Sunday Update

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Does anyone feel strongly about the outcome of the game? I'm mostly just excited to be able to watch the game at home this year so that I can hear the commercials and get to bed in a timely manner. Carl is en route with the dogs, who stayed the past three weeks with the Bussells. Judging by the way they looked when we left, I've no doubt that they were spoiled rotten:

Riley is pretty sure she's a lap dog. 

I'm squeezing in a quick post before they arrive so that I can focus my attention on Super Bowl Nachos (cheeseless, of course), wine, and talking to the dogs in a ridiculous voice.

It's hard to believe I'm about to embark on week 6 of the ABC's of 2012! This means that I've got 20 workouts under my belt, I've eliminated excessive eating out, I've started to overhaul our household cleaning supply collection with natural and safer counterparts, I haven't eaten cheese in two whole weeks, and I've been gluten free for the past week. The GF thing is going really well, although grocery shopping has become quite a process. Many companies are kind enough to label their products as gluten free, which is a tremendous help and saves me from having to whip out my phone and spend 5 minutes searching ingredients individually. I got this great app called "Is that Gluten Free?" to help me out until I become an expert. It set the record for the most I've ever paid for an app- a whopping $7.99, yowza! It allows you to search foods by their brands or  by type (i.e. sauces, chips, etc), or if all else fails you can search each ingredient itself. I've learned that soy sauce is not GF but barbecue sauce is (at least the kind in our refrigerator). Wine is okay but beer is not. Goodbye, beer! Most chips are fine but crackers are a no-go. I haven't yet tried any GF food substitutes like pasta or bread, nor am I dying to do so any time soon. It feels good to simplify my diet and give myself a break from heavier foods.

Today I picked the letter 'O' for organic. I keep going through spurts where I'll go to the store and buy everything organic and be oh, so proud of myself-- at least until I go to pay, and then I cry a little on the inside when I see the grocery bill. As I said before, though, I think the money I'm saving by not eating out will help offset this expense. A lot of people, myself included at one point in time, scoff at organic food. After all, what makes it so much more special than conventionally grown food? The most obvious answer, in my opinion, is its effect on the environment. In third grade we had a guest speaker come to our class and tell us about DDT and the negative effect it had on Bald Eagle eggs and populations. Apparently the run-off caused the eagles to lay eggs that had overly soft shells which in turn made it unlikely that they would survive until it was time to hatch. Ever since then, that's the image I immediately conjure when I think of pesticides and the environment. Those unborn baby eagles always seem to motivate me to buy organic foods (and for the record, I'm aware that DDT is no longer used in the U.S. but the analogy still helps). If that doesn't work, then a more selfish approach is to remind myself that organic produce has far more nutrients than conventionally grown produce. So even though the organic cucumber and regular cucumber look pretty much the same, the organic one is superior in its nutrient content and that's why I'm paying double. Using pesticides depletes the soil of minerals, meaning that the plants that are grown in the soil are less nutrient dense because the soil has less to offer. You pay for what you get when it comes to produce. I plan to buy most of my produce organic from now on, leaving a little room for forgiveness when, say, a certain product is not available in organic form or when my budget doesn't allow it.

Well, Carl just got home so I'm off to spend some QT with him and the dogs. Hope everyone has a great Superbowl Sunday!