Acid Reflux

I Never Realized How Acidic My Food Life Was!

I've always felt badly for people who struggle with acid reflux. I've seen all the advertisements for over-the-counter and prescription heartburn meds all my life and have felt grateful that I haven't ever had an issue with it. 

Until a year ago. 

It started with an occasional dose of of a popular chew-able medication and progressed to almost non-stop chewing gum and some Googling. Finally last March I made an appointment to see my GP about it. The appointment was to be on March 16. 

Then: COVID-19. There was no way I was going to the clinic. I canceled the appointment. 

And now here we are in July and I've started "The Acid Watcher Diet," by Dr. Jonathan Aviv. I have 4 or 5 weeks before I have to go back to work and it's the perfect time to spend all day shopping, preparing, and cooking food. His book has a 28 day plan for healing and preventing acid reflux.  The Acid Watcher Diet

Here are the NO GO Drinks:

Coffee other caffeinated beverages -I've been drinking coffee, black and strong, since I was about 11. I've been drinking black tea since before that. 

Wine-I've been on and off with wine, either red or white, for the last dozen years. I won't really miss it.

Pop-I gave that up years ago. No problem. I don't drink any effervescent beverages at all. So I'm good there. 

No Go foods:

Citrus

Vinegars

Peppers-the spice kind

Tomatoes

Chocolate

Mint

Raw Onion

Raw Garlic

The big 3 for us is the tomatoes, onion and garlic. Lemons are a close 4th. This stumped me for a day or so. 

Lifestyle Changes:

Aviv also recommends not allowing the stomach to be empty. So my tendency not to start eating for the day until 9 or 10 is out. Also, he says don't lay down or go to bed less than 3 hours after eating the last meal of the day. Since I usually get up between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning, I tend to be heading to bed at 8:30 pm. Bob doesn't usually get home until nearly 6, so often we don't get to eat until 6:30 or even 7:00 pm. 

As always, Bob is always amenable about our meals. I told him what I'm planning and we decided I'll get supper ready when I need to eat, and he'll just eat when he gets to it. No problem. But I am having to work on staying awake almost another hour to give digestion some time. 

So far I've had a lot of good stuff to eat. This is day three. Last night we had Miso-Agave Glazed Halibut and sesame bok choy.

Chicken Bog

The first dish my boys fell in love with when we moved to South Carolina was Chicken Bog.

Chicken Bog is a slickery, spicy dish of protein and carb overload.

When I first saw it, I realized it's just Chicken & Rice. But no...it's really so much more and a little less. First, you notice there is no Campbell's Cream of a (Something) soup there. Second, you notice it has sausage in it.

I did some searching around and found this recipe by Paula Dean. Good stuff. But it's a complete waste of a good stick of butter.

So here is my recipe, with some tweaks:

1 Whole Chicken, skin on (This is why you don't need butter!), cut up

8 Cups water

1 # Sausage, cut into chunks (I use Carolina Pride, but you can use pretty much any sausage you like)

1 Tbsp or so Canola Oil

1# One large onion, halved and cut thin

1 Bay Leaf

2 tsp any seasoning blend you like (I used Penzey's Smoked 4S)

1/2 tsp Red Pepper flakes, optional

2 Cups rice

Black Pepper and Salt, optional

Steps:
1. In a 5 Qt Dutch oven, cook the chicken pieces in the 8 cups of water until done (flesh is all white). Let cool.

2. Drain the chicken, RESERVING THE COOKING LIQUID!

3. Pull the skin off the pieces and discard, pull the chicken off, and break it up to bite-sized pieces.

4. Heat the oil in the Dutch oven until warm, add the sausage pieces and brown, stirring occasionally. Add the onion when the sausage starts to brown, stirring enough to brown all sides and melt the onions down a bit.

5. Add the seasoning and rice, stir to combine, then add the chicken.

6. Add the chicken cooking liquid to the mixture, stir well and bring it to a low boil. Once boiling, turn the heat back to a very low simmer and cover. Cook until rice is tender, about 20 minutes.

7. Adjust the seasoning with pepper and salt, if necessary.

Ready to serve.

