You know how I always say I’m going to start writing again – posting recipes, writing in general, and then I never do?

Hi, I’m back.

This time I’m here because of food. Again. But with a slightly different focus. Andrew has recently decided to give a new way of eating a try and I’m hopeful it’s something I can do with him – and can stick to and see results from.

For months now, Andrew has been suggesting we try a paleo diet. I took one look at it and said “NO SALT? OH HELL NO.” But the fact of the matter is, I need to do SOMETHING and he’s recently talked me into trying a diet way of eating called primal eating instead, which is a little less restrictive than the paleo plan.

The truth is, we already eat quite healthily. We were both raised on healthy, non-processed, non-packaged food but we’ve fallen into sloppier eating habits of late, as many do, and we need to correct that.

(I had a whole ranting ranty rant written in my head against the evils of processed food and how they’re SO! BAD! and why are so many people KILLING! THEMSELVES! with them? Then I realized that if I substituted “processed food” with “meat”, I automatically had to hate myself. I won’t go there, but I think it’s fair to say many processed foods are terribly unhealthy and it wouldn’t hurt anyone to eat less of them. I’ll stop now).

I weigh more than I should. Probably 30lbs more than I should, although if I lost 20 I’d probably be happy. My BMI tells me I’m Overweight and I don’t like that label, oh no, I do not. I know many people take issue with the BMI scale in general and I wholeheartedly agree that for people with large builds and heavily muscled athletes it is pretty unfair. However, c’mon – I am neither large boned nor heavily muscled so it’s pretty fair for me and I’d like to see my BMI back in the Normal range.

Andrew is convinced of the health benefits of primal eating, and being in the health and wellness industry, he does know a thing or two (or a million) about the way the body works. I’ve done some research too and believe that we’re already pretty close to this way of eating – with one caveat: at dinner only.

My downfalls are breakfast and lunch. I’m on the go all day. I don’t bring breakfast or lunch to the office, which of course leads to muffins (Bran or Egg Mc) for breakfast and Subway sandwiches or cafeteria pasta for lunch. This is going to change.

This weekend I prepared a big pot full of soup to take for lunch. It took me very little time to brown some lean ground beef and season it with chili spices (NOT the packaged stuff – have you SEEN the sodium in that? 1/6 of the package is 22% of your daily recommended sodium intake. 1/6!!) and throw it in the crockpot with a bunch of veggies. And it’s totally delicious – better than anything I’d pick up in the caf and I know what’s in it.

I also made some breakfast frittata thingies (in a muffin tray) that were insanely easy and are really tasty.  I’ll try to post the recipe and pictures the next time I make them.

Today, the first day on the diet way of eating went incredibly well. I ate my egg muffin frittata thingy for breakfast and had the soup for lunch. I also had a couple of small snacks and I’m happy to say I’m not hungry at all right now – really. Our dinner will be chicken breasts and spinach, which isn’t really any different than it normally is, other than I’m trying a recipe with coconut, which kind of scares the crap out of my trained by Weight Watchers brain (fat! calories! eeee!)

ANYWAY. Wish us luck.

So on Wednesday night after I’d opened some girly lotions and manicure stuff, he sat down in front of me and handed me a velvet jewelry box (don’t get excited, it was bigger than *that*, more the size you’d find a necklace in). I pried the box open and found myself looking at this:

To say I was a little confused would be accurate. I tried to think of what to say, my mind was racing. I think I had come up with “Oh! A whistle!” and “for safety…right?” before he said “Look at the sides”.

On one side is engraved:

To Lara

And on the other:

Just Whistle

Tonight, I’m doing that in front of the computer instead – can you imagine if I had a record of all those birthday-eve thoughts from years past? It would be amazing, so here is my new tradition – writing them down.

This year, my 39th, had it’s ups and downs as any year does, but it was mostly good. I have everything pretty much everything I need to make me happy, as previously noted. My birthday falls so late in the year it’s hard to remember back to the summer, but I know I had a wonderful summer – I hiked (including the Chief and the Grouse Grind), I swam in lakes (one secluded and quiet, the other full of slashing dogs and children). We spent sunny days in Squamish and Whistler and lovely evenings on patios – home and away.

I’m anything but materialistic, but I have a few things on my wish list I’d like to purchase before this time next year, and a few non-material goals too:

• I’d like to move to a bigger apartment, one with LAUNDRY (This is how I know I’m old).
• I want a new car. Not an upgrade, but a new-to-me car. My first car was a 1969 Volkswagen Bug, the same vintage as me, and ever since the new Bugs came out I’ve wanted one. I drive probably once every two or three weeks so I do NOT need a fancy new car and can’t justify the expense, but I’m going to sell my boring reliable Corolla and buy a used Bug this year, damnit.
• A VACATION! It has been WAY TOO LONG. Between moves and new jobs and recessions, vacations have fallen down the To Do list and they need to be moved to the top of the list this year, no matter what.
• I want to swim more. I took swimming lessons twice this year but have dropped off of them since the last session ended in mid-October. I love being in the water, it helps with my stress level and it helps keep me fit – I have no idea why I stopped.
• Add the two above and you get…snorkeling. I LOVE snorkeling and I haven’t snorkeled since the day of the tsunami, five years ago. No excuse for that. I will snorkel this year.
• I need to get myself back in better shape. I always say I gain weight when I’m unhappy (“oh screw it, my life sucks anyways, I’m ordering pizza and drinking wine”), but apparently I do it when I’m happy too (“let’s cuddle on the couch and eat pizza and drink wine, k?”). I need to dedicate two or three months to knuckling down on the food and wine and exercise fronts and just get ‘er done.
• I want to buy and learn to use a REAL camera. This is something I’ve wanted to do since high school (not kidding) but have been thwarted by the lack of money to buy a decent camera. I need to make it a priority.

Now that I’ve written it down, this is my 40 list and I won’t edit it. Come back next year to see how I did.