PhoneBoy Says

Today we did the closing paperwork on our new home in Gig Harbor. We are now the proud owners of two houses. Yay. Time to get this one we're in sold!

One thing we are getting with the new place that we initially didn't plan on was a new washer and dryer. The previous owners need to purchase new ones for their new place, so they sold us their old ones. They are front-loading, high-efficiency units. In far better shape than our 10 year old ones where the washing machine is being held operational by duct tape and the dryer only works on the "timed dry" setting. Our old ones will simply get donated to charity.

We don't move into the new place until August. Meanwhile, there is still a ton of things to do. Like pack!

Apparently, Jaden gets hives.

Last week, Jaden stayed over at a friend's house the last night of school. His friend got a fever and was throwing up during that day, but Jaden ended up staying anyway. (Next time, SEND HIM HOME!) So on Friday, when we started having a fever, we weren't surprised. He also had a sore throat. The fever went away after a day or two, but the sore throat persisted through the weekend. Sunday night, we noticed he has several large red spots on his legs--about the size of silver dollar pancakes.

Today, we took Jaden to the doctor to see what was up. Turns out, he's got strep. The red spots were hives--a reaction to the strep throat germs. But other than the sore throat and the reduced appetite, he's not that bad off. I know when I get strep, my large tonsils swell up and I get a fever. I have to be in bed for several days because it kicks my ass.

One small complication is that Jaden is allergic to Amoxicillin. There are other antibiotics that can be taken, but they are not quite as effective. Even the one Jaden was perscribed, the doctor warned to watch for an allergic reaction since people allergic to the "cillin" drugs could be allergic to these as well, which may show up again as hives.Great.

Today's the day I get to eat some solid food, so long as it's fruits, veggies, and nuts. But only for dinner. Breakfast is OJ, which I've had a couple of glasses of. Lunch time will be my lentil soup. I'm not sure what I'm doing for dinner since I don't have any real salad makings and I'm not sure if or when I'm going to be able to make it to the store today. I do have a lot of apples--they are good "show" fruits for the house. I also have a bunch of celery stalks I didn't use with the soup, which might go good with the almond butter. And, of course, I have soup. Lots of it.

When I drank the OJ this morning, I noticed that it filled me up right away. Maybe it's that whole liquid diet thing, but it was weird. Normally OJ doesn't do that. I did have to have a little more later on to quell a later hunger pain, but not too much.

Today, in addition to Orange Juice, I could have vegetable soup later in the day. I actually didn't drink much OJ--only a couple of glasses and a bottle while I was out. I actually cheated and made the vegetable soup this morning, having some of the broth just before 11am. Did notice one less pound on the scale. The only thing that didn't happen today was any waste elimination. Isuppose that will happen more easily on it's own in short order.

I actually chose this Hearty Lentil Soup recipe I got off of UltraWellness. It wasn't exactly what the Master Cleanse folks had in mind, but it was still pretty good. The only thing I changed in the recipe was that I used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, to honor the "no meat" part of coming off of the Master Cleanse. I also made a bit more broth than I probably would have done normally, mostly just for broth consumption. I plan on making the soup later with the chicken broth to see if it's any better that way.

I ate the soup, veggies, lentils, and all. Not a ton of it, mind you, as I did not want to overload the body with solid food, being it's seen nothing but liquid for a week and a half. It tasted good. My system does not appear to have reacted badly to it, either.

I made so much that I've got a whole Tupperware container of the soup in my freezer for later. Good thing as I have to eat it tomorrow, too. At least for lunch. Dinner, I can have whatever fruit or veggie stuff I want. As long as I avoid meat, fish, eggs, bread, tea, coffee, or milk. Shouldn't be too hard since despite feeding my kids most of these things, I haven't been consuming them. Well except for tea.

After tomorrow, I can eat whatever I want again. It will be interesting to see if any of my tastes have changed since this experience.

Here's the lentil soup I made earlier. Very tasty!

Today, I get to drank OJ instead of the lemonade concoction. Still no food, though I did do some prep work for the lentil soup I plan on cooking tomorrow. May not have gobs and gobs of veggies in this soup, but when I read the recipe, it sure sounded good and was vegetarian. I'm not sure how you can call a soup with chicken broth in it vegetarian, so I plan on substituting veggie broth. We'll see how this soup goes.

Despite not drinking the lemonade concoction or any senna tea sinceyesterday morning, waste is still being eliminated. A week and a halfwithout solid food and that's still happening. I was a little hungrier today, and I probably drank a half gallon of OJ. The Simply Orange stuff I bought at the grocery store tastes really good. The Tropicana and Minute Maid stuff I bought while I was out today didn't taste as good.

A couple of days ago, I noticed the skin on my face started drying out. An odd side effect to be sure.

Probably shouldn't write this until tomorrow, but as of right now, I am done with drinking lemonade for my cleanse. 10 days without solid food is something I would have never expected I would do. But I set my mind to doing it, and do it I did. I rewarded myself with a nice cup of Orange and Spice herbal tea instead of drinking senna.

Tomorrow, I will be drinking OJ. I bought a big jug of it that I expect I will consume in the next few days, depending on how much of i I drink and whether or not I cut it down with water. Either way, will be looking forward to having a different taste in my mouth for a change.

It will be interesting to see what still tastes good after this cleansing process.

One thing I successfully accomplished today was making it so I could remove the backbox of my pinball machine. Unfortunately, it means disconnecting lots and lots of wires--yes I labeled things. The wires run from the backbox, i.e. the upright "head" part, down into the cabinet. Some of these wires had Molex connectors, which helped a bit. In other cases, I had to disconnect things from the backbox, remove the bolts for the cable ties, unhook the cables, and put them down into the cabinet.

With the wires no longer an issue, all I have to do is remove two bolts and the head should come right off. Why do I want to do this? Because I had to do that (and remove the legs) in order to get the pinball machine up to my office. I expect I will have to do the reverse to get it down. And trust me, we're paying movers to move this piece of equipment. I moved it with a local pinball expert when we first moved in. It's not easy to move a pinball machine!

As I wrote before, the Power Module in my system is hosed. It's possible I can replace a component of the board and get it working, but given we are moving in about 5 weeks, and fixing this thing may not be cheap, it's not a high-priority item. The pinball game also needs a new rubber slingshot. I found a similar-sized rubber gasket at the hardware store that I am using in the meantime, but it's wrong both in terms of size--width of rubber and too big in diameter for the area--and in color.

I do look forward to getting this thing fixed and set up at the new place. It's been far too long since I've played my beloved Eight Ball Deluxe.

All this time, I never noticed I had such a 1337 key. This is what it's the key to.

More somewhat painful waste elimination yesterday and no weight loss this morning. Hm… but I did have the tea.

Anyway, it's the last day of the cleanse. I think the funny taste in my mouth as gone away. Didn't get enough sleep, but I sure do like the "instant on" feeling when I wake up.

Tomorrow will be an Orange Juice day. Yum!