Test Results, Food Experiments

There have been a number of interesting developments since my last update. I ate carbs for a month, did a second breath test (methane-positive again), finished a second round of antibiotics, and am starting to introduce food groups back into my diet.

As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to take the breath test again in order to verify that the SIBO infection was still present before commencing another round of more toxic antibiotics. The results were very similar to (and slightly worse than) the initial test, indicating high levels of methane and virtually no hydrogen. This gave me confidence that the potential side effects from taking Rifaximin + Neomycin were worth the risk, since I still had a clear SIBO diagnosis. I ordered the Rifaximin from a pharmacy in Canada to save about $800, which meant waiting an extra few weeks for it to arrive. All in all, I ate a normal diet for about a month before resuming the low carb regimen.

While taking the Rifaximin + Neomycin combination, I felt the same or worse than I had on a normal diet, consistently very bloated and uncomfortable. It wasn't until the very end (day 14 of 14) that I suddenly felt better. After finishing the medication, within about 4 days I felt consistently good almost all the time (still eating low-carb). I could hardly believe it, after how I felt on the antibiotics.

About a week later, I went back to see my doctor. From my description of how my body felt, he believed that the antibiotics had done their work. He then asked whether the low-carb diet was a hardship or whether I would be happy to continue it. I told him matter-of-factly, "I hate it". :)

After talking about which foods I missed the most, we settled on the following plan.

1. Keep eating-low carb for now.
2. After 1 week, start slowly introducing new foods. Watch for symptoms of intolerance.
3. After 2 weeks, start taking a probiotic for 30-60 days to help restore good bacteria after they were wiped out by the Rifaximin/Neomycin.

My motto recently has been "another day, another salad". Although it's not a diet that I hope to sustain in the long term, I've sort of gotten used to seeking out a salad and some kind of meat at lunch/dinner, and eating hard boiled eggs and bacon for breakfast. But I didn't quite make it a full week before the fresh strawberries became too tempting.

I started the food experiments with fruit, in particular the ingredients for fruit smoothies that I used to make every morning for breakfast: berries, bananas, and oranges. After about 5 days of eating fruit and feeling great, I moved on to the "bread/pasta" category this weekend.

That was a mistake. On Friday night I ate a huge plate of beef ravioli with marinara sauce and garlic bread. My belly felt swollen that evening, but the full force didn't hit until the next day when I felt very bloated with hard lumps throughout my gut, which just seemed to keep getting bigger. It probably didn't help that I also ate a croissant for breakfast and had some bread with lunch too.

At this point I'm suspending the bread experiments and trying to get back to a happy baseline before trying any other foods. I am currently very suspicious of wheat (perhaps gluten, perhaps not) and will put any further wheat-based experiments on the back burner until I get some other foods under my belt. This really changes the game. I was hoping to restore most of my normal diet by adding fruit and breads, but it looks like my body has other ideas.

On the bright side, at least it's nice to see that my body's reactions will not be subtle. Previously I had wondered whether I would even be able to tell if I had a food intolerance. Now I think it's not so hard. Of course, one example isn't enough to rule out the entire wheat category, but it certainly makes me want to wait a while before trying it again. Originally I was most suspicious of milk/lactose, so hopefully it doesn't end up being both!

Starting over, sort of

I met with my doctor this morning and talked about my inconsistent symptoms that now seem more correlated with constipation than anything else. When I'm taking Natural Calm (a magnesium supplement), I tend to feel a lot better than when I'm not, with a lag of a few days when I start or stop. In other words, it doesn't seem to correlate with any particular foods. He explained that the real reason for the low carb diet is to avoid feeding the bacteria, or encouraging them to come back, while the infection is healing. But we don't actually know whether the SIBO infection is actually gone. After taking the first round of Rifaximin, I've been doing the low carb diet for at least a month now without an obvious improvement. This means that my current symptoms might still be caused by SIBO (if I still have an infection) or else just from the constipation (the magnesium helps retain water in the bowels to relieve this). To get a definitive answer, I'm going to take the SIBO breath test again in about a week. Based on the results, we'll decide whether to proceed with the Rifaximin + Neomycin antibiotic combo or just treat it as constipation.

