the first of the year

The first knitted item off my needles this year was very hard to photograph due to it's new owner being the size, shape and temperament of a bouncy ball. I had planned this to be a cute little Christmas cardigan for visiting family and wearing over a new purple dress but, just finishing it today made me remember how often plans are useless and pointless and so I resolve not to make any this year. Yey! A resolution! I find it hard to make resolutions, sticking to them; laughable, usually because they are always something ridiculously ambitious like eat less chocolate. This year I might very well make a resolution to eat more chocolate, perhaps the twisted reverse psychology of it might have me sighing, urgh, what? more chocolate! nah I don't think I can manage it... and pass it over. Well it's not quite working yet but I have another 12 months to keep at it.



My resolution last night was to finish this. And I didn't (ha! See, the futile nature? Pesky resolutions....) but I did wake up with a bounce in my step super early and before everyone else woke I tiptoed downstairs, lit the fire and completed the neckline, sewed the endless dangly tails of yarn in and then sewed the buttons on as The Beaut and her brothers awoke. The boys like buttons, they separate them into colour 'armies' and have wars. Seriously, ask me what I would have imagined boys would do with buttons before having some of my own and I wouldn't have guessed war games (size sorting, collage, artwork... maybe?) But there you go, it's The Battle of the Buttons.



At least they are not chocolate. Esmé is still peeping into the tiny bag next to my bed that I keep a big stack of cloth breast pads in normally, but which was used for her one-a-day early morning chocolate rush during advent (no time to make her a tiny advent-stocking-just-for-chocolates, maybe next year. She doesn't get that it's over and is still a bit hopeful each day. Who wouldn't be, I mean a mouthful of chocolate before your head is even off the pillow?

I am a bit restless about chocolate right now because I have decided that perhaps my new raw chocolate mania is being abused somewhat (by me), I am making far too many a trip to the bathroom and feeling a bit tired of doing so. I eliminated lots of stuff before it dawned on me that cacao is mildly (ha!) laxative and if consumed at the daily rate I do (even the healthy raw stuff) that it's bound to have unwanted effects. So I am on day three of no cacao. And feeling it. I think my resolution this year ought to figure Moderation into it. I don't think I am entirely a moderate person. I jump from one side of the fence to the other and hardly even skim the woody fence of Pause For Thought (can I put a positive spin on that and say I act upon instinct?). Moderation is what I think I am going to strive for generally this year, it's certainly a new thing. It's just dawned on me that I have been quite militant about my diet and the harshness (single-ness, lack of variety) of the foods I have been adhering too is showing. Too much raw cacao for one...

Now every website selling the stuff claims you can eat it even for breakfast, it's full of antioxidant... yada yada, it may be true of course. I for one swallowed it all whole because if there's one thing I'd miss on a desert island it'd be chocolate. For the last eight months I've cut out just about everything. Except chocolate. I was literally mad with joy to discover raw chocolate, it meant I could still consume, without the guilt, and imagine it as even healing. But I've abused it. Every day just isn't right for me. To be blunt I have had 10 days over Christmas of feeling ok mostly but lots of time spent on the loo. Nice. My dh thinks I should talk about these things here so as to add to the knowledge and experiences of these new ways of consuming such foods. I have eaten my weight (several times over) in Green and Blacks over the years but not suffered in a digestive sense like this. I have read that stool time in transit is reduced resulting in excess bile showing (visibly) and less time in the large intestine (aka green poop). Fat isn't digested or emulsified properly if the gallbladder isn't working efficiently and secreting enough bile - green poop is one sign of this. So I am supporting my gallbladder with milk thistle, dandelion root and ginger, all of which contribute to it's healthy functioning - by either working to increasing bile production or acting in it's place thus taking the pressure off for a bit). Not many might think of the gallbladder when having digestive troubles but without it's working efficiently and correctly, food isn't broken down well and we can't absorb the nutrients from them. It's a key player.

Interestingly the adrenals can also be supported with the same botanics milk thistle and dandelion root extract so I feel I am doing two good things in one.
I have been finding out some interesting bits and pieces from my new stack of Christmas books. That the adrenals secrete cortisol whose job it is to calm inflammation, therefore if a person is in a constant state of chronic inflammation (which might be mild but constant, like a gluten intolerance, or major like an auto immune condition) then the adrenals get overworked and less responsive, resistant to signals of inflammation (and so inflammation appears worse). Support of the adrenals is then essential. In trials, liquorice was found to have immune modulating effects similar to cortisone (but without the side effects) and also works to increase the life of circulating cortisol and takes some pressure off the adrenals. Cool to know huh? Was I taught this in school? Have I just forgotten? No matter, knowing now anew feels very good. And so I am off the chocolate for a bit, supporting my adrenals, gallbladder and substituting with carob, which tastes weird to me but hey-hoe, I'll live with it... geesh just don't let me find out carob is a laxative too, frickin-ey. Oh and rice! Eight months without grains and I have been trying teeny amounts of pre soaked and cooked brown rice with vegetables garlic, herbs for the first time. Tiny bits to start but it also feels rather good. I need to keep my weight stable now, maybe a bit of rice might help me do that, since zero-carbing is just making me feel skinny.

And so, from green poo back to a wine coloured cardigan. The pattern is from this book and is the Chenile Cardigan, only I used Rowan chunky cash-soft rather than a chenile, I just don't like chenille, it creeps me out, this Rowan yarn is divine, you could sink happily into it.

In her glory, The Beauty, who will not pose for me but whom I manage to snap here and there anyway :)