Day 4

We're still alive!

And feeling fantastic. Perhaps I'm experiencing some sort of vegetable induced high, but I feel more energetic than I've felt since I was two. My cells are happy. My liver, good god, is happy.

So I've been thinking a lot about willpower. Does it take willpower to suddenly cut out salt, sugar, meat, dairy, alcohol, wheat, and processed foods? Is it willpower that's gotten us to day 4? And is it willpower that will get us (or not get us) through day 21? I originally assumed it was. When I describe my detox to friends, family, and co-workers who are now feeling well assured that I truly may be a bit off-center, they also assume this is some bizarre test of willpower. Probably because they know how I like my wine. And buffalo.

But here on day 4, with a clear head and calming aromatherapy all around me, I will tell you it's not about willpower. It is about consciousness.

As much as I am and have long been a healthy eater, I never realized how few conscious choices I made about what I popped in my mouth. If this were about willpower, it would mean that my food choices until this point have been about free will. They haven't. To me, free will is when I am informed, concious, and aware of my ability to make my own decisions. It is only now, after making decisions about what I will not eat, that I become conscious of all the unconscious eating I have done.

Will we make it 21 days? I hope that we will choose to. But more than that, I hope that we will retain our consciousness about food choices. I have never dieted in my life. I honor, love, and strive to nurture my relationship with food. This is not an exercise in self deprivation.

Food is important. Food gives life, but when abused, food can take life. Food nourishes, food depletes. Food heals, food hurts. Food protects, food makes us vulnerable. Our relationship with food is so much more than feeding and flushing away. What we choose to eat represents how we value our selves, our bodies, our souls. And making those choices...choices about my self, my body, my soul...requires consciousness.

Day 1

Happy New Year, I'm on a detox. For the next 21 days, I will consume as many organic fruits and vegetables as I please. I will nosh on seaweed, legumes, oats, and brown rice. I will partake in salt baths, chakra cleansing, skin brushing, yoga, meditation, and massage. I will carry a crystal in my pocket. My mind altering substances will be limited to Watermelon Flower Essence and a peculiar mix of roots and twigs I bought from the herbalist next door to my hairdresser.

My detox book suggests keeping a "detox diary" and assures me that it can be "most illuminating and quite amusing" to look back upon one's feelings during body purification. Readers are encouraged to be open and honest in an effort to rid the mind of emotional baggage, and are assured that, "after all, nobody else will read it." Well. If I'm going to abstain from sugar, salt, meat, dairy, alcohol, wheat, and all the other fun stuff for the next 21 days, somebody is going to hear about it.

And although I might sound slightly whiny about this, I will admit that I'm actually quite thrilled. I look forward to the "fresh, sweet smelling breath" and svelte, cellulite free body my book promises me I will have in a short three weeks. Not that my breath isn't already fresh and sweet.

So it's day one, and I believe I've already learned the most important lesson I will learn in this toxin-less journey. My patient and enduring husband loves me even more than I knew. Because I'm not flying solo on this detox here. And as much as he may think I'm crazy every time I make him take three drops of Watermelon Flower Essence under his tongue and think fertile thoughts, he never says so.

Now, now

I'm watching autumn unfold around me in it's subtly brash way.

Fall makes me nostalgic. It makes me stop on a Sunday morning and watch the day laze along from coffee through sunlight and into dusk.

I love how September is a slow ride into October, picking up from a musky haze filled August and rolling out into golden fields and trees.

What strikes me the most, though, is that if you watch, you will see the beautiful and peaceful passing of a year. All that has happened, all that's been said, flutters down to the ground in one graceful, fluid fall. And within this all is growth for Spring. Each day laced with the promise of every coming moment.

Hide-a-puppy

So last night after posting my blog, feeling a little delirious from wine and exhaustion, I had a really good idea.

For the past ten months, Beloved Puppy has lived in our home, and for the past ten months, I've been trying to find a way to trick Beloved Husband into letting her sleep in our bed. Success had continued to ellude me on this one. Luck would have it that I'm persistent, so despite Beloved Husband's continued protests, it hasn't shut me up. I keep pace.

So I decide that at long last, I've got the solution: hide Beloved Puppy in the bed before Beloved Husband climbs in. And then turn off the lights and pretend to sleep.