Here's the happy news. Until I go in for the breath test, I'm supposed to eat normally, in order to get an accurate reading of the levels of infection (or lack thereof). I finally ate a croissant today for the first time in two months! So yummy.

Too many questions, Too few answers

These past few weeks have proven frustrating. I was feeling great for 4+ days and thought I was healed -- I was planning to start on a probiotic and be on my way toward the 2-month mark when I could start experimenting with different foods. But then I felt bloated with constipation off and on for about 4 days, including one very bad day. Since then I've had another 4 mostly good days, although tonight I ate too much chocolate again and am feeling somewhat worse. During that timeframe I have also been experimenting with a magnesium supplement to help with the constipation, and have noticed that the constipation and bloating seem to happen in tandem. But it's not clear what that means, or if it was just a coincidence.

The diet is also making me crazy. I knew it would be hard, but I think I underestimated the absolute discouragement and desperation that comes from eating only large, meaty salads for about 70% of my meals. My sugar cravings continue in earnest. When I occasionally slip and eat something I'm not supposed to, I often eat a large portion because my willpower is so depleted. And at the end of the day, I don't really know whether it is making a difference. Do I still have SIBO? The fact that I don't feel completely better seems to indicate a "yes". But if that's the case, am I just wasting my time with the diet or could it actually be making a dent in the bacteria population?

At this point I would ideally want to take the breath test again to get some objective, quantitative data that would more clearly indicate progress (or lack thereof). The other option is to just assume that I still have SIBO and take a more toxic medication. This is what I had discussed with my doctor last time. But when I started reading about Neomycin Sulfate, the potential side effects sounded scary enough that I decided not to jump into that immediately:

Serious Reactions

• nephrotoxicity
• ototoxicity, auditory
• ototoxicity, vestibular
• neurotoxicity
• neuromuscular blockade
• malabsorption syndrome (prolonged use)
• superinfection (prolonged use)
• enterocolitis

Common Reactions

• nausea
• vomiting
• diarrhea

I want to feel better and I want to be off this diet, both as quickly as possible. But it looks like I probably have at least a few more months of this nonsense, and I fear that my courage may not last that long.

Must eat more chocolate

Good news. My body has been feeling great for almost a week now. I've been very faithful about the low-carb diet and haven't really felt bloated at all. No digestive pain or cramps either. Hooray!

But the diet is really hard. I wake up every morning thinking about fruit and yogurt, then by the time I get to work I have to convince myself to eat eggs and bacon. I still haven't really managed to eat vegetables for breakfast. At lunch I walk by all the yummy-looking trays of rice, beans, pasta, bread, cheese, fruit, and amazing desserts and end up with a heaping plate of salad and the meat of the day. Dinner is about the same.

I'm growing to appreciate blueberries, dark chocolate, and Diet Dr. Pepper (even though, as Ela rightly points out, "it's gross"). Those are the only sweet things in my day, which isn't much, but at least they help me deal with the sugar cravings and keep me from getting completely depressed about what I can't have. Maybe my body will eventually adjust to this diet and stop craving fruit, croissants, and cheese, but it hasn't happened yet. Each meal represents another exercise in willpower. My only consolation is that my body feels great. If I weren't for that, I don't think I could keep this up much longer. I don't know how people do this purely for weight loss! Evidently it works, but it requires so much motivation and willpower that I don't think I could do except as an antidote to chronic pain.

