Let's see, aside from my relaxing (?) week of conferencing and off-roading (which I'm still feeling a little refreshed from during work hours), what else has been going on in life lately?
My best friend from college and I have met up a couple of times to try new places -
The Social Taco and
Leaf Tea House (both delicious). I baked my first apple pie and took a new friend for (my first)
bibimbap for her birthday. I cooked a
surf & turf dinner, not to mention I rode all the way to
Fossil Cove Brewery on my bike without incident!
(Ironically, this morning's On This Day tells me I posted to Facebook that I rode for 10 seconds at the Honors Retreat in 2009 this past weekend.) It's the best I've ever ridden (and I was even more terrified without the frequent stopping as per usual). We graduated two of our families last week and have a couple more graduations approaching.

Oh! And I have a new roommate! Ha! I'd said at the time when I decided "no more roommates" that I wouldn't specifically look for a new roommate and bank my lifestyle on it (get it?), but if I came across someone I just wanted to live with I still would to help out with the bills. A certain circumstance fell into my lap that fit that criteria so I took it as a sign!
I also went to Whole Foods Market for the first time. Now, I'm not crazy about Whole Foods, especially since I have access to places like our local
farmer's market and
Ozark Natural Foods, but it's still better than Walmart - but mainly, I'd never been in one and wanted to check out what all they had that I maybe couldn't find elsewhere. I still ended up leaving with a "few" items and am looking forward to trying these
Epic bars that keep popping up. I'm leaning towards the
Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) diet - but my own modified version (which is the end goal of the diet) - before I dive head first, however, I'm going to re-introduce more
anti-inflammatory foods to my diet so I can adjust to their flavors once again (fermented foods, etc.). I've done this before but I lost steam and am looking to refocus my energies so I can start feeling good again. I'm really missing the feeling that
prednisone gave me at the beginning of this year (though I do
not miss the self-conscious moon face)...
With that said, I may just end at eating more anti-inflammatory foods. I don't know that I can actually stick to the AIP diet, and the best kind of diet is the one you can stick to - not to mention that there are certain conflicts between the two (with certain "no-no" foods being great anti-inflammatories).
Nightshades make up a lot of my favorite meals and I'm not confident I could ever give them
all up (especially tomatoes & peppers). I try to look at dieting as a focus on adding more good foods than elimination desirable "bad" foods - that way, you're less likely to eat the latter if your focus is on the former. But before I really start all this, I have some prep work to do: adjusting my taste buds (I've homebrewed
kombucha a few times and it's certainly an acquired taste), using up groceries that do not fit the criteria, and obtaining a few unique items (like restarting a new
SCOBY's continuous brew). I want to make it as easy to commit as possible when the time comes to switch over and make any lapses easily avoidable. This doesn't mean I'm going to turn down meals others have cooked for me or not order what I want at restaurants or take holiday breaks - the entire purpose is to live a
generally more healthy lifestyle, not be perfect.
I guess I've mentioned a few times that I would write a future post (or posts) regarding my Crohn's disease, and going on about this diet stuff is as good 'a time as any. At the beginning of freshman year of high school I began to have severe abdominal pain, almost suddenly. A few years prior I'd had similar on & off pain without thinking too much of it (I assumed it was the early signs of starting my cycle, being told how bad menstrual cramps can be) - but this new pain at age 14 was more consistent and intense. For whatever reason, my pediatrician at the time swore up and down there's no way my older brother (who'd already been diagnosed with Crohn's) and I could both possibly have Crohn's. (Luckily we all know now how common it is to run in families - my cousin has it, too.) He decided I simply had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS/IBD) and prescribed some medicine that may or may not have set off an even worse attack shortly after I started taking it.