Born of the Spirit

I belong to a prayer partner Facebook group that was started by a friend from college. The most recent post was a photo of a small group of Christian Saudi Arabian students here in the U.S. They heard a testimony by a young person who said they came to Christ through "kind American Christians and a dream."

This is the not first time I've heard about Muslim people encountering Jesus through dreams. Probably the first time was a few years ago, when author and apologist Nabeel Qureshi visited our church. Qureshi told us about how he came to Jesus through a long process of investigation and debates with college friends about the historical claims of Christianity and his natal religion, Islam.

Then, during a period of 5 months, he experienced three vivid dreams telling him the Christianity was true and he should follow Jesus.

The Gospel Coalition has a detailed story about Qureshi here: TGC Qureshi Obituary
Qureshi wrote a NYT bestselling author about his experience called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.

Dreams are not normally taken seriously in our culture. Most of time when we hear people talking their dreams, or getting into dream interpretation, we are skeptical and think they are a little "out there."

Another thing we tend to be skeptical about is miracles. We are anxious to find scientific reasons for things such as healings or supernatural phenomena. To most of us, such things happened "back then" or "somewhere else."

But the truth is, if we believe in God and His creation and all the little details about our world that we take for granted, then we should believe in miracles and dreams and other things that are "outside the norm." We should not be immediately dismissive of these things when they are relayed to us. Conversations such as these can be pathways to great discussions about spiritual matters.

John 3: 6-8 tell us "Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don't be surprised when I say 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."

The Rapture of Canaan, by Sheri Reynolds

The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wanting to fit in, wanting to believe, pretty much believing, but knowing something isn't quite right. I understood this book.


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Book Review: The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book and hate to return it to the library! I don't usually read books more than once, but I feel like I might have to revisit this one again in a couple of years. I think this is one of the best I've read by this author.
I've some reviews that complain the ending is rushed. I disagree. The book is about a family's hope for a new life and how that all played out. It's a compelling story and you just hate to see it end, so for the last few chapters you find yourself saying, "No! Don't end now!" I don't know if this author writes sequels, but this definitely is set up for one!


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This Hiking Thing, part 2

Continuing to document our hiking/camping/meandering during 2017

March 5, 2017
River Park, Rock Hill, SC

Desperate to hike somewhere, for any amount of time, we looked to Rock Hill for ideas. We found River Park, which is on the Catawba River, down from the Pump House. Here is the link to the park website. The park says there are more than 3 miles of trails. We didn't see that, but we also saw no map. Looking it up now, I see that it is considered part of the Carolina Thread Trail, a connector to River Walk. It was unkept and winter-dead when we were there. We should probably give it another shot in spring, when things are blooming. There is a pretty cool boardwalk over a swamp area. And this little tributary creek:

April 1, 2017
Reedy Creek Park and Nature Center

Another local hike, this one in Charlotte. 10 miles of hiking trails, well marked. There are some cabin ruins in the park, and Native artifacts have been found there, as well. Here is a link to the Park website. We picked up sandwiches and ate at the Robinson Rockhouse. There is an enormous fallen poplar by the house, probably the biggest one we've seen.
As we hiked out, we passed a group shelter where a family speaking another language, we think Arabic, was gathering. We went on by them to the restrooms and Bob found a cellphone left in the Men's. There were texts in Arabic on it, so we took it to the group by the shelter. No one answered their shouts about the phone, but as they scrolled through photos they could recognize people! So we left the phone with them.

April 9, 2017
Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, SC

We have a fantastic place to hike pretty right in our back yard. The Greenway boasts 40 miles of trails, and they add on all the time. Here is a link to the park page. We hiked from the Recreation Complex to the old Grist Mill. It was about 4.5 miles out and back. We like the Greenway a lot, but it is all woods, with no big views, so we don't go very often.

This Hiking Thing, pt 1

So we've ramped up our pursuit of hiking opportunities in the last couple of years. This year we actually bought about $1200 worth of backpacking gear and took a one-night trip with it! It turns out we rather like our gear, but we don't see ourselves as budding through-hikers. A 4 or 5 mile limit is manifesting itself, and we really do prefer having firewood and maybe a pit toilet. We anticipate we'll do a bit of backpacking, but most likely will defer to car camping with our nice, light gear.

