The Greater Goodness

I was super busy today, and that was a good thing. I didn't get a good night's sleep last night because of some issues with my veritable antique gas wall heater, so rather than go to sleep and risk CO poisoning, I cut power to the entire thing, and slept under as many blankets as I could. It wasn't THAT cold (this is SoCal, not Chicago) but it wasn't ideal.

So today I went to the store and got a CO detector, plus a ton of cleaning supplies, including a special fine-wire brush for Snowy's fur. I am sick and tired of finding her fur everywhere. I love my dog more than myself sometimes but she is a fur machine. Makes keeping my tiny apartment clean very difficult.

Here is what I did today:

- Laundry: sheets and comforter (which was not really dirty, just furry, and the dryer helps suck the fur off of it)
- Floors: This was the big stuff. My floors are orange Spanish tile, but they are rough and textured, so dirt and grease from my kitchen can discolor them to a dingy grey. This was hard work. We're talking arm-busting scrub brushing, ab-blasting mopping (3 mopping layers, the floors were SO filthy that water was black and I had to keep emptying the bucket and refilling it with more hot water and Pine-Sol), then I got a shammy wet and wiped the floor down, and then put on some white socks and skidding around getting up the last bits of dirt and pushed around dirty water.
- Bathroom: Toilets, sinks, wet-wiped down walls and ledges, finally sprayed the tile floor with a bleachy cleaner and used an entire roll of paper towels to wipe it down while on my hands and knees
- Dishes are done, man.
- The Dog: I used her "slicker" fine-wire brush, which pulled off a good big chunk of dead fur. Then I used a fine tooth comb to pull out more fur, and just alternated slicker/comb/slicker/comb until I was satisfied. I could have brushed that damn dog all day and she'd still have huge furry chunks coming out. She is a shedder. I wiped her down outside and let her get a good run in, and allowed her to rest outside. Then I brought out the big gun: The Dirt Devil Mini Vac. She hates that thing - just hates the noise. She's going to hate it even more now that I used it to vacuum HER. She was a good girl and just sat there, but man, if a dog could look pissed off - she looked it.

I ran every single day this week except for today. And that's OK, because did you know? 10 minutes of vacuuming, 10 minutes of mopping and 30 minutes of floor scrubbing (even though I did much more than this) is equal to the same amount of "Activity Points" as 30 minutes of jogging. Sweet!

I picked up a popcorn air popper today at the store as well. I need salty snacks, and chips will not do. A big bowl of air-popped popcorn, with a quick blast of butter spray and some garlic salt will be a great snack. It was like $20, but 4 bags of chips would cost that much, and this is better for my hips. HIPS OVER CHIPS, DUDES.

And finally, I read something pretty interesting this week about Americans and meat consumption. Did you know the average American consumes 12 oz of meat every single day? That's almost a full POUND of meat. If you ask me, that number just seems low, considering that almost every fast food hamburger is at least 1/4 lb of meat these days. Do the math on that...that's 4,380 pounds of meat PER YEAR per person. That is over 2 tons of meat. Per person. In the entire country. On average.

The feeding and caring of meat cattle consumes a huge amount of our natural resources, from aquifer water, to arable and farmable land to grow grain to feed them (grain that we could be eating or using for fuel)...not to mention the environmental impact from methane emissions and animal waste leaking into water sources (you do NOT want to live near a pig or chicken farm.)

Still, meat is delicious, and I firmly believe we are omnivores and are meant to eat from every edible food source on the planet. I love hamburger, steak, chicken, sushi, everything. But for my health, and for the stewardship of the planet (for whatever my tiny impact is worth) I'm goinig to make at least one day a week completely meat-free. Today was that day, and it was pretty cool.

I cannot say enough nice things so far about Weight Watchers. Its not just about dieting or counting calories. I've realized that it is causing me to completely re-evaluate my entire relationship with food. I am thinking about how the food I eat fuels my body; how the choices I make impact the environment, and those around me. I'm keenly aware of it all, instead of being ignorant and mindless. Food is so much more than just meat, vegetables, and our own private mealtime. I applaud the Weight Watchers program for helping its members create healthy and sustainable relationships to food.