Report from Day 1 of VT Challenge

Monday was the first day of my slightly-altered challenge based on the one put forth by Vegetarian Times. I packed my lunch and jogged with Emily after work, so lunch and exercise were handled. The third piece is meditation.

Before I ate lunch, I walked toward the chapel for my meditation break. The kindergarten class were dressed in their graduation robes and were singing a song about being all they could be. I walked past the chapel and toward the sanctuary, noting how lucky I was to work at a place with both a chapel and a sanctuary. Seriously, who has that luxury?

I picked a seat in the sanctuary, set my watch for five minutes, closed my eyes and breathed.

The sunlight through the window is bright. Isn't that weird? My eyes are closed, but the light is really bright.

Breathe.

Remember the first time you saw the Torah scroll in the stained glass? It's like one of those 3-D pictures.

Breathe.

Lynn suggested inhaling while counting to seven, holding for three, exhaling for seven, holding for three. I'll try that.

Breathe.

Good lord! That's not nearly enough oxygen! Didn't she say people with high blood pressure shouldn't do that? Do I have high blood pressure? I don't have high blood pressure. Wait. I'm supposed to be breathing.

Breathe.

Does the sanctuary smell funny? I think it smells a little funny. Wonder what that is.

Breathe.

I wonder how I'll write about this.

Breathe.

I wonder why I'm thinking about writing about an experience rather than allowing myself to experience the experience. That's messed up.

Breathe.

I wonder how long it's been? [Open eyes, glance at watch] ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Three minutes?!

Breathe.

I'm not happy with my time spent at work. This computer crap is hard, and there's no one to help me. That makes me want to avoid studying. I don't feel like I'm putting in an honest day's work. Now I'm sad.

Breathe.

I wonder how my friend who had surgery today is doing.

Breathe.

Does sending positive energy toward someone count as meditation? No. They're both good, but they're not the same. I should make time for both.

Breathe.

I wonder why I always think of God as male when I'm here. Do I feel this way in all sanctuaries, or just this one?

Breathe.

Maybe I should think about Queen Titania* beside me. I bet she'd be an awesome meditator.

Breathe.

Then again, God doesn't need to meditate, so that kind of breaks down.

Breathe.

You know, even if Titania was beside me, I bet I'd be focused on her and not on meditating. I suck at this.

Breathe.

I look at my watch. 4:57, 4:58, 4:59, 5:00.

Sigh. I'll try again today.

*Queen Titania is a character from James Christensen's Voyage of the Bassett, and she's the image I use to counterbalance the male image I have of God. It's not important that you understand this.

Or You Could Just Use Glue

Back in December, I made a goofy little felt thing to hold my needles. I remain very proud of its functionality coupled with kitschiness.

This morning, I found this.

Items this project requires that I don't own:

• water-erasable pen
• knowledge of what the words "fussy cut" mean
• snaps or velcro
• adorable coordinating fabrics
• sewing machine

Items this project requries that I DO own:

• iron
• thread

I think I shall mentally congratulate them on their project and stick with my felt kitsch. Sometimes it's worth the trouble, and sometimes it isn't.

21-Day Challenge (Slightly Altered)

Vegetarian Times is hosting a 21-day lunch challenge. They're challenging everyone to prepare their own lunch, walk 30 minutes, and take 5-10 minute meditation break daily for three weeks.

Vegetarian Times 21-day lunch challenge logo

I think this is brilliant. I'm also pretty sure I would fail. Enter slightly altered challenge:

Beginning Monday and continuing for eighteen workdays, I challenge myself to bring my lunch to work, to work out or walk 30 minutes (even if it's just a 30 minute stroll around the grounds at lunch*), and to meditate 5-10 minutes. I'm giving myself May 19 and May 31 off because I won't be working those days, so my challenge will end on Friday, June 4.

I will not attempt to do this on days I'm not working. I will count working out as a replacement for the 30-minute walk; I figure the important thing is that I'm doing something physical, not that I'm specifically walking. I also won't insist that my lunches are homemade. I usually eat a healthy frozen meal, a piece of fruit, and yogurt for lunch. I think that's fine. If I get ambitious and want to make my lunch instead of bringing a Lean Cuisine, that's also fine. It's just not required to meet my challenge.

The big changes for me in this challenge are a) not going out to eat for lunch, which I typically do around once a week, b) doing some sort of exercise five times instead of three times a week, and c) taking a meditation break.

I'm kind of excited about this. Well, excited and scared.

*This is going to cut down my knitting time, which is a bummer.

Look quickly! I'm caught up!

I finished the March sock club socks.

Slip Jig pattern (ravelry link) in My Wild Irishgirlie colorway

These socks were so. much. easier. than the January ones. It was a delight to have something that seemed to fall off the needles after struggling to do a k3tog through back loop coupled with a cable in the January ones. It's impossible to do, just so you know.

