In the advent of my bariatric surgery, I've made huge changes to my diet. However, there are so many foods I miss.  I miss pasta. I never ate scads of it, but I miss the option. I got a pasta maker for Christmas and I'm dying to use it. With the onset of summer from a gardener's standpoint, it sounds more and more appealing. I'm sort of stuck on rice because it expands in the stomach and I can't tolerate much, so I spread it like parmesan on curry and so forth, which gives me a taste, but doesn't jack up my sugars too badly and keeps the swelling to a screaming minimum.

So I watched this video, where an American woman claimed to make "fresh pasta" by blending store bought pasta into flour and adding an egg. I was completely grossed out. That lacks a certain freshness, ya know? To me that makes wet pasta, but not FRESH pasta. Kind of like wet Chinese noodles past their expiration date or something vile along those lines. The Chinese are the inventors of pasta and if you know where to look, you can find wet noodles. They are never whole grain or anything fancy, but I used to use them a lot when I was living in San Francisco because they were accessible and so much better/fresher than dried spaghetti sticks. I used to make nut butter noodles with chili in it. I'd occasionally sautee some tofu and throw that and chopped green onions and so forth. Japan has buckwheat noodles, but buckwheat makes a very dry flour, so it makes a good additive flour with other stuff and the inherent dampness in almond flour seems like a good match.

I'm not sure about making pasta dough in high protein form via legumes. I've been adamantly opposed to the idea of using legumes because last I attempted them, I found that they blow my belly up into painful conniptions and I'm blowing the shutters off the house. Thinking of trying almond flour instead, which would be within my dietary limitations and wouldn't have me wishing for death upon consumption.

After churning through some really icky ideas (trust me, we don't need no steenkin' beans!) and the idea of split pea flour sounds completely unappetizing for Italian food because it has a weird flavor and I'm not too tickled about the potential texture. I wondered if almond flour would work like it does in baking. Upon researching it some, apparently, it does with the right gumming up stuff (tapioca powder or xanthum gum) and eggs. I'm thinking I'd like to put a bit of buckwheat in because that would complete the protein (nuts and seeds) and I'd like to add a scoop of flavorless protein powder to amp it up, so that it's a guilt-free pasta and some fresh veggies sauteed in the right herbs sounds yummy.

I'll keep you informed about my progress. There will be some amazing pesto this summer and it'd be awesome to pair it with some fresh and tasty pasta that is within my dietary restrictions. Tomorrow, I have to make high protein chocolate chip banana muffins out of the big bunch of browning bananas on the table. Going to experiment a little with flours and protein powder to push the protein content up, so I might be able to eat half of one. If it goes well, I'm going to try the flour mixing with the buckwheat and almond flour for pasta. Costco sells big bottles of fresh-ish pesto, which would be delicious!

I am so sick of putting up with passive-aggressive communication from my family members.  Then, a friend makes a comment in a chat, so I call her because it was a cry for attention, where you know someone's in deep trouble. She's struggling with PTSD with the death of her mother, etc.  She's also dealing with the death of her recent husband.  As she said, "I waited my whole life for this wonderful man and now, he's dead."  He essentially got diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after they were married. I'm feeling totally overwhelmed kind of navigating my own emotions in response to my family, so I could utterly relate to the emotional rollercoaster she's on.  I'm constructively dealing with her drama and not letting shit slip.  She keeps talking down about herself. I call her on it and then, remind her she's loved.  It's tough work.  I never met her mother, but there have been horror stories.  A mutual friend and I have a trip planned to go see her, so we very excited. We wanted her to feel less alone and overwhelmed and we've offered to help her go through things.  She was asking, "How did you and S. get through the PTSD stuff?"  Some days, I am not through it, but under it.  Some days, I'm letting it kiss my ass in the rearview mirror. Asking her to be patient through the process is hard because I remember wanting the pain to just go the fuck away and that's never easy.  I just want her to know that it IS a process.

In the interim, I am riding ass on family members to straighten up and use their adult words.  I'm seriously contemplating NOT COMING HOME from California.  Geez. Hubs lost his shit for the umpteenth time about a week or so ago and started bellowing at me for no good reason. I'd told him several times before that it really puts me in a spin, when he acts  like that.  Obviously, the previous warnings didn't stick. I'm oddly enough not really keen on him at the moment.  My heart feels broken in bits. I looked at him and said, "It'd be one thing if you said you were frustrated, but taking out your frustration on me, is inexcusable and I'm not your emotional punching bag."  I'm still furious with him over an assortment of things. He started to behave like that this evening and I pushed back, so he actually DID use his big boy words. Will wonders never cease.  (rolled eyes) Then, my daughter asked for help with something and then starts the same shit, only she's shrieking that I'm not helping her how she wants me to help her (WTF), so I pushed back with her, too.  (Gee, I wonder how she learned that behavior, right?) I usually just sit there and take it. It's weird that everyone thinks I'm so strong, when I'm such a marshmallow.  I just am over this bullshit and it's actually really empowering that I'm pushing back and setting boundaries.  It just feels so awkward and uncomfortable to me.

Suddenly, the child changes her tune and starts being civil.  Back the fuck truck up.  It registered.  Dayum.

After all the other shit, Hubs wants me to help him with the budget, which often involves him huffing and sighing his way through it because I am precise and exacting, but methodical, which we all know.  Yes, I could try to do it, but I don't have the necessary knowledge about how he has set things up, so I told him I needed him to come up with a rough draft and that I'd look at it then. He's got a half dozen accounts going and I have no idea what money is where. And right about now, I'm sorry, but I'd rather kiss a blowfish about now, rather than spend time around his huffing, puffing, grumpy ass.  I put myself in time out and told him to leave me alone an hour; a minute per year, right?  I needed to clean my desk and put things away and take care of ME, so I have been.  I just keep vacillating between feeling terribly guilty and knowing this is healthy and appropriate, but it doesn't change how utterly foreign the experience is to me.

I feel so broken by the garbage with hubs.  I am trying to just let it go and let him learn how to be more appropriate with his emotional stuff, but I have a hard enough time processing my own emotions on a given day and I really can't take it at all.  Even a harsh voice sends me tumbling.  It sometimes takes me weeks.  Meanwhile, he's horny as a toad and won't stop grabbing at me, even though I'd like to run away from home and him, more than anything in the world. I know there's love and I appreciate that, but the adult temper tantrums have to end. Over it.

Sometimes, adulting is so tough.