8 Years Ago Today

A little girl was born.  

8 years ago today, I went to bed at 6am, and this morning I woke up at 6am because someone was very excited to be having a birthday.

8 years ago today, we looked out our window to see beautiful roses, blooming in the side yard - and we decided to give Simone the middle name "Rose." Today, Mary and I chopped up the remnants of that rose bush, a victim of the cold snap and snow this winter (sniff sniff).

8 years ago today, we didn't leave home for nearly two weeks, choosing to instead stay at home, getting to know each other.  Today we woke up after returning from a great trip to the beach, and spent nearly the entire day outside of the house, eating special meals and desserts out.

8 years ago today we saw family and friends, and we celebrated the little girl who has come into our lives.  Just like today.

Ice cream with Grandpa...

A sand castle with a swimming pool.

Our chef making a fruit plate (she made the chef's hat too).

Leaping lizards!

Watering the yard, among other things.

Peanut butter pie for the birthday girl!

At the waterfront.

With friends (Astrid and Bodhi).

My gals at dinner.

Changes In Diet

A little over 6 years ago I had surgery to break up a stricture just above my stomach.  I took prilosec for a few months after that to "help" my body avoid re-creating the stricture, but stopped taking it because ... I didn't like the idea of taking it for the rest of my life.  Plus, there are a wide range adverse effects reportedly related to taking it long term.

About a year and a half ago the stricture announced it was back, and I began taking prilosec again.  Luckily, for whatever reason, the prilosec helps with my symptoms (food getting stuck in the esophagus).  It doesn't really make a lot of sense as the stricture is certainly still there, but perhaps the prilosec helps keep down my acid re-flux (well, likely it makes it "pH-neutral reflux") and that helps my esophagus from being overly irritated.  And a less irritated esophagus means no problems swallowing.

Yah, I know.  TMI.  You can stop reading at any point.

The next step was to talk to someone who might be able to help (other than my very knowledgeable, yet too personally connected, wife), so I'm seeing Dr. Sandberg-Lewis.  We're working on a plan to get my body back in order to eventually get me off the prilosec.

What does this mean in practical terms?

We ran some tests and found a number of food allergies, and that I have SIBO.  The food allergies can be related to a number of issues, but the hope is to reduce/eliminate those reactions so my body can be healthier in general (less inflammation, better digestion of food, etc.).  The SIBO could be influencing my acid re-flux by causing pressure that forces the stomach acids up into my esophagus (if not the fluids from my small intestine up there...).

For the SIBO, I'm taking a garlic extract and another supplement (neem) to control the overgrowth of bacteria.  I'm also to eat a particular diet (specific carbohydrate or gaps or cedars sinai) - which reduces/eliminates the foods which feed the bacteria that are over populating my gut.

For the food allergies, I'm avoiding the foods I'm allergic to, and rotating through the rest of the food families.  My food allergies are: dairy, egg, almond, wheat, yeast, beans (dried and green), bell peppers, sesame, and I'm mildly allergic to corn and rye.

Mary's been super supportive, and other than the beans, egg, and sesame, it's the kind of food she'd prefer to (not) eat.

We're also drastically reducing sugar intake - which actually isn't too difficult given the fact that most of the sugar I take in is associated with wheat/dairy/egg (baked goods, desserts of all kinds).

It's been almost a week now, and I'm doing pretty well.  I was a little worried about not getting enough calories, but I'm quickly realizing how I can get them in different ways (I've got to watch out for eating too many nuts).

The biggest issue, for me, is my lack of symptoms.  I don't really notice the acid re-flux  unless I eat late at night, or eat a huge dinner - then sometimes I can feel the heart burn (if I'm not on prilosec).  And, of course there's the difficulty swallowing - but that's one I actually didn't have for a few years after the surgery, so it's not a very useful symptom.

So, when I re-introduce the foods I'm avoiding, will I notice anything?  I kind of hope so, but then again, I want to be able to eat dairy/egg/wheat... I'm not noticing much of a difference yet - other than my ring finger has shrunk just a little and the ring sometimes wants to fall off - so perhaps I'm already less inflamed.

When I had the surgery, the surgeon commented on my esophagus being irritated and corrugated, and didn't recommend doing the surgery again.  So, my goal is to get healed up so that if my SIBO is gone, and my acid re-flux is gone, my esophagus is healthy and could handle another surgery to get rid of the stricture (should it be a problem).  Then, with a healthy body, perhaps the stricture won't regrow.

For now, I'm focusing on the elimination diet, and will begin my supplements as soon as they get here.  And, some time in the next week I'll read up more on the specific carbohydrate, gaps, cedars sinai diet and make some more adjustments to what I'm eating.

But baby steps for now.

Not to mention, all of this should help avoid gall stones too.

December Has Begun

It's already December, so we got a tree from the farm down the street, and after eating a traditional (?) lunch of  Mexican food we came back to the house and set it up.  I'm not sure if Mexican food will be the tradition, but it sure hit the spot for Mary and me.

And then today, we went to First Christian to listen to Simone sing in front of the congregation.  Toward the end of the service, Simone and 3 other kids went up to the front and each sang a line from the song "When God Is A Child".  Simone did great, with her high pitched voice coming through microphone.

