Apparently the universe is out to get my left hand...

I don't know what my left hand did while I wasn't looking, but it sure has been taking a beating lately. Within twenty-four hours over the weekend my hand was injured not once, not twice, but THREE times! And I don't mean like slammed in the door or just general banged up. I'm talking about sliced open and bloody mess injuries.

Sunday morning I was preparing things for a baby shower for my friend, Liz. I was making some party favors involving safety pins. I jammed a safety pin into my cuticle and blood was everywhere. Then I was cutting fruit for a fruit salad and sliced my thumb open. This time there was copious amounts of blood and use of the F word. Fast forward to Monday when Paulie and I visited AC Moore. I grabbed a cart without looking and had my pinky sliced open because the plastic on the handle was broken.

What did my left hand do that was so awful?

It was a good try...for a carnivore anyway.

By Wednesday Paulie had had enough of the vegetarian thing. He called me in the afternoon to tell me he was angry at having no meat. By the time he got off of work that night he told me he felt dizzy and nauseous because he had not eaten any meat. So I said that's ok I was just glad he had tried it. I told him to pick up a burger and come home. Oddly enough he couldn't even get through half of the Whopper that night.

I have never felt better. I have energy and just have a nice sense of well being. I don't think I'm going to be one of those hardcore vegetarian types, though. I'm totally craving sushi, but honestly other than that I think I could do the meatless thing for a long time. I made tacos last night using black beans and Morningstar Farms veggie crumbles for the filler. They were so good I didn't even have time to take a picture before we beasted all of them! Paulie loved them, too. So, now there are three meatless dinners I know my husband likes. Tonight we're trying veggie crumble sloppy joes. Wish me luck!

Day 1 and we blew it

Ok so I told you guys we were going vegetarian for a while. Yesterday was day one and we both blew it! Here's how:

Paulie calls me at around noon and he's a little upset because they had company evaluations and they didn't go well. Everyone got crappy evals, too. I don't really agree with how this was done because how can you evaluate someone when you don't even work in the shop with them on a day to day basis? Oh, well. A little while later Paulie texts me that he was so upset he already had a burger. One down, one to go.

Before we closed for break at 2pm, Manny, one of the appetizer chefs, told me they were making chicken katsu for dinner. This has been one of my favorite things to eat at Kyoto forever. It's just a piece of chicken breaded and fried, but you put katsu sauce on it and it is awesome! By dinner time Manny had reminded me about 5 times to not forget about the katsu. I finally decided to eat the katsu to not hurt his feelings. While I was eating, Stacey was like "Margary killed a chicken."

But I redeemed my slacker husband and I with the beautiful vegetarian pizza I made after work.



I used fresh mushrooms and veggies sausage crumbles so it would be more appealing to Paulie. And you know what? They taste like sausage without the greasy nasty feeling you get afterwards. We both enjoyed it and Paulie even admitted he'd eat it again. Success!

Challenges

So this year instead of having a New Year's resolution I decided to have what I call challenges of 2011. Now most of you are probably thinking "Isn't that the same thing?". Well maybe, but the word resolution just screams, "You are going to FAIL at this!", to me. The word challenge is more encouraging like, "Let's see how far you can go with this." Do you guys get what I'm saying?

To tell the truth, this all came about quite accidentally about three days after New Year's. As you may or may not know I have been a smoker since I was 13. I have been a full time smoker since I was 16. I am now 31...you do the math. I LOVE to smoke. I love hanging out with friends and b.s.ing for hours smoking cigarette after cigarette. When I have been drawn as a cartoon or a caricature I always have a cigarette in my hand. On the third of January I ran out of cigarettes right before I went to bed. No big deal, I would just pick up some on the way to work. So I woke up the next morning, went to work, and around noon realized I hadn't had a cig yet. WTF!?!? "How am I not homicidal?", I thought. Well, I decided to roll with it. So as of today, I have had about 5 cigarettes since January 4th. Now I'm looking forward to no cigarettes next month.

My second challenge: Go vegetarian for a month or forever maybe. This isn't actually a big challenge for me as I was vegetarian for a while a few years back. I've been having moral and health issues with meat. Things like high cholesterol and recognizing that the meat in the cooler at Walmart used to have a face. Which is really unfortunate because I really like Taco Bell. I even got Paulie to jump on the bandwagon for a week. "I'll try your stupid hippy dippy food, but I'm not going to like it.", he said. I'm ecstatic that he's willing to try it for an hour let alone a week! My husband believes the four food groups are burgers, tacos, pizza, and ice cream. This next week I'm going to try my hardest to show him that meatless meals can be tasty, too.

For now these are my biggest challenges to deal with. I have some minor challenges which are more like things to learn that I think would help me grow as a person this year. Such as:
-learn how to use a sewing machine
-learn how to crochet(I got knitting down last year)
-canning some fruit preserves
-grow some vegetables with my dad
-spend more time with my husband not in front of the tv

I'll keep you posted on how everything goes.