To meat or not to meat?

It hit me last weekend. I was at the grocery store in the check out line. I had all sorts of veggies, brown rice, lentils, soy milk, soy ice cream. The clerk was looking at my groceries and commented on how healthy I eat. And then she said, "That must be why you look the way you do. Are you a vegetarian?" And I realized, "Yes! I am." She asked, "For how long? A year?" "Not quite a year," I said.

This week is my fourth week experimenting with The Kind Diet. On the 28th of February, I will have been a vegetarian for one month. (So my "not quite a year" was a bit of a stretch. wink, wink.) And I have been eating almost vegan for most of the past few weeks. It's not been nearly as difficult, or as much of a sacrifice, as I thought it would be. I didn't eat that much meat to begin with. But I love cheese, and eggs, and ice cream and yogurt. I've found, however, vegan replacements for almost all of those things and they are, for the most part, surprisingly good! I can't say that I've really missed anything. Except sugar, which is a whole different story. But I'm getting used to that too. I have not yet even tried to give up coffee. Maybe some day, but not today for sure.

My husband, the Great White Hunter, gets it now. He's not giving up meat, and that's okay too. A few nights ago, he grilled venison burgers for him, and a couple of veggie burgers for me. After we ate, he asked me if it was okay to put them all in the same container in the refrigerator. What a guy! Although just a few nights before that, his hunting buddy came over so they could fill out their forms to mail in to get permits to hunt deer later this year. They were looking over everything else they could hunt for, and I heard him say, "Janet used to always want to shoot her own turkey. Hey, Janet! We're going to put you in to hunt turkey. Okay?" Um, hello!?!? I'm not eating meat. Why on earth would I want to kill something?! Sigh . . .

Friday Night Love Affair

Since confession seemed to be a theme in other blogs I've read today, I decided to follow suit. I wasn't going to write at all, but the guilt consumed me, and I must avow as well.

My husband has been working nights. He gets home at about three a.m., and being the dear that he is, he has been sleeping on the couch (which he can do quite well and satisfactorily, unlike me) so as not to wake me. I kiss him goodbye when I leave for work in the morning, and I talk to him on the phone when he's getting ready to leave for work again, somewhere around three in the afternoon. We get face time and actual time to talk come the weekend.

After a somewhat bizarre and harried week, I was in somewhat of a bizarre, yet animated, mood. I had the proverbial ants in my pants to do something besides sit on the couch and watch "What Not To Wear." And I had promised myself I wasn't going to spend three hours in front of the computer. I felt like doing something decadent and just accepting whatever consequences might follow.

I love my husband. I love my children and my grandchildren. And I love my friends. But I have another love, and sometimes I only want to be with that love. And so tonight, I am. I'm going to kick off my shoes and fix a drink. I'm going to fluff the pillows on the bed and turn down the volume on my phone. And then I'm going to languish with something steamy, and I swear I'm going to last more than fifteen minutes this time.

Sigh . . . life is good.