Afterwards we ate treats at the coffee hour and then decorated an advent wreath.  Many people came up and told me how great Simone sounded.  A few of them actually told it to Simone.  At bedtime, Simone said singing was her favorite part of the day, and she can't wait until the she gets to sing again.

And at night, Simone snuggled up with Lilla to sleep tonight.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was at Bob & Gin's house this year.  Tom flew into town and the Mattsons came down from Yakima.

Simone was very excited to see all the cousins - she even stayed the night on Thanksgiving, which pretty much meant she got no sleep (way too excited to sleep).

I played with the panorama photo option on the camera and took two photos at the table, Thanksgiving dinner and then Saturday breakfast of  biscuits and gravy.  I got everyone except for me.

Simone decided it was Sparkle's birthday, and it was time to decorate some hats which Sparkle wore.

Bob even played along with the birthday.

A Lovely Walk

Mary and I have been taking walks on Tuesdays recently. We were fortunate to have a beautiful sunny break at our standard time.
We took a road through some private property that we hadn't been on (at least not that far) and it is rather beautiful back there. The crazy thing is that this is but a three minute walk from our house.

New Car (buh-bye Luna (the Mazda))

We haven't gotten rid of Luna just yet - need to call OPB to donate it.  But, we did get a new car.

Yup, a Prius.  A Prius V in fact - which is the larger of the 3 Prius models.

I had been thinking of just getting a car to replace the commute vehicle (the Mazda), but Mary wisely pointed out it might be nice to have a fuel efficient car for all around family use.  With that in mind, there really wasn't much choice other than the Prius V.  It's just bigger enough than the Prius to make quite a bit of difference: I can sit upright in the back seat, it's wide enough to comfortably (relatively) sit 3 people, and the trunk/cargo area is twice the size of the standard Prius (i.e. it's a usable size now).

Mary and I both liked the hybrid Civic, but its trunk was tiny.  I really liked the console of the Civic - and don't like the Prius' at all, but that's not really a sticking point for me.

Once we'd decided upon the car, the question was, how do we go about buying it?

I'd read a couple accounts of people calling around for quotes and doing all the "wheeling and dealing" over the phone, and I was excited to give that a try.  Mary just didn't want to spend a bunch of time at the dealer bartering over a price, so she let me go ahead with the plan.  We were also going to try the Costco deal (a no-haggle thing where the dealer offers $X over dealer invoice) - but we didn't have an account.  I also put a request out through USAA's auto purchase program and got a couple bids that way.  But the real leg work was done by getting a listing of all the dealers within 100 miles of Corvallis and calling them.

I ended up calling 12 dealers, giving them all the same spiel (have financing, no trade-in, 2012 Prius V model Two, dark interior, any exterior but Red or White).  Half called back with quotes, and half called back asking me to call them to get the quotes (arrrg!).  Two of the sales guys I talked two were not at all interested and just quoted me the MSRP.

The dealer in Springfield (winning dealer) told me of their standard offer of $2500 off MSRP, and I was pretty much sold at that point.  The Corvallis sales guy told me they really wanted to keep our business (stay local and all), and then proceeded to give me the highest non-MSRP quote.  I told him it was way high, and he asked to be given the last chance.  A few minutes later we got a call from the Eugene dealer with the best quote (by $100) - but they didn't have any of the cars in stock, it'd be subject to a dealer trade.  The local dealer called me back and said he'd match the lowest offer if I could give him proof so he could show his GM.

Mary and I talked about the choices, and decided to go with Springfield.

I didn't call the Corvallis dealer back, but instead sent him (and the sales manager) an email describing my experience - I felt very awkward thinking about asking for proof from the Springfield guy and then taking that offer to a different dealer.  I figured I gave everyone the same chance, and I even told the Corvallis guy what my best offer was (nobody else had that information), and as opposed to just giving me a straight-up offer, I would have to use a different dealer against himself.  It just felt weird.

So, we drove down to Springfield, did the paperwork (1.5 hours, sigh... still took long), and due to a mix-up of one hand not knowing what the other was doing, we didn't get the car that night.  We got an identical one delivered to our door the next day.  Other than that little SNAFU (which did seem like an honest mistake), the experience with Springfield (Lithia) was good.

The guy who delivered the car got lost trying to get to our house, and was a little late.  But Simone was getting over a cold, so we were just hanging around anyway.

Hopefully the new car will last as long as the Mazda: 20 years and 260000 miles.

Abbreviated Fall Festival

We went to the Fall Festival this year, but got there a bit later than planned.

Right when we got there we saw a dance exhibition from Mexico - which was fun (and just try to keep Simone away from dance).  Then we ran into some friends, which was also very fun.  The downside was we didn't get time to actually view the art.  On our way back to the Burley (we did walk there and back which was lovely) we did a quick scan of about 1/10th of the booths - a number of which were new (to us) artists.

Maybe next year we'll make a little more time.

