Rob has been feeling pretty good. In the last blog I wrote a week ago, I told you about our "boring" day and how we really wanted to get out of the house because we felt like we'd been stuck there for too long. Well, we were able to get out of the house last Friday and go for a beautiful country drive to the Sandhills region of our beautiful state. We chose to go to Southern Pines. Both Rob and I had never been there. I'd been close to there before, on a short day trip to nearby Pinehurst, home of the famous PGA tour golf course, and the annual NC Open Water Swim Championships! You can take a guess as to why I went there. Okay, I'll give you a hint: it had nothing to do with golf!
As we left town, we decided to eat lunch at the new restaurant down the street from our house. It's called Fat Joe's.
It just opened up a week ago, after the building it's in sat vacant for 1.5 years. The old restaurant was our favorite, most authentic, most yummy Mexican food ever - Los Portales. So authentic it was, that sometimes the lady taking our order at the window would write down our total "$8.75" and then point to it, because she didn't know how to say "Your total is eight seventy-five". It was so good that it was almost dangerous to have it 0.2 miles from our house. I had to restrain myself on numerous occasions to NOT eat it, or else I might be 300 pounds right now! Well, the food at Fat Joe's did not disappoint us. It was delicious! Here's a pic of Rob eating the restaurant's signature gyro. Yum!
After lunch, it was time to get driving! Total mileage to Southern Pines is only 75. The drive was beautiful and the weather was gorgeous. Rob slept about half of the way there, but I didn't wake him as I know he needs his rest and recovery. In addition to rest, he also needs a little bit of exercise every day, and what better way to take in a little bit of exercise than to do so by walking around a quaint tourist-trap town like Southern Pines! We browsed around in a pottery studio, a candle shop, a super posh baby/child boutique ($54 pink suede Mary Jane's for our little girl? I think not! But man, were they ever cute!) and finally, a Christian bookstore that sold homemade fudge and that also housed a mish-mash museum they called The Creation Museum/Antique Tool Museum/NC Taxidermy Hall of Fame Museum. It was very interesting! Here is a slideshow of the small handful of pictures I took while visiting:
After exiting the museum, we bought a quarter pound of homemade fudge. Yes, we know it's chock full of sugar, probably tons of it. But we didn't eat it all at one sitting! We know we have to watch Rob's sugar intake since one of his anti-rejection drugs causes higher than normal blood sugar anyway. But if Rob does choose to eat something really sugary, it's best for him to just walk it off with a little exercise. So we continued walking around the shopping/downtown area of town. We stopped in an outdoor/canoe/kayak store and then it was time to head home. Southern Pines rolls up their sidewalks at 5pm sharp!
To further enjoy the beautiful drive, we took the long way home through Asheboro, and then took Highway 64 east to Pittsboro, and finally, 15-501 north home to Durham. All in all, it was a lovely day!
The next day (Saturday), Rob caught the cooking bug. He wanted to cook an Italian style dinner, and boy did he ever! It was delightfully yummy. We had Spicy Italian Pork Cutlets for the main course. Mmmmm. The meal contained the most sodium that Rob has eaten in a good long while. Now that Rob's kidney is working, it can filter out excess sodium, potassium, and other minerals. Now that doesn't mean Rob can go out and eat hog-wild, trying to consume as much sodium as possible. Because like all humans do, we retain water when we eat too much sodium, and it makes the kidney work harder at regulating the blood pressure. And that's not what we want Rob's kidney to do! We are still on a limited renal diet, which limits sodium, potassium and other things. But he is allowed to start adding Calcium back into his diet, which is a wonderful addition. In fact, the labs we got back yesterday actually showed his calcium to be a little on the low side, so the doctor told us to add a little more calcium in. Rob got a little twinkle in his eye when she said that. I know he was thinking - "YES! More cheese please!" Rob is a bonafide cheese fanatic. I think he could live on cheese quesadillas if given the opportunity! But alas, his mean wife will not let him! So I'm going to try to get him to drink more almond milk and eat a low-fat, low-sugar yogurt everyday.
Yesterday, we went for a walk at Historic Ayr Mount in nearby Hillsborough. What a beautiful place! Here is a picture of the historic house.
The house is situated on more than 250 rolling acres along the Eno River. There is a 1-mile trail around the house called "Poet's Walk". We walked the loop and had so much fun! But it is a difficult trail for us both, since Rob is recovering from major surgery and I am just heavy/pregnant and out of shape, so we vowed that we weren't going to try this trail again for a while! We'll stick to the flatter trails in the area!Well that about sums up the highlights of the past week in the Newton household. Until next time...
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