For those who are keeping track, this is basically the complete list of foods that I am allowed:

• meat
• eggs
• non-root vegetables (mostly leafy green things)
• nuts
• blueberries (1/2 c. per day)
• dark chocolate
• oil
• vinegar
• soy sauce
• spices
• zero-calorie sweetners (stevia, aspertame, etc)

Now I have a confession to make. I just stopped by Whole Foods on my way home and bought/ate a whole bar of dark chocolate.

The Plan

I had a great talk with my doctor this week, where he explained more about what's happening inside my intestines and answered a lot of questions that I'd been wondering about.

In fact, here's a quick plug for One Medical Group for people in SF, NY, or DC. It's a single clinic with a bunch of different offices, with primary care physicians and various specialists, including alternative medicine and nutrition. They charge $150 annual membership fee in addition to the normal office visit fees, and in exchange they try to really meet the needs of their patients, e.g. online appointment scheduling and email contact with doctors. I've seen 5 different practitioners so far and they have all been very knowledgeable, caring, and easy to work with.

Okay, back to my update.

It turns out I had some misconceptions about SIBO based on our earlier conversations. As he explained to me this week, SIBO is not just about having a bunch of bacteria in the wrong place, eating sugar, and releasing hydrogen/methane. Those bacteria really represent an infection in the small intestine, causing irritation/swelling/damage that will take time to repair. This was in answer to my question about "why do I need to be on the low carb diet for 2-3 months before experimenting with carbs again?" The answer is that my body needs time to heal in order to provide a stable platform for doing the food tests. If I started doing those experiments now, it would be hard to get conclusive results. Also, sending lots of sugars through my digestive tract might encourage the wrong bacteria to return and make the infection worse, since they love carbs. Eating low carb for a while will allow my body to heal while reducing the chance of a relapse. This makes a lot of sense to me logically, and in order to stay motivated about this restrictive diet over an extended period of time, it makes a huge difference to understand what's happening behind the scenes.

On the dietary front, I found out that I really shouldn't be eating beans or root vegetables at all (including carrots...see previous post). But there are a few bright spots when it comes to food. I can eat a few blueberries! I can also have alternative sweeteners like stevia and aspertame, so when I get a crazy craving for sugar I can drink Diet Dr. Pepper. Yay! I've never been a fan of diet soda before, but I found some stevia-based root beer at Whole Foods and compared to vegetables and chicken it's not bad at all.

For the majority of people, Rifaximin is very effective at eliminating their bloated/painful abdomen. It seems like it helped a little bit for me, but not definitively. So I will probably end up trying a different (somewhat more risky) antibiotic if I don't feel a consistent improvement in the next week.

In the longer term, after finishing the next round of antibiotics (or deciding not to do it) I'll start taking probiotics and maintaining the low-carb diet for a few months. After that my intestines should be healthy again so I can start introducing specific foods one at a time and seeing how my body reacts. When I get to the food experiments stage, he expected that I would be able to detect a food intolerance with symptoms that are a bit different from my current ones, most likely diarrhea and pain (swelling) in my abdomen after eating. I'm excited about that part -- debugging is one of my better skills!

But for now I will continue drinking lots of tea and trying to eat enough to stay alive and happy. I think I've lost about 10 lbs so far and I really wasn't trying to. It's just hard to overeat when your diet primarily consists of eggs, chicken and lettuce. A person can only eat so much leafy green stuff in a day.

I should have another update next week after we decide what to do about the antibiotics. In the meantime I'll be experimenting with new recipes and indulging in bacon and sausage.

Bad Days

My follow-up doctor's appointment on Thursday can't come soon enough. I was doing pretty well last week, despite eating some things that weren't on the approved list (mostly fruit, and occasional sweets). In fact, I even had a few days where I didn't feel bloated at all -- I could hardly believe how happy and attractive it made me feel. My idea over the holidays was to try one experimental food per day, while still avoiding most grains and milk products. In essence, this meant that I allowed myself to eat some fruit, mostly oranges. That didn't seem to be causing any problems, so on New Years Eve I splurged and had several large bowls of fruit salad, then added on some chocolate and cookies, and topped it off with some sparkling cider to ring in the new year.

