DNS so clearly DNF

On Friday, the window closes to submit marathon results for the Grandma’s Marathon this year (which is all virtual).

What to do with this?

I, of course, will have nothing to submit thanks to my broken right foot.

This is the first race I’ve not started, let alone not finished and this is hard for me.

I had a lot of meaning and significance invested in this race: the end of active cancer treatment, finally healed up from the fractured pelvis, also I’m 60 this year and that sort of seemed appropriate, to run my first marathon the year I turned 60.

Well that’s not happening. It’s hard to stay with the feelings, because they mostly suck and are centered on loss, failure, and fear that I will never be able to get back to the running I love so much.

So here I am, seven months after paying the fee to run that marathon, looking at a jacket I will never wear. I didn’t earn it and I would always feel like a fraud. Honestly, I'm not sure what to do with it.

DNS—did not start
DNF—did not finish

Nearly complete

Here are some before and after photos of the work we've done to the exterior of our home. We've called this place The Little Yellow House since we bought it in 2013 but now we'll need to change that name.

I tried to get the same angle as the photo from the real estate listing in 2012, but didn't quite get there. Bottom photo is before and top photo is today.

Here's a before/after photo of the garage--in addition to not picking out the trim in a contrasting color, we also changed the light fixture and the mail slot (which looks so much better than the brassy thing from before).

And the garage door in full. That mail slot was kind of pricey ($102), especially compared to the existing one. But this makes us both so happy.

This is the back patio and I don't have a good photo from this same angle because of the pergola that was there before. But the light fixture was beyond saving and the door to the garage was a very boring white.

And here's what started most of this transformation off. We both disliked the numbers on the front of our house and so I found and ordered these from this shop on Etsy. We got them late last summer but our lives were still wrapped up in getting my breast cancer treated and then me recovering from the debilitating fatigue. By the time that happened, we were in to winter so we couldn't get the house painted.

The yellow is weird in the photo on the right, it was a super sunny day and my phone overcompensated I think. But you get the idea (plus bonus test painting to the right of the numbers).

Here's a shot from a bit further back and with the front door open. I've also got a new doorbell coming from the same Etsy studio so once that's here, we're close to done.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

In looking back over my posts, I neglected to mention a couple of things about my bones.

First, I had all those tests run last July and as my endocrinologist thought, everything is great. So that means I don’t have an underlying reason for the bone issue. He recommended Prolia which is given once every six months by injection. I had the first injection in September with no issues.

In March, right as everything was getting locked down from COVID, I had the second injection. And the next day I had an allergic reaction around the injection site. It looked a lot like hives. Kent pushed me to get it checked out, although I didn't want to. So I compromised by calling the online nurse through my insurance company. Based on what I shared with that nurse, he recommended I get seen at Urgent Care so I did and sure enough. It was an allergic reaction.

Here’s the thing. I did a little research online and it turns out the housing mechanism Prolia comes in contains natural rubber which is closely related to latex  (see page 4, section 2.3 in this PDF). And I have a latex allergy. Apparently that was enough for me to have that reaction. So Prolia is off the table.

Today he and I talked through my options and there aren’t a lot. My number one goal is to stop breaking bones while running. So the treatment options are a drug that’s injected every day or one that’s given by infusion once a year. After talking through the pros and cons, I’ll be trying one of the daily injections.

He gave me a sample of Tymlos and recommended a trial run to make sure I don’t have an allergic reaction. Assuming I don’t, I’ll get started with the daily injections in September.

What cracked me up is this case he also gave me. It's actually for the other daily injection drug, Forteo (he didn't have any samples of that one). It’s made by Vera Bradley. I don’t know why that tickles me so much, after all Delta’s first-class amenities bag on international flights is by Tumi so it’s the same sort of thing. It just seems different for drugs.

Five needles per bag,
and there are six bags.

Designer baybee!

The Little Yellow House™ is changing

We’ve owned our home for seven and a half years, and until last year we hadn’t made any changes to the exterior. Of course last year we wrote a check and had something like 10 trees removed and a whole lot of other yard work done. Normally I could keep up with weeding and stuff, but between my health misadventures in 2017, 2018, and 2019 . . . well no, I couldn’t. I thought I would be able to this year at last but then I broke my foot. And as Kent will tell you, he’s fine mowing the yard and that’s what he has energy to do.

