filed under: benjamin, lent

22 days ago

Isn’t going to happen. Every time I was awake today I thought “can I exercise now?” and every time the answer was “you don’t have time!” (Today was the first pediatrician visit for Benjamin, so it was a very full day. All was well, by the way.) I also feel like it’s somewhat crazy to try to stuff exercise into a schedule that is already insanely full, after I’ve failed so often to stuff exercise into my “normal” schedule. Plus, I figure that I’m getting a lot more exercise that I normally do, carrying a baby, running up and down stairs, doing lots of chores, etc. And raising a newborn seems to be a major exercise in self-discipline, so I think I’m going to just give myself credit for doing that (assuming I do exercise good self-discipline in this endeavor.)

Anyhow, it seemed too easy for me to just not exercise and also not publicly announce that plan, so I wanted to announce it here.

OK, done. Now on to the next item…

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filed under: benjamin, government, lent, life, politics

35 days ago

Just a few notes that I’ve been collecting, but that aren’t individually worth a blog post. I know it’s been a while since I blogged, but in spite of some prompting, my blogging rate remains inversely proportional to my living rate :)

Kristina found a horoscope for our baby. It will be fun to check it out in a few years and see if it is at all correct.

I found a great blog article about the real causes of terrorism and the mess we are making trying to fight it. Some new information there for me, but I’m hoping that you’ll read it – because the focus isn’t just on “what’s wrong with what we’re doing?” and instead is on “what should we be doing?” As always, people are the source of the problems, and “better people” are the appropriate solution. The politicians, though, seem focused more on how to look good than how to get the job done, so we end up reorganizing all these organizations, without ever kicking out the people at the top of them that are actually the problem. That’s something I have some first-hand experience with, so it rubs me the wrong way.

I also wanted to mention that I’m deeply saddened by the Supreme Court decision that corporations can buy elections. I don’t agree with the idea that corporations have “rights” like people do, and it makes me extremely sad to see how little shame our leaders about letting corporations run the country.

I’ve also been sad lately about Obama and his fiscal policy. I like, very much, that he seems to be taking his time to think through all the issues he faces, but I don’t like his attitude that “profits and bonuses are bad,” even if he was forced into that position. I also don’t like the size of his budget, even if it is very carefully crafted. I knew when I voted for him that I wouldn’t like his economic policies; I just wish that it had turned out that I was wrong :)

Also, my calendar reminded me that Lent is coming up soon. As I mentioned last year, my plan this year is to exercise. (Remember, my focus is self-discipline, not “giving things up.”) Of course, I’m about to have a baby, so this will be rather complicated. But I’ve been putting it off long enough, so I don’t feel like I have any leeway to put it off again. This year: exercise!

Speaking of the baby – it really does seem like it will be any day now. If you haven’t been following my twitter feed, here’s my latest one. Plus our due date is tomorrow.

For those of you wondering what the name will be – please trust us that we aren’t really settled on a name, ourselves. In fact, we got a new recommendation today that we are seriously considering. So, we’ll let everyone know just as soon as we decide – and that may not be until after he comes :)

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filed under: food, lent, life, religion, vegetarian

379 days ago

Happy Lent! (It started today.)

As I mentioned last year, I give up something for Lent each year. It’s not for religious reasons; the purpose is really just to strengthen my self-discipline, and Lent happens to be a convenient reminder to do it each year.

Two years ago I gave up beef. Last year I became vegetarian, and somehow I’ve managed to stick with it. (Almost a whole year, now!) So this year I’m giving up food entirely.

Er, no. Not really.

But it has been a little tough to figure out what to give up – there isn’t really anything in my life that I feel is excessive right now (except maybe work). But my goal isn’t really “give something up” – it is “improve self discipline,” so that leaves other options. The two that seem most needed, in fact, are “take vitamins” and “exercise.” Both are things I’ve wanted to do but haven’t had the discipline to actually carry out.

But I’m not going to do both, and “exercise” scares me, without at least a little forethought. (I only realized yesterday that Lent starts today.) So, vitamins for me! Thankfully, I had a bottle of good vitamins already sitting around, so Day 1 was easy. I’ll need a little more planning ahead as I travel for work, but this one should be relatively easy. Hopefully, though, by the end of it vitamins will just be a valuable habit, and I’ll keep it up.

