Day 17

Whole30: Day 17

Do you know what is harder than Whole30-ing during… oh, I don’t know… the holidays?  Whole30-ing when you’re snowed in your house.  It’s probably more human nature than hunting and gathering to go out and stock up on beer, chips, soda, and cookies when faced with an incoming snowstorm.

Alas, we made it through 24 hours of not-leaving-the-houseness still keeping our Whole30 vigil.  Phew.

This morning, we woke up (well, we woke up a LOT during the night.  Not the snow’s fault, but the crying, restless baby with a headcold and cough’s fault.) to find 7 inches or so of heavy, wet, angry snow falling and taking trees and tree limbs down with it.

We managed to keep power until around 8am.  Between our awakening and then was just long enough to brew one cup of hot coffee and cook the bacon.  Mostly.  If you like floppy bacon.  Like me.  If you don’t, then you bite off the floppy bits, and give your wife the crispier parts.  True love, folks.  Thankfully, we had fruit (strawberries, blueberries, a banana), two hard-boiled eggs, cold brew coffee for my wife, and RR totally down with eating yogurt for breakfast.

RR played with her toys for a while until she got a bit bored around 10am, when we all bundled up and headed out for a hike.  (Aren’t we cute?)  Back to the house by 12pm in time to make RR lunch (crackers with peanut butter, a cheese stick, watermelon, and some pears) and eat our own lunch, thankfully courtesy of Steve’s Paleo Kits (to the rescue!), that had literally arrived in the mail yesterday.  Jerky, nuts, apples.  Yum.

We took turns shoveling, and watched the thermostat drop in the house.  We did crosswords and rationed our phone internet usage.  We got out more blankets.  We bundled ourselves and RR.  She had a successful-enough nap in her freezing room, wearing several layers of clothes and covered in a hundred blankets.  Soon after she woke up, the power came back on, and all was right with the world.  Snow was turning to rain, melting it on sidewalks and roads, and making it possible for the Papa Johns man to go racing down our street, his little car-hat teasing and taunting us.

Had we lost power until the night, we were actually prepared.  We got out frozen chicken breasts to (kind of) thaw, and I brought up the charcoal for the grill.  But thankfully, the power restoration allowed us to cook pumpkin curry chicken with cauliflower rice for dinner.  And hot beverages.  Ahhh.

So we resisted the temptations of microwave popcorn and walking up the street to the chicken shack that still had power.  I’ll admit it was hard, though.  The overwhelming desire for comfort food during hard times was almost too much.  But we powered through.  AND we have lunch leftovers for tomorrow.  Score.

Also – day 17 is nearly over!  We’re less than two weeks away from the end, which is nice, and proof that you really can do anything for 30 days.  Next time, though, I probably wouldn’t time it to occur over my anniversary and a snow-event.  Next time.