It played out like this:

Quick kiss to husband who is diligently working on computer. "Night night" and a dash down the hall to the bathroom.

Brief teeth brushing episode. Skip the floss. Splash water on face. Screw my normal 40 minute primping routine. I've got a puppy to smuggle.

Lure puppy into bedroom. Puppy seems to think I'm trying to get at her with some sort of ointment and is a bit wary. Utilize husband's sock as a tempting puppy treat. Catch puppy.

Lift.....big.....puppy.....into....ugh....bed. Breathe.

Attempt to hide puppy under covers. Climb into bed. Strategically position feet over puppy for additional camoflouge.

Fall asleep.

Enjoy small dream.

Wake up ten minutes later. Find husband removing puppy from her ingenious hiding spot.

I do not view this so much as a failure as I do an amping up of the challenge.

August

So I realize that last night's post was crap. I'm a bit rusty. Sort of like the tack that punctured the ball of my foot last weekend. Yummy.

If my blogging talents (which I realize far surpass those of most common bloggers) seem a bit rusty as well, please note that I'm writing at midnight. After a glass of wine. And a nap. And a day longer than I care to realize. Yet I cannot keep myself away. I'm a blog addict. A bladdict. Or blog-dic.

So while "Prius vs. Sentra" is a fairly present part of my life right now, it's not the only part. Sure, my car has a low dangling front bumper. (BK knows something about that.) And now a similarly low dangling back bumper. Basically, my car has a FUPA. And an FBPA. The B is for Back. You figure it out. We're not friends anymore if you don't.

Regardless of the Sentra's FUPA and FBPA, my life does have other updates. Here goes.

Will run in race this weekend. Will not win. Do not care.

Continue to receive monthly doses of menopause in the bum. Have realized that true friendship is perhaps best described by somebody willing to shoot up your ass on a monthly basis. And remember what cheek she hit up last, even when you do not.

Husband continues to be massive sex-pot. Not sure I've mentioned this before. Beginning to believe he may be a waist up nudist. I can (and look forward to doing so) live with this piece of knowledge.

Have become aware that the woods behind my home are infested with wolves, coyotes, and a strange man sporting a blue t-shirt. Perhaps we'll revisit this one at a later date.

No more organic clothing at the office. No more hemp. And devestatingly, no more patchouli. Traded in for Tahari suits and the most decent smelling perfume I could find at TJ's. Thanks, J-Lo. Am wondering if and when my co-workers will realize that I inconspicuously own and wear one single pair of heels each and every day. Aforementioned sexy husband has informed me that it would be "unprofessional" to wear my new favorite Harpoon beer t-shirt to the office on casual Friday, despite the fact that I assure him all co-workers prefer Bud-Diesels (aka, "Rowdies").

Am amazed at the fast pace of life in summer, and by the way lightening and cricket filled nights can take my breath away.

Prius vs. Sentra

To my extensive fan base:

Do not give up on me yet. I think of you often. Actually, I think of my blog often. And how freaking hilarious I find myself. And what a shame it is that the world is no longer getting a weekly dose of my glory. So here's the update.

Yesterday, I was rear ended by a little old man on my way to work. Pretty sure he damaged more than a few brain cells. I wasn't actually looking to off-load any of those, but hey. So I get out of my car all upset that I've been rear ended, and he says to me, "do you know what I was doing?" and I'm thinking..."okay buck-o, maybe I just don't want to know. Maybe I'll just be content to realize that whatever it was led you straight into my trunk." Still, he was inclined to share. So he says, "I was reading the newspaper." That's the best he can do? And then I notice that I've been hit by a Toyota Prius. A really pretty blue Toyota Prius. And so I'm thinking to myself, I can't get this guy's information. He's socially AND environmentally conscious. And studious, clearly. So I let him drive off. No phone number. No name. No license plate number. And no. No insurance information.

Let's suffice to say that I got in my car afterwards and realized that perhaps my decision would rapidly be leading to regret. I'd like to think that if I'm going to let random people hit my car and then just drive away, I'd at least choose a beautiful man who had been caught up by my beauty and desperate to talk to me...not a shriveled little eco-bunny. So from now on I'm driving to work with a pen and paper on my lap in desperate hopes of catching the news hound in the Prius so I can scribble down his license plate number. Maybe I have a concussion.