This week's Menu Plan and a bit of a rant

Sorry about not posting my menu plan this week. I did have one, but I haven't been feeling so great this week. My allergies are really throwing me for a loop, and then my period started - which really makes me tired and all that comes along with that. I have been quite frankly exhausted this week. It's always quite scary how much I sleep until my period starts and then both hubby and I breathe a sigh of relief. We're never quite sure if it's liver related or not - although usually my liver stuff comes with pain.

So what have we eaten this week?

Monday: Bagna Cauda : this is something I've wanted to make for a while. Hubby and I have been watching Babylon 5 (he's seen it, I haven't) and one of the characters is trying to smuggle the ingredients onboard even though he's been put on a diet by the onboard doctor. Hubby asked me about it, and I remember that I had recently seen a recipe in a Cooks Illustrated book I bought at Costco. It was great, and was an easy way for us to get our veggies in. And an great way to keep some par-cooked (?) veggies on hand for the rest of the week for me to use as sides that won't go bad either. I'll post the recipe I used at the end. Here's a brief explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagna_cauda

Tuesday: Grilled chicken that had been marinated in a Mustard-based North Carolina style BBQ sauce with some of the leftover veggies (I was supposed to make it on Sunday but it hadn't thawed yet.)

Wed: Tacos

Thurs: Hamburgers (and grilled BBQ chicken) I did both only because I didn't have a lot of ground beef and I bought a whole chicken on Monday and I wasn't sure how long it would last so I went ahead and cooked it because we'll eat the leftovers over the weekend. I'm glad I did since the grill went out [it's a gas grill] after I put the bbq sauce on) with tater tots (I'm craving tater tots because of my upcoming surgery - emotional eat much?)

Friday: Pasta with Goat cheese sauce or Pizza (depends on how hot it gets today and how tired I am - if the pizza doesn't get made then it'll be made tomorrow)

This weekend: Leftovers (or the pizza or pasta depending on what doesn't get made today).

I just finished reading "Three Cups of Tea." It had to be a fast read because it's only on a 14 day loan from the library since it's a new book on high demand. Usually books are loaned out for a month (yes, we're lucky - in the city we only got 2 weeks). It was very good, a bit disjointed -but the writer explained the reason for that in the preface. I did cry a few times while reading it. It was interesting reading a bit of the backstory before the war and during the war too. I actually would have liked to read a bit more about that, I felt like the ending dealing with that part was a bit rushed. The other reason that it was a quick read was the fact that the other book I had put on hold also came in at the same time, "In Defense of Food". I never did get to finish reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (I have the CD on hold though) and this is also on 14 day hold and I've got 7 days left. Wish me luck. I am also listening to Peter Walsh's "It's All Too Much" but that on is on my Ipod and I've got a month for that. I did finish "The Red Tent" it was good a bit too much sex stuff for me though. I really thought that distracted from the story itself.

Now for the Rant [some of it may be TMI] (Feel free to skip, I just need to get this out since I am sure hubby is tired of hearing it and I am tired of complaining to hubby about it).

My surgery is scheduled for June 5 at 7:30 in the morning. I don't think I've talked too much about it here. This is kind of related to my liver stuff in the fact that it's possibly what started my liver problems. My periods have always been wonky - lasting for longer than they should and being heavy. I started on birth control pills to regulate my periods when I was in 10th grade not to actually prevent a pregnancy (I didn't start dating until I was in college). I am 35 now (I'll be 36 on June 21st) and I stopped taking birth control pills hoping we could get pregnant. I was never able to, but we didn't go as far as to try any fertility treatment or anything yet because other medical problems started.

Once I did stop the pills, my periods started back to becoming a problem again, with occasional need for hormones to help shed the endometrium and talking about possibly needing a D&C (where they physically remove the tissue) but never actually having to get one since the pills would work. Well since the tumors in my liver were found, and they are sensitive to hormones, I can't use the pills to control the shedding of my endometrium anymore and the only way to help my periods is with a D&C. And since I really don't want to have to keep going back for a D&C every few months the best thing to try now is to go and have what is called an ablation. This is where they will use (or what the doctor will use) a short burst of electricty to kill the endometrium itself (there are other ways to do this, freezing and such, but this is what the doctor uses).

This makes my uterus unable to host a fertilized egg, and I need to have my tubes tied so that should I get pregnant, an egg won't try to implant (either ectopicly [in a tube] or even try to implant in any tissue that might be missed) and cause problems later down the road since any hormones that are released from a pregnancy could cause the tumors in my liver to burst and cause me to bleed out (the tumors in my liver are filled with blood).

So, even though hubby and I have been dealing with the fact that I can't get pregnant for quite a while now thanks to the liver stuff, this just puts a stamp of finality on the whole thing that has got us both quite a bit down and me quite a bit weepy. At the end of April I had to sign a paper stating that I was planning to do all this, since in Va there is a 30 day waiting period to do such since I haven't had kids (men apparently have the same thing to sign). Talk about a long tunnel of darkness. It will occasionally hit me and make me want to eat everything in sight or just want to withdrawl totally. Most everyone has been quite helpful, and even people who talk about adopting and such, I understand where they are coming from even if it is something that we are too raw to think about at this time.

BUT my MiL (hubby's mom) is driving both of us up the wall. She feels that I should NOT have signed the paper. It was not "GOD's will" for me to sign that paper. She is treating me as if signing that paper was like me having an abortion. Now let me state that she has a grandchild by her daughter, and will probably have more - they have only been married for over a year now. The problem is that she wants one from her son. She knows that if I have one it will kill me. She has been there for all my surgeries and stuff. It doesn't make any difference because all she cares about is the fact that SHE wants a grandchild. Every conversation is dominated by the fact that we can't produce one and how much she wants one. We have told her over and over that we can't have one and why we can't have one, and it's gotten to the point that we dread seeing and talking to her. She doesn't realize how much her selfishness is ruining what she does have. We are trying our best to look at what we have instead of what we don't.

At this point we aren't even telling her when the surgery is. She will find out afterwards. During my other surgeries, she drove hubby crazy with her blathering on. Yes, he even said that, he was glad my mom was there to talk to her - my mom who works in a Dr. office is used to talking with the older patients and she said that's how she treats her. She is actually younger than my mom. I take food to her every week - she has gotten to the point where she has mostly stopped cooking for herself and eats frozen foods (Lean Cuisines and such) so this way we can make sure that she's eating. We've got some problems with her (once more I'm not sure how much I've written about it before), and we're not even sure how much truth she tells us as it is when she tells us stuff as it is. A lot of what she tells us reminds me a lot of when my grandmother was going downhill. She's not there yet, but I can see it getting there in a few years. It's not going to be a fun journey with my husbands habit of putting his head in hole either.

Ok, I should stop....I'm getting worked up and I don't need that either...