Cold-brewed Chai Coffee.

Rocking the vintage 90s floral and chemistry mug!

I'm still pretty dependent upon my coffee to get through the day. I have given up coffee creamer because of all the sugar in it. I have given up on the mocha coffee mixes, because of sugar. I'm pretty sure that I am going to have to give up mulled cider for the same reasons. As such, I have pulled out my french press and I'm cold brewing coffee. For some reason, I can drink cold brewed coffee black with out any problem.

Today, I am drinking chai coffee. This did not involve adding a tea bag of chai spiced tea to the pot. In the press with the coffee grounds, I added 6 cardamom pods lightly crushed, a 1/4 teaspoon of garam marsala, and a generous pinch of anise. (If you are keeping score, you may recall I have a loathing for the flavor of black licorice, which is derived from anise.) I then filled the press with cold water and let it steep over night.

In the morning, viola! Cold coffee with some flavor. I forgot how well cardamom plays with coffee. I was surprised to find that the anise added a floral note that wasn't overly sweet. That cloying sweetness has always been my problem with licorice.

On the health front, I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing. My dosage of metformin has been doubled, again, because of how high my blood sugar numbers are. I've been told that the diet I have been following is really healthy for someone with diabetes and given a few suggestions on how to improve it when I was on the phone with the care coordinator for my doctor's office. She said that my efforts to work on daily exercise and yoga can only help. She actually said that she was impressed with how much I was doing before the diabetes diagnosis and that it was likely the reason why I wasn't worse off.

I got a gentle 'it may be your pancreas can't produce enough insulin' when I inquired if there was anything more I could do. I call that a soft 'if you don't respond to the metformin, we're going to have to give you insulin because your insurance company are dicks and not approving the medication we wanted you on to begin with.' I am resigned to this and realize that the damage to my pancreas is due to being on multiple antipsychotic medications for the last eight years. (At various times on two different ones at the same time.) Put that together with established insulin resistance and gestational pre-diabetes, it was just a time bomb.

Did yoga today before the weather hit. I think this was a good thing because my joints are really not happy right now. I did my walking in the apartment because it's 31 degrees F out there. As I was walking, I did my arm exercises with the super light free weights we've got. Tomorrow, I'll be wearing the ankle weights as I walk indoors. Now I'm watching the kids 'clean' as I type this and debate just how exactly I'm going to manage dinner. It's not entirely a case of making three meals for dinner, but it feels like that. Yay anxiety.