What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I'm home! Not surprisingly, I'm also incredibly tired. I didn't sleep a lot on the flight. Plus, there were all these delays, because of lightning and then sick people. However, I did listen to some of the dramatized version of All Systems Red. While I loved the book and series, I didn't love the dramatized version. When I listened to the dramatized version of Dracula, I really liked it, but I didn't like this. I went back to the audio books, which were all that was available, for the flight. A very nice way to pass the time.

We are home from Casablanca. It was fantastic! However, Joel was sick from the beginning of the trip, and when we got home, we found that it was covid. We wore masks in all enclosed spaces, so hopefully, we didn't infect too many people. Now, bed time.

I've been writing less than usual, but I'm still here! I've been wasting time on a fun game, which is part of it, but I'm also just not feeling awesome. I'll be fine. In good news, I'm finding writing easier. This makes me think that perhaps my brain is drawing more power from my body's systems, which is why I am more moody. To counter this, I had a delicious fried lentil pancake (which ended up more like lentil chips, but that is fine) with dinner. All that olive oil should help boost my calorie levels.

Also, it looks like we'll be travelling to see Sasha in Morocco soonish. That will be a lot of fun, but it is also kind of stressful.

Of course, with kids, there is lots of running, shouting, and bickering. However, it is really nice to see everyone.

I have successfully finished the bras, which makes me done with all my prep. I just need to pack, and I'll be all set!

The moldy spots on the ceiling have been cleaned and painted. I have no idea if the mold will go away or if it will come right back. We'll see! At least, the worst has been dealt with. In other news, writing is going well, as is sewing. I am totally anxious about the trip, but I'm managing to kind of keep it under control.

Feeding myself during travel last summer was challenging, but it wasn't super tough. This trip, I've found myself kind of overwhelmed trying to deal with food, in part because I need to eat so many more carbs (154 g/day as opposed to 60 g/day last year). However, I can't eat a lot of fruit, in part because it lacks many of the nutrients I need, and in part because too many carbs at once usually cause an anxiety attack.

Joel had suggested some kind of nutrient paste. Now, normally, this is a bad idea, because I can do a better job eating real food and because nutient paste needs to have a lot of fat to hold together and either chemicals or special handling to stay usable. However, it may be that some kind of pseudo nutrient goo could help me deal with food when not at home until I get a handle on feeding myself (which seems to happen after about 3 or so days).

The first thing I need to remember is that when traveling, I need a ton more calories to cope with all the stress and increased activity. So, high fat food isn't such a problem. Also, combining high carb and high fat could make it easier to meet my carb requirements without triggering anxiety, maybe. (But no dates! They are too carb-rich and too delicious.)

The second thing I need to remember is that I cannot cope with feeding myself after traveling, so I need ultra easy recipes.

And third, because food availability varies, I'm going to have to have a variety of recipes.

At the moment, I'm thinking of:
* butternut squash with spinach and cheese
* cauliflower tabbouleh (https://www.asaucykitchen.com/paleo-cauliflower-tabbouleh/) without tomatoes or chilies plus olive oil and maybe also pine nuts
* whole milk unsweetened yogurt with frozen fruit
* bananas, nuts, and something (white beans?)
* peas, olives, and something

Those are both good sources of carbs if I eat enough, plus they have actual nutrients. I could use about ten or fifteen simple recipes like this. I should see how I respond to tofu. And I really need to pick up some stuff from the US to help me digest beans. Paleo recipes may be a good source of inspiration.

I often say that traveling is a kind of stress test for me, as it helps me see what works and what doesn't. However, "stress test" is only kind of the right word. Probably, school is the "stress test", since that is what actually forces me to go until I drop. Perhaps a better description would be that travel forces me to change some of the variables (but not all of the variables) and examine how my theories hold up. If I ever seem in love with a theory, it is only because I'm tired of being sick and really want to find an answer that lets me feel mostly okay.

Anyway, this was the first trip outside the country while on the diet, and I was really concerned about my ability to feed myself. On the plane and in Singapore, that fear became reality. There was not enough to eat, and I was so screwed up from the flight that I wasn't really able to come up with clever solutions. It took about two weeks for me to feel hunger again. I carried a plastic bag in my purse for the rest of the trip, in case I ended up vomiting. That part sucked. However, I learned from that and was able to put it into action on the return trip.

What I Learned #1:
On a flight longer than three or four hours, I need to bring more food than I could ever possibly eat. If I am going to be on a really long flight, I should not expect that I will sleep. Instead, I will be eating the whole time, so I should bring enough food (and the right kind of food) for that. If I am sitting at the airport, I will also be stuffing myself, so I need to plan for that too. Because of the diet, I needed some protein, some carbs, and a lot of fat. Returning home, that turned into two containers of cooked vegetables and chicken, plus three cucumbers, half a cabbage, a bunch of peanuts, and 800 grams of cheese. It wasn't actually very likely that I was going to eat almost a kilo of cheese, but if I had needed it (or had missed a flight), that would have saved me.

What I Learned #2:
Those cooked vegetables and chicken that I brought with me? I ate that exact meal for lunch and dinner almost every single day of the trip (except for Singapore). I had thought that I would need a whole kitchen, but in the end, I was so exhausted, and kitchens were so unreliable in what was available, that I didn't need a big kitchen. I needed a knife, a cutting board, a spoon, and a rice cooker. I had cheese, peanuts, cabbage, and cucumber for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, I made a big soup of chicken, onion, bok choi, chayote, and whatever else was around that I could eat. That meant that I only had to prepare two meals, and since meal preparation is exhausting, that was great. For the future, we may be able to be slightly more flexible on housing, if we don't need a kitchen. Also, I could have survived in Singapore by buying cooked chickens (or ducks) and then a bunch of cucumber and cabbage.