While I'm waiting for the May sock club shipment to arrive, I need a new project. I tried to start this for Brandy (don't click if you want it to be a surprise, Brandy!) but I don't have the correct needles. This is always a shock to me. How is it possible that I don't own every single knitting needle I need? Do you know how many needles I own? Crazy.

Anyway, that's on hold, so I started this for Brandy instead. I've already knit one for Rachel (ravelry link), and it is gorgeous. I plan to knit one for myself as well.

This is the birthday season, so time is limited. In the span of less than three weeks, we have 5 birthdays in our immediate family plus Mother's Day. This year we also have a baby dedication for our new niece. I haven't cooked all week--there's been lots of pizza and accompanied weight gain--but I believe my next attempt will be no-knead bread. Cathy Erway talks a lot about that bread in her book, and I do love bread.... Stay tuned!

Memo To Me

May 5, 2010

To: Me

From: Me

Re: Stuff You Really Ought To Remember

Pizza and Dairy Queen don't make you feel better. They make you feel sluggish and cranky.

Buying a medium Blizzard because it's only $0.30 more than a small one is not smart. See "sluggish and cranky" above.

The Art of Eating In

I just finished reading Cathy Erway's book The Art of Eating In. It's about two years of her life in which she made a conscious decision not to eat in restaurants and not to order take-out.

The book brought up a bunch of stuff for me, which I will randomly spout here:

• Reading about how she prepared meat is disgusting. I am a snobby vegetarian. One year without meat compared to thirty-one years with meat, and I'm already Snobby McSnobberpants. I must continue to refrain from trying to convert omnivores. Nobody likes a pushy vegetarian.*

• She bought a TROTTER (pig leg.... complete with hoof) to put in soup with TRIPE. And she ate it while suffering from a HANGOVER.

• She went roughly two years without eating out in a city that is all about the eating out. This had lots of positive ramifications. a) She saved a ton of money. b) She learned a lot more about cooking than she already knew, and she already knew quite a bit. c) She participated in events such as cook-offs and underground supper clubs, which she probably wouldn't have found without this challenge. d) The experiment allowed her to put eating out into perspective.

That last one is the kicker for me, although saving a ton of money also sounds very good. By abstaining for such a long period of time, eating in restaurants became a special occasion instead of just a way to get a meal.

It seems related to something a biology professor I had in college said: We wouldn't have the obesity epidemic we have if people realized that sometimes food is just food and there's no reason for a feast.

Oh. Right.

I know that I'm guilty of treating food like a cure-all. I get bored at work, and I get a chocolate-covered espresso bean (or several) out of my desk drawer. I'm feeling tired after a long day, and I want something gooey and delicious for supper. I treat food as a pick-me-up instead of just food.

Sometimes food is a pick-me-up, but most of the time it should just be nourishment. That means that when I do fix something very special or we go out to eat, it becomes more of an occasion.

Now, while I believe all that I've written to be true, I also believe that part of my problem is that I'm not able to view everything I eat as being something special. (See how I'm contradicting myself? Don't try this at home.) It seems that if I really had a healthy relationship with food, I would focus on whatever it was that I was eating and would see it for the miracle that it is. If I'm eating a simple meal of brown rice and black beans, I'm not just getting nourishment. I'm getting the gift of the people who harvested that rice and grew those beans and packaged them in a safe manner so I could buy them at the store. The number of plants and people and processes involved so I could eat that simple meal is staggering.

I should be grateful for that. I should be amazed by that. I should be so damn staggered that I sit in awe of my rice and beans.

And if that's how I feel about rice and beans, you can imagine how I would feel about going to a restaurant.

*I think I need that on a t-shirt.

Vegiversary Extravaganza!

Saturday night we celebrated my one-year Vegiversary. My friends know how to eat. One of our past get-togethers involved t-shirts celebrating the plethora of casseroles present. Our Christmas celebration involves three meals (and constant snacking) carefully spaced amongst present opening. We take it all very seriously.

We had burgers (cow and vegetarian) and vegetarian sausages on the grill, mac & cheese, my leftover recipe #16, sweet potato fries, salad, and fruit pizza.

They even made me a cake!

Someone asked me if this was what I had in mind for my vegiversary. Honestly, I had hoped that I would have an arsenal of delicious vegetarian recipes at my command. I imagined myself putting together a vegetarian feast that would knock everyone's socks off. There are problems with this:

1. The New Year's resolution, while enjoying some success, hasn't given me a ton of new recipes I love.
2. I don't want to spend all weekend in the kitchen preparing food, and my friends wouldn't want to hang out with me if I did that anyway.
3. One of us is lactose intolerant.
4. Two have limited ability to handle spicy food.
5. Another of us, while being a vegetarian, doesn't like mushrooms or tomatoes.
6. Let's review: no mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese, or serious spice. That's 70% of my diet. The other 30% is chocolate and coffee.

The pitch-in went much better than a dinner entirely prepared by me, and I'm very grateful I have friends who will enthusiastically celebrate my milestone regardless of whether they share my beliefs about food.

May this be the first of many celebrations.

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream of Nirvana.

~Buddha