Love, Jimmie

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day!  Did you have a good one?  I did, and I wasn’t even celebrating it.  The amount of loot I got was astonishing.  Over the last couple of weeks everyone has been so dang nice to me.  I told you about the chocolates and the lip goo.  I told you about some of the phone calls.  I didn’t tell you about the tote bag that somebody made for me, nor the cards I got, nor the lunch and dinner dates.  Two people offered to watch Magic Mike with me and I’m here to tell you, I’m going to take both of them up on the offer.  Rowr!  If ever I was in any doubt, my heart squish has proven to me that I am loved.  I’m planning on getting dumped every other month or so because I’ve never felt so special in all my life.  Also, I won a book in a contest.  I’m charmed, I tell you.

I’m still on my Whole 30 “Cleanse” and that’s what I wanted to tell you about today.  In my head I planned to say that this here “cleanse” is going to be the death of me because hahahahahahaaaa, but that would be untruthful.  I feel pretty good, honestly.  I’m on day 12, so not quite halfway through, and I still like the food I’m eating.  I’m still experimental with it, and I don’t yet hate broccoli so for a least another week or two, I’m alright.

The chocolates that I got as gift continue to sit on my table in their pretty box, and I’m not even tempted to open it.  I barely think about them.  Isn’t that amazing?  It helps that I accidentally had some sugar one night, I think it was in a marinade, and the sugar headache nearly did me in.  That right there was enough to keep me from wanting any sugar.  Oh, can you imagine the barfs I would get if I ate a whole passel of sugar right now?  Oh, hurk.

So I bypassed the Sugar Headache that was to be Phase One on this here “cleanse.”   I didn’t want to Kill Anything, Phase Two.  Phase Three hit me like a ton of bricks, though.  That was the I Want A Nap Phase, and boy did I ever.  Napping is usually something you’d like to shoot for in the middle of the afternoon but personally, I aimed to nap at about 5:00 a.m., just as the alarm was going off.  I’d have gone to bed at 9:00 the night before, slept like a hibernating bear, and then 5:00 would roll around and I would use every ounce of effort I had to lift my arm from the under the duvet and tap my phone to set the snooze on my alarm.  I did this multiple times every morning.  The cats even stopped freaking out, it happened so often.  If Daisy hadn’t texted me early I never would have gotten out of bed.  Once at work I was fine.  I think that phase has passed, thank goodness, and having skipped right over My Pants are Too Tight (something about a bloat as your gut heals itself?) and The Hardest Days (I didn’t find that to be true), I’m now ready for Phase Six – Boundless Energy.  I hear its coming, and boy am I excited about it.  This house needs a deep cleaning.  There is dust everywhere.  Once that energy train rides in, I’m all over it.

I’ve learned some valuable information during this here “cleanse.”

1. I don’t like butternut squash.  What a pretentious vegetable yet it is so overwhelmingly unsatisfying.  It tastes like squash.  As much as we hype this mind-blowing super food, you’d think it would taste better than squash.  Blergh.
2. I really don’t need sugar.  I haven’t craved it yet.  Nor have I craved carbs.  The things I haven’t had I don’t miss.  I don’t even think about them.
3. I suck at making sweet potato fries.  So not worth the effort it takes to cut each sweet potato into evenly shaped French fry-like shapes.  Nearly lost a finger in that debacle.
4. I have a serious emotional attachment to food.  No, I’m not craving anything right now but a part of me is mourning the loss of the food I used to eat.  I’m mourning the preparation of it and the anticipation of it.  I’ve used food as an emotional meter for so long.  I want it when I’m happy, sad, excited, hurt, motivated.  I’ve used it to show love or gratitude.  I’ve used it as a comfort or to ease a wound when I’m hurting.  It isn’t normal.
5. Nashville is home to some very snooty grocery stores.  I feel like this here “cleanse” requires me to be snooty in some of the choices I make, and I don’t like it.  The minute I get haughty and start yapping about how “Whole Foods is really the only market worth my time and money,” and “I eat Paleo,” and “Really, that butter you ingest is soooo passé.  Here, try my ghee* . . . .” y’all shoot me in the big toe.  I’m serious.  One trip to Whole Foods on a Saturday morning has cured me of any airs I might have had or ever hope to have about grocery shopping.  Bunch of men wearing skinny jeans and organic garlic sold for $6.00 a bunch. Posers.
6. I’m not going to be able to eat this way for any extended period of time.  I didn’t go into it thinking that I would.  I really just wanted to get back to foods as natural as I could get them and also hoped to kick a few bad habits.  Perhaps drop a few pounds before my next big vacation and not feel hideous in my super-cute swimmy clothes.  I’m going to miss brown rice, though.  I can feel that coming.
7. After this shindig is over, I will not eat another egg for at least one year.  Do not offer me quiche.  Do not offer me crème brulee.  Do not offer me custard of any kind.  If you try to serve me a frittata and disguise the egg under a bunch of cheese and/or tomatoes, I will barf on your shoes.  That’s a promise right there.

I guess I’m telling you all this to tell you I’m still fighting over here.  I’m still kicking and all is well.  This here “cleanse” is the only item of note in my life right now, so this is what you get.  Yee-haw!  Let’s all pray for something exciting to happen to me, yes?

* Ghee is a super snooty, pretentious butter.  It’s clarified within an inch of its life and it is ridiculously expensive.  I better love the heck out of it because there is no way, no how any of that is going in the trash.  I’d shoot my own self in the big toe before I do that.