Radioactive Ben ~ The Low-Iodine Diet Chronicles

So today we started the low-iodine diet required for Ben's radioactive iodine treatment coming up in 2 weeks. We were given a very long list if "can't haves" and a very short

bland list of "eat-these-insteads".

Essentially Ben can have no iodine.....meaning no salt.....meaning no taste..........totally kidding!

We actually had a very delicious meal tonight. It was surprising!

We have discovered that we will have to get a little inventive.

The diet includes no iodized salt (which is in almost all prepared and manufactured foods), no dairy of any kind (ice cream is out... wah wah), no commercial breads or grains, no egg yolks, no canned foods, no foods with any added salt in the ingredients, no chocolate (gasp!), and quite a bit more foods you never thought had iodine in them (red dye 40. What the....?!). We took our tiny list of foods we could eat and went to the store tonight. I will be posting our food adventures to our blog if anyone else would like to check out a no-iodine diet menu. I think it will actually be the start to a wonderfully healthy relationship with our food. Your meals have to basically be prepared out of fresh food only so you can control the amount of iodine. We are both actually really looking forward to it. Being the supportive little wifey that I am, I am going to stick to the same diet but still having a semi-functioning thyroid and need for thirst and metabolism control, it is essential for me to have iodine in my diet (as it is for most of you) so I will allow myself to cheat and not feel bad about it one bit. :) In all actuality I am helping Ben by eating the foods he shouldn't have. ;P

Tonight we had our own version of a taco salad. We used country style hashbrown potatoes pan fried up in a small amount of oil with ground beef, lettuce, home-made salsa (using tomatoes and sweated onions) and fresh avocado chunks. It was really tasty! 

We bought some un-iodized salt to use.... thank heavens for that!

So I think I actually like this a lot better than using chips underneath. It is better for you and not so full of fat and processed gunk.  It created the perfect amount of crunchyness too.

Mmmm..... I am sure we will be making this again (even when we don't have to).

{I would have posted a picture but I didn't}

Sudden Cardiac Arrest During Marathons

This little tidbit is for my brother-in-law, Dave Phillips. :)

I read in the New England Journal of Medicine about Cardiac Arrest (Heart Attack) During Marathons and here is the consensus.
{I modified the excerpt below to make it more reader friendly.}

Results

Of 10.9 million runners, 59 (average age 42 give or take 13 years) had a cardiac arrest (heart attack). The incidence rate of having a heart attack is 0.54 persons per 100,000 participants with 95% confidence interval of 0.41 to 0.70 {meaning 95% likelihood that the "true" value is somewhere in the 0.41-0.70 range}.
Cardiovascular disease accounted for the majority of cardiac arrests. The incidence rate was significantly higher during marathons (1.01 per 100,000) than during half-marathons (0.27) and among men (0.90 per 100,000) than among women (0.16). Male marathon runners, the highest-risk group, had an increased incidence of cardiac arrest during the latter half of the study decade (2000–2004, 0.71 per 100,000; 2005–2010, 2.03 per 100,000).
Of the 59 cases of cardiac arrest, 42 (71%) were fatal (incidence, 0.39 per 100,000). Among the 31 cases with complete clinical data, initiation of bystander-administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation (chest compressions) and an underlying diagnosis other than hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were the strongest predictors of survival.

Conclusions

Marathons and half-marathons are associated with a low overall risk of cardiac arrest and sudden death. Cardiac arrest, most commonly attributable to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart muscle = not good) or atherosclerotic coronary disease (lard in the vessels of your heart), occurs primarily among male marathon participants; the incidence rate in this group increased during the past decade.


Moral to the story.... if you are going to run a marathon....you are most likely not going to have a heart attack unless you have had heart disease before and are a male and even then the likelihood is very slim. But if you do....you are most likely going to die from it.


Happy Running!

Taking Care of Myself

Lately, I have been working on taking care of myself better and that's why I haven't posted a bunch of organization photos.{ I did, however, clean out my day planner today. Feels good. }

I gave my hair a nice conditioning treatment and have been treating it better.

I gave myself a manicure and painted my finger nails.

