#36: I'd Like You to Meet My Friend MEAT.

WHATWHAT!!! 


This has been a really good week. 


1) There are officially 2 days left in this hell-month of no meat. 
2) I have had a professionally exhausting, yet rewarding week with a couple of huge firsts. 

• We graduated our first Gateway class in Bastrop, a small city east of Austin that has been known most recently as destroyed by wildfires. Their residents are in great need of workforce development training opportunities and it felt so good to assist with that. 
• We are 38 hours from the opening of our first Online Auction to raise money for the Skillpoint Alliance programs. This event has taken many hands, and lots of work. But we are almost done. IT's a really cool combination of items to bid on from April 30-May16: www.biddingforgood.com/SkillpointAlliance
• We are 80% of the way thru our very first grant proposal to the Department of Labor. Aside from asking for almost $1.1 Million, DOL grant are incredibly complex and lengthy. 
• I just realized that next week we will both submit that grant and start the Auction making next week a lot of fun to look forward to too. 

3) I have had a really fun week with The Boy. It isn't just the fun, tho; it's the partnership. It was a long week for me, with long hours each night (and a headache Monday-Wednesday) and he picked up all the dinner/kid slack that I usually handle. Add to that some great conversation, big laughs and real realness. GREAT. 

4) I have dates scheduled with The Bestie and Mrs. Favorite for May. 

5) I cheated on my Challenge, eating one-bite of chicken. It was good, I don't feel bad in the least, and it was on day 25 of this Challenge, so WHATEVS!

6) The kids are having good weeks with behavior, attitude, school, grades, music, sports. 

So, let's get back to the most important 2 items on here: #1 and ... nope, at this point only #1 matters to me at all. 

I love veggies. I love eggs.

Oh, wait, that reminds me. This week I got into a ridiculous debate about whether eggs are meat. Eggs. So, I understand they come FROM a meat-maker. I understand that if allowed to develop they BECOME a meat-maker. But, in their form as an egg, they are EGGS. Why is this complicated? And don't even get me started on The Nephew who chimed into the debate to suggest that they were DAIRY. (Which, by the by, I Googled and apparently quite a few other people think eggs are dairy, not to mention those who think they are meat. COME. ON.) This debate, of course, was fueled by someone trying to convince me that I wasn't allowed to eat them in April. After the string of expletives they got from me, I went about explaining how dumb they are. That, apparently, is NOT an effective argument point. 

Back to the point I was making ...

I love fruit. I love peanut butter. I "like significantly" tofu. I "like moderately" grains. 

But I miss meat. 

Meat and I have big plans in May. BIG PLANS!!!!

I was surfing the internet looking for pictures of meat, as we all do. And I found my first official meal in May:

Who's with me??

But seriously, I have found quite a few new friends on the WorldWideWeb. Here are some that I'd like you to MEAT: 

In T minus 52 hours, I plan to introduce myself. In fact, my alarm is set for midnight May 1, just so I can eat. 

What I have failed to mention is the hell I've created for myself in May.  My May Challenge is "No Spending Outside of Bills & Necessities." This means that unless other people take me out to eat, I will have to make everything I eat in May. I mean, there are plenty of other issues I'm going to have with the May Challenge, but that's what the May blog entries are for. Today, I'm solely focused on the fact that I won't be able to go out for a yummy steak dinner or a juicy burger. There will be no trip to Fogo de Chao or going out for Chicken n Waffles. 

Better break out and dust off all the meat-making cookbooks. 

By the way, if you're looking for something else almost as awesome to read at this blog, check out averycan.blogspot.com.  These parents are the epitome of embracing life no matter what it brings and focusing on living fully. Prayers and awe for them. 

#35: The Meaning Of April

I'm currently suffering from a burst of energy. 


Suffering? Yep. 