Eating a large meal with lots of carbs for dessert probably wasn't a great idea, I grant you. But for three days now I have felt like there is a large balloon in my gut that refuses to deflate, even though I'm eating strictly low-carb and in small quantities. It's lasted so long that I begin to wonder if it could really all have been caused by that one meal. Perhaps there's more to the story. I had been taking Rifaximin to (hopefully) kill off the excess bacteria in my small intestine, but the 2-week dose ended just one day earlier, on Dec 30th. Today I ate two salads and some peanuts, and drank a lot of tea. Now my belly hurts worse than ever, and I think I'm probably starving, but my stomach recoils at the thought of putting anything else into the digestive path. Nothing sounds appetizing anyway -- nothing on the low-carb list, anyway. This diet has really taken away all of my comfort foods. And it requires extensive willpower for elusive benefits. I find myself getting irritable earlier and earlier in the day, as my resolve turns to depression and desperation. A person can only drink so much tea.

It's hard to believe that I've only been doing this for under 3 weeks. It feels like forever. I knew the holidays would be a hard time to start such a restrictive diet, especially when staying with family and celebrating special occasions. And it was, even though I still ended up having at least one high-carb item on about half the days. It's amazingly difficult and depressing to avoid eating any of my favorite things: fruit, pasta, ice cream, french bread, chips, chocolate, cheese, potatoes, rice, Dr. Pepper, and chai lattes. The only snack food I have left is carrots. The only liquid I have left is water/tea. I know that in the end this is all for my benefit, so it's really not fair to complain, but it's miserable to still have all the bad symptoms despite such a dramatic dietary change. Even thought I haven't maintained the low-carb diet perfectly, it's still a huge shift compared to what I would normally eat, that it seems inconceivable that I could be right back where I started after only a few days of happiness in the middle.

Hopefully I will have a more cheery update to post later this week. The world looks pretty gray right now.

Embarking on a Medical Experiment

Several weeks ago I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and more specifically Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). This diagnosis comes after frequently experiencing severe bloating and abdominal pain after meals over the past several years. I'm working with a doctor in San Francisco to address my immediate symptoms and determine the underlying cause.

I recently took a SIBO Breath Test that showed high amounts of methane, leading to the SIBO diagnosis. This means that there are a bunch of bacteria that normally live in the large intestine but that have migrated to my small intestine where they are eating a bunch of my food before it gets absorbed by the small intestine (or sugars that my small intestine doesn't have the enzymes to break down on its own -- see below), and in the process they are giving off gases that make me feel bad.

The first step is to kill off all these bacteria that don't belong in the small intestine. I'm currently taking a medication called Rifaximin (Xifaxan) for 2 weeks, which has a success rate of about 70%. If that doesn't work, I'll have to try something stronger (and more toxic). It's not clear yet whether this is helping.

The next step is to try to prevent the bacteria overgrowth from happening again in the future. My doctor says that patients typically feel good for about 6 months after taking the Rifaximin, but if they don't change anything else they will typically have a relapse. Based on his experience helping many patients with symptoms similar to mine, he has observed that there is frequently a connection between SIBO and some kind of food intolerance, usually toward gluten (a protein) or a specific type of carbohydrate (e.g. lactose, fructose, starch).

To that end, my doctor currently has me on a very low-carb diet. The idea is to avoid any of the foods that I might be intolerant of until the bacteria have full evacuated the small intestine. Then I can start reintroducing carbs back into my diet one at a time and watching how my body reacts. For the next 3 months I'm not supposed to eat any fruit (berries, OJ, bananas, etc), dairy (milk, cheese, ice cream), grains (bread, rice, pasta, etc), sugary foods (candy, cookies), or starchy vegetables (potatoes). This means I can eat nothing but meat, eggs, vegetables (mostly green ones) and nuts. Every meal. For 3 months.

It's amazingly hard already and I've been doing it (or attempting to) for less than 2 weeks. I am a girl who loves fruit, pasta, and ice cream. Out of the major food categories, the ones I'm allowed to eat are actually the ones I would most readily give up. After drinking a fruit smoothie almost every morning for about 7 years, I'm trying to get used to eating bacon and eggs for breakfast. Lunch now consists of a green salad with some chicken. And dinner has become a depressing lump of cooked vegetables with some type of meat.

Of course, the holidays are not the best time to start a new and highly restrictive diet (I haven't been as strict on vacation as I was during the first week at home.) But even so, it's hard to decide which is harder to cope with -- the bloating and pain in my belly when I eat something it doesn't like, or the depressing realization that I'm sitting down to lunch with 4 other people whose are eating cheese and crackers with a fruit salad, and I can't eat a single thing that's on any of their plates. I start to feel sick to my stomach when I look at my own plate, and only manage to choke it down because I'm so hungry. I now drink at least 5 cups of tea per day because it's the only flavored drink that I'm allowed.

In the meantime I'm keeping a food diary to record everything I eat and how I feel afterward, and I plan to continue blogging about this in the hope that my experience will help somebody else who is also struggling with SIBO and trying to locate the real cause.

I have a real badge now

I gave my first Google tour last week when Luke came to visit! Although I'm still new to the campus myself, it's fun to show off my new workplace. I'm really enjoying the company and culture thus far, so here's a little update on my new job.

Basically I can't tell you anything.

Actually, from a technical/tactical perspective that's entirely true. But I'll try to share some of my experiences with starting a new job and working at Google in particular. One thing I can say is that the learning process is non trivial. I'm currently drinking from the fire hose of tools, infrastructure, and codenames. It's a little overwhelming but at the same time very interesting and motivating. My current goals are to meet someone new every day and to explore the campus and cafes before I get too busy. It's fun to be at the main campus where lots of things are happening, and it's interesting to work for a company that makes headlines on a regular basis for cool new projects.

The commute is kind of long (at least by Boise standards), but we are really enjoying living in San Francisco so it seems worthwhile thus far. I'm currently experimenting with methods to reduce motion sickness while riding the bus during rush hour. The thing that seems to help the most so far is the Sea Band wristbands that I bought for a cruise a few years ago. It's hard to do a controlled experiment when it comes to motion sickness since conditions are hard to repeat. However after several weeks of data, I think the bands are helping. The percentage of days where I walk in the door at 6:30 feeling sick to my stomach has decreased significantly since early February, and often I am able to read or work on my laptop for most of the ride. The other happy part about this solution is that it doesn't involve taking dramamine every day (yuck) and the total cost is about $5 at Walgreens. :)

If you want to hear more about my job, come visit and I'll give you a tour!

Traveling

In the past two months I have flown through all three of the major Bay Area airports (SFO, OAK, SJC). The transportation logistics can be a little tricky, but having multiple options definitely helps with price shopping. As a side note, if you're coming to visit us SFO is definitely the best option, but the others are also feasible (OAK is better than SJC if you want to get to our place via public transit.)

Anyway, two weekends ago I spent several lovely days at Newport Beach, CA with my grandma, aunts, and girl cousins. My family is crazy and wonderful. I also learned something very important on that trip, which is this: I failed to develop hula hoop skills early in life, and evidently it's not something that you "just pick up". :)

The beach was beautiful and the trip was rich with conversations, silliness, water, and sunshine. Thanks to everyone who made this a fun weekend with lots of good food!

Last weekend I joined Mike in Boise for a few days to visit parents and watch the Boise Philharmonic concert. It felt totally normal to be back in Boise, except that I was surprised at the large amount of space between cars that had parallel parked on the street downtown. I guess I'm getting used to living in a city, at least in some small ways.

Now we're back in SF for a while, and it's good to be home just so I can catch up on some sleep.

