#231 Nomad Diary. 22-28 March 2025. Darrell's Dad in Rehab. We Are in an Airbnb in Little Elm Until March 31st. Two of Our Favorite Recipes for Now: Black Beans and Oat-Barley Pancakes.

 

Beautiful Sunrise Seen From Our Airbnb Patio in Little Elm, Texas

Call with Son Eric and Grandkids Owen and Esther. Oh, Those Smiles!

Saturday. 22.- Monday. 24. With Darrell’s Dad moved out of the hospital and into a rehab facility, there is a bit of a transition in schedules and focus for him. He is a complicated patient. He’s had 2 strokes, a heart attack and a broken leg. On top of that he has dementia. He’s 91 and he’s sleeping most of the time. It’s hard to tell how much of his sleeping is because of the medications that he is given which are mostly for his pain. When he is awake for short amounts of time, he is at times conversational. Most of the time he is restless and will say he’s in pain or ask for his wife by name. Shirley is attentive to him and calms him with her instructions. She will spend as many hours as she can at his side. She is close to turning 91, but she is fragile in her ways. She cannot walk but a step or two holding onto something. She uses a foldable wheelchair to get from place to place. She also has very dim eyesight. She remains as independent as possible and is quite capable in caring for her family and conversations. She would love to do more than she can do, but she doesn’t complain. She is grateful to her family and friends for all of their help towards her. 

Monday night Darrell cooked chili for dinner. He has come up with his own recipe that is quite delicious. I don’t eat tomatoes and he makes the bean and beef dish without using the traditional ingredient of tomatoes. He then chops a lot of fresh tomatoes to put into each serving bowl (except mine) and ladle the chili on top of the fresh tomatoes. Everyone who has tried it has enjoyed this chili. We also have other toppings for the chili including: green onions, hot peppers, hot sauce, low fat sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese and tortilla chips. We cook the black beans from dry and add to the chili. Most of the time we eat just our black beans meatless with toppings.

Amazing Wildflower Bloom Near Lewisville Lake, Texas

Indian Paintbrush Wildflower with Lewisville Lake in Background

A Bunch of Indian Paintbrush Wildflowers 

Tiny Wildflowers on Our Walk to the Lakeside

Tuesday. 25. Today is our ab routine workout. It’s one of our tougher exercise routines. I’m always happier once I get through the hard workout because it’s done for another week! Lol! Darrell is making oat and barley pancakes today! Darrell stayed home to prepare for teaching his 2pm online Bible class. I took off to get his Mom over to the rehab with Dad. Cyndy cooked a complete roast beef dinner tonight. I picked some wildflowers in our airbnb lot next to the lake. They were wilting when I put them into a cup of water. When we came back in the evening they were beautiful and revived! 

Wednesday 26. Today we left the house by 9:20 am and got back around 9pm. We were both tired. I cannot even understand how Mom at age 90, soon to be 91, goes and goes all day. She also does need recovery though. I made dinner at Cyndy’s house today. Darrell worked on getting the Door ramp working for Cyndy, but it still has at least one piece to arrive and install. She will have to complete that herself next week. As it is now, Mom steps up out of her wheel chair and steps across the threshold, then waits as we wheel the chair into place for her to sit down into it again. Dad wasn’t doing as well today as yesterday. He did manage to eat at least one meal fed to him by Mom. He struggled to sit on the side of the bed with his therapist’s help. Sometimes he has a regular conversation and other times he isn’t able. These times are minutes a day as he is sleeping fitfully or heavy. He is medicated during the day, and this could keep him sleeping too. Darrell also worked all day in Cyndy’s garage beginning to organize some of her tool boxes and tools that have been neglected for a while. At bedtime I took the time to do stretches with my therapy ball. Darrell does crosswords and reads out the clues for me. Sometimes I get them! Lol. I have improved through the years. Historically I am awful at crosswords! Lol. I can fill out 70% of the puzzle with wrong answers! Having electronic puzzles allows him to check answers and adjust as often as he wants now.

Thursday. 27. We woke up at 4:30am today and were out of bed by 5:30 for our morning exercise routine. It feels so wonderful to stretch and breathe and get awake for this day.  My wildflowers are still happy in their cup of water. I’ve played a little on most days with my watercolors. Mostly I’m getting used to the brushes and the shapes and also the use of water while diluting the colors. I think I’ll be in this mode for quite a while, and that’s ok. Today Mom has a morning doctor appointment and again will go to the rehab all day with Dad. He relaxes with her voice and coaching. He also eats better for her than for anyone. Darrell went on his own to take Mom around and have lunch with her. He left me here for my ‘day off’. I spend my first hour wandering around. Lol. I took a walk down to our Airbnb's lakeside beach. I picked some more Indian Paintbrush flowers, as I learned the name from a local friend. I walked to the end of our long gravel road and back to the house. I had a snack, changed the laundry, and felt productive. 

Darrell's Mom and Dad on the 3rd day at the Rehab in Corinth, Texas.