The exterior needs to be repainted pretty badly. I think the last time the house was painted was in 2006 but I don’t know for sure. And our decision to get the exterior painted all stemmed from the house numbers. We’ve never cared for the ones that are out there, they’re flowery and not at all our style. I found an Etsy shop and got these instead:

That’s what’s shaped our paint color choices. Here’s what we’re going with, with bonus photos of our new sun umbrella and front porch chairs (which will look amazing once the house is painted that dark grey). To be clear, the exterior will be the dark grey, the front door will be that aqua/turquoise blue (the color is called reflecting pool), the shutters that black color and the trim will be that white trim. We're still debating whether we want to paint the inside of the front door that same reflecting pool color. TBD to be honest.

Some changes around our place

First, say goodbye to the pergola. This is what it looked like in 2012 when we bought our house. The squirrels have not been kind to it and the wood bees love it too much so it was time to go.

Nearly gone!

And all the way gone. We're both shocked how little we miss it.

 And we replaced our front door:

We both keep giggling and telling each other how much we love this door, and it's true. We do.

What a carbon graphite plate looks like

This is what's in my right shoe.

Even though it's very slim, it still made my right leg longer than my left, so I asked for an insert for my left shoe. And it helps, they're much closer to the same length now.

This isn't the most comfortable thing to wear. Imagine wearing shoes with soles made of wood. Your foot can't bend and it alters your gait. I look forward to ditching this as much as I did ditching the walking boot.

Going plant-based for a bit

I decided to give veganism a try for a couple of weeks. I was very nearly there anyway so my diet hasn’t changed a ton.

Here's why I’m giving this a try. When I did a lot of research after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, foods that cause inflammation should be avoided by people who’ve had breast cancer, and a lot of those foods tend to be animal based. Plus as I learned from the Arthritis Foundation website, foods that cause inflammation may also have a bad effect on some types of arthritis. My mother’s got it pretty bad, especially in her fingers and my fingers are getting a bit twingy. So I figured why not give this a try—it won’t hurt and it might help.

At first I thought I’d run this trial for two weeks. Then I realized I’d probably have better data if I stuck with it for four weeks, which is what I’m doing. On Sunday I’ll have completed two weeks.

So far, the biggest change for me has been breakfast: every day I ate Kashi Go Lean original cereal with unflavored Icelandic yogurt and blueberries. Turns out that flavor of Go Lean isn’t vegan and of course neither is the yogurt. So now I’m eating the cinnamon crunch flavor with almond milk (but not blueberries, that would just be wrong).

I also have what I call an inappropriate relationship with butter. So that’s a change but really if I’m not eating crusty hot rolls at dinner, I don’t miss it as much.

Here’s the kind of food we’re eating (while Kent isn’t going 100% vegan, he’s pretty plant-based in his eating these days):

"tacos"

• Curried Chickpea Salad. This is incredibly yummy. We eat it as a sandwich on Trader Joe's Super Bread and it's so, so good.
• Black Pepper Tofu with Asparagus Broccoli. I changed this recipe and now bake the tofu in the oven with this recipe. While the tofu bakes, I also roast the broccoli mostly following this recipe, except for the oven temperature. Since the baked tofu already has soy sauce, I don't use as much when I pull it all together. Oh and I saute a ton of sliced mushrooms in the pan before combining everything. This is absolutely amazing. If you don't have a tofu press, I got this one from Amazon and it's great, far better than using heavy books. 
• Chickpea Salad (very different from the curried salad above). I altered this one too, and used sundried tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes,and tossed in artichoke hearts and mushrooms in addition to the roasted peppers and olives. This was another big hit.
• 1-Pot Smoky Lentil Vegan Taco “Meat”. Another huge hit. I was shocked when Kent didn't use any cheese but as he said, they didn't need it. Boy those were good. 
• Porcini Pecan Burgers. This was a recipe we learned at the Kansas City Culinary Institute's class on plant-based burgers and they are good! However, I have a much loved daughter-in-law who is allergic to pecans but good news. You can use walnuts instead! We did that and they were as good as the original recipe. 
• No Bake Cookies with Tahini. Oh. My. WORD. These cookies are absolutely delicious and have NO sugar. None. 

For Saturday, we're going to fix fairly traditional 4th of July food, only it's all vegan:

‘Pulled Pork’ sandwiches, potato salad, grilled corn with sriracha aioli and cheesecake.