The rambly state of my life

Lordy, lordy, lordy.

We're busy at home, re-arranging the entire apartment two rooms at a time. Which is a mess, and stress, and means that I have lost two weekends in a row to this, with little else to show for it.

We're busy at work, and I'm stealing time to update because it's been one emergency after another here for weeks at a time, and I'm desperately tired of it.

It's bitterly cold here, and yet we keep walking places, bundled up with three or four layers of clothes. My Hub keeps turning on the electric radiator instead of putting on socks and a sweatshirt, and I'm thinking that a discussion about the electric bill is coming up soon. Yes, I have turned into my father, why do you ask?
On the up side, I got my exam for life-insurance purposes this morning, and in spite of the indignity of having to pee in a cup and the ick factor of having blood taken (I'm terribly squeamish about my veins; I sometimes think that I put on weight just to encase them in a protective sheath of fat), I learned two fun things. First of all, I'm an inch taller than the last time I was measured, which was something like fifteen years ago. I can only assume that either I had a lousy measurement that time, or that I got the number wrong in my head and have been quoting it wrongly ever since, or that I had a tiny growth spurt in late adolescence. Five three and a half in my bare feet! Huzzah!

Second thing was that I was weighed, wearing clothes, and that came out lighter than the last time that I weighed myself naked. Either I'm losing weight in tiny increments (possible) via the I'm Doing The Best I Can Under These Circumstances plan, or I'm at least maintaining. I'm not gaining, and haven't gained since October: this is good. I'd very much like to get rid of these excess 15 pounds, but I'd rather have them creep off at a snail's pace than to do something drastic (which, as we all know, makes me crazy). So, that's okay.

The life insurance, by the way, is another step we're taking toward the eventual possibility of having a baby. Easier to buy insurance for me now than later, and lord knows that if something goes wrong with the pregnancy I'd want my Hub taken care of, particularly if he ends up with a baby and no wife. I don't think that would happen, but it's comforting to have a solution in place, anyway.

I made another Kathleen Daelmanns recipe for my Hub yesterday, involving the complete dismantling and skinning of a whole chicken. Seriously, I stripped off the skin (and yelped "Oh my God, now the chicken's NAKED!"), stripped the meat off the bones, stuck all the bones in a bag for future stock preparation, and cooked the meat. Egad. I'm still kind of weirded out by that, though. Every time I dismantle a chicken I have to sit and think for a while about whether or not I really want to keep doing this carnivore thing. Vegetarianism has started to look very, very good. I have very few qualms about dismantling vegetables and legumes and fruits and mushrooms. My sister and my best friend have both been vegetarians for years-- ovo-lacto-- and I keep thinking that really, that sounds about right. Dunno. I might start leaning that direction, see what happens.

I've honestly been trying to remember the exact information for my slaws, but what the hell, I threw them together to taste, so you can, too. For the beet & carrot one, I used shredded beets (raw and peeled, although about half of the ones I had on hand were pre-roasted so I used those, and it wasn't a problem), shredded carrots (peeled first), coarse salt, fresh-ground black pepper, a bit of olive oil, a bunch of freshly grated ginger, red wine vinegar, and three components from a mashed-up orange: zest, juice, and pulp. There may be something else in there, but that was what I had; combine everything but the veggies first and taste it until it seems like something you'd like. You may want to rinse and drain the shredded beets, because OH MY GOD the beet juice gets everywhere, it's like a crime scene.

The other one was shredded carrots, shredded radishes, and shredded peeled broccoli stems (which I had on hand, and which I'm inordinately fond of), with much the same sauce, only I used sesame oil instead of olive oil, and didn't have the orange involved. It's total confetti, red and pink and orange and pale green all over.

I must make zucchini hash again, now that I have such a swift way to make it. Oh, and definitely must try the parsnip/spinach/artichoke cassarole again. Hooray for the food processor!

My Hub is on-again, off-again when it comes to exercise, but he says he's going to get on track with it when we're done hauling shit around in the apartment. Fine by me. I'm going to see if I can get him on the treadmill for ten minutes tomorrow, with the heart rate monitor on, just so he can get a more realistic picture of how hard he's working. Either way, he's been helping out in the Let's Eat More Vegetables campaign, particularly since he's very fond of slaw, and carrots are dirt cheap.

Did I mention that our Garbage Stock (i.e. made from the scraps of veggies and random raw chicken bones) turned out well? It did. It has a gorgeous gelatin-y thing going on when it's chilled, and it's easy to scrape the fat off the top, and it turns back to liquid almost immediately upon being heated. We've been using it in everything. I think we may never buy actual chicken stock again, this shit is so easy and convenient to make.

I'm still muddling along on the diet and exercise front. It's good in some spots and iffy in others. I'm comforted that, in spite of my indulgances with ginger cookies (oh GOD I love ginger cookies) and Valentine's Day chocolates, I seem to have been keeping on track with exercise and general food choices well enough not to have gained anything and-- maybe?-- to have lost weight. I am not going to get weird and mental about this. More fruits and veggies, whole grains over processed, small amounts of meat, small amounts of healthy fat. It gives me just enough leeway, I think, so that I can go back and forth in the endless battle with the mental aspect of food and the sneaky treats and occasional binges don't make me gain.

I signed up for a martial arts class taught through the park district, cheap enough that if it turns out I don't like it, I can bail without too much guilt. Also signed up-- again!-- for swimming lessons. I signed up last year, only to have the rug pulled out from under me with a work committment that kept me from attending; this year, though, both me and my Hub are signed up. Six weeks of once a week for swimming, twelve weeks of Mondays & Fridays for the martial arts. I hope I like it. My Hub used to do judo, back in college, and there's a judo school not too far from here; if I end up liking martial arts, I may have to check that out, and get him to come with me. And if not, twenty bucks for a twelve-week class is still a very good investment.

I'm kind of rambly, I know. Hell, I should get back to work.