I gave blood yesterday. The blood bank is trying to recruit more donors, so this month they are giving away a free movie tickets to anyone who gives blood. My husband donated also, so we get to go out on a movie date! The blood bank is particularly interested in recruiting O donors, so I not only got a movie ticket, but I also got a keychain with the slogan "I'm O so special." What a wonderful type O motto!

The blood bank provides cookies and fruit punch to donors, both of which are avoids. I took a bottle of pineapple juice to drink while my system stabilized. Afterwards I went to the health food store. Fresh baby okra was in! I don't like the thick woody okra that is normally in the produce department, which means I usually eat frozen okra. Fresh okra is a treat. I also bought beef liver to quickly replenish the iron I had lost. I had liver & grilled onions before leaving for school.

My pulse was 56 and my blood pressure was 104/70. I'll report cholesterol numbers when they come in.

Potluck meals are wonderful because of the sharing. There is something about a meal that everyone has had a part in preparing that lends itself to good conversation and bonding. However, trying to stay on the Blood Type Diet at a potluck meal is sort of like walking through a mine field. I guess every blood type has difficulties, but I think Os must have it the worst. Potluck dishes are usually casseroles with pastas and creamy based sauces. Just staying away from wheat and cheese is almost impossible. Then to try to avoid corn, potatoes, cucumbers and kiwi…sigh.

I usually plan ahead and take something that I know I can safely eat. Then I fill in with as many other beneficials and neutrals as I can find. I'm going to a potluck luncheon this Thursday, and am already planning to take a salmon. The other ladies will enjoy it, and it will be a safe foundation for my meal.

But I completely forgot that there was a potluck lunch between church and choir practice today. I came without anything to share, and I came without anything that I could eat. I chickened out. I went to the Whataburger across the street. I said the server, "Would you let me have a grilled chicken salad, but instead of the chicken put on a hamburger patty?" She looked at me like I was a space alien, then smiled and said, "We can do that." I had food that was tasty and good for me, but I missed out on the fellowship…sigh.

When I look back I always remember being a size 11/12. In fact I remember a particular pair of pants in high school that were size 8. I knew that they must have either been cut big or mislabeled in order for a size 8 to fit me, but I always felt slimmer when I wore them. I am tall enough to look good in a size 12, so while there were moments that I wished I were more svelte, I was content as long as I didn't put on any more weight.

I started the BTD, not as a weight loss diet, but because of GERD. I was surprised when I lost 5-6 pounds in the first couple of months I was on the diet. I was delighted several moths later when I realized I had dropped from a size 12 to a size 10, especially since I wasn't watching portion sizes very carefully. My weight stabilized at 10 - 12 pounds less than I was before the BTD. However because I continue to replace fat with muscle, the shorts I bought last summer were size 8.

Before school started I bought a black skirt. The 8 was too big, so I bought a 6. I wore it to school for the first time last week, and I couldn't keep the shirt tail tucked in. This morning I altered it, taking an inch out of the waist.

OK, I know that like those high school size 8 pants, this size 6 skirt must either be cut big or mislabeled. But still - imagine me, eating until I'm full 4 times a day; taking in a size 6. Thank you BTD.

I sometimes unintentionally annoy my husband by looking for something good in a bad situation. I think truth is on my side - there is Romans 8:28 after all. "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Nonetheless, I can see how a positive attitude could occasionally get on someone's nerves.

With gas prices so high, we had a family conference last week about how we could decrease the amount we drive. Basic necessities are work, school and church. Beyond that, we agreed to try to cut back on driving. I'm doing more errands on the way to and from school.

That discussion was in the back of my mind when I planned my morning. I needed to go to the bank, to buy a zipper for a skirt, and to buy a bubble envelope for mailing two yearbooks. A bicycle ride was also on my agenda. The bank would be easy to combine into the bicycle ride; it's only a mile away. But the fabric store is 4-5 miles away and involves riding on busier streets. For the sake of high gas prices I grabbed my back pack and set out.

The journey was a success. I accomplished all three errands plus I rode farther and faster than I normally would. Something good can come even out of high gas prices.

My son is back at college. We got a phone call this afternoon that he arrived safely and picked up the key to his apartment. We had lots of good conversations his last two days at home. One of the things we laughed about was how much I would miss having someone to share roast beef and lamb with. When I cook a roast or a leg of lamb just for myself, the leftovers last a long, long time.

I fixed lamb for the two of us for dinner last night. (The As got a soy vegetarian entrée). We also had fresh asparagus, green beans, and the best strawberries we've had all summer. I had intended to bake bread, but I didn't remember to start the bread machine on time. I started looking for some kind of wheat free biscuit or roll. I couldn't find anything. But there was a drop biscuit recipe in "Joy of Cooking" that I decided to adjust. I made so many substitutions that the authors would hardly recognize it. Though they started out fluffy, they went kind of flat in the oven. However, the As liked the flavor so much that they were clambering for more tonight.

The ingredients I used were: 2 cups kamut flour, 1 Tbsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/3 cup oil, 2/3 cup soy milk. Stir together with a fork, drop onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees until lightly brown.

Today for lunch I was eating leftover lamb alone. There are plenty more leftovers for tomorrow and the next day as well!

My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad; Proverbs 23:15

When my son ran high school cross country, the coach went to a certain amount of effort to not only get the runners in shape, but to also give them enough variety to keep their enthusiasm up. His senior year she found a place that the team always called, "the hill". I've heard it described many times not only by my son, but by his friends.

Last night my son said, "I think I'll go out tomorrow morning and see if I can still run the hill. Do you want to come?" It was too good a challenge to pass up, besides I was curious to see the hill. It's in an expensive residential neighborhood. The road starts out steep, as steep as any road I've seen in the mountains. About half way up it becomes a moderate grade. At the top there is a big cul-de-sac.

I looked up the incline and thought, "What am I doing here?" After some stretching, my son took off, digging in with each stride. I started with a jog. All too soon I was winded and my lungs were burning. I walked the rest of the steep part, and then began to run again. I took a lap around the cul-de-sac and started back down. The view going down was fabulous. My son was waiting for me at the bottom. "When we ran here for cross country," he said, "after we ran the hill, we took off down that road. It winds around but it's not too steep." I said, "Let's go!" It did not bother me that by the time I got to the car he had cooled down and wasn't even breathing hard. I had seen the hill, and I had run a respectable part of it.

If you are Type O, don't neglect the "intense physical exercise" part of this lifestyle. It is every bit as important to the way you feel as eating beneficials and avoiding avoids.

I once blogged about my frustration with finding whey listed as an ingredient in Kyolic garlic which I had used for years. Now I have good news! I saw an ad in a nutritional magazine that Kyolic was introducing new formulas and would send free samples. I called the toll free number (800-421-2998) and learned that there are now 3 formulas without whey. They have a vegetarian version of their original formula and a garlic/red yeast rice formula which look good for Os and As. There is also an immune formula which looks good for As, but has O avoids. They not only sent me samples of the new garlics, but also a sample of Kyo-Green, their wheat grass drink. Heidi has written positively about wheat grass, but I had not used it since I took wheat grass tablets years ago. The drink was very good.

I got off schedule yesterday, and am struggling this morning to get back on. I didn't eat any avoids. I just ate too much, and I ate at the wrong times. We went to Jason's Deli for lunch after church. There is plenty of beneficial food there; it's just not in convenient combinations. The salad bar has several good items that I normally don't have at home; but there is zero meat. I could get a prepared salad with chicken or tuna, but I would have to ask them to leave off ingredients (cheese, black olives, etc). I could get a roast beef sandwich, but after I threw away the bread, pickle, and chips, I wouldn't have much lunch left. I went with the salad bar and got 3 hard boiled eggs for protein. The nice thing about Jason's Deli salad bar is that they have extra virgin olive oil in the original bottle, so I know what I'm pouring on my salad.

By late afternoon I was really hungry. A snack would not do, I needed protein. So before I left for orchestra practice I ate the brisket I had planned to eat for dinner. It was delicious and so satisfying that I wasn't hungry when I fixed dinner for the family. I ate watermelon while the others ate dinner (watching the Olympics, of course). But by 10pm when I was helping my daughter review for an English test I was ready for another meal. After trying to ignore hunger pains, I settled on a bowl of almonds. They satisfied the hunger, but left me feeling too full at bedtime. Vicious cycle!!

