the Christmas shopping by the end of summer... hummm... I'm going to have to really give this some thought.

We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
Walter Scott

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