Dinners For Two

One day I will be a master cook and a great housewife. I will have a healthy and delicious dinner ready and waiting for Tene when he gets home from

That hasn't happened yet, and probably won't for a while. But I'm working on it.

These are two meals that I have put together for Tene and I, and that were very delicious.

First was this lovely looking meal. I call it the Green Meal. We ate this maybe two weeks ago?

We've got an artichoke, boiled, with some garlic-lemon-butter for dipping. Then .... there's baked/steamed potatoes (they were baked in the oven, but were wrapped in foil, leading to a more steam-like situation than a bake-like situation; asparagus, which was fried; and finally brussels sprouts, which were baked in the oven. It was a very tasty meal, and I really enjoyed it. We'll probably be having it - or something similar to it - again soon.

Then, tonight's dinner - Parmesan crusted chicken which was made from two chicken breast halves and that I'm finally getting into the habit of cooking. I tend to have trouble not burning it to the pan. Up next we have whole-grain spaghetti with a tasty spinach pesto that Tene made on it. Ingredients for that were spinach, some basil, some olive oil, garlic, etc. It's very tasty, and gave us a good reason to use our new food processor! I'm very happy with the food processor. It's exciting. And, again, artichokes. Steamed, this time, but again with the artichokes.

I like artichokes. Who would have thought that such a spiky plant would be so delicious, let alone even edible? To whoever in the far past first attempted to eat an artichoke - thank you. You have made my diet a little healthier!

In other news, Tene and I might be starting on the paleo diet for the month of July, as a simple test for allergens and to see if it actually makes us feel healthier and more energetic like we've been told. So ... the two dinners above have parts that are disallowed - potatoes in dinner one, the pasta and breading on the chicken in dinner two. I'm hoping we get something good out of it, but even if we don't - it'll be a new, good experience, and I'm happy with that.

I've also be playing with my hairstyles, trying to find pretty things to do. Recently I figured out this one, which I thought looks elegant and casual at the same time. I might be cutting my hair soon, I'll give before and after pictures if I end up deciding that.

Other than that, things are going well for us here in CA. As seen above, we're eating mostly healthy - and we're being social and all that. We're working on getting me stable emotionally and healthy (the newest thing to happen is that I've been getting headaches almost every day, ranging from annoying cluster-headaches to full-on migraines, I see the doctor again on Monday to talk to him about it; currently looking at sleep and/or anxiety as the culprits).

Bad Dreams and Headaches

I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately - not quite nightmares, but enough to keep me up and make me feel bad for the day. Most of them center, oddly, around high school - particularly my high school choir. I'll have missed the entire semester, or I'll have a solo and my voice will crack, or I'll forget the words - or the entire song (or a combination of all of the above). I'm often made fun of in such dreams. Sometimes one of my high school crushes is in them - pretty evenly split between my main tormentor and my biggest support. Oddly, Tene is always lacking in these dreams. I'll end up feeling humiliated, confused, lost, and just plain depressed - a feeling which continues into my waking hours.

I don't know where these dreams are coming from, but I'm having them at least three nights every week. One of my friends suggests that they are little more than stress dreams, which certainly could be accurate. I just don't understand why I'm having them so much, and why they tend to focus around my old choir class.

I've also been having near-constant headaches. They've improved over the last week, but they're still there. I think I clench my teeth (perhaps grind them?) in my sleep, which would account for the pain. My doctor has given me some migraine medication to try to help take care of them - so far I've only needed it once.

Speaking of doctors I finally went in to try to understand why I've been so fatigued and tired. I underwent a sleep study (a take-home version, my breathing was monitored but my brainwaves weren't), and it looks like, while I don't have sleep apnea, I might have "Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome" - which basically means that while I don't stop breathing in the night (which is apnea) I get really close. I apparently don't enter the deep, very relaxing sleep (because when I do, I almost stop breathing, so I wake up - just a little - to avoid that), which is why I'm frequently tired. I'm trying to sleep with a C-Pap machine to see if I get better/more restful sleep with it. So far I've been having a hard time adjusting to sleeping with this HUGE THING on my nose, and it's been overly warm in our apartment - which means lots of uncomfortable sweating around the mask. I've gotten a few hours of good sleep from it, though, and I seem to be adjusting - just very very slowly. I think I might end up buying one for myself.

If I do have UARS, it could also explain my depression (or at least, part of my depression), my headaches, maybe even my bad dreams! I go in again on either Wednesday or Thursday, so we'll find out some more then.

Life has been mostly uneventful for us, honestly. It's nice here - I'm really liking Mountain View - and we're enjoying ourselves. So not so much to report right now.