Hiking without gear though...that is becoming a passion. With nice poles (you don't need to spend a ton of money...ours are $50/pair...cheap by most serious hiker standards), good shoes and a day pack, we love to hit trails within a couple hours of our house.

What's becoming increasingly obvious is that  we need to DOCUMENT where we have been. When we are sitting here at home trying to decide where to go, we find ourselves debating whether we've actually been to a spot already.

So, I'm dragging out one of my (many) blank books...which are still blank because no follow-through...and I'm going to jot down our hikes/travels/camps/Airbnbs so we know where we've been, which places we'd love to return to, and which we hope never to be back to again. And I'm gonna TRY to put them here, too. With at least ONE photo.

Here is 2017, cobbled together from Facebook posts. There may be some missing if I didn't post about them on FB, but this is the best information I can draw from:

February 12, 2017
Colonel Francis Beatty Park in Union County, NC

This park is about 20 minutes from our house. Here's the link to the park page. There is not much information there about the trails..namely, the length. The nearest I can tell, the park has about 4.35 miles of trails. They are beautifully maintained and hikers share them with mountain bikes, BUT...the trails TELL YOU which direction to walk around. If you follow the signs (and if bikers do, too), you will FACE mountain bikes so you won't get run over! We loved that. Major kudos to the planners for doing that. Not everyone follows those rules, but it certainly beats other places like the Springs Close Greenway and the Whitewater Center, where everyone goes any way they want, to their peril.
Francis Beatty is a popular spots for weddings, and there are plenty of sports fields around, so it's a great multi-use spot, but hikers don't feel too crowded.

February 18. 2017
Morrow Mountain State Park, Albemarle, NC

This park is about 90 minutes from our house. It took us that long to get there, but then about 2.5 hours to get home because we decided it would be cool to drive across country, rather than hitting the highways again. The address is Albemarle, but the tiny town of Badin is right there. Here is a link to the park page. We need to go back to this park. There are about 15 miles of trails and we hit a 3.9 mile loop that was all forest. We didn't feel up to climbing that day, so we didn't hit any of the mountain trails, where a lot of the views are. Morrow Mountain is in the Uwharrie National Forest, which we haven't really explored, either. We didn't really give this park a chance. Maybe we'll backpack there. They have some primitive sites that only about 2 miles in.
In February all the foliage is gone, so it's all black and white and of course we didn't hit a trail with a view. I took one photo:

With Badin right there, and being a little town, we just couldn't resist a stop there for lunch. We had lunch at a little pizza & Chinese place. I don't remember what I had, but before we had lunch, we stopped in an antique/junk store and got into conversation with the owner. She talked up the pizza place, remarking that she didn't expect the Chinese food to go over well in their sleepy little town, but everyone was surprised! The remarkable things that stuck with us in this town were:
1. It's pronounced Bae-din, not Bah-din. And it isn't that old. The town was established in 1913 when a French aluminum company bought property on the PeeDee river and open a plant. The little houses were built (with French drains, which are still there) to accommodate the workers. The town was not incorporated until 1990.
2. Reddy Kilowatt:

Out and About: Charging Up

Gone are the days of traveling with nothing but a paperback book.

When I started packing for my month away from home, I packed heavy. With substantial time in Minnesota, which would be warm(er) and then a week in Alaska, which will be pretty cool and damp, I wanted to prepare for every contingency. I packed ALL my summer clothes and shoes and then a bunch of warmer layers for the 50-60 degree dampness in Juneau.

But really the one thing I was most concerned about forgetting was some charger. Sure, you can find places to charge devices, but if you don't have the right cable with you at the right time, you are in for some frustrating moments. I needed cables for my phone, Kindle, laptop and tablet. I also packed my small portable charger. I can use it during the long trip on the plane and in airports tomorrow, when I go from Minneapolis to Juneau.

But. The charger has to be charged too. And for a while this morning I thought I was missing a way to make that happen...the charging cable! So I sat down and started working on other projects, sipping my coffee, and figured I'd have to go get another one somewhere today. I'll be traveling around 13 hours tomorrow, when you count the several-hour layover in Seattle. As I sorted through all the wires and plugs, I discovered that the plug for the tablet would fit! That little cheap, free Verizon tablet has come in handy more than I like to admit.