I'm eating a vegetarian diet right now, working toward vegan although not totally for ethical reasons. I can't escape certain items altogether for various reasons: lack of access to vegan choices and price of said vegan items. But I have the choice to do what I can to get as close as I can. This is such a departure for me because I am an all or nothing type of person. Which is why diets don't seem to work for me. If I fail on one tiny aspect, I throw in the towel and it can be years before I have the wherewithall to try again.
This last time, when I lost 60 pounds and gained most of it back from stress eating, left me in failure mode. Never again, I said, will I set myself up like that again. Which makes me not inclined to view this as a diet, but as a choice. Yeah, I used to tell myself before that I wasn't "dieting," that I was choosing a lifestyle instead. I never believed that either.
But this time, I'm not being dogmatic about the whole thing. I know there will be times I won't have options about food and I'm going to choose the best choice I can under those circumstances. But in the meantime, I'm going to try to choose the healthiest things I can.
Zach is modifying his eating as well, but he will be eating meat a few times a week. At work he can't really bring in a meal so he's going to choose healthier choices from McSnacky's menu. At home he will eat lacto-ovo vegetarian. He's already feeling better, more energetic. I haven't noticed much of a difference for me yet, but I'm older and my metabolism is wackier than his.
So what is motivating me? This time it's me. I don't know what my future holds but I know that I am tired of being dependent on someone else. I want to have choices and as long as I am in this current state of health, I won't have them. Our insurance provides less and less each year and I need to wean myself from my dependency on medications as well. Not the ones I need, but the ones I'm taking because I'm obese and out of shape. They've become an enabler for me, keeping me from facing up to the things I need to do to get healthy. They don't make me healthy; they keep me from being more unhealthy. Big difference.
Another motivator for me is watching the Green channel. I'm not so much on being green as I am on being responsible. Money is always going to be tight for us and that motivates me a lot to do things that don't cost a lot but provide us with what we need. There was a Living with Ed marathon on the Green channel over New Year's and Tom actually watched it with me for a bit. Initially he was a bit defensive since he views environmentalists as a bit over-the-top, but this show changed his mind somewhat. Not to mention, it's funny. He gets ideas about how to improve our home but there isn't a lot of actual productivity that goes on there.
So another motivation for me is to get physically fit so I can do the things that need to be done here. I used to do that kind of thing all the time since I was a single parent and there was no one to do them for me. Not to mention I was an aviation mechanic in the Navy. I do know my way around tools. Or I used to.
So while I don't have "resolutions," per se, I do have goals. And another goal I have is to start working on this house. I've seen shows on HGTV where people fix their homes up to sell them and I can't help but wonder why they didn't have it like that so they could actually live in a nice home. That's what I want: to live in a nice home.
I'll be putting in applications soon for a part-time job and all that money will go toward fixing up the house. Well, that and the credit cards. I'm also going to de-clutter the house even if that means getting rid of stuff that has previously been sacrosanct but hasn't actually been out of a box for 13 years. Tom won't get rid of anything his family gives him because he's so afraid they'll be hurt, yet no one has even asked about this stuff in years and I'm pretty darn sure they've thrown out stuff we've given them when they no longer needed it.
Anyway...
I noticed a lot of people in blogland are going to be reading 52 books this year. My librarian laughed yesterday when I told her that. She said if I did that challenge I'd be done by March. Yeah, maybe. But I am going to keep track of what I'm reading this year. I don't go much for esoteric literature but I do go where my interests take me so we'll see what the year brings on that.
I've been wanting to learn Gaelic, too, but the only program the library has is on cassette tape and that's not really convenient. On the other hand, I have access to a lot of Spanish language stuff and that might be the better choice anyway. More useful and darned cheap.
I'm not jumping into things like I used to. All on fire and passionate and then burned out in weeks. I'm just making some changes that will be incremental and not over-burdening.
As far as knitting goes, I'm bored to tears with the shawl I'm knitting. It's a simple fern stitch pattern but I've been monogamous and as we all know, monogamy isn't my thing in knitting. I'm going to start on the beaded scarf kit I won from Joan a few months back. I won't be able to watch any dvds that require a lot of attention but I've got tons of stuff that I've pretty much memorized and can just listen to. And when that's done, I'll have to figure out something else.
I got rid of some of my stash last fall, mostly Red Heart stuff, but I still have lots of stuff that I'm not sure what to do with. I need to dig my books and mags out and maybe make a list. Not that I would stick to it, but at least it would give me some ideas.
I'm off to get things done today. Tom is going to his sister's house for sheepshead and I'm going to start cleaning. If I measure it out over the year it won't be so overwhelming. Plus, if he's home he'll be pulling stuff back out of the trash to keep.
TTFN
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