Day 5: Kill ALL the things...or at least the inanimate objects

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Day five is done and over with. That means that I have been eating according to the guidelines of the Whole30 for a full business week. I'm super proud of myself because my willpower usually is drained by this time like a Magic the Gathering player who has used too much mana.

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NO MORE MANA?! HOW WILL I BE ABLE TO PUT DOWN MY VAULT SKIRGE IMP?!

I woke up after a decent night sleep around 8am. I wanted to get breakfast done, make ghee from the Kerry's Gold unsalted butter, and go grocery shopping before I started to cook Maw-maw's birthday dinner which consisted of slow cooked chicken and gravy, braised cabbage, and mashed garlic turnips. I reheated some of my frittata from the previous morning, surprised that it kept well overnight while I started heating the butter for ghee.

Around 10, the ghee was finished. I thought that I would go grocery shopping, but found out that it would have to wait due to finances. I'm so angry with my current situation where my current paycheck went to my car and student loans and whatever I have left is for gas and groceries which is not a lot. My anger turned into some kind of crazy Jackyl/Hyde thing where I acted inappropriately by punching the freezer. I don't normally do these things. I also threw a few things around and cried a bit. Once I started to calm down, I started to apply to job opportunities to make me feel like I am changing things around for the better.

I got side-tracked all day and forgot to eat lunch. I'm horrible at this eating thing. I had to go to the store for some lard or more butter to make ghee (but I found the Whole30-compliant ghee at the international market!) for my braised cabbage.

While dinner was cooking, I rushed the braised cabbage a little so that the slow cooked chicken and cabbage would finish at the same time. I ended up cutting my middle finger on my left hand while cutting onions (note to self: make sure your finger is out of the way!) which made me angry again. I managed to breathe through it and keep on working. When I pulled out the garlic from the oven where I was roasting it, I ended up burning my thumb on my left hand because the hot pad slipped from between my hand and the baking sheet. Again, I got angry, but controlled myself.

Dinner was almost done. I followed the directions as written and added an extra half-hour to hour to the chicken because I am sure my slow-cooker is a little slow. I pulled it out to let it rest for 20 minutes, but when I went to cut it open, it wasn't done. My temper got the best of me. I wanted this to be perfect for Maw-maw, something special for her birthday. I punched the freezer again and ran to my bedroom to wallow in self-hatred. Why can't I do anything special? Why isn't anything going right?!

My mom came in and saved the day. She cleaned up the kitchen and came into my room and let me vent my frustrations at her. It was she who realized that I was crashing because I hadn't eaten anything since that morning. Ooops. So, once I came out of my funk, we put the chicken in the oven with the cabbage to finish cooking and crisp up the skin. I used my trusty blender to make the gravy and my food processor to make the "mash" the turnips.

Dinner ended up as a success. Food was gobbled up. My Mom kept telling my Dad that this was health food since my Dad seems to have an aversion to "health food", which I don't blame him. Dad was amazed with how amazing the chicken was, which is a compliment because he does not like whole chickens cooked. Everyone loved the World's Best Braised Cabbage. This was a great meal. There was total destruction, clean plates, and full bellies.

After the kitchen was cleaned (Thanks Mom!!) and my parents left, my Maw-maw and I changed into our pajamas and settled down to watch Man of Steel while I reformatted my netbook (which is another story of pure rage at an inanimate object. Let's just say, I am glad I didn't break it!).

It's Superman before he was Superman. He was so much sexier like this than clean shaven and wearing a cape, so this is how I am going to portray him. 

Even though I had a few craptastic moments where I acted out of the norm, I thought that my Maw-maw was still happy with her birthday meal. We talked about dinner and she just asked that I leave out the turnips the next time!

Hopefully, this will be the only day that I act so crazy!

-- Yersinia