I say that because yesterday was super-low energy so today I'm making up for it in droves. I've been up since 5am - on a Saturday - for no reason, except that I couldn't sleep. Since being up, I've washed the dishes by hand - because that's how I prefer to; cleaned out the fridge - which I like to do weekly but don't often have the time/energy to lately; started the beans for tonight's dinner - something I've thought about doing for at least the past 5 days and forgotten every morning; made coffee and oatmeal - eating breakfast is one of the biggest challenges that I have; cleaned up the kitchen table - which had been acting as the family storage center the past couple of days; caught up on some work so tomorrow is easier; and since 7, when she got up, have been hanging out with Kira. 


I'm not sure why I'm having so much energy expect maybe that I got 6 hours of sleep, when I usually average 4-5 and that yesterday I exerted very little energy because of my mood. 

Yesterday was a harder day for me. I have developed some anxiety-issues over the past couple of years and while I've learned some great coping mechanisms, they don't eliminate the anxiety, they diminish its control on me.  Regardless of my coping, however, I still have to manage to get thru the day. Things like large crowds, small talk, having patience and sometimes just talking to people is difficult. Yesterday everything was harder, but I got thru it. And today I'm better. 


It always happens like that. Usually. Most of the time. I mean ... occasionally I have two bad days in a row, but that's not my norm. And today I'm good so ... good. 


Thinking specifically about food, I'm wondering if I need to do some research about protein and meat and it's effect on our mentalities. I have definitely spent much of the last 22 days feeling lower than I do generally. A lot of that I attribute to energy levels, but it's been crossing my mind again and again that maybe it also has to do with my nutrition. Yesterday I had a moment that highlighted this suspicion:


My nephew has a basketball tournament in town this weekend, so while that means we have 5 games to watch over the two days, it also means that in between the games we can live our life. The weather was gorgeous and we had a 5 hour break between games 2 & 3 so we went to eat. We picked a place I hadn't been to because I'd heard talk of it's salad bar. 


[[Pause for a moment of silence.]]


Never thought I'd be saying those words. I'm laughing at myself right now because when in the world did I think I'd be seeking out restaurants that had "great salad bars?" 

As I was saying ... I ate a huge, and yummy, salad filled with veggie-goodness. As full as it made me, it was NOT helping with my mood at all. On my way up for a second bowl of salad I passed a guy who was eating cottage cheeses, sesame sticks and 5 hard boiled eggs. While I'm not crazy enough to eat 5, I realized I probably need protein. So one hard-boiled egg later, better mood. Hmmm ... I might be on to something here. 


Normally, no matter how low I am, food helps. When my blood sugar gets low I really can't manage anything very well. Most of that is because I have horrible eating habits. Not horrible habits like eating junk food and fast food and crap food as much as horrible habits like not eating. I will go all day without food and then it's 6pm and I'm starving and I 1) have no patience or tolerance or decision making ability and 2) cannot wait for cooking - MUST. EAT. NOW. So, my body spends 75% of the day in starvation mode and storing everything - even water - as fat in case I never feed myself again. And then in the last 4 hours of being awake, and the last hour where I'm supposed to be healthily ingesting food, I fill it with whatever I can eat quickly and easily.  


So, while I've thought for a long time that it was just any food that I needed and then I'd see an instant increase to my blood sugar and mood, I now a questioning whether what it really is is that my body needs protein. And usually when I eat, I love to have protein whether in the form of meat, cheese, PB. But since I'm cutting out meat and trying to limit my cheese and PB for bowel and fat reasons, I've been eating mostly fruit and veggies and some grains. None of that is helpful to my energy or mood, really. 

This is PROTEIN in scientific imaging.

See? It might have taken 22 days -- maybe due to the "low protein = low brain power" issue -- but I think I've found some really-good "good" in this challenge. Up until this point in the April Challenge, I've been thinking that most of the "good" was that I was seeing less need for meat and noticing that I really don't miss all meat so when I'm eating it again, I may be more selective. Now I'm thinking I may have found something that will have life-time benefits. 


Plus, it gives me something new to obsessively research. And if you've followed this blog at all, you know that obsessive research is one of my favorite compulsions of all!!