Usually when I first get up, I have breakfasts and lunches to prepare for my family. By the time I get everyone out the door, I'm very hungry for my own breakfast. When I was at my parents' house, I wrote that I felt so good when I exercised first thing in the morning, then had breakfast. A few days later I read something that confirmed my feelings. It said that when you run before breakfast you force your body to break down fat for fuel. However, yesterday Debs wrote, "I used to run in the morning before breakfast but was told by a fitness instructor that it was ill advisable because I was burning glucose. Even though I had my brekky when I got back. Have you heard of this before?"

One thing about journalists, we are not afraid to ask questions. So, while I was at the gym today doing the 4th of my 5 free workouts, I asked the head personal trainer. Here is what he said.

If you are going to do weight training, you should eat breakfast before you work out. You are strenuously stretching your muscles, and if you do that without fuel being immediately available, your body will begin breaking down the muscle to provide energy. If you are going to do a cardio workout like running, you can do that before breakfast. A light to medium cardio workout on an empty stomach will force your body to break down fat for energy. However if you are going to do a long and very strenuous cardio workout, eat first, because again you run the risk of destroying muscle tissue. He said that when he works with clients doing cardio machines in the gym, he monitors the point at which they would begin breaking down muscle by checking their heart rate.

On another subject, since I started the Type O Diet, I've been careful to take a calcium supplement because almost all milk products are avoids. I came across a chart about calcium sources. It says

1 cup milk 291 mg calcium

3.5 oz almonds 266 mg calcium

1 can sardines 340 mg calcium

1 cup cooked collard greens 350 mg calcium

Somehow our culture tells us that you have to drink milk to get calcium, and that's not true. However it is true that 2 cups of milk a day is not unreasonable, where 2 cups or collards or 2 cans of sardines would seem excessive.

Today's main event was the first day teaching my fall journalism class. Though school started on Monday, electives did not start until today. Before and after class were lots of little events that related to the Blood Type Diet.

I walked into the kitchen this morning and on impulse decided to make pancakes. A friend had given me a wonderful multi grain recipe several years ago. I adjusted it for Os and As, and my kids said they were the best pancakes I've ever made. I posted the recipe on RECIbase. (Oat, spelt & flax pancakes)

Before my breakfast I went for a run. My son advised me not to do weight work on the same muscles two days in a row. I decided that today I would do a light run in the morning and do the machines at the gym related to shoulders and arms this afternoon. Tomorrow I will to the ab and leg machines and go for a light swim. If it gives you an idea of my upper body strength, I have never done a chin up. There is a machine that uses a hydraulic lift to aid you in chin ups and dips. I had to set it to support more than half my body weight in order to be able to do just five. If I joined this gym I wonder how long would it be before I could do a real chin up.

My son will be living in an apartment when he goes back to college. His roommate is bringing the TV and DVD. My son is equipping the kitchen. He has learned several new cooking skills this summer, but now that his return to school is drawing close, he is asking lots of questions. Earlier in the week I showed him how to grill onions. Tonight he wanted to learn to cook ground meat. We were having spaghetti, which in our family means one pan of ground beef and one pan of ground turkey. He and I got out two skillets and worked side by side. I cooked the turkey, and he cooked the beef. I wonder what his roommate's blood type is.

I walked into the kitchen this morning to find that my daughter had decorated with a birthday banner.

My breakfast was an experiment. I have had a rash on my eyelids for about two weeks. It is clearly related to makeup, because it is in exactly where eye shadow goes. But I stopped wearing makeup more than a week ago, so there has to be another component. It might be that the month of August has always been my worst month for allergies. It might be that I've been sleeping with a mask to make the room darker in the summer. Monday I was reading in Heidi's archives, and she describes two people who had a similar rash from flax seed. It might be that I eat flax seed for breakfast 6 out of 7 mornings. Tuesday I fixed eggs with onion and spinach for breakfast. Today I ground pecans to use instead of flax in my fruit and seed breakfast mix. The taste and texture were good, but flax is beneficial and pecans are neutral.

My son has really enjoyed working out at the gym all summer. Today he took me with him. They gave me a 5 day trial pass. My son showed me how to use the machines for muscle groups I am interested in improving. I have outgrown the little hand weights I have at home. However, I'm not sure whether I'm ready to join a gym. For now I will enjoy trying the equipment with my pass.

My husband and I agreed to postpone my birthday dinner for a week. Our son will only be home for a few more days, and we want to maximize family time while he is here. Part of family time this week is the Olympics. It didn't seem right to rush through a nice meal just to get home to the television. I baked salmon for dinner and it was delicious. I also baked a walnut torte for my birthday cake. I had made it once before, but it was even better this time.

I got many card and e-mail greetings. Some were funny, some were serious. Here is my favorite, "When we believe in God's plan for us, every age is the perfect age to be.

In a family where Mom & Dad swim laps, daughter swims fly, and son (who was all state in breast) coaches summer league; it's easy to guess what we're doing tonight. We are watching the Olympics.

My daughter was with me at the grocery store earlier in the week and said, "One of my favorite meals is when you do hamburger patties for you & my brother, veggie burgers for Dad & me and fix lots of jicama fries to go with them." It sounded good to me, so that's what we had tonight. We also had salad with lettuce, fresh spinach, and carrot sticks.

There haven't been as many sidebar stories about what the athletes are eating as there often are during television Olympic coverage. I heard one item about how much weight water polo players would lose during the games because they are burning calories much faster than they can replace them.

I vividly remember an interview with swimmer Josh Davis after he won his gold medals in 1996. He said that the year before the Olympics a coach had challenged the swimmers to give up a food that would not contribute to building their physical strength. Different swimmers chose different foods. Josh had given up hydrogenated vegetable oil. The interviewer stammered - That means you gave up margarine and crackers and cookies…what did you eat? Josh smiled and said that he ate more meat and more fresh fruit & vegetables. When I look at what I eat on the Type O diet, I guess I'm eating a lot like Josh Davis's training diet. It took him to Olympic gold; where will it take me?

Last night I baked peach muffins. I wanted to send my daughter off to her first day of high school with a beneficial breakfast. There is a recipe on RECIbase for Rice Muffins (Karen's Brown-White- Rice/ Variable Muffins). There are 4 eggs in the recipe, so these have more protein than your average muffin. The recipe calls for a cup of applesauce. I was out of applesauce - besides I wanted to bake something a little more exciting for back to school. In the back of the pantry I found some peaches canned in pear juice. I whirled them in the food processor, and they were perfect. The last time I made these muffins I used all rice flour. This time I used half rice and half spelt.

First my daughter drank her soy shake. That is what really gets her going in the morning. Then she ate one big and two little muffins, saying they were "very, very good." They must have been because she had another as an after school snack. My son grabbed a couple on his way to work, and I popped one in my husband's lunch. There are enough left over for two more breakfasts later in the week.

Earlier in the summer I wrote about the night I found out that our neighborhood pool is 25 yards long rather than 25 meters. Once or twice a year I make the effort to swim 32 laps or what I thought was a mile (1600 meters). What a disappointment to learn that I have been 160 yards short all these years. Last night the weather was a little cooler than it has been, and we got to the pool a little earlier. I swam 36 laps - 1800 yards. It was the first time I ever swam a real mile. Not too bad for someone who will turn 51 in two days.

I am back home from the family reunion. I would probably be missing everyone, but school starts tomorrow, so I'm too busy to be sad. I had a long, late night conversation with my brother-in-law. He started out skeptical about the Blood Type Diet. But he has had stomach problems similar to mine, and had already figured out for himself that he feels better when he avoids milk products. He assumed he was lactose intolerant, but was interested in the concept of whey as a Type O avoid. The last thing he said to me was that he was going to look further into the Blood Type Diet.

While I was gone Jayne wrote saying, "I find I falter with avoids, but then I've got a younger family and a husband that still likes his wheat and especially sandwiches." I realize that sometimes I write as if my family is dedicated to the BTD, and sometimes I write as if they ignore it completely. In fact, both are true. Let me see if I can describe their fluctuating levels of commitment.

My daughter has the second highest level of personal commitment - within the foods that she likes. She easily gave up milk potatoes, and beef. She easily increased pinto beans, peanuts, salad, and soy. However, she does not like trying new foods - especially foods with strange names. She does not want to totally give up popular teenage foods like pizza and soda. Even at her level of commitment to the Type A diet, she has seen undeniable changes in her skin and muscle tone.

