Day 362

Hey, again. I’m back and will be for another eleven and a half months plus some odd more days.

I woke up this morning determined to eat breakfast and make it a part of every day. After a quick refrigerator/pantry scan, breakfast was a couple of pieces of toast made with some homemade wheat bread from one of the local organic bakeries. Not particularly creative, but on very good bread, sliced thin, with organic peanut butter. My wife has eaten peanut butter for years as a part of most breakfasts, and there are actually few foods that are as complete and as good as regular old peanut butter. It’s also quick, handy, and there is no way we are ever without it here. Ever.

Lunch was some leftover bean casserole from a relatively successful food experiment a few days ago, and while it wasn’t what I planned on (my wife fixed us both lunch before I realized it), it was surprisingly good. Worked out just fine.

I’ve also decided I probably need to do something mid-afternoon, and since I recently found a new apple to try – can’t remember the name - and at three times the cost of the standard delicious, I thought it would be exceptional as a snack. Nope. Good, juicy, but not really any better. Made a good mid-afternoon snack and I shared a little of it with the dog. I’ll likely go back to golden delicious as my apple of choice until I find something better.

Dinner tonight was fish – something one might think I’d like, considering where I have lived much of my life. But I don’t. I definitely don’t like any sort of shellfish either (shrimp, to me, is, and always ahs been, bait). I don’t like crab either. Even lobster doesn’t work for me. But, for the moment, I’ve found a fish I like okay, and had it last week and then again tonight. Paired it with a baked plain sweet potato and it worked okay for dinner. Not a lot, but enough. And I get the Omegas, which is important.

A side benefit of this trip is a lot more cooking at home now and not only is the portion size much smaller when we do them at home, the cost is much less too. American restaurants, for whatever reason, have been creeping portion size up to the point where it is ridiculous, and even though there are only two of us here, eating out can be expensive. We often share a dinner out and always have enough, and, as you must surely know by now, I ain’t some uber cutting-edge dainty little meal sort of little guy. I do appreciate the beauty of properly “plated” dishes, though six grains of rice with a seaweed wrapped entrée and some pretty sauce dotted around the plate just doesn’t do it for me.

Still haven’t found the juicer. We have a really good semi-commercial one that handles large volumes of fruits and vegetables quite well, but when we moved here about a year and a half ago it was packed up and I can’t for the life of me find it. Still stuff in the garage in boxes, so it should be there. My wife told me yesterday she wanted another Vita Mix for her birthday (coming up soon), so I need to get one ordered. We had one we used pretty often quite a while back, when we first got married, but it broke (don’t remember how or when).

Dr. Oz had an excellent show today where he talked about plaque buildup and how it was reversible with work. Glad to hear it. As I said, I lost my dad when he was six years younger than I am now, and he had heart issues for years before that. I did a heart scan a few years back to see where I stood and all was okay then. Sometimes I think about how young I still feel, and knowing he was younger than I am now really makes me sad. I watched mom live for almost twenty years without him and I’m not going to let that happen here. I’m already nine years older than my wife, and I’m going to do all I can to stay around as long as I can.

Going to add in the “eat nothing after seven” recommendation by Dr. Oz. Probably will be a pain in the butt to do, but can’t hurt and might help. At the moment it will be a bit of a problem, as my most “natural” personal rhythm is to go to bed at midnight and get up at seven or eight. It won’t be a problem in a few more days when I go back to my regular job and have to keep more normal American working guy type hours.

Hang in there if anyone is reading this. I’d feel a little weirded out talking to myself like this all the time if I wasn’t a writer and used to having imaginary friends.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA