Book love....

Insurgent and Allegiant. The second and third books in the Divergent series.

Libby from the SPCA

Book love....

Divergent. Another deliciously mindless read.

Is that?.......

Over the months I've related several surprising situations where we've seen professional athletes around Wellington. It will never cease to amaze me that they just happen to be out to brunch with family or friends like normal people. I know it makes sense that they'd have to eat out somewhere but I'm still surprised to see them out and about. I guess in the US we never lived any place where you might see a professional athlete outside his/her sporting arena.

Yesterday I was at the gym slogging out thirty minutes on the treadmill. Can I just emphasize how hard it is for me to run any distance farther than a few feet? I am not a natural born athlete and therefore have to drag myself to the gym and plop my flabby respiratory system on the treadmill and give it my best to struggle through thirty minutes of running. So I reached the final five minutes, which are always the most challenging, and I look across the way where people continually walk in front of the cardio equipment en route to other areas of the gym. I see this tall guy and laugh to myself, "Hey, that looks like Jason Eaton". When we started watching the Hurricanes play rugby I randomly picked a player to follow and it was Jason. In retrospect I realized that the only reason I chose him was because he was easy to spot in a group of players about which I knew nothing. He's taller than most rugby players but the thing that really distinguishes him is his crazy hair and, usually, unruly beard. So the guy I saw walking past at the gym looked like him but I immediately dismissed it because I was sure that after he left the Hurricanes squad last year that he went to play in Japan. Nevertheless I continued to look and realized that it was Jason Eaton! Okay, picture this in your mind for a second. I'm five minutes from death, sweating profusely while huffing and puffing on the treadmill when the realization strikes. And you know what my first thought was? I almost said, "Hey Jason!", just to confirm my suspicions but something, thankfully, held me back.

I managed to finish my run, wiped down my machine and gathered my stuff to go back to the office. On the way out and I stopped and talked to the folks at the front desk and asked, "Does Jason Eaton work out here because I thought I just saw him". The woman at the desk said, "Oh yeah, he was just in for physio treatment". And assuming that I was coming across like a crazy person I felt the need to explain that I was a big fan. :) Who knew Jason Eaton went to the same little gym that I do?

Veggie....

Before starting this post I opened Pandora and the first line of the song that began playing was, "It might seem crazy what I'm about to say". Randomly and surprisingly apt considering the topic of this post. So this is something that I've thought about for a long time. I guess its been on my mind since Tim and I met. That is: vegetarianism. When we met in 2006 Tim was a vegetarian and while I never fully embraced the idea I ate primarily as a vegetarian for the first couple years we were together. Not to say that I wouldn't happily munch on a juicy burger or consume more than my fair share of bacon at breakfast this only happened when I would visit my family. Then Tim had the opportunity to return to Antarctica with his MSU supervisor and a team of other students and scientists. He was away from Bozeman, and me, for two months. During that time I spent some time thinking about our eating habits and I decided that I couldn't become a vegetarian and would tell him when we arrived home. What I didn't expect was that when we had that conversation he was the one to tell me that he was going to start eating meat again. I was surprised but happy that we were on the same page. Now everyone assumes that it was me that changed his mind in regards to eating meat but let me go on record to