Updates

Well, try as we might, we did not win half a billion dollars last night. We are not lottery people, but considering our run of luck in bad odds of late, why not see if we could get a streak going?
So much for funding a million wells in Africa. Can't wait to see what idiots win and go bankrupt within 5 years.

Particularly disappointing since we just got our repair estimate. FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. That doesn't even include landscaping, people. We're still waiting to see what of that insurance is going to cover. We know that at least 8000 is definitely not covered.

On top of that, I'm super excited to file our taxes this weekend. You remember how well that went last year? Mr F forgot to give me his largest 1099... causing me a YEAR of IRS paperwork issues to deal with. That's even though I had corrected the problem, filed amended returns & paid the difference BEFORE April 15th. So, this year, I am not filing early! And Mr F has vowed not to do this to me again!
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Before the tornado, we had been eating a strict Paleo diet for 3 weeks. There were positives and negatives to this diet. It was a lot of work, and was very expensive. Mr F and I often felt extremely unsatisfied with our choices, and extremely bored of nuts! However, Mr F lost a TON of stomach fat super fast. I never had cravings of any kind, and also lost stomach fat (not as much). I had more energy and found working out much easier to fit in and follow through on. But I did have different digestive issues (TMI but things swung too far the other way, and that was getting problematic). We had been hoping to do a full 30 day challenge and really see how we felt at the end. But once the tornado hit, we dropped this diet like it was hot. It was just too much work to maintain while things were so up in the air and stressful. And for a week, I felt fine. Making me really wonder, whether pursuing Paleo was something I wanted anything to do with anymore. But this week all of my old digestive issues came back, along with fatigue, insomnia, headaches, and nonstop sugar cravings. Last night Mr F and I were talking and both said we definitely feel like shit now that we're off Paleo, but we need to make it easier to follow and cheaper. It's pretty hard for me to not do something all the way, I'm thinking on it. But I did get up and bust open this big bag of almond flour that came right before the tornado, and has been sitting in the pantry ever since. I ordered this off of Amazon, and if you are doing Paleo... hop to! It is much finer ground and much cheaper than store versions.
I made some Paleo banana muffins, and the batter came together so much more smoothly than the other brands. I'm really excited about this stuff! I think it might help me do more grainfree baking, which might make this diet easier to follow. Right now, we're thinking Paleo breakfast, snacks and desserts. Regular lunches and dinners (focusing on using rice and potatoes as starches)... I don't think that I have a problem with either of those, and think it will help make dinners a bit easier to throw together and keep me from making Paleo and non-Paleo meals for the kids. I also think a little rice might help with the Paleo digestive issues I was having. I'm also not going to stress about what kind of sweetener I use (again I just don't think this is worth the trouble and cost... doing Paleo you already reduce your intake so much). I'm thinking the end result should be a low sugar, whole foods diet, with a small amount of grain. I'll be interested to see if this take on it will have the same immediate results that we had when we did it the first time. I have a strong suspicion that I have a certain carrying load for grains, and I just need to work to figure out what that amount is.