Day 8 - The start of week 2!

It is not easy waking up every morning when you know you can't have breakfast...or even water.  But I told myself: one week down, three more to go.  So I went right to the art room to create.

Then I went to Stop and Shop, examining every product and imagining how it would taste in my mouth at that second!

 At least the weather is nice out so I can always leave the house and take a walk when the food-thoughts become too much for me.  Walking is very therapeutic for me.  I love being surrounded by nature.

 Then I went back to finish my piece.  It's very psychedelic.

 Then I got super-hungry, so I proceeded to torture myself even more by making an entire buffet for my brothers!  Waffles, pancakes, muffins, and smoked salmon ebelskivers,

The ebelskivers are filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese

The batter has lots of dill, parsley, paprika and lemon in it.  Yum!

They turned out great.

Eggs and Toast for mom...

VOILA!  A whole buffet!

Then, I was still hungry, so why not make lunch?  I made Turkey Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie.  

The ground turkey and gravy with carrots, onion and celery.

Mix in some chickpeas, peas, and spinach (whatever I had in the fridge!)

Now, for the sweet potato topping, the recipe had you mash a banana and hot sauce into it!  Interesting...I hope it's good!

Pour the gravy in the turkey, layer with sweet potato mixture and cheddar cheese (lots!).

Wow does that look good!

 These are some other pieces I created:

This was a vision board I painted which illustrates all of my dreams right now:  to tap dance, travel, have a great group of friends, be with nature, rid myself of my colostomy bag, be on stage, be in a relationship, to always be inspired, and there is one blank space for the dreams I have yet to dream...

Right now, this is the most important one - the rid myself of my stupid colostomy bag.

This is "to be forever inspired."

"Can't Distract"

I went outside again, to notice that the tulip buds are starting to appear!

I still believe, even going through this hell, that you can find happiness anywhere.

Day 6 and Day 7 - almost a week, but 3 more to go!

Just when I think I reach my breaking point, I find something else to do.  I can't stop myself from thinking about and playing with food.  It really actually calms me.  I feel more tortured when I'm not around food - even smelling it makes me feel better!  So last night I made a Broccoli Lasagna that went so fast!  The secret ingredient?  Hot pepper sauce!  Who knew?  And, to my credit, I cooked it while shlepping a 3.5 liter bag of TPN on my shoulders!!!

 The sauce is just milk, flour, dry mustard, hot pepper sauce, and salt and pepper.  You just layer the sauce, cheddar cheese, broccoli carrots and noodles three times.

Bake at 350F for 35 minutes...

WOW did it smell good!  Cheesy and rich, but no butter!

I made everyone blueberry pancakes for dessert.

Frantic for something else to do, I buried myself in my studio and just started to paint...anything.

I painted this bright backdrop...

And made these two dancing trees!  The flower is playing the guitar.

Sometimes my best ideas come when I have no idea when I'm going to do and am open to anything.

With that purple textured background I made the other day, I made a girl only out of tissues.

The girl is reaching to her reflection in the water - the "mirror" is one of my mom's old jewelry pieces from the 80's!

Then I created this other textured background from magazines and tissues.

I wanted to do inchies, but different, so I bought a circular cutter from the stamp store and made circle inchies!

I wanted to keep them simple - which is never easy for me!

 These trees are in the corners of the inchies canvas.

My last work of the day?  Some therapeutic swirling colors to just get out of my head and PAINT.

It looked tot "clean" for me, so I blotted it with a napkin, smeared it a bit, and added some crackle paste on top.  That's more like it!

At the stamp store, I found this little "window" pendant, so I made a little tree scene for it.

 I got really hungry after all that painting, so I cooked for everyone else to live through them vicariously!  We were all out of eggs so I got creative: for the crepes I mixed cornstarch with water, and for the muffins I mashed up a banana - hey, you gotta improvise!

I made my mom smoked salmon buckwheat crepes....

And Corn Muffins for my brothers.

Yesterday was ridiculously hard for me - I couldn't get my mind of food - so the art room really became my refuge.  I spent a total of SIX HOURS down there!  I can tell this will be a really creative period in my life, however challenging it may be.  A message to my blog followers out there - never take food for granted!  Because it SUCKS when you can't eat or drink!!!!!

Day 4, Day 5, time does NOT fly when you're starving.

Okay, so I started the day STARVING as usual, so I made some pancakes for my brothers on the crepe-maker - love that thing!

And also baked some Pumpkin Coconut Bread

I added a bit more to my still life...

When the hunger cues got really bad, we went to the mall for a distraction.  Like I said, everyday has to be a marathon from thing to thing.  The second I'm not doing anything, I get hungry and sad.  But the Disney sculptures in Hallmark made me optimistic!

It's the little things that give me joy in times like these.

Matt met me in the mall and was rockin' it at the toy store!

And of course, I had to be hooked up to TPN in the middle of the mall!

This morning was really tough, so I went right to the kitchen to make eggs for mom.

 I also experimented with cornmeal waffles, but the recipe must have been wrong, because it split apart when I opened the waffle-maker!!!

So I turned the rest of the batter into pancakes - hey, you gotta improvise!

Still hungry, I baked brownies...why torture myself, you ask?  I don't know!

I also wrote my mom a card, motivating us to get through all this crap.

What can I say?  Every day is a struggle to deny myself food and drink.  Yesterday I got by on 2 pieces of gum, 1 jello, and 2 ice cubes.  I just keep telling myself this is to starve my fistulas, not myself, and in less than four weeks, I'll be eating again.  Nothing lasts forever.  Stay strong.