More pictures to come later.

Fun Local Adventures

Here are some snapshots from our recent adventures around the Bay Area. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago I met Mary Ann in Palo Alto to watch the Stanford women's gymnastics team complete against UCLA. It was awesome to watch two of the nation's top college teams in person.



The weekend before Chinese New Year we met up with Tet and some of his friends for dim sum in Chinatown. The neighborhood was in the midst of preparing for the big parade and and I captured a few photos while wandering through the crowds.




(don't miss out on the opportunity to check your kidney function)

Taking advantage of an especially warm, sunny day on Super Bowl Sunday, we drove down Hwy 1 to Half Moon Bay and stopped for a delightful lunch at Miramar Beach. Aside from an unidentified driver side swiping our car in the parking lot, it was a perfect day.



The rest of these pictures are from a ferry ride across the bay to Sausalito, where we wandered around for a few hours before returning at sunset. Click on the individual pictures for a larger view.

San Francisco Apartment

Several of you have expressed interest in seeing some pictures of our new apartment. Here is a little preview.

Coming through the front door you enter the living room, featuring the "wall of friendly faces" where we get to see some of you every day. This space also doubles as our primary dining area, as you can see from the small table and two chairs. We're learning that furniture items need to serve multiple purposes in a small space, and in this case the dining chairs magically turn into living room furniture by rotating them 90 degrees.



Here is our new futon! It also serves two purposes: living room sofa and guest bed. We've also used mirrors throughout the apartment to make it feel bigger, which seems to be working so far.



Meet Ramon, the adjustable height desk that I built with my dad last summer. It makes my shoulders happy because I can stand up while working on the computer, but then I can sit down when I get tired. It's a one-of-a-kind desk with a completely original design. He currently lives in the living/dining room, off to the side.



This is our master bedroom, showing off our beautiful wedding quilt from Nancy.



The ceilings are only about 7 feet high, which makes the room very cozy. But it also means that we'll have to disassemble this wardrobe when we eventually move, since we can't tip it forward without running into the ceiling!



Our awesome awesome awesome kitchen. Love it.



And we use the white board to keep track of where we parked the car...and when we have to move it.



I haven't taken any pictures of the second bedroom yet, but basically we turned it into a home office for Mike. It's at the far end of the house past the kitchen, and has its own bathroom and walk-in closet, where we store most of our "other stuff". We have definitely noticed the lack of basement (our previous storage location for "other stuff"), but hopefully it will help us cut down on non-essential possessions.

Please schedule a visit if you want an in-person tour. We welcome visitors on any and all weekends!

New Job

As you can see, Theo started his new job this week.



He spent most of the week going to orientation sessions and various training classes. So far he has good things to say about the work environment and the corporate style, although he doesn't actually know how to do anything useful yet. Aside from trying to absorb as much information as possible, he enjoyed eating at the yummy cafes and riding the colorful bikes from one end of the campus to the other. The shuttle bus is also very handy since he doesn't have a driver's license and his paws don't actually reach the pedals. Besides, he can use the hour-long commute time to work on his laptop or comb his mane. Sometimes he also takes a nap. It's a good life for a lion.

Bike Excursion

Taking advantage of the Monday holiday, we rode our bikes to Golden Gate Park this afternoon, which is a beautiful (and very large) park in the city, containing various museums and special gardens. See a map here.

Step #1 - Find a bike route that doesn't involve riding up/down really steep hills. Not a simple task. We actually ended up buying a bike map that has every block of every street color-coded based on the incline!

Step #2 - Buy new bike locks that are more sturdy that our Boise ones.

Step #3 - Enjoy the beautiful sunny day, with a leisurely ride through the park which was crowded with walkers, joggers, bikers, and people will roller skates and hula hoops.