I went shopping and got a few new things I can wear for work, church or everyday.

I bought a new moisturizer and I love it. It makes my skin soft and healthy feeling (Palmer's Coco Butter) ....plus I smell like chocolate.

Yes, I even got a little sun. (Best part of it all...I need my sun)

One thing I haven't been working on is my beauty sleep. I blame Ben and work.

He sleeps weird hours and I work weird hours.

C'est la vie.... and it's wonderful.

Home Mission Statement

I received a great piece of advice today regarding my home makeover.

Create a home mission statement.

A home mission statement helps you to make the better decision when you are changing something about your home and it will help you focus when you are feeling overwhelmed by the daunting task of creating an entire home atmosphere.

Here is our home mission statement

The mission of The Ridges' Home is to nourish the mind, body and spirit of all who enter by creating a warm and cozy oasis filled with laughter and love. We hope to create an atmosphere of fun, learning and simplicity so that our family and guests will leave here feeling refreshed, encouraged and loved.

I like it. Soon it will be framed and hanging on our wall so I will always remember.

My next project is going to be the office. Dun...dun...dun....

Wish me luck. Come find me if you haven't heard from me in 3 days....

Ribbon Organizer

I want this.

Bad.

Who wants to make it for me?

I think Ben should. :)

Progress

Ok! I've made progress.

Recipe Land. Check!

{I didn't need all my cookbooks upstairs with the limited room. I put the ones I use less frequently downstairs and now all of my important binders and books have easy peasy access!}

Tupperware Nook. Check!

{I went through and kept only the tupperware that I needed. Look at all the room I saved!}

Front Closet. Check!

{I took out some things that didn't need to be in there and just made it "work" better}

Before:

After:

{I keep all my moppy type stuff in here since we have no other closets.}

\

Thanks to Rand and Ben I have been able to check things off of my list

that have been on there for years!

For example:

New Front Door Handle (and a matching back door handle too)!

{No more gold! Yay! And now we get to paint the front door in Spring!}

It was getting to the point where we may have gotten locked out... door handles don't last forever.

We also got a keypad for our garage door and the code is...

nunyabusiness.

Haha. You thought I was really going to tell you. 

Our chandelier now has light bulbs in it too!

{We don't own a ladder yet. tee hee. so it just never got done}

A shower is in process of getting fixed.

We got the mirror in the front room hung finally!

The air filter was replaced.

We also got our finances organized and have a budget we are going to stick to!

 That's a big one!

It's coming along!

Let it begin...

So I have begun the organizing process and feel I have been super productive this year.

Yesterday I was able to do some yard work outside. I figured now is the best time to get some outdoor stuff done while it isn't snowing. I also got the christmas lights taken down and bought new handles for our front and back door thanks to Rand. Those will be getting installed today....thanks to Rand. The christmas tree will also make it to the curb today. 

My organizing started with the tupperware land....dun dun dun. This is always a mess and I have consolidated and kept only the ones I want. I doubled my space due to this!

So now I have some open territory to work with. Awesome!

The next thing I organized was my coobooks....I have a few..... I figured that I can keep most of them down on my bookshelf in the office and keep my most used 4 or 5 upstairs in the kitchen along with my 4 personal recipe binders. That made the cupboard feel so much more organized and gave me room to put all my binders up there instead of on my counter.

 So I didn't gain any space but I gained ease of use and a pretty cupboard. Good!

I have wiped down cupboard shelves and done other general "spring"...er ..... "mild winter" cleaning.

It feels so good. I like it!

Today, I started off the day with a wonderful trip to the Temple and

 I think I am going to clean out the front closet next....that may change

but something is getting a before and after picture!

Yay for me! 2012 is going to be great! I'm pumped! :D

Shrimp Scampi Linguine

For Ben and Steve's Birthday back in December, I made Shrimp Scampi and it turned out delicious! I am posting the recipe below for your viewing pleasure. I modified the recipe to reflect what I did or would do differently. I put this in my recipe catalog and will make this again.