Friday. 28. Today Darrell and I slept in until 6:30! That was late for us and it felt great! Lol. We had exercise and breakfast finished by 8:30. Around 9:30 Darrell called his Mom to see when she wanted to go see Dad at the Rehab. She said after lunch today. We sat outside on our patio for much of the morning. The temperature was pleasant and we were each reading and having conversation too. We fixed our lunches then drove over to Mom by about 12:30. We took her to the rehab. Dad was sitting in a wheel chair and was in the dining room. He didn’t understand what was going on because he’s like this often with his dementia.  Mom was able to try to get him to eat, but he was resistant to eating. She got him back to his room with help. She then stayed there until Kylie picked her up for dinner about 5pm. During the afternoon Darrell wanted to find a new pair of pants. He had read a description and review on Kuhl pants Renegade style. It took us a bit of searching to find them, but we did it. We went to a huge store called Scheels. It was like walking into a mall, but it was only one store! There were a lot of people working in the store and wearing the employee uniform. The Kuhl clothes for men were in a dedicated section. They had several styles of pants to look through and plenty of sizes. Darrell selected 4 pairs and we found the changing rooms. He tried on each pair. He decided to buy two pair. He went down in size from a 38 to a 36 waist since losing 20 pounds in the last few months. We went back to Cyndy’s house. Darrell finished installing the ramps that had come in the mail. I cooked shrimp stirfry with items from Cyndy’s freezer, after texting with her. We had dinner with Mom and Kylie, but left before Cyndy arrived home from work. 

Nomad Notes: On our higher protein diet, we have continued to cook black beans weekly when we are living somewhere for a week. And Darrell makes oat-barley pancakes often. These two meals: beans and pancakes, are some of our favorites right now. We haven’t gotten tired of either of them. I will share the recipes here.  In this week, we have each experienced hunger and craving for certain foods. Our hunger comes at different times and in different ways. We usually satisfy it with a protein-fiber snack and a cup of hot tea with some skim milk added. We’ve each been at a plateau. Darrell is looking to lose more weight. My weight has been quite stable within 3 pounds. I wonder about my low weight because I don’t know what that is for me. I’m about as low as I have ever been and this weight is maintaining. Some of the issues I’ve faced are feeling full and not snacking as a different way of experiencing life. I’m not looking for the next snack and my meals are set to satisfy for hours. Letting go of how I used to live, and living in this moment and time now. That’s my big theme of being a nomad. My life changes often with moves from place to place. 

Black Beans in Instant Pot. Darrell’s recipe.

Put into Instant Pot

2 cups dry black beans (12-16 ounces), rinse and sort.

2 Bay leaves

1 Bell Pepper, chopped

2 Large size chicken Bouillon, enough for 4 cups.

1 large carrot, sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

½ large onion, chopped

2 teaspoons salt

6 cups water

Set the Instant Pot to 2 hour (120 minutes) high pressure, bean setting. 

Serve beans with low fat sour cream or plain greek yogurt, shredded cheese, chopped green onions, chopped fresh tomatoes, tortilla chips. Whatever you like. We also use these to make chili with lean beef. 

Pancake recipe (enough for 4 people) ala Darrell Hamilton

1.5 cups flour – nearly any kind. Gluten free works as long as it isn’t heavily tapioca.

Current favorite is 1 cup Oat flour with 0.5 cup Barley flour

3 tsp baking soda (less soda if using self rising flour)

Pinch of salt (optional)

3 eggs

0.25 cups olive oil

0.5 cup water

1 cup Greek Yogurt

– must be the good kind that is only milk products and bacteria, ANY additions in the yogurt that usually are used to make it "lite" have the effect of making the batter sticky. It will stick to even the best non-stick pan. Buttermilk can substitute for Yogurt and Water. Sour Cream or regular yogurt can substitute for Greek yogurt, but it has a different flavor. Substitutions may require a different amount of water.

Optional ingredients (one, both or none)

1 tbsp molasses

1+ tsp cinnamon

Optional fruit (pick only one)

1 mashed banana

1 cup frozen blueberries

1 cup applesauce

1 cup -ish shredded apple including peelings.

1 cup -ish shredded pear including peelings.

For slightly better results, blend the liquid ingredients independent of the dry and then mix the two. Otherwise blend everything until just smooth and then add the fruit. Frozen blueberries have to be added by scattering over the batter and blending in as needed. If dumped at once they clump together.

Depending on what you add, the batter may be a bit thick. Usually the fruit thins it out enough. If not adding fruit, you may need to add a little more buttermilk or water. Usually not more than a tbsp of water or a quarter cup more buttermilk. The goal is to have a batter that is slightly thick. It should pour out of the ladle but not be runny. When putting on a hot griddle, it should spread slightly.

Gluten free flour mix

"Buckwheat Pancakes"

6 parts rice flour

2 parts white buckwheat flour

2 parts tapioca flour

1 part coconut flour (or cornmeal)

Even though this has buckwheat, the white buckwheat does not have a strong flavor. The rice flour can be whole grain or white. The coconut gives it a little texture. I believe corn meal will do the same thing if coconut is not desirable.

"Barley Oat Pancakes"

2 parts Oat flour

1 part Barley flour

It is amazing how well this works. It has a slightly nutty flavor. The pancakes look darker – as if it was whole wheat flour.

Added by Sherry: Serve with real Maple Syrup, butter if you like. I like Crofter's Organic Wild Blueberry Preserves. Fresh fruit, toasted nuts, Cottage cheese, flavored Skyr or Greek yogurt, Cinnamon, hot coffee in a real mug (lol).