The Day and What Will Perhaps Be

Today was a bit topsy-turvy so far. I got up early, and it was a wonderful morning of walking and exercise. Then I came home, and my wife wanted to talk. She is struggling a bit emotionally, so even though I was planning to get going to the gym, I stayed and talked with her. I think it went well. The things she has been feeling emotional about have stemmed from her feelings of a lack of success in the goals she has been setting for herself this Summer. She has wanted to spend the Summer being very excited and happy about all sorts of activities she has been getting ready to put into effect all Spring. Unfortunately, during the Summer thus far, she has felt little motivation towards these projects, and that has gotten her down. One of the major things she wants to accomplish is to change our eating habits to follow what is called the "Ornish Plan".

Basically, the Ornish food plan is simply to eat virtually a vegetarian diet, but to have it focus on including several food items that are not as commonly consumed, but have evidence as being especially healthful (for example, wheatberries). From my perspective, I am completely fine with this sort of food plan. I enjoy damn near every food that is recommended by Ornish, and I have always found vegetarian recipies to be interesting and exciting (and often they feel somewhat exotic, almost like eating ethnic foods). I also really dislike fried foods of any type, so that is not an issue for me either. And, meat.... well, even though I am not opposed to eating beef, buffalo, venison, turkey, chicken, or fish, the reality is that I really eat relatively little meat already.

I probably eat 2 or maybe 3 meals that have meat in them a week at most. And, 99+ % of the time the meat I do have is either chicken, turkey, or fish. I think it has probably been at least a year if not longer since I have eaten beef, and longer than that for buffalo or venison. Pork is a meat that I really just do not like, so I do not eat ham, bacon, pork chops, etc. And, the couple of times a year when we have hotdogs they are turkey franks.

So, the issue is not me in regards to Ornish. It is actually my wife. She is much more fond of meat than I am, and will often make for herself, a dish that contains beef, pork, chicken, or turkey that she eats and I do not (she usually makes these for herself for lunch, and my own lunch is a much simpler affair which I carry in my lunch sack to work).

I think my wife likes meat so much that she does not want to eliminate it from her diet, but that she also conversely wants to eat the Ornish plan as she is concerned about health. That is the conundrum she is facing and having difficulty in making a decision about one-way-or -another.

I am happy I am not a cause of the problems she is dealing with, but I unfortunately also do not know much, if anything to suggest. For me, it is simply a decision... either she chooses the Ornish Plan because she wants to OR she continues to eat her current diet because she wants to.... either is ok with me. But she gets frustrated with herself about her lack of decision.

Well, by the time we finished talking about this, an hour had passed. So, my routine for the gym was off time wise, but that was ok. My wife was pleasantly interested in intimacy, and so we made time for that which helped boost my spirits. I then went to the gym late, but did a fast workout and got to my office. I continued to work on updating some classwork for Fall so I could give my secretary some work to do.

I am now off to do some outside work in the yard again, and to *PERHAPS* even work on the damn computer at home so I can once again get on the Internet there. I am not sure I want to give myself a headache working with the tangled mess of wires or not, but at least I am considering it.

One final thing for me, is that I am becoming more and more aware of how noise and noise pollution REALLY affects my mood. On my vehicle today, I had the windows open as it was mild this morning, and this moderately loud squeaking noise would be heard constantly through the ride to the gym. This is not something new, and I have said on numerous occasions that it is due to a moderately loose hubcap on the wheels of the beast. Normally I do not hear it much because I have the windows closed (heater on or a/c on). Well, the noise with my window open ended up aggravating the hell out of me. I was quickly very, very angry. I *KNEW* this nose was simply due to a loose hubcap, but I was so aggravated that I started to imagine all sorts of other b*llsh*t that could be wrong with the car. I pulled the hubcap off and the noise disappeared, and with that, so did my feelings of aggravation and annoyance.

I have to keep it in mind how noises like that affect me. I sometimes think I can get in a grouchy mood just from some types of background noise. It is good for me to know.

PipeTobacco