I had my wisdom teeth out on the 26th and despite the fact that I have been mostly pain free and seem to be healing well, I still have to wait on consuming normal foods. I am sticking to smoothies, soups, rice yogurt, hummus and avocados. I am very excited to get back to being able to eat regularly again especially because I received this awesome cookbook called Veganomicon for Christmas and pretty much every single recipe is one that I am dying to make! I am also looking forward to being able to eat more of the delicious vegan gluten free Christmas Bread (a German Stollen) that we made so that I could continue our family tradition. My mother has made this Christmas Bread since her mother handed down the recipe to her many years ago. We aren’t allowed to eat any until Christmas and so I was able to enjoy a few slices on Christmas day, but none since! I am just happy that I am not suffering too much and am hoping that I will be back to cooking, eating, running and blogging by Sunday!

Today was a busy day, getting ready for Christmas Eve. I started out the day attempting to try out another of the area’s vegetarian/vegan restaurants, The Globe. I picked up Tara and we headed over the vegan breakfast joint. We walked in and the customers seemed really, really quiet and looked, i dunno, scared. I came to find out why very quickly. Apparently the owner (?) had come in two hours early, and the kitchen staff had been an hour late and the owner was not happy about it. While we stood at the counter examining the menu he got in a yelling match with one of the kitchen staff and he told us it would be an hour at least for anything on the menu. ‘Nuff said and Tara and I headed out the door with a serious quickness. We instead headed down to one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in the area Cafe Flora, which is renowned for its brunch, which I had never tried before. We got settled in and ordered up some delicious herb tea. We decided on sharing the Winter Hash made vegan/gf and the Hoppin John Fritters made vegan/gf. It was absolutely delcious. The Winter Hash was a bunch of small diced purple potatoes, yams, parsnips, onions, etc and the “eggs” were a curried tofu scramble which had layers of flavor and texture. The Hoppin John were crunchy patties of black beans topped with vegan spicy aioli. Instead of the traditional side that comes with it, cheesy grits, they provided us with a side of roast potatoes, my favorite a balance of crisp and tender. There was also a side of amazing collard greens and mushrooms. The flavors were just great. It was a great way to start the day.

After dropping Tara off, I headed over to Flying Apron bakery to pick up a loaf of gluten free bread to serve with dinner on Christmas Eve. It was still warm and smelled delicious. I also picked up a small Honey Saffron Shortbread cookie and small pumpkin cookie (both gf/vegan) for later indulgence.

It was our Christmas Eve shopping day, so my mom and I headed up to QFC to pick up the food and prep for the big day. Whilst we were at the store we came upon some exciting things in the gluten free section. My mom spotted it first: Bob’s Red Mill Certified Gluten Free Oats. Gluten Free oats in a grocery store!! I was so excited! I hadn’t found any up until now and we grabbed a package of the Certified Gluten Free Steel Cut Oats. They are completely segregated from the field to the processing to the packaging. I am excited to try them and hope for the best. My baking will definitely be taking off if that is the case. We also found a gluten free vegan mac and cheese in a box. I am not one for processed food at all, but a quick view of the ingredients revealed that it was nothing more than brown rice pasta, brown rice flour, nutritional yeast and spices. I figured I would try a box. I have several recipes for homemade gf/vegan mac and cheese which I will have to try and compare. I grabbed some Marys Gone Crackers for my post-surgery (getting my wisdom teeth out on the 26th) enjoyment (i.e. to ease my stomach from the meds). After leaving my mom’s I headed to PCC to pick up millet, brown jasmine rice and quinoa, as well as some ricerna yogurt (again post surgery food)and gluten free sugar cookies mix (traditional Christmas Eve dessert).

All stocked up, I headed home and unloaded it all. I decided that I wanted to go running. I was vacillating but knowing I won’t be able to run for at least 3 days next week got me out the door. I headed out and down to Greenlake at an easy pace. Well, it felt super easy because I am well rested. I made it around the lake, but felt a bit of stomach upset from drinking a Kombucha a bit too close to running. I was going to just do one loop (just over 5 miles) but then said, eh, what the heck, and went around for another loop in the dark. The second lap (3.2 miles) took me 25 minutes. I ran back to the house and I felt great the whole way, which bodes well for the season. I did just about 8.5 miles, at a decent pace (about 8 min/miles). Yeah! Tomorrow morning I will be getting out in the morning with my sister and then monday I am going out with some of my friends to do some trail running.

Last night I had the most interesting experience. A friend of mine Jerry and his girlfriend Michelle came to town to visit Jerry’s family for the holiday. I was spending time with them last night before his sister could get to town to pick them up. We walked around downtown and went to dinner at Flying Fish. We discussed a bunch about nutrition (as Michelle is a nutritionist and personal trainer) and training etc. When we got back to my house, Michelle decided to give me a test using a new bio feedback machine she was training in. She wanted to use me as a test subject, so I nervously and happily agreed. It works with the superconscious and in quantum physics. I have a deep interest in quantum physics and all the questions explored therein, so I figured I had nothing to lose. She set up the program and we went through a series of questions and she told me that the program would tell me things that I didn’t know about my health, mind, etc (#1) and things that are very true and known (thus confirming that it is reading accurately (#2). This kind of process is definitely not for a closed mind. It goes into the more spiritual, metaphysical aspects that lose alot of people when it comes to quantum physics. I figured that the reading would be interesting given that I had recently drank more coffee in a week than I had in the previous 3 monts (4 whole cups!) and I was feeling dehydrated. On top of that, my stress level has been up (its cool, in the set up you rate each aspect of your stress) and my mind not as at peace as I would like! Nonetheless, off we went. She left me in the room as the machine worked away. I didn’t touch the machine, it simply worked and tuned in on me and my energies. In the setup I had put in my gluten intolerance and my bothersome hip as my symptoms. It wasn’t my imagination, I could suddenly feel my energy focus on those areas (as well as areas I didn’t know we troublesome) and go to work. Interesting and creepy!

Michelle came back in the room and ran the report. Of note (#1), it said I am in need of more EFA (essential fatty acids). A light bulb went on. It’s right, I had run out of Flax Seed Oil a few weeks ago and have forget to get more. It said I was dehydrated. It said I needed more Vitamin E and that I had issues with my Kidneys. It said I was having issues with my adrenals,which I am not surprised by being an ultrarunner.Wow. (#2) Among all of the things that it read this is what sold me… it read that I had a shorter leg, which I do! That registered as significant. It picked up on the caffeine. She went into the program and went to work fixing somethings in me. She worked on my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervouse system. I am definitely going to pick up my EFAs and Vitamin E today. It really blew me away. We didn’t get to spend that much more time discussing the results because they had to get going, but I am looking forward to learning more and finding out more about my report.