Day 360

It’s Friday. End of the week. One more weekend until classes start on Monday.

Been really, really cold here and this is our first winter in the new house so we are adjusting to it as we do a bit of fine tuning to systems. Supposed to be 16 here tonight, and it’s been no higher than about 30 all day. Do have some issues with hot water. Both the guest house and the main house (still feels funny to call an 1100 square foot house the “main” house) have on-demand water heaters, the guest an electric one, the main one is propane. The issue is that the main one is apparently frozen on the hot water side at the moment. Hope all is okay – and it probably is – but won’t know until it warms some on Monday or so. Assuming all is okay, then I’ll probably look in to putting a heater strip on the main one for days like these – of which there really aren’t many.

The original house here was a small cottagy place and we ended up tearing it down (all but the foundation and fireplace) and completely re-doing it. Actually had to cut the fireplace loose from the floor to get the foundation leveled as there was a three inch drop across the floor from the old kitchen to the side wall – but that is another story.

Went into town to a faculty meeting – we have the same thing at the start of every semester – and it was essentially the same old, same old. Some busy work, a little that was important, but essentially meeting the requirements of the accrediting agency that validates the university periodically. This is the year, by the way, that they are on campus to recertify the school, so everyone is a little wiggy about it.

Had a pretty good breakfast of simply Cheerios (simple and oats, which is always good cholesterol-wise and all) in no fat milk and some OJ. Really helped get through the morning. Surprising.

Lunch was some sort of pseudo-Mexican/Italian thing that the school had for us. Decent bread (if you’ve been reading, you know I love bread – any kind), and what looked like chicken as a cross between fajitas and chicken alfredo, only with a less good sauce and also not grilled. I filled up on the salad and all was okay. Tea was pretty good, and it usually isn’t.

Our daughter is still here (until tomorrow), so dinner was at her favorite place in a nearby town (again, nearby here is about 15 miles). A great self-trained chef owns the place and he is always creative. They have the best Caesar’s salad I’ve ever eaten anywhere, so I had salad twice today. Never, ever thought I’d say that. Not in a million years. Maybe two.

Forgot to mention that yesterday that in addition to the V-8 I try to choke down I had some weird organic green drink that my wife found to try and up my daily green consumption. It is somewhere between not too bad and bad, but nothing I’d drink on purpose for the most part, though I likely will as we experiment with additions to it to try and make it more palatable. At the moment, it tastes like grass with dirt in it. It’s not nearly so bad as wheatgrass, but it’s nothing special either. We used to make a decent green drink with the juicer I can’t find, and that will likely replace this when I do find it. I just thought I didn’t like spinach. By comparison, it’s wonderful.

Part of what I’m trying really hard to not do is make this all weird. I think the closer to some sort of “normal” I can make this whole trip the more likely it will be easy to keep up and to become a lifestyle change. Fewer calories, good choices, a conscious switch to as much organic as possible, good portion sizing – all that sort of thing. Stuff that is easy to keep up after the year is over. The point is to keep going and be healthy.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been less tempted to do any snacking at night, which I find a tad strange at the moment as I though that would be more of an issue. Perhaps it’s the eating more often or that I now eat breakfast (okay, most of the time). Don’t know, but whatever it is, I like it. I have discovered - through paying a lot more attention to food and the whole eating process – that I sometimes eat simply because I’m bored. When I’m not really hungry, I still like to eat, but eating like that is a serious mistake and a great way to get fat. Must be true, or I wouldn’t be blogging.

I hope someone – at least one other person who wants to be thinner (or who needs to be) – is reading this as it is a journey of discovery and change and I’d like to know maybe someone else is along for the ride too and maybe even trying to sort out their issues with weight too. When I was in high school, I did some pretty serious weight-lifting for a while and the more I think about it the more I think it was self-esteem issue driven. I’m 6’-1” and was then, and shouldn’t have felt at all inadequate, but I think I did, at least for a while. The kid who lived next door when I was growing up was always bigger, and I think that affected the way I looked at everything. Perhaps I thought I needed to be bigger, so I was more capable – or something. Wish I’d done the grad work I planned in psychology, as it would make all this a lot easier to figure out.

As it is, I went another direction (actually, many other directions – it’s a Mensa look-a-bird sort of thing), so if I ramble some, keep in mind I am a writer and it’s often late when I get a chance to work on the blog. So, that said, I guess it’s good night.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA