Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Day 2 - The Headache

Uuuugggh - What a day.  Debbie told me to expect this but did I listen?  Nope.  I woke up with a mild headache today that progressively got worse and worse and worse and worse (how many times can I write worse?) and worse throughout the day and when I got home from work it was still there. 
After dinner, still there.  At about 8:30 pm I laid down to watch tv and I fell asleep within a half hour.  Magically, it went away in my sleep.  Thank god.

Why?  Well, apparently this is part of the "detox" process.  Maybe someone else could explain this better.

Day 2 was my first long day at work (8am - 7pm) and I have to admit it was a rough one.  I'm almost thankful for work because it allowed me to take my mind off my hunger and my headache for brief times throughout the day.  I was so excited about the successes of Day 1 that I wasn't fully prepared for this little wall that I hit on Day 2.  Already???  It's only been 2 days and I feel so hungry and my energy was drained and my head was pounding!

Last night for dinner I cooked a cup of rice and a cup of beans and luckily I had enough of that left to make a lunch for myself at work.  In the morning before work I quickly steamed one of my large clams, trimmed it up a bit and mixed it into my rice and beans lunch.  And yeah - you know I put my special sea salt on top.  Before I got into my truck to go to work I pulled up a patch of wild garlic and a few dandelion greens from the backyard, threw them into my lunch and I was on my way.  Just needed to add a few greens to my lunch.  It was small.  And all day at work I was thinking about food.

When I got home I had a variety of "lawn greens" as part of my dinner, accompanied by - you guessed it - beans and rice and clams, clams, clams.  This batch was half of my remaining steamers so I still have more for tomorrow.  Steamers just aren't the same without the drawn butter!  The salt helps a lot though.  Looking forward to butter reward next week.  I grossed the kids out a little when I started dissecting the clam bellies at the table.  Some parts of these clams I still have a hard time eating.  The bellies have this mushy center and a dark part that the kids are convinced is clam poop.  And I pulled out this clear worm-like organ from each one and wiggled it in front of them before slurping it like a piece of spaghetti (no taste to that part).

With Debbie's help I learned about a variety of common lawn weeds that are especially nutritious and edible.  I already knew a lot about dandelions but here's something I read today: "You will have a hard time finding a more nutritious green: dandelion leaves have more calcium and iron than spinach, more beta-carotene than carrots, and are loaded with other vitamins and minerals as well."  Very interesting.

Also growing in my yard are Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea), Plantain (Plantago major) and some type of wild mustard garlic weed.  Apparently all edible.  I washed some off and gingerly tasted each one.  The Blue Violet was a pretty purple flower and was not bad at all.  The leaves were a little bitter.  These plants take a bit of getting used to and without salad dressing or seasoning it is not easy.  But ya do what ya gotta do.


"Stay away from people who belittle your ambition.  Small people always do that.  The really great people make you feel like you too can be great."

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