While hanging out, Simone and her friends were climbing trees.  I was very proud that Simone climbed up and down all on her own.  One of her friends quickly got into the "I'm stuck, I can't get down" mode where she didn't want to climb on her own any more.  Simone got a little of that - especially when she made a decision to climb into a really awkward position.  With a little coaching and encouragement, she got herself turned around and made it down to the ground safe and sound.  I was very proud that she stuck to it and did all her own climbing.

On the way home we found a tree that was shedding conkers - they are so pretty when they're bursting out of their cover.

Bounty from our yard

We got chicks this year, and they've been growing and growing.  I think it was less than a month ago we started getting eggs, and just the other day we got three!  Today we got four!

How exciting.

And, our yellow raspberry bush is producing more raspberries that are very tasty.

Bath Time!

Mary and Simone took a bath the other day.  I knew Simone was taking one, and what a surprise I had when I opened the door to find the two of them packed into a bubble filled bathtub!

How lucky I am.

Jam Packed Day

Toward the end of August, Albany puts together an Art and Air festival, where they have an air show, hot air balloons, art sale, food booths, music, etc.  We'd gone once a long time ago, I've got a photo somewhere of Simone asleep on my arm that was taken there.

The festival had moderately interesting art - about what you'd expect at a Saturday market, but we had a fun time poking around looking at things.  Gin joined us, and it's nice to hang with her.

They had a kids area for crafts, so Simone made a necklace and a paper-bag hat.  We missed out on painting a square on the big plywood boards by one person (they'd just filled the last one) - next time we'll show up a little earlier.

Simone modeling the necklace.  Note the heart necklace underneath - all the gals in the booths thought she'd gotten it at the fair, but it came from home.

The paper bag hat, a thing of beauty.

Then after the festival we came home, made a fire, roasted marshmallows to make s'mores, and slept outside.  So much fun!

Our roaring fire, the coals were perfect for s'mores.

A  benefit of sleeping outside was that Jupiter slept next to me all night long.  In the morning Simone came into the bed and snuggled up (Mary had gone inside in the middle of the night because she wasn't sleeping at all).

While lying in bed we heard our chickens wake up.  One sounded a little unusual.  She was making a "kakruu - kakruu!" sounds.  Uh-oh.

Yup, one of our girls had decided to let us know she was a he.  It was official two days later when I saw him mount one of the hens, and a couple days after that he found his voice and cockle-doodle-do'ed all day.

We now have 6 chickens, and Maddie made a nice pot of chicken soup.

Flowers

I like closeups of flowers.

They're pretty.

Hydrangea in Newport.

Hydrangea in Newport.

Sweet pea in Gearhart.

A sweet pea in Gearhart.

Sunflower in our garden.

Newport

It got pretty hot for a few days in August, so one Sunday we headed to Newport where the temperature was a nice, cool, 68 degrees.  We had a lovely lunch, played in a park, saw some Sea Lions, met two guys who had biked from Patagonia up the east coast and were headed back down the west coast.  A good day.

Waiting for a table for lunch.

Got milk?

Warm and sunny in Newport.

Sculpture

In the art exhibit, looking through the salt-stained windows.

Artsy shot of a boat.

The sea lions

Where to Start

So much since the 4th of July, including the 4th of July.  It's now September, and Simone has started school, kindergarten.  We had some vacation, some hanging out, some biking.  I'll try to post some memories, we'll see where we get.

Prejudices

I went for a bike ride this morning. We're at the coast and the clouds and drizzle have set in, but I still wanted to ride.

It turns out, there aren't many (any?) mountain bike trails around the cities of Seaside/Astoria. At least, none that show up on MTB forums, or are known by my team, or that the usual trail web sites know of. I have done a trail at fort Stevens years ago, but didn't feel like driving.

So off to the logging roads I went.

The hills just east of Gearhart and Seaside are privately owned and are heavily logged. I noticed them last year when I did some road riding in the valley over the hills.

I donned my Lycra and headed into the mist.

As I reached the main logging road I noticed the gate was open and some guy was working on it. I stopped to ask if it was ok for me to ride on these roads.

He looked up and I could see he was a bit older, was missing quite a few teeth, and given the company name on the side of his truck (Seaside) he was from around here.

I don't know exactly what preconceptions I had of him, but I was a little surprised when he said I had a nice bike and that he was real happy with his 29er. He continued with talking about how well it rolls over bumps his 26" Cannondale had trouble with, and that it's got to do with the lower angle of attack that the bigger wheel presents to obstacles.

It's at thus point I realize I'd totally judged him wrong. Bad Trey.

We walked over to the sign to see what it says about bikes, and it looks like I've got free reign until sunset.

All inspired that I'd met a fellow biker who lived locally - I asked him where he rides. He mostly road rides, and commutes with the bike. He even has slicks on the 29er.

He then continues by saying he sometimes goes into the skate park on the bike. Sometimes he gets drunk before the skate park, and it's pretty sketchy biking in the park in the dark, drunk.

There's my prejudices coming back.

Flowers on Simone's Birthday

I took some photos of flowers on Simone's birthday, and some turned out pretty well.  I could see that a real macro lens would help (slightly larger depth of field would be great).

Enjoy.