11/12

Ugh. Yeah. November. I don't know why I've been so stressed lately. There's nothing particularly horrible going on in my life right now (C is all caught up on homework; Grandpa has been released from the hospital into a nursing home). Just drew the short straw in the brain chemistry lotto, I guess. Or maybe it's the crazy perimenopause hormones. Or pre-holiday stuff. Or I'm just a whiner. Or all of the above.

Anyway, here's a bunch of random for your Tuesday:

I'm reading Tovar Cerulli's The Mindful Carnivore and I like it very much. I picked it up (on Kindle, so figuratively speaking) because the blurb described a philosophical/culinary journey much like my own: grew up fishing and eating meat, became vegetarian for ethical reasons in early adulthood, suffered health problems as a result, returned to eating meat but in a more conscious/responsible way. In Cerulli's case he went the extra step of learning how to hunt, which I have not done, but we do eat game when we can get it and I feel it's a more ethical choice than CAFO meat. So yeah. Interesting. I will try to post a more detailed review when I've finished it.

(Related: I read this article yesterday in the November issue of Whole Living and found it so interesting that the author feels weirdly apologetic about her vegetarianism, because I've always felt the same way about the fact that I have to eat meat. And that, you know, I LIKE MEAT.)

(Also related: I have this shirt but I feel weird about wearing it in public, especially if I know kids will be around. I do not want you to have to explain that to your young children, fellow parents. YOU'RE WELCOME.)

(Anyway....)

I've started doing cross-stitch again, because I'm 80. Yeah. I don't know. For some reason my hands hate me when I try to do crochet and even knitting now, but I can hold a frame and a needle just fine. It's been years and years since I did any cross-stitch and apparently the done thing now is to do half-crosses across a line and then go back the other way to fill them in, but I don't like that. I like to make one complete X and move on to the next one. So that's what I'm doing. You are fascinated by this, I can tell.

I can never be in a bad mood while listening to this song. I think it's the horns.

So far my November submissions to the habit blog's flickr pool have been featured on the blog three times: on November 8, 10 and 11. This makes me happy.

Sparkpeople tells me that I've managed to maintain my weight loss for 8 weeks now, which I find remarkable. Much like I didn't expect to actually lose the weight in the first place, I didn't expect to keep it off, either. I've kept my eating habits pretty much the same as when I was trying to lose but I have not worked out as much. I barely worked out at all for the entire month of October, in fact, which is probably why November fell on my head like a ton of bricks. So, I am back in the saddle now: exercising vigorously at least three days a week and eating more elk burgers to compensate. It works for me.

It's cold here now. Legitimately cold, not just Texas cold. My cooking mojo is returning and my Thanksgiving menu is set.

But I'm not quite ready to talk about Christmas. If that's okay with you.