Congratulations!

Congratulations to Marsha, the winner of the Weekend Family Pass to the Chicago Toy & Game Fair, and thank you to all who entered.

Hope to see you all there!

Chicago Toy & Game Fair Giveaway

This is a sponsored post. In exchange for writing about this event, I have received free passes for myself and my family to attend.

Every year, my husband and daughter, both self-proclaimed game nuts, make a pilgrimage to the Chicago Toy & Game Fair, then come home and rave about all the fun they have had. 

Favorite finds from past fairs include The Presidential Game, Nuns on the Run, and the quick and fun Swish. We are pretty sure Santa does his early-bird shopping at this event.

I've finally gotten smart and decided to join the rest of my family there this weekend, and you can, too! Just check out my Koritelling Facebook page for your chance to win!

my Koritelling Facebook page

*Important note: this is my first time using Rafflecopter for a giveaway. Please let me know if you have any unforeseen technical difficulties.

Forty-One

Today is my birthday, and I am ready to enjoy. I love birthdays. I know lots of people like to be low-key, avoiding the center of attention, etc. I live for the center, especially when it involves kind wishes and gifts for no other reason than I've continued to live for 365 more days.

Is it wrong to admit that? Guess what? At age 41, I don't care. It's true.

I kicked off age 40 with a bang, in San Diego, renting a house with friends. I vowed with my friends, also turning 40, that I was going to make this a "take no prisoners" year of getting things done, being brave, and being authentic. Starting this new whole-life centered blog, leaving my mom blog behind, was the start of that.

Upon getting home, we began the final push to get the condo completely organized and up on the market. I could not believe how nicely it turned out, given how crummy I am at keeping house. We recently took it off MLS for a few months, and will be ready to list again in "real estate spring," aka "around the Super Bowl." The fact that we had a very neat and tidy house for six straight months was some kind of miracle, and is definitely cause to celebrate.

In the spring, along with putting the house up, we had to say goodbye to our dog, Ada. Want to feel like a real grown-up, not just someone playing pretend? Make the decision to put an animal who is suffering to sleep. It was heart wrenching, but also peaceful, all at the same time. We all still get deep pangs of missing her, especially when we remember her in her prime, but mostly, we smile when we think of her now. The remedy: a puppy named Admiral Grace Hopper, adopted in August, and driving us insane in the way that only a puppy can. There is little time for grief when you have to stop an animal from chewing everything you own.

Look at her. Even sleeping, she must have all the chew toys.

This summer marked a big turning point for our kiddo, as we moved her from her selective enrollment public school in the spring to a small, private school this fall. The picture below shows her entire new school, a big change from 30 kids+ per classroom.

We are such big believers in public education, this was extremely hard for us to do. Given all the testing, though—testing, testing, testing—and our belief that a democratic, free school would be great for expanding her creativity, we made the move. A few months in, and child and parents all seem to be adjusted. No homework = the best thing in the world.

Fall brought the biggest highlight of the entire year: I was able to officiate the wedding of our friends, Katy and Rebecca. (Thank you, online officiant's license.) Honestly, that wedding wasn't just a year forty highlight, it was a lifetime highlight. It was special from rehearsal to ceremony to filing their official license in the basement of the Cook County courthouse (I was smiling so broadly, you would have thought I was the one who had just gotten married.)

Seriously, how could this not make you giddy?

Finally, just days before turning forty-one, I closed out the year by making a prize-winning pie. I can't tell you how excited and proud that surprise win made me. My number in the contest, given to me randomly? Forty.

Today starts a new year, with the prospect of being "in my forties" as opposed to being a forty-year old transitional novelty item. I'm ready. I'm looking at surgery and major lifestyle change to improve my health. I'm volunteering more, and looking for bigger, more full-time work prospects. I'm putting the condo back on the market, and our family is going to roll the dice and see what happens.

As for tonight, I'm grabbing Korean food with my family and a cake I didn't have to bake myself, and calling this year a win.

So, This Happened

Remember all that kvetching about pie-making?

Well, umm, yeah. It all worked out okay.

That's a picture of me with the creator of the South Side Pie Challenge, Julie, and my kiddo. In the child's hands is my blue ribbon for the cream pie division.

I feel incredibly lucky. I really, truly, was not sure the pie would even work, and with no test pie made beforehand, I had every reason to believe a crash and burn were in my future.

I also feel very pleased that all these years of cooking and baking have amounted to enough practice to pull something like this off, even if it required a healthy dollop of beginner's luck, too.

I'm most thrilled, however, that the event—an event that was really a representation of Hyde Park (and Chicago!) at its best—raised over $2,500 for local hunger programs.

The pie will only be made again if my trial and error technique can be winnowed down into a simpler, streamlined version, which I think I can do. I'll post my recipe if I can make it into something that does not make bakers go cuckoo preparing it. 

Thanks for all the support, friends!

Marx-ist

Three days in a row, everywhere I go, Richard Marx is playing on the radio.

I'm apparently in ninth grade now.

That is all.

So Nutty

You thought I was going to post about the cashew pie I'm making for the South Side Pie Challenge, right?

Nope.

I'm writing today about my progress in pursuing bariatric surgery.

I draw you in with pie, then I tell you more about laparoscopic procedures. It's the old pie/surgery switch-a-roo, for you. Ha ha!

As I talk to more and more loved ones about the possibility of undergoing a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, I can hear the worry in their voices. Am I sure I need surgery? Do I understand surgery is risky, sometimes even fatal? Do I really know that I can't take care of my obesity through any other way?

I am so grateful people care about me. This is a very hard decision, but here is what my research tells me: the majority of people with obesity as severe as mine do not eliminate enough weight long term without surgery to reduce the many comorbidities that accompany this disease. Success rates for weight loss surgery are the highest among any treatment course.  I could link to many research articles which show this, but I'll spare you the stats. Surgery is scary, and violent, and mutilating, even as it saves lives. With this in mind, I can say this:

I believe that I am currently dying of the disease, obesity, and I believe that surgery is the best shot I have at saving my own life.

Yes, I may have complications. Yes, I could die from one of them. The chances of death from laparoscopic surgery or nosocomial infection are very low, given a good surgical team and a safe hospital, and pale in comparison to the risks of not losing body mass.

As for using less invasive methods to control my weight, I must continue to make behavior changes, follow a healthy diet, and pursue consistent exercise, in order to be well. A gastric sleeve cannot cure me, it is just a tool, albeit the best tool currently available to get me where I need to be.

Now, if you really want to scare people you love, tell them that you might fly to San Diego, then cross the border to Tijuana for the surgery.

It sounds nuts, right? So nuts!  I posed that question, "Am I totally nuts to consider this?" to my girlfriends this week, for roughly the hundredth time, and my friend, Carrie, hit the nail on the head when she replied, "It's one of those things that sounds nuts until you research it."

That has been exactly my experience.

Researching surgeons and facilities is difficult. Getting complication and mortality rates is challenging. Finding former patients with feedback (good and bad) involves some reaching out of your comfort zone, and exposing your own struggles. Getting the skinny (no pun intended) on what surgery in a far away place looks like without having visited there takes a good amount of sleuthing and persistence.

Here's the thing, though: this is true for surgeons and hospitals both inside and outside the United States. If I am going to have to have this surgery on a self-pay basis, I will likely have to travel. This means that, in the age of medical tourism, it is sometimes the more foreign places which do a better job at disclosing information, handling logistics, and giving you a view of their surgical procedures and hospital environment.

Case in point, here is one of the doctors/practices I am currently interviewing. You can see his CV, check his license, get his volumes, etc., all online, both on his site and through general web research. You can then talk to his coordinator via email, phone, or text with any concerns or questions. If you have a few moments, take a look.

This is just one of the surgical practices with this kind of information, although I like this one a lot because you have the opportunity to look up their whole team, including anesthesiologist, internists, and surgical nurses, as well as the facility.

Nothing is decided, yet. We had a great conversation with our insurance coordinator today, who is going to work hard to see if we can get this surgery covered here, despite it being an exclusion at first glance. We have interviews with doctors here in Chicago (too pricey, but their practice might be able to provide before and after care, and recommend less expensive options for surgery), and in Michigan, all before Thanksgiving. It is too soon to say if I will be heading out of the country to make this happen. I'm not excluding it as a possibility, though, because the more I investigate, the more I believe it is a logical and safe option…

…and while I wait, I think starting the Duolingo Spanish program wouldn't be a terrible idea.

"Easy As Pie" is a Giant Lie

Here's the current state of my progress, with two pies (you have to bring two identical pies, egad) for the South Side Pie Challenge half-way through completion:

1. Every bowl, utensil, and appliance in our kitchen is dirty, and strewn about the countertops,
2. The fridge is now filled to the brim.
3. Two pies with thick-but-crumbly crusts are chilling out, coated with bittersweet chocolate ganache; I am 100% sure they will fall apart upon cutting, so they will be more like messy trifle than pie.
4. I have homemade custard/pudding cooling to room temperature, which took 45 minutes of constant whisking instead of 3-5, as noted on the recipe, and does not taste any better than Jello pudding.
5. I have no idea, now that I see and taste this pudding, how I'm going to incorporate the cashew butter I made yesterday.
6. I have half a gallon of whole milk left, as well as eight egg whites. What on earth am I going to do with a half a gallon of whole milk and eight egg whites?
7. My family keeps trying to eat my ingredients before I use them, making me less than friendly with them. Why don't they just want whole milk and egg whites?
8. I'm now laughing at my own hubris, thinking, "you have to make up a recipe if you are going to enter," and realizing that if you don't really know how to make pie, following directions on a can of pumpkin would be advisable.
9. My hands are sticky. I hate being sticky.
10. I'm debating whether having a glass of bourbon while I stay up late to slog through pudding/nut butter fusion will make everything much better, or everything much worse.

I'm just happy this is all for such a good cause, and I get to see so many great friends this weekend at the event. Easy as pie? Cue the hysterical laughing.

Pie-making is so messy. So, so, so messy.