What I Learned #3:
As I had kind of figured out just before the trip, my energy level is tied to my carb intake. On the trip, I was able to see that I was too enthusiastic at one point and cut back on the carbs. Another time, I was kind of depressed, and more carbs fixed that. It seems that my carb tolerance is very situation dependent. However, I did an okay job controlling it. (Of course, we are still talking a small amount of carbs either way. Like "less carbs" = 50g and "more carbs" = 65g.)

What I Learned #4:
On the trip, we often went out for super super long walks after lunch. Walking 17,000 steps is exhausting, and I needed a huge amount of calories for that. On top of that, I am really not up to dealing with food in the morning, so I really want things that are compact and made of fat. However, if I didn't eat some cucumber and cabbage (where "some" is 250 grams of each), I felt like death if I went on even a short walk. In the end, I ended up eating a huge breakfast and then my smaller soup-meals after. While I still got weird just before lunch, I was less awful than at home (when right before lunch is really bad). When I got home, I did some calculations, and (as mentioned) I was eating 2/3 of my calories (and other nutrients) for breakfast. I have put that into practice at home, and it seems to be working pretty well.

We carried a lot of food with us from stop to stop, and my supply of cheese alone was a lot to carry. On top of that, I had brought along a few creative projects to keep me occupied. I brought some amigurumi-making (cute little crocheted animals) supplies, plus drawing supplies and an embroidery project. I also planned that I could pick up some paper for origami while traveling.

What I Learned #5:
You know how people often underestimate how long it will take to complete a craft project? Yeah, well, that was exactly what happened. I knew from previous trips that we would have little time, but I thought that while we were waiting for buses or planes (or while on buses or planes), I would need stuff to do. That wasn't wrong. It was fantastic to have something I enjoyed doing besides just reading or playing games on my phone. However, I vastly underestimated how much time my embroidery project would take. In the future, unless I am going on a trip specifically to draw or paint or something, I should bring one embroidery project, plus supplies for pen and ink drawing. I'll color everything in with colored pencils when I get home. Yarn is too bulky, compared to embroidery. (People were also really fascinated by the embroidery.)

What I Learned #6:
The embroidery I was doing this time was counted cross stitch, which means that you have a pattern that you are stitching one tiny x at a time onto a blank piece of cloth. The pattern I have is big (and I started it a long time ago, without really knowing what I was doing). I am also not exactly the most accurate, precise, or together person in the world. What ended up happening is that I stitched a bunch of one color, and then a few days later discovered that I had miscounted and instead of having left space for four stitches, I left space for only three. Well, I was too far along to go back, and now I'll have to try to take this into account for the rest of the pattern (but it will be fine). This happened more than once, and obviously can cause trouble with a design. For the future, I will pick a square in the middle of the design and stitch that onto the middle of the fabric. I will work my way out from there in 10x10 or 15x15-stitch squares. It will be much harder to screw up the pattern this way, and it will ensure that my design is centered. Also, this pattern (which I bought as a kit) has very pale colors. Nearly all the colors are very very pale. It makes it hard to see the design. In the future, I will use thread that has more contrast, so that the design is very easy to see. (Look at how cute these are!!!!)

What I Learned #7:
I had a long list of things that would make traveling more fun, and one of them was story podcasts. I admit that I didn't listen to 99% of them. However, they didn't cost me anything, so that was fine. However, I did listen to one called Limetown, which was just amazing. It was really well done and definitely helped pass the time on my long flight home.

What I Learned #8:
I don't love selfies. I never look great, and because of Bells Palsy, one eye always is more closed than the other (which mainly shows up in video and photos). However, mom always asks for photos, and tons of people on the trip wanted to have their photos taken with us. So, I decided than when someone asked to take a photo with us, I would ask if we could take a selfie with them. Everyone loved it, and we had a lot of fun doing it. This was 100% the right way to go. Next time, I would like to take a short video of the person/people and ask their names and a little bit about them. I think it would be fun.

What I Learned #9:
Now, you may notice that I describe a lot of eating at the airport. Here's the thing: being short on calories makes you grumpy and tired. You can be grumpy and miserable at home, but it is stupid (IMO) to ruin your vacation by trying to keep your weight down. Joel and Sasha may have both lost weight, but I gained a couple of kilos. I tend to be kind of sensitive about my weight, so if I had been wearing outfits that showed a lot, I would probably have been frustrated. However, since I only wore dresses that hid everything, I couldn't really tell (and no one else would have noticed that I even had a waistline). In the future, I'm going to try to plan on wearing baggy clothing for vacations. That way I can eat cheese and peanuts all day long and think about my waistline when I get home.

What I Learned #10:
I am kind of a city girl. I love public transit. I love all the cool things that big cities have to offer. While I love the countryside and nature, I get bored after a while. However, on our trip, I think that the smaller cities were more fun than the bigger ones (although, it did depend on the city). While I'm not sad that we visited Jakarta, the pollution was so awful that I didn't really want to go out. We think that it might have made Joel sick. On the flip side, Bengkulu, which was kind of small, was super fun and lovely. In the future, it might be more fun to visit smaller cities or towns instead of always going for the biggest city in the area.

On Day 39, we mainly hung out at home, prepared to travel, and went on a walk to enjoy the view from the top of the hill we were on.

On Day 37, we prepared for traveling and visited the beach.