Yet another wonderful day is upon us! Yes so jovial I sound but alas the womanly issues are slowly making way towards me, raking havoc on all of my being. [Pause for a scream]
I feel bloated, sore, a headache coming on and a mood guaranteed to freeze any smile cast my way. With all the symptoms of a foul day ahead - I head out to work and arrive an hour later than I usually do - thanks to one golf tournament that dares presents itself right on my path of travel.

Despite enticing smells of bacon, sausage and frying eggs, I stick to my daily breakfast of yogurt, bowl of fruit and a cup of tea. As I was savoring my breakfast, I caught a whiff of bacon and kidding aside it made me gag [not quite…but close].

 
Lunch
By 11 am I was dreaming of hot soup and hot bread. Especially since the mid-west weather is so unbelievably unpredictable, yesterday it was 80 degrees and muggy, today we are barely making 60 degrees and talk about chilly..brr. So at 11:15 am I headed out to grab some chicken noodle soup and a piece of whole grain baguette. It was totally worth the walk to my car!

I felt satisfied but remained bloated, moody and just downright scary(even to myself).

Dinner
I felt hungry again when I got home at 5 pm so I had some chicken and lentil stew. Since the re-discovered of the crock pot, our house has become quite the kitchen experiment lab. A day prior we put some chicken, lentils, carrots, onions, garlic, black pepper and paprika in the crock pot. What a treat ! One that will sure fill us for the next couple of days that’s for sure. I froze some of the broth to garnish other dishes for us at some other time.

Observation
- PMS makes eating clean a tard bit of a drag.

It’s all over - yes the long awaited 3 day weekend has come and now gone. Oh how so quickly it passes, ain’t that the story every time a good time is had? I can never quite put my fingers on how exactly my long weekends are spent; a little of this, a little of that. The bottom line is I love going into it, coming out is always not without a kick and a scream. The scream is the first thing that came to mind when I arose this morning - my fantastic weekend is coming to a close - Nooooooo.

I dragged myself out of bed close to 9 am to have Spelt Pancakes without sugar! They were surprisingly good, maple syrup did double duty.

Lunch
Lunch was late in the afternoon at 3 pm. I had whole wheat chapati with some beef stew.

The beef stew was left overs from yesterdays lovely crock pot experiment. The chapati’s were another of my experiments.
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup warm water
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp coconut oil (you can use whatever oil you like)
2 cloves of garlic

Dice garlic into very fine pieces and add to the water. Add the mix to flour and salt mix. Knead to a nice firm dough then take the coconut oil and knead it in. Let sit for about 10 minutes. Heat griddle to a medium heat. Divide the dough into six piece balls and roll each into about 6″ circles. Dip the balls in dry flour to prevent them from sticking to the roller. Lay each in the griddle till each side is golden brown; as one side cooks, oil the other with olive oil or oil of choice before letting it cook.
We both loved these chapati’s especially with the garlic in them.

Observations
- I don’t have as ferocious an appetite in between meals as I used to.
- According to this mornings weigh in am down a total of 8.3 lbs. Yay!
- Why did I eat the way I did before? This question keeps popping into my head…
- Patience is a virtue that will help in this journey.
- 18 days and am still at it - I never knew I had it in me….

We spent all evening watching foreign flicks! It’s funny when I was in high school and taking French, I remember detesting our frequent trips to the French Cultural Center to watch French films. Mostly because I did not like following the movie via captions, captions were somewhat a distraction to my movie experience and now when I think of it - it seemed so very silly! Perhaps its maturity, maybe a growth on my part of sorts, whatever it is - it has allowed me a much more diverse an experience in movies and am loving every minute of it.

So yet another morning of sleeping in, this time till about 10 am. My husband decided to make Spelt Pancakes on his own for our breakfast. Even without sugar and baking powder, which were missed during mixing, they still were a delight to have.

Lunch
For lunch, which I had at about 3 pm, I threw some vegetables together to make a salad. I had also tried to make Gal Africana inspired Spelt Chapati’s the day prior but ended up with crispy Spelt roti instead. It was surprisingly tasty and went well with the mid afternoon lunch.

 
Dinner
Dinner was at 7 pm, beef stew with seeded whole grain bread…ooh so filling.

I love the crock pot!