My husband has gradually become convinced that the Blood Type Diet is probably true. He is willing to follow the Type A diet as long as I do all the planning. When I fix a beneficial breakfast for him, he enjoys it. But at my parents' this week he ate packaged cereal and milk. When I pack him a beneficial lunch, he compliments it when he gets home. But if he goes out for a business lunch, he eats whatever he is in the mood for. He does not want to remember what foods are beneficial and what foods are avoids.

My son tends to naturally like Type O foods, but is the least likely to ask for my advice. He likes getting bigger meat portions at dinner and making thicker sandwiches. The BTD has given him ammunition against vegetarian influences on his college campus. He happily switched to sweet potatoes. He is an athlete, and had already cut back fried foods and sodas. The Type O diet reinforced those habits. However, sports nutrition articles praise oranges and peanuts so highly that he does not want to believe they are avoids. I did such a good job convincing him to drink milk when he was a little boy, that he won't give it up (I wish there had been an "Eat right for your baby" book 20 years ago). He understands that wheat is bad for him, but still likes sandwiches. This summer he has been content with sprouted bread.

I got up early and ran through the neighborhood where I grew up. It is a 3/4 mile loop around the playground and school where I spent my K - 6th grade years. I ran the loop 3 times. I wish I could exercise first thing every morning. It certainly gets the day off to a good start.

In my extended family there are 7 Os and 3 As. There is a lot of variety among the Os. My Dad and my sister are artistic and slightly melancholy. My Mom is a classic sanguine. My son and I tend to be phlegmatic. Our body types are different as well. My Dad is compact and wiry. My son is tall with lots of lower body strength. My nephew is tall with very broad shoulders. My Mom and my sister are apples. I am a pear. But we all have one thing in common - we like beef!

I did better with food choices today. Pizza for lunch was the big avoid for the day. I took a little pizza and a lot of fresh fruit. Dinner was a seafood feast with beneficial and neutral vegetables. Dessert was too sugary to be healthy, but no major avoids except the crust.

My Dad is an avid reader, and National Geographic is one of the periodicals he reads monthly. The cover story for the August issue is on fat. Some of the research is fascinating and should have pointed the writer directly to the Blood Type Diet, but she chose to do pros and cons about Adkins instead. Here were some of my favorite quotes.

"The food pyramid guidelines told Americans to avoid fat and eat grains, so we loaded up on pasta and bread. The low-fat message backfired." "We're eating more vegetables...the only problem: almost a third of these vegetables were iceberg lettuce, French fries, and potato chips." "Americans enjoy one of the most luxurious lifestyles on Earth: Our food is plentiful. Our work is automated. Our leisure is effortless. And it's killing us." "The grains we're eating are flour based items like pasta, tortillas, and hamburger buns which have little more nutritional value than table sugar."

Tonight I have a smile on my face, a lot of love and my heart, and a slight gurgle in my stomach. I'm at a family reunion.

My sister and her family live overseas. They come to the United States for a few weeks every summer, and we all get together for a several days at my parents' house. We have had a wonderful time today catching up on what all of us have been up to. Though we write a lot of e-mail, so we know the main events in each others lives, it's so much more vivid when we sit around the dining room table telling stories with hand motions and voice inflections.

There is a lot of laughter in my family. There is also a lot of food, not all of it BTD friendly. We had hamburgers for lunch. I warned my mom before we went to the table that I wasn't going to eat the bun. She had baked sweet potatoes the night before, and was agreeable to my warming up one of the leftover sweet potatoes to replace the bun and chips. Dinner was more difficult. On the positive side, there was a big fruit platter with several beneficial choices and green beans. On the avoid side, we had a breaded chicken dish (quite tasty) and corn on the cob (I did take the smallest piece). If those had been the only two avoids, I would probably have been ok. But there are three family birthdays in the summer and mine is one of them. I could hardly say no to carrot cake served in my honor.

The little gurgles I am feeling tonight will do me no lasting damage, but they do serve as a reminder of why I started the BTD and why I intend to continue following it.

Yesterday I said I aimed for 10 fruits & vegetables a day. Today I ate 11 different vegetables and 5 different fruits. I need to always be thankful that I live at a time and in a country where such abundance is even possible.