We kept riding through the park until we reached the west edge of the San Francisco peninsula, and crossed the Great Highway to reach a wide boardwalk and a long sandy beach. We think that's the Pacific Ocean in the distance, but it declined to show itself so we're currently in negotiations with the fog to obtain future viewing privileges. We'll keep you posted. All I have to say right now is that the San Francisco coast is FREEZING!



After taking this picture we met up with my Aunt Molly to explore the botanical gardens in the fog. Hopefully we will get to see the Conservatory of Flowers next time too. Who knew it would be closed on Mondays???

Total round trip: 15 miles

You know you're in San Francisco when...

1. The sofa can't make it through the door of the apartment.



2. Patio tables are built at an angle. On purpose.



3. You finally understand the genius of Smart cars.



4. Respect is earned through feats of parallel parking.



5. People love their dogs. In our neighborhood (Noe Valley) in particular. And yes, I have actually seen this in use.



6. The easiest way to air out the house in January is to open a window...because it's 60 degrees outside.

I have posted a bunch of pictures from our neighborhood on Picasa. Click on the picture below to see the whole album.

Am I Awake Yet?

After a long hiatus from blogging, I want to share with you my latest experiment.

For as long as I can remember I have hated alarm clocks. This is probably because I tend to wake up feeling groggy and exhausted when my alarm rings, even after a full night's sleep. During college I faithfully jumped out of bed the instant my alarm started, as a self preservation habit. But in the intervening years I have become increasingly acquainted with the snooze button. Unfortunately, snoozing only goes so far. Unless I go back to sleep for multiple hours, I usually still feel pretty lousy when I finally get out of bed.

My latest experiment to combat this groggy morning problem is a new alarm clock, worn on the wrist, which tracks sleep cycles during the night and wakes you at an optimal time to avoid grogginess. It's called the SLEEPTRACKER.

According to their web site, the internal software uses an accelerometer to detect "brief periods of movement that are associated with almost awake moments or very light stages of sleep." Most people are unable to activate their muscles during deep (stages 3, 4) and REM sleep, so it seems the basic idea is to detect the type/quantity of movements that are associated with the lightest sleep stages in order to wake the wearer at the best point within a given time window.

Last night was my first trial run. The vibrating alarm seemed pretty subtle, and apparently it took about 3 minutes to actually wake me. But it did finally wake me up around 6:20am and when I came to I felt very alert, after sleeping about 7.5 hours.

Unfortunately, unlike most toys, I only get to experiment with this once a day. So it will be a while before I have definite data about its effectiveness. But I have high hopes so far!

Who is this?

After a lovely wedding and honeymoon, we have finally started back into normal life. So I'm back on the blogging trail.

Observations from the recent/ongoing experience of changing my name...

1. Our marriage license doesn't say what my new name is. Nonetheless, it somehow gives me the right to change my name, so I have to tell each different agency what I want my new name to be. It appears that I could give different names to everyone! Very strange.

2. To my surprise, the people at the local social security office were very gracious and efficient. So here's a little plug for under-appreciated government workers.

3. Monday is not the best day to go to the DMV.

4. When I asked the lady at the DMV to remove my "corrective lenses" restriction, she gave me a quick eye test but didn't bother to check whether I was actually wearing contacts or not. Seemed shady to me.

5. Considering that approximately half the population of this country will change their name within their lifetime, the requirements are surprisingly inconsistent. Some credit card companies will change your name over the phone. Others want you to mail in a form and attach a copy of the marriage license. Amazon lets you change it to whatever you want, but United Airlines wants to see the request in writing with a copy of the marriage license. For some reason my gut says this is more to protect their non-transferable frequent flier miles than to protect my right to board an airplane...

6. I sure hope I don't need a social security card in the next few weeks, because it is scheduled to arrive in the mail at some point in the future. Same for the new car titles and various other things. It's weird to give up all these important documents and not get them back right away. Apparently that's how the passport process works too. Yikes.

7. My two employers have different processes for name changes. One wanted a new W-2 and the other just let me enter it on a web site. But neither one wanted to see any proof. Astonishing.

