(no subject)

I have been reading more books (including manga) in the last month or two than at any time since Delia was born. I'd gotten to where I was reading only three or four books a month (down from about one a day). Reading on the computer is easier and cheaper.

Basically, I'm getting stuff from the public library and using holds a lot. With holds, I don't have to spend very long in the library or try to get Delia to cooperate with me. She's got very definite ideas of what she wants to do in the library, and none of them have anything to do with letting me spend more than five minutes browsing. That means that I have time to check one specific author or location on the shelves per visit, at least if it's just me and Delia. When Scott's along, I do some browsing but not much.

I am finding, though, that reading books wears me out. Even paperbacks are heavy, and most of the things I want to read are in hardcover. Every time I get my eyes checked, the doctor asks me where I hold books when I read them, and I always say, "That depends on how heavy the book is." It's getting harder, though, to hold even paperbacks at a comfortable reading distance. I can do it if I lie down on my side, propped on one arm, but I can only do that in bed (and Delia won't let me do it when she's awake).

I'm keeping a list of what I've read since some time in mid-January (I'm not sure exactly when I started the list). Most of it's manga, but I'm getting a few light novels in, too. I'm not sure I'll work my way up to heavier novels (by content not weight) again. I hope to, but I don't want to wear myself out. There are books that I look at and know that, given time and energy, I'd love, but I can't get through them or can only read a few pages at a time.

Some of the reading problem is anxiety, I think. I have trouble with even the light books if I don't know how they come out. I wish I had better filters for picking romances (or that so many of them didn't drive me utterly crazy) and mysteries. I think I may have to browse the young adult and children's sections at the public library to find some SF and fantasy that isn't too heavy. Often, when I say that something's too 'heavy' or 'difficult,' I don't mean that the themes are weighty or that that prose is complicated or that the plot is intricate. I generally mean that it's emotional work that I'm not currently up to completing.

( The list so far )

(no subject)

Now that Delia's food issues are pretty much resolved (we haven't retested peaches yet, and we should now that she has a good vocabulary and sense of her own body), I'm coming to realize that it's my issues that are going to cause the family the biggest problems in grocery buying and meal preparation and all. The worst part is that what I can eat is changing so that things that used to be safe and even smart are now dangerous.

My big problems are a new (and still, thank goodness, mild) allergy to tree nuts, an increased sensitivity to peanuts (they used to give me rash if I ate a lot of them. Now they make my mouth itch), unpredictable heartburn due to greasiness and vast troubles with a lot of different spices. On that last, I know more about which few spices are safe than I do about which ones are specifically really bad.

Sage, dill, rosemary, thyme, mustard, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and cardamom are safe, generally. Oregano, turmeric, black pepper, white pepper, cumin, paprika and anything derived from peppers (bell, jalapeno, whatever) are very bad. Tomatoes may or may not be a problem. I don't care for them, and they're often mixed with things that I know are problems. For a long time, I thought that tomatoes were definitely a problem, but then I realized that all of the times I could remember having problems involved oregano, too.

I'm trying to keep track of what causes me problems now because I can't afford to lose sleep to reflux (or to aggravated asthma problems) because I need to be at my best physically (which isn't all that good) in order to take care of Delia. Something that Scott pointed out a while ago is helping me-- He commented that, when I say that I don't like something, what I generally mean is that I don't like how I feel after I eat it. About the only thing I can think of immediately that I don't like but can eat without problems is cucumbers.

Pepper and peppers are the worst problems because they're in so many things just as an automatic ingredient. Black pepper's generally only a problem if there's enough that I can taste it. If I can taste it, I know that I'll be sick later. Peppers, on the other hand, are a problem whether I can taste them or not. I'm checking ingredients more carefully now, and there are a couple of restaurants we may have to give up on because, though I love the food, the pepper content makes me too sick afterward. (The main restaurant I'm thinking of has two menu options, vegetarian and not vegetarian, so it's not as if I can select something different to eat. It's also my parents' favorite place to eat in town and a place that's been very welcoming of Delia.)