Shrimp Scampi with Linguine

Ingredients

• 1 pound linguini
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 2 shallots, finely diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined (Fresh or cooked, thawed)
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup chicken stock (or 1 cube chicken boullion in 1/2 cup water)
• Juice of 1 small lemon (or slightly less)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves

Directions

Remove tails from shrimp if needed. Boil the linguine according to package. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Saute the shallots and garlic until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. If using fresh raw shrimp, season with salt and pepper and add them to the pan. Cook until they have turned pink for a few minutes and then remove them from the pan and set aside, keeping warm. If you are using cooked shrimp then skip this step.

To the pan, add the chicken stock, and last 2 tablespoons of butter and oil. Allow the liquid to reduce down for about 10 minutes until it becomes thicker. Add the lemon juice to taste. Bring to a boil and add the cooked shrimp, parsley and pasta. Stir using tongs and season to taste with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil if needed. Enjoy while hot!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Every New Year provides an opportunity to start over.

It gives us a chance to change and become a little bit better than last year.

Ben and I were discussing our New Year's resolutions and I was definitely more into this resolution game than he was....but that was to be expected. :)

I found myself being more interested in making a resolution than in previous years. Maybe it's because I have more time to think about it. Maybe I've just had enough. Probably a little bit of both, but either way, I am really excited about my new year's resolution because it is realistic and something I have been working on for a bit already.

Let's check out Ben and Sara's New Year's Resolutions!

I will start with Ben. He is a pretty straight forward guy. When I asked him what his new year's resolution would be, these are the answers he gave me. :D I love him.

Goal #1: To not die

{I can chuckle at this because he's nowhere near that but has felt like

 he wanted to a few times this past year. Don't take this seriously. ;P}

Goal #2: Go Camping more

{Great goal! I like it!}

Goal #3: Build up his Trucks and Jeep

{Hmmm.....this was a surprise.}

Now for Sara. I have really been focusing lately on becoming who I want to be

 so that is my new year's resolution this year.

Resolution: Become who I want to be.

Life itself is intended for progress so I don't expect this to be "checked off" the list at the end of the year but I would like to say that I am a step closer to my goal (if not a lot of steps closer).

Besides, life would suck if you didn't like spending time with yourself!

To be able to become who I want to be,

I figured I should break my resolution down into some achievable goals.

Goal #1: Be Relaxed

I have been working on this for a while and I actually feel I am pretty good (or at least a lot better than I used to be) but I do recognize a few things that could make this even better,

which leads into goal #2.

Goal #2: Get Organized

I eluded to this before in my last post. An organized house nurtures an organized mind. This is definitely true for me. I love to be organized but somehow my inate instincts (or as some of my family call it, "the genius" in me) make me a very disorganized person. My excuse has always been that it's organized chaos. But no more! Goodbye Entropy. Hello finding my shoe!

Goal #3: Make my Home Sweet Home

I still feel like I just moved in. I know I am not the only one who has lived where they are for a few years and still haven't unpacked everything. I just really don't like looking at rooms of boxes and am at the "I've had enough" point. It's time. I want to create an environment that nurtures family and the spirit. I would love to have this done before we grow our little family. I want to create a safe haven and a cozy home. We love our house and it is cozy and warm but I think organizing it and actually setting up the rooms (and putting things up on the walls) would help it tip over into the

 "We live in a cozy home and love it here" phase

rather than the

"We move every 6 months so we don't even bother unpacking" phase.

My mom always created a wonderfully cozy home for us to enjoy

and I want to do the same thing for my family.

Ben and I also decided to have a combined resolution for this year.

Family Goal: Keep the Sabbath Day Holy

I know that we can do a better job at keeping the sabbath day a holy day to give us more time to study and reflect on our being. With all the hubbub and drama of worldly daily living it can be very easy to lose track of our eternal goals and relationships with each other and our Father in Heaven.

I really like the quote, "Be in the world but not of the world," and I know for a fact that taking the time out to study, learn and meditate and make right choices on an hourly basis will help us to easily achieve that goal and will allow our 'body' and 'spirit' to coexist in peace..

One thing that has always helped me is the thought below:

"The longer we follow a path, the easier it becomes."

This is true in all aspects of life, no matter which path you choose.

So follow the path that will allow you to become who you want to be.

Happy New Year.