Lunch Reading

This week over lunch I’ve been reading Skinny Bitch. This is “a no-nonsense tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous”. I’m not very far into it but I’ve learned that everything I like to eat is bad for me. And not for the reasons I would have guessed.

The book was written by a former model that has a degree in holistic nutrition and a former modeling agent. In the chapter entitled The Dead, Rotting Decomposing Flesh Diet it states that one of the authors had Big Macs for lunch while the other consumed bacon double cheeseburgers, fries and a soda daily for a year. Somehow I don’t quite believe this.

Even so, they have made what I think are valid points about pesticides and conditions under which animals are raised. They also listed some rather interesting items about artificial sweeteners and the consumption of dairy products.

Please don’t misunderstand my intent here. I do not consider this book to be the be all and end all when it comes to nutrition advice. I’m reading it to help readjust my thinking, something I need to do periodically even though I already know that the only real way to lose some of my fluffiness is by monitoring what I eat and exercising. I chose this book for the though-love aspect. So far they aren’t kidding about that. The authors don’t pull any punches in telling the reader to reevaluate personal habits, a reminder that is way past due for me.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I've been so productive today it's scary. I started by going out in the world, something I generally avoid on Saturdays unless food, drink and laughter are involved.

I began my mission at Lowe's where I procured a new button for my doorbell. Mine's been self-destructing and one morning when someone rang it at 4:45 AM it stuck pushed in which made a horrible buzzing noise. The poor cats were extremely upset by the time I decided I'd waited long enough for whoever was outside to get bored and leave so I could open the door just far enough to unstick it.

Next stop, BJ's where I filled my gas tank. Molly brace yourself - $3.21/gallon. Inside I picked up not only the vacuum cleaner that instigated the whole journey but a new set of summer sheets, 420 thread count in celery, and a book, Skinny Bitch, which hopefully I will be able to read sooner rather than later.

My last destination - the Giant to take advantage of my free ham coupon. It'll be ham and bean soup with ham sandwiches after I do some cooking tomorrow. I also picked up a selection of salt-based foods. Hm, must have something lacking in my diet since I got that and no chocolate. Then it was time to check out. It never fails, whatever line I get in is the wrong one. Today I was behind the coupon queen of the universe. Julio, the checkout boy was actually sweating by the time he looked back through her slip to find the prices of all her buy one get one free deals. It was so bad the manager came over to try to help which only made poor Julio more nervous. And then she paid her hefty bill with a slew of partly used gift cards, many, many of them. When it was finally my turn the poor boy was pale and shaking so I smiled brightly and gave him my perkiest greeting. I chatted pleasantly the whole time he rang up my order. I even involved the woman behind me who quickly picked up on what I was doing and joined in being just as sweet as I was. When I left I thanked him, telling him I'd see him next week, and said "nice kid" to the manager as I went. It wasn't his fault the prior woman handed him her stack of coupons when he was already half way through her order and I didn't want to see him get yelled out because he really was trying to deal with it as best he could.

Once home, I stowed my groceries. My first project was to change the doorbell button. No problem! I didn't even zap myself. I then assembled the new vacuum without a hitch. I used it all over the house and was horrified at the quantity of muck in the basket, it's bagless. I really do vacuum weekly even though you wouldn't have thought so seeing the amount of debris. Yep, definitely time for this.

The last thing I did was take out the trash, including the huge box and old vacuum. While outside, I took a tour of my yard. All my bulbs are sprouting. It won't be long before there are splashes of vibrant color all over.

Whew! Now that I have all that taken care of I can finally get to what I'd originally planned for today...writing. I left my characters in a rather precarious position two days ago and it's way past time for me to get them out of it.