The Joys of Packing

Things are starting to come together on the moving front.  This week, we packed my books and the wall art.  We have a lot of wall art.  Robert commented that the rooms look a lot smaller in their current, bare state.  I agree, but moreover, it really makes me feel like our residence in this place is temporary.  Well, that and the fact that we have boxes (full and empty) and packing supplies all over the apartment.

This weekend, we attacked Robert's stamp collection.  He has basically three - a world stamp collection he inherited from his grandfather, a US stamp collection he inherited from his grandfather (which was actually started by his great-great grandfather and which Robert has added to over the years, up to 1989), and a first-day cover collection of his own.  Oh, and the US collection is actually two collections - one of individual stamps and one of plate blocks.  We've now cannibalized the plate block collection into our own US collections and have a bunch of leftover postage; more than enough to last us the rest of our lives, I think.  Robert is planning to (try to) sell much of his first-day cover collection on eBay in the next few weeks.

I am finishing up Day 11 of my new lower wheat diet.  Over the trip to Snow City, I was feeling pretty bad, and Robert observed that I had been eating a lot of wheat, which is easy to do when you're living on hotel breakfasts (raisin bagels, people), restaurant meals, and peanut butter sandwiches eaten at rest stops.  I know that my system doesn't like wheat, but over the years I've let the fact that taking enzymes allows me to eat (some) wheat lead me to eat it freely (or in rat study terms, ad libitum).  This has been a mistake.

So I decided that I would get serious about reducing my wheat intake again.  I am not intending to avoid wheat completely (which is, after all, quite difficult) but I have cut way back.  For example, my wheat consumption today consisted of whatever is in 1/2 of a Morningstar Farms breakfast sausage patty (made from texturized vegetable protein), the small amount of wheat flour used to thicken the white sauce in my chicken/broccoli/rice casserole...and that's it.  This is very vague and impressionistic, but my intention is to keep my wheat consumption at or below the equivalent of 1 slice of wheat bread. 

I guess the increased attention to wheat gluten intolerance in the past 15 years or so has led to a lot more wheat-free substitutes being available at normal grocery stores.  Whereas I had to shop at health food stores in those days for wheat-free crackers and the like, I was able to choose from 3 or 4 different rice crackers and a couple different rye crackers at Wal-Mart this week.  (I haven't actually tried any of them to know if they're good.)  They also had wheat-free pasta but instead of spelt or rice, it was made from corn.  Hmm.  I am skipping this for the time being. 

One side benefit of a low wheat diet is that it immediately puts all kinds of easily available, delicious, yet junky prepared foods off the list - cookies, cakes, muffins, bread/rolls, the aforementioned raisin bagels, crackers, etc.  For example, when we had dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way home from Snow City, I looked at the dessert menu and the only low-wheat option was an ice cream sundae, and I don't like ice cream sundaes, so it made my decision extremely easy.  It's simple enough to use another flour (I like oat) in making quick breads and such at home, and I believe even Wal-Mart sells a gluten-free brownie mix, but nixing wheaty treats does make it easier to resist unplanned dessert consumption.