And next year’s Lent starts on February 17th, so I’ve marked that day on my calendar, and my plan is to use exercise as my discipline-improving technique next year :)

So, wish me luck. Hopefully, I’ll be a healthier, more energetic person come Easter. And if not, well, maybe my pharmacist friend is right that vitamins as just a good way to pee money down the drain ;)

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

716 days ago

(Continued from Vegetarian updates)

Well, yesterday was decision time. It came on me somewhat suddenly, when I heard on Saturday that Lent actually ended Friday. After some careful reading I decided that it really ended at sundown on Saturday, or maybe sunup on Sunday, so I just waited until Sunday as I had originally planned. Even then, I wasn’t really ready to decide – I had become comfortable as a vegetarian.

That’s not to say that there aren’t a bunch of downsides to vegetarianism! It’s just that there are also some upsides, so it becomes more of a balanced choice, rather than a restriction. I had acclimated to the vegetarian lifestyle, and I just didn’t feel like I really needed to change.

Without discussing the final decision, the preceding paragraph helps explain why I give up something for Lent each year – it’s an opportunity for me to jump a hurdle and see what is on the other side. Often it isn’t what I expect.

But back to the issue at hand…

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

721 days ago

(This article continues the earlier thread.)

A few updates, with only 4 days left until Lent is over and I have to choose whether to remain vegetarian.

First, I went to London and Lisbon last week for work, and had a few new vegetarian experiences, none of them particularly exciting:

• In the airport I realized that I hadn’t set my food preferences to vegetarian when I made the reservation. I asked at the counter about it, and the ever-so-kind woman told me that it was too late to change it. Crap. It turned out, though, that I was flying business class, so I was able to choose the vegetarian option off the menu. (It was acceptable, but that’s the best I can say about it.) Close call!
• In London, I was surprised at how many vegetarian options there were. We were only there for two days, but it was fairly easy to eat both days. I did miss a few great options at dinner, though.
• In Lisbon, I lived on a diet of eggs (breakfast), salad (lunch), and steamed vegetables (dinner). Portugal just isn’t designed to make life easy on vegetarians. The food for non-vegetarians is fantastic (as I know from earlier experience), which made it all the harder to watch my coworkers eat.
  • When Kristina joined me on a trip back in December, we were able to find places for her to eat, but we had to plan ahead to make it work. On this trip, I just ate with the rest of the team, and had to make do with whatever was available, which was often “please have the chef make something for me.” None of it was inspiring.

Second, I weighed myself again yesterday and discovered that my earlier weight loss has reversed by a few pounds. I’m still down a few pounds from my starting weight, but it doesn’t look like the weight loss will be a continuing trend. Crap.

Finally, I gave blood earlier today, and the little test they do to see if I have enough iron in my blood came up positive (I had enough iron). That’s a good sign that I’m eating right, which is reassuring. I’ve been going to bed early the last few nights and that had me worried, but I think it’s just because I overtaxed myself on the trip to Europe, and haven’t really given my body time to recover.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

753 days ago

(continued from Days 4-7)

For those of you following along, this covers the 13th through the 16th.

Day 8 (Wednesday)

Breakfast: Egg soufflé, half a bagel (from Panera)
Lunch: Cheese pizza
Dinner: Pad Thai with tofu, tomato bisque (from Noodles)

A relatively tasty food day. I’ve started noticing that my body seems to have less resilience to abuse. For example, if I stay up late, my brain becomes abnormally dysfunctional the next day. (Emphasis on the abnormal.) I’m not certain it’s caused by my diet, but I’ve started taking (vegetarian) vitamins, just in case.

Day 9 (Thursday)

I took this Thursday (Valentine’s Day!) and Friday off work, so my normal food schedule was a little disrupted.

Breakfast: Bagel
Lunch: Veggie sandwich, cream of mushroom soup (Le Châtelaine)
Dinner: Veggie sandwich, asparagus, blackberries & blueberries

Dinner at home (with champagne) was super-tasty.

Day 10 (Friday)

Breakfast: Raisin bran with soy milk
Lunch: Smoothie (from a place in the mall)
Dinner: Spinach-artichoke dip, chipotle black-bean burger, fries (from Chili’s)

Chili’s only really has that one vegetarian option, but it was (again) quite tasty.

Day 11 (Saturday)

Brunch: Mushroom frittata
Dinner: Home-made nut burgers with cambozola cheese, fries, an apple. Later on, Jeni’s ice cream.