For breakfast I had ground seeds topped with a banana and a plum, and moistened it with pineapple juice. I packed my lunch for teacher in service: a salad made of spinach, kohlrabi, carrots and chicken with steamed parsnips on the side. I took an afternoon snack of walnuts with prunes and dried apricots. It was a good thing I did because I stayed late to finish sorting yearbooks.

Dinner was a school sponsored banquet for faculty and their guests at a buffet called Ryan's Steakhouse. At Ryan's you can eat very, very healthy and BTD compliant or very, very unhealthy and noncompliant. There are 5 different food lines plus a separate dessert line. I chose neutral and beneficial vegetables that were cooked simply. For instance fried okra, pickled okra, and okra & tomatoes were all available. There were canned green beans and fresh green beans cooked with onions. There were candied sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes grilled in their skins. I looked for the freshest vegetables and those with the fewest additives. Add two slices of roast beef, and I had a Type O feast.

But for every good choice, there were at least two bad choices available. Potatoes were prepared many different ways. Fried meats and vegetables were plentiful. Pastas, breads and other starches were there to tempt the unwary of every blood type. My husband did a pretty good job of making wise Type A choices. I suspect some of my fellow teachers, however, will be regretting their selections before morning.

The speakers for in service were chosen to inspire and motivate us teachers for the year ahead. Here is one quote that I found particularly meaningful, "You are not molding lives. They come to you molded and preformed by God. You are helping them find their place in the Body of Christ."

I am at my school computer, eating lunch. Summer's over. We had our first teacher in service meeting this morning. I was up much earlier, and had breakfast much earlier than I have been accustomed to since school was out. I have also been accustomed to a snack mid-morning. We did have a brief break during our meetings, but I avoided the muffins and orange juice. So I'm glad I packed a generous lunch.

As I've written before, I don't measure serving sizes, but I do count the number of fruits and vegetables I eat per day. I aim for 10. That is one more than the Type O diet calls for, but I don't eat as much cereal bread or grain as the BTD allows, so I substitute an extra fruit or vegetable. I naturally tend to eat more fruit, because I like it and it is easy to grab as a snack. Lately I've been making an effort to increase vegetables.

I packed four vegetables in my lunch, three of them beneficials. I had steamed asparagus with olive oil, grilled onions and spaghetti squash, and seaweed. When I packed lunches this morning I had enough lamb for one and enough roast for one. I put half of each in my son's sandwich, and wrapped half of each in sushi nori seaweed wraps for me.

Fellow blogger Paul Buckless came to the rescue on sushi nori. He wrote, "Wrap your nori rolls and run a finger moistened with water down the open edge. Seals good as gold. Wrap them in cling film to store. This will keep them fresh, crisp and more importantly in shape." I did it this way and it worked great. However Paul said that the cling wrap would keep them crisp, and it made mine softer. That was a positive for me - I liked them better soft than brittle.

I am still catching up on laundry and mail from vacation. If you sent me a note last week, don't give up, I will answer. Debs asked a question about sushi nori papers that I thought others might be interested in. She wrote, "I too have tried that dried seaweed and love it but I was wondering how do you manage to keep it closed?"

I had a number of false starts where I dripped tuna or olive oil before I found something that works for me. I put the filling in a line down the length of the paper; leaving an inch at the bottom without filling. I roll it up like a flauta or a cigar. Then I fold up the inch at the bottom (the part without filling) like a flap. That keeps it from dripping while I eat it. I usually make them as I eat them. If I were going to prepare some ahead I would pack them tightly in a plastic bag and put a rubber band around the bag to keep them from uncoiling until I was ready to eat. If you have a better method, Debs and I would love to hear about it!

Last night I cut up an onion grilling 2/3 of it for my son and myself, and giving the other 1/3 to my husband raw. This is the implementation of the Subway Compromise that we developed on vacation.

For years - long before I knew about the BTD - my husband loved to eat at Subway and I hated it. I didn't know why, but I did. As I read about the Type O and Type A diets, it made sense. Subway sandwiches are mostly grain and condiments; there is very little meat. When I (Type O) ate a Subway sandwich I felt bloated, but not satisfied. When my husband (Type A) eats a Subway sandwich he feels good about the grain, he likes the variety of condiments, and his stomach is not overwhelmed by the little bit of turkey. After I started the BTD, I totally refused to go to Subway until they came out with their "make any sub a salad" meal. They still just give me a little meat, but at least it is sitting on a mound of lettuce, rather than a gob of bread.

