Hello, moment.

60 days of real food (and a 60 day goal)

So, I thought about starting a separate blog for this (and calling it, like, The Last 100 Pounds or something cheesy like that), on Tumblr or something, which seems less serious and a little less personal. I also really don't want this blog to turn into a weight loss blog, because I have a lot of feelings surrounding weight and food and everything that are sort of weird and unresolved - except not. I know how I feel but I also know that it's a strange subject (especially when you've had surgery, which people don't seem to like or respect very much for some reason) and that often, people interpret the things that weight loss bloggers say through their own internal filter. And, things. But in the end, I decided to talk about it here anyway because starting another blog is so not conducive to consistency, and well. This is a blog about life and moments and this is a moment, so it's relevant.

So, hi. The past few months have been harrowing and stressful and just sort of full on Cathy Guisewite ACK!, for a few reasons which really don't bear delving into here (relevance), and my commitments to healthy eating and exercise have really suffered. Why are healthy habits the first things to go (for some people) in the face of stress? Which people? Me people. Comfort food and comfort-in-food people. Immobilizing inertia people. I am so over it.

I'm still walking a couple of miles (ish) every day because luckily, the dogs command it, but I really want to get back to the gym. I miss the gym. I know, I know. I know. But there it is. I'm tired of eating convenient garbage and I'm tired of sitting around so much. I can feel my healthy habits reverting and you know what? No. That's not going to be a thing.

And so, what? This isn't going to be a complicated, convoluted endeavor with charts and graphs, because life is complicated enough, and food and exercise should be simple. It's 60 days of real food, and 60 days of getting back to the gym. Enough time to re-ingrain my healthy habits and restart my steady weight loss. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner - not from a box. Mostly plants. Up and to the gym bright and early. And I should probably get that kettle bell out of my trunk, where it's been for the past month. My 60 day weight loss goal is similarly simple; I want to knock off about 40 pounds. It sounds like a lot if you haven't had gastric bypass surgery, but it's only slightly ambitious for me. If I don't get there, it's okay, but I'm a numbers girl, sometimes. And sometimes I'm not.

Time to shake the dust.

The quiet house

It may be 90 degrees outside, but inside it's cool and quiet and perfect for couch napping. For them. I'm still working.

Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

It's arguably the most famous sauce on the Internet, this perfect, simple pasta sauce adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking. And it's been my go-to sauce for a few years now, perfect because I don't like to fuss in the kitchen, but I only want to eat things that taste amazing, and this sauce fits that description perfectly. It has three simple ingredients and cooks slowly while you work or clean the kitchen or put your feet up and snuggle a dog or two.

I made it tonight for dinner because it's Monday, and I'm fairly sure that's as good a reason as any to boil up some spaghetti and make a sauce from scratch. Also, I have leftovers, and that means lunch tomorrow and maybe, maybe even dinner on Wednesday. It's perfectly reasonable, pasta three times in a week, especially when you're a single gal. Or a not so single gal. Or anyone, really.

Ingredients:

- 28 ounces whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes (you want San Marzano if you can get them)
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
- Salt to taste

Method:

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer, then lower the heat, keeping the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the fat floats free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste, and keep it warm while you prepare your pasta. A note about discarding the onion: if you find it too good to let go of (like I do), stand there and eat it while you wait for your pasta water to boil. I won't tell.

Music:

Ryan Adams - Gold (the entire album; you've got time)

Little birds, and the beauty of not knowing

Earlier this week we had some serious storms, as Florida is wont to do during hurricane season. In the midst of one of these, after the rain had gone, leaving nothing behind but wind and a yard full of fallen tree limbs, I watched from my bedroom window as a bird perched on our fence. He held tight as the wind whipped his feathers up, rocking him to and fro until the gusts died down long enough for him to fly away again. Hurricanes and other very windy storms have been a part of my life since I was little, but I'd never considered the way a bird weathers them until then. Curious, I asked someone knowledgeable, and I learned something new. This is the beauty of not knowing.

I learned that the muscles in birds' tiny feet contract automatically when they land, forming a tight grip that isn't easily broken - consider how it feels when a bird stands on your finger. They have to let go very deliberately when ready to leave the perch. As for storms, some birds take shelter, some huddle in the trees holding on for dear life, and some are picked up and carried far from home, trapped in the calm of the eye. Now displaced, they've become hurricane birds, left to adapt to their new surroundings once the winds die down. Sounds a lot like life, doesn't it?

This is not exactly relevant, but whenever I talk about the habits of birds (it doesn't happen as often as you might think), I talk about how much I love watching murmurations of starlings. In 2011, a couple of artists in Ireland caught one while canoeing, and it perfectly captures why a murmuration is one of the most breathtaking things you'll ever see. I think you should watch it, even if you've already seen it once or twice or twenty times before:

Birds have some very important things to teach us, I think: when you find yourself in the middle of a storm, hold on tight, find the calmest center, stay close to someone you trust, and adapt to whatever situation you wind up in. That's a bit of advice worth following, isn't it?