We made the frittata from a recipe found online, and it wasn’t particularly tasty. The nut burgers are from a recipe that my sister got from an old job, but we haven’t quite perfected it. The cheese made all the difference, though, so they were actually quite delicious.

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

757 days ago

(continued from Days 1-3)

Day 4

Breakfast: Slept in :)
Lunch: Mozzarella sticks, half a black-bean chipotle burger
Dinner: Spicy lentils, rice (thanks Rowan & Erica!)

That burger (from Chili’s) was actually quite tasty. It’s nice being able to split meals with Kristina.

I watched Erica and Rowan eat a gorgeous flank steak for dinner… it wasn’t too hard.

Day 5

Breakfast: Cereal with soy milk
Lunch: Munched on stuff, but I can’t really remember what
Dinner: 3-pepper 3-cheese enchilada, black beans, rice

Dinner was quite tasty – Mad Mex is moving up on my list of good places to eat.

Day 6

Breakfast: Bagel and cream cheese
Lunch: A “TBM” (Tomato-Basil-Mozzarella) from Cosi, fruit salad, chips
Dinner: Half an iceberg wedge (salad) and gnocchi with marinara. Ate an orange later.

That TBM was downright awful. I don’t think anything was wrong with the food, but the tomato was lifeless, and the mozzarella was a little gritty. But there were no other options.

Day 7

Breakfast: Running late, skipped
Lunch: Creamy potato salad, mac and cheese, cookie
Dinner: Saganaki and a tasty feta pasta with olives and tomatoes. Ate some peanuts and a granola bar later.

For lunch, there were no other options than to eat side dishes, so I did. They were tasty, but high in dairy content :-(

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filed under: food, lent, vegetarian

761 days ago

For the last five years or so, I’ve given up something for Lent. One year it was caffeine, one year it was TV, etc. I’m not Catholic (or even Christian, for that matter), but I believe that giving up something for a period of time is beneficial, so I use Lent as an easy marker for when I should do that. This year, I’m giving up meat. Specifically, I’m following my wife’s rules: no meat, no food that contains meat products (like gelatin), but eggs and dairy are OK. I’m told that makes her an “ovo-lacto vegetarian,” so that’s what I’ll be during the 40 days of Lent. (I will remain vegetarian on Sundays.)

That “no meat products” rule eliminates a number of seemingly safe foods: most soups, most candy bars, some nuts, and many cheeses.

I plan to periodically blog my menus and my observations about the experience here. My hope is that there will be something interesting to be gleaned by the end :)

Day 1 – Wednesday, February 6th

Breakfast: A granola bar
Lunch: Cheese pizza and chips
Dinner: Assorted cheeses, crackers, and carrots

Kristina and I occasionally go to McDonald’s for breakfast. She’s never been very excited about it, and now I understand why – having to take the meat off everything makes it just not taste good.

Day 2

Breakfast: A granola bar
Lunch: A salad (with artichoke hearts, which I don’t like)
Dinner: Went to Brio, split an iceberg wedge (no bacon!) with Kristina, had a pasta dish with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, other stuff

My company has arranged to have a different restaurant vendor (Cosi, Potbelly, etc.) come to the office every day, selling lunch to whomever wants it. I almost always just grab whatever is available for lunch, and eat at my desk, because it’s generally tasty, convenient, and inexpensive. Today, I only had one choice: that salad with artichoke hearts. Crap.

Day 3

Breakfast: A goats-milk blueberry yogurt (I’m semi-lactose-intolerant)
Lunch: Macaroni-and-cheese and coleslaw
Dinner: Pizza with mushrooms, onions, olives, and jalapeños

My department had ordered a pizza lunch for everyone, but I got there late. I was glad to see that there was still pizza left, and forgot that I needed vegetarian pizza. So I loaded up my plate, and then realized what I was doing, and then realized that the vegetarian pizza was already all gone. Crap.

So I went to the restaurant vendor, who was selling… barbecue. I had two sides: macaroni-and-cheese and coleslaw. Yummy.

We talked about going to a couple of restaurants for dinner, but none of them seemed appealing now that most of the menu was off-limits. So we ordered pizza, which was actually a tasty choice.

Also, I noticed yesterday that my sense of smell seemed better than usual. Kristina has always had a very strong sense of smell. Related? I’m not sure yet.

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