8. We have way too many accounts everywhere.

New Experiences

There have been some notable "firsts" for me this week.

1. I went mountain biking for the first time.

A new friend invited me to go mountain biking with a group of coworkers on Tuesday night, so I borrowed Mike's bike (which has shocks and good brakes) for the adventure. We started at the Military Reserve and drove up Shaw Mountain Rd until several miles past the point where it turned into a bumpy dirt road. Then we hopped on our bikes and started up the road. After a while we reached the trailhead and continued uphill. It was a fun but challenging ride, with a fun group that gave me many helpful tips along the way (such as: look out ahead, not down at the scary rocks under your tires). We reached the top of our ride after about 1.5 hours, then quickly descended over bumpy trails that tested my brakes and nerves. It was a thrill!

And thankfully I returned without any loss of skin or limbs, so our wedding photographer will be happy about that.

2. I learned about Mormon Crickets.

Yikes! These are the scariest insects I've ever encountered in real life. As we were riding up the trails I started seeing huge bugs with long legs that looked like they could easily jump up and hit me in the face. Not a pleasant prospect when you are struggling to keep the tires moving on a steep dirt path. I'm glad they weren't feeling too energetic that night, or I might have slid down the hill in a panic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket

I'm not sure how I managed to grow up in Boise and never see these mammoth bugs, but I'm glad I didn't meet them as a child or I might have been forever afraid to go outside.

3. I spackled!

Living in apartments for most of my adult life, there was always someone to do it after I moved out...

New Blog

Mike and I are starting a "family" blog. Being two inquisitive people, we decided to focus on our various wonderings about life and the world around us. We're calling it Curiosity of the Moment.

Wedding Plans

With less than 7 weeks remaining until the wedding, we have nearly wrapped up all the big things. It's exciting to see the event coming together and feel like the logistics are mostly under control. I can't wait for my parents to return from their China adventures! And I'm so eager to see friends/family who are coming out for the wedding from Seattle, Florida, Ohio, California, Rhode Island, and Ontario. Hopefully Boise will show its best hot, dry, delightful side for you!

In addition to preparing for the "big day", we are also preparing for the "big life", figuring out how to combine two households into one and making it feel like our home. This weekend we'll try to finish the second round of painting. Hooray for color!


This weekend we took a little break from our labors to play some fiddle/guitar tunes together, while watching a thunderstorm outside. I love the red music room. So cozy. :)

Comfort Words

Recently I have been observing the way people tend to reuse certain words or phrases, in extraneous ways, as a part of their normal conversation. Some favorites..."you know", "well", "actually", "basically", "just", "umm", and "like I said". Your high school speech teacher probably threatened you against the use of these "filler" phrases. But I like to think of them as comfort words. When you don't know what to say, but something needs to be said, they give you a nice segue into anything, or emphasize any sort of point you're hoping to make.

When I was first employed as an intern at HP, during my senior year of high school, I noticed many of my coworkers beginning their sentences with "so...". In general they were not making any sort of concluding statement, but merely changing the subject, answering a question, or remarking on something that happened last week. Although this method of starting sentences initially struck me as grammatically odd, I also implicitly connected it with the speech of a "real engineer". Somehow I overlooked the fact that my dad, who is a real engineer, does not speak this way. Gradually I started adopting this speaking style as well, and I thought I was pretty cool. Like a grown up engineer.

It turns out this may have been a bad idea. As cool as it sounded at the time, I later realized that comfort words are notoriously hard to abandon. They serve as an excuse to think while you're talking instead of thinking before opening your mouth. They also distract listeners from your real point by their repetitive nature. It's like hypnotism. Suddenly people start unconsciously waiting for the next "basically" to pop out, completely ignorant of whatever essential idea you were about to articulate.

So... My challenge for the week... Let's get out of our comfort zones and try some new words!