If I’m cooking for 3, why not cook for 7?

Have y’all been following this pet food thing? Apparently, there are 2 companies that received potentially tainted rice protein whose names have not been disclosed. Is that scary or what? It’s like you play Russian roulette every time you open a package of dog food!

After much discussion, we have decided to make our own dog food. I know it sounds extreme, but it’s cheaper than the Wellness dog food several of my friends rave about, and really, cooking for a dog isn’t that hard. Needless to say, they love the new food! I am still going to buy Wellness cat food for the cat – after reading up on it, they seem to be more difficult to cook for.

I went to the gym after work and did 30 minutes on the elliptical. It included several high intensity intervals, then a few minutes of steady state, and I had a warm up and cool down in there too. I kicked my butt! I went home, cooked for all the hungry mouths (including me & the hub), and then we sat our butts down to watch UFC 70.

The boy was over at my mom’s house giving her a hand cleaning out her storage barn, and it felt nice just to veg. I ate a very healthy meal (some of the veggies I steamed for the dogs, lentils, and sautéed chicken breast), then enjoyed a little air popped popcorn while watching the fights. I have no idea why I enjoy the UFC so much – I guess we all have our “guilty pleasure” TV shows. That’s mine!

Today is the appointment with my friend’s trainer – I’ll let you know how it goes! I will say, it’s a different type of workout than I would do on my own, and if I know someone is waiting I am much more likely to actually get in my car and drive to the gym – also, a trainer won’t let you slack!

Typically it looks a bit like this: we’ll warm up, do some weights – upper body and some ab work, do some lower body, go do a few intervals on a bike or something, then do some more weights, then a short cool down on a piece of cardio equipment. The first session was 75 minutes, the last one was right around 60. Last Sunday we finished with hack squats and I was done – seeing white spots kind of done. I push myself, but not to that level. Given the amount of fat I need to burn, making my weight training a fat burning event is critical. If I can do HIIT on my own in between, I should be making some great strides.

One good thing about working this hard is that I don’t want to undo it when I hit the kitchen. So I might have one piece of dark chocolate or something, but I’ve been doing pretty good at stopping myself.

So, how about everything else? You know, life, the universe, everything???? I have left all my hobbies – my illumination, my sewing, all my craft stuff - sitting idle. I think I had so many things going that I stopped enjoying any of it. I have no plans to work on anything crafty this weekend. We are working on our deck this weekend. My job is to do all the housework and make sure there are food & beverages. The boy & a friend are getting paid to help with the demo, hub has a friend coming over to help build the structural part underneath, and then I can pitch in laying the decking boards on Sunday if needed.

I don’t think I enjoy painting as much as I thought I would. It’s fun to do every once in a while, but I always put so much pressure on myself to do everything well. Why should I put a bunch of time & effort into something I want to be an “occasional hobby”? Why do I take everything and turn it into some sort of drive to succeed? I think I would be a much more content person if I didn’t have such a drive to achieve in every facet of my life. While this drive does serve me well in some areas, too much of it is overkill.

At the end of the day, it always come back to me needing to not always take on too much, to not try to master everything immediately, blah blah blah. Outcome oriented minds always focus on the destination and fail to enjoy the journey. That’s me in a nutshell. How do I get out of this great big nutshell??? Ah, that is the question!