Day 43 – Serendipatiousness!

For those who have seen the movie Serendipity you may remember Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) uttering those words to Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) when trying to repeat the word serendipity—it basically means a happy chance of fate (or something along those lines; I don’t write the definitions I just try to understand them).

First day back on solids… salad never tasted so good.  I even braved a few raw carrots to see how they would affect me.  So far I think so good—I don’t plan on eating a lot of them but I will continue to eat some of them raw (although I will still stay away from cooked carrots for a while).  Since we didn’t have time to run to the store last night breakfast was slim pickins!  We had some leftover spring mix—which was barely good… the kind you have to pick a few of the bad pieces out before rinsing and enjoying—with some romaine lettuce, lemon juice and salt.

Busy morning making contacts but I told my wife before she went to work that I would pick up lunch for us and take it to her school and we would eat together.  I ended up losing track of time and didn’t get out of the house until about 11:45am (her lunch starts at noon and she gets 35 minutes).  I made a quick trip to the store—picked up a relish tray and another bag of spring mix and some avocadoes.

I was so nervous I kept messaging my wife to let her know I was running a few minutes behind.  I made it to her class and she wasn’t there so I set up and was ready to throw the ranch dip away that comes with the relish tray but thought… my 4 year old may LOVE the dip.  Love he did!  He ate quite a few carrots smothered in ranch sauce.  He is doing better though, he use to use the carrots (or any hard vegetable for that matter) to use as a spoon so that he could eat the ranch sauce—at least now he is actually eating the carrot with each teaspoon of ranch.  Baby steps… baby st…  (Oh who am I kidding, at this point I’m just happy he’s eating vegetables at all he is such a picky kid.

After I was all set up my wife still wasn’t there and I began to worry thinking she would not have enough time to eat and that she would be upset when she did finally make it in.  When she came in her room she was calm… really calm, she didn’t seem stressed out at all.  The way I talk about some of this you may think my wife is the biggest stress ball around which isn’t at all true.  But—and I say this hesitantly—but, there are times when certain stresses set her off into a little bit of a stressful mood (sometimes a lot bit).  This was one of those times—there really was no time to eat and her kids would be coming back in soon but she wasn’t worried at all… something’s going right!

Lunch was great—all the stuff I listed that we bought we ate (at least some of it).  Oh, except for the ranch that we let our 4 year old commandeer—which we tossed after he was done with it.  I never imaged myself throwing away ranch dressing; I remember going to the local pizza joint in law school and ordering the grilled chicken salad—which didn’t at all resemble the grilled chicken quinoa salad I do now—I think there was about ½ cup of iceberg lettuce and then a whole slue of chicken, mushroom, onions, garlic and perhaps some other goodies all drizzled over the salad, topped with a HUGE amount of ranch dressing.  At least when my wife asked me what I had for lunch I could tell her I had a salad, right!

I met with a neighbor of mine who has owned a business for 42 years and asked his tricks of time and the trade.  It was an interesting conversation—he is 80 years old and still goes to work every day because he loves it and (as he puts it) its better than sweeping my driveway and sidewalks that don’t really need to be swept anyway.  It took a lot of years to get to where he is now but he says he loves it—which is my draw to doing my own thing (that and nobody ‘owns’ me… I can be my own boss and succeed or fail on what I do, not what somebody else does).

My wife had dinner ready for me when I got home a nice salad with cucumbers, little cherry tomatoes topped with lemon juice and some salt.  We tried to make a soup tonight in the blend tec but it just doesn’t quite do it for us.  I’m not sure what it is, but it’s almost like my bodies mad that raw vegetables are that hot but not cooked and it doesn’t want to accept them; it was just OK and I couldn’t finish it, but the recipe is (GET RECIPIE FROM MY WIFES IPHONE!)

Still feeling great—we did a Costco run tonight to be ready for tomorrow.  We are so excited to introduce grain, although we are holding back on steel cut oats.  I did find 2 brands of green salsa that seem to be OK (ingredient wise) so we are going to try at least one of those on some quinoa and salad tomorrow—mmm mmm mmm… I’m excited—nice sit in the hot-tub and am now ready for bed.  My wife and I both—FINALLY—had a full GREAT day together!  I hope there are many more—for those of you wondering, I mean a day where we both feel really good on the diet I had yet to have one together (ALL DAY) until today!  (Perhaps a moment of serendipity, but if so I hope there are many more moments)