With that as background, on one of our vacation travel days my husband wanted to stop at a Subway. He began to ask serious questions about the difference between Type A and Type O. I think it is the first time he really tried to understand the diets. When we found a Subway, he wanted me to pick which condiments would be the best for him. Lettuce was good, tomato was not - he was disappointed but agreeable. Type As choose green olives over black. Cucumber is ok, but no pickles - that was upsetting. Onions are beneficial.

"Now, wait a minute," he said. "If I eat raw onions, you won't kiss me!" He had me in a corner. He is willing to give up tomato and pickles - am I willing to kiss onion breath? I am. It is the Subway Compromise of 2004, and I will honor it.

Things I miss about Colorado: views of the mountains, cool temperatures (it's been 106 at home today), hiking, slower pace of life.

Things I missed while we were on vacation: vegetables!!!

I've already been to the store. I bought parsnips, okra, butternut squash, kohlrabi, turnip greens, asparagus, and Swiss chard. I never realized how few vegetables are served in restaurants until this vacation. Salad is plentiful - that's good. Broccoli is available, as are onions. But when restaurants say "vegetables" they mostly seem to mean potatoes, corn, and rice.

Salad bars seem to offer lots of choices, but even they aren't ideal. Between avoids like kidney beans, cucumbers, & alfalfa sprouts, fad foods like pasta salads, and "dessert salads" like banana pudding; I feel like I'm walking through a mine field.

I remember when cafeterias served a huge variety of vegetables, but cafeterias are out of style these days. It wasn't many years ago that "home style" restaurants were popular and served dinners that included 2 or 3 vegetables from a long list of choices. One of that type restaurant is still near our home, but none were open in Estes Park. Chinese restaurants serve lots of vegetables, but MSG is always a threat and our son is extremely sensitive.

So as much as I miss the mountains, I'm glad to be back in my own kitchen preparing beneficial vegetables.

I also missed swimming laps. It will be really good to get back in the pool - especially on these hot August days.

Today was a long travel day. We walked around the rim and down into the crater of the volcano at Capulin National Monument. The 1.5 mile trail was a good way to stretch our legs, and experience geography at the same time.

As I fixed lunch on the fly, I commented that I had bought fewer chips and cookies than ever before on a vacation. I left home with one bag of chips. When it was gone, I bought another bag, but it was still half full as we traveled home. The same was true with cookies. The cheese cake was the only dessert any of us had at a restaurant. Nonetheless my husband and kids only ate a bag and a half of cookies in a week. "I can remember when you guys would put away a whole bag of chips during a movie," I teased. "I can remember other vacations when I was at the store buying cookies every other day. What happened?"

My son said that I made sandwiches different this year. In the past when I gave him and his dad the same amount of meat, he was still hungry so he filled up on chips. This year I piled the meat on his sandwich, and it satisfied him. I realized I had still been at the store every other day but instead of cookies and chips, I had been buying fruit! Everyone had been happy snacking on cherries, dried fruit, nuts, protein bars and carrots.

We stopped at Arbys to pick up dinner. This wasn't anyone's first choice, but it was the only thing available at the time we were hungry. I got a side salad and a regular roast beef sandwich, discarding the bun as usual. The salad was a wonderful surprise: lots of mixed greens and other vegetables. Frankly, it was better than the salads in some of the expensive restaurants. My son was happy with one of the giant roast beef sandwiches. My daughter also got a salad. My husband spent a lot of time looking for something good for Type A, and settled on a turkey sandwich. Then he upgraded to a value meal with curly spicy fries. A couple of hours later he muttered, "Drat that diet." I asked what was the matter. "Now that you have me on that diet, I can't eat bad foods without feeling it," he said. "I have heart burn from those fries. They never used to bother me before this diet." I said, "It's not that the diet makes you feel bad. It's that you were used to a low level of feeling bad all the time. Now, you're used to feeling better. So you notice when you eat something that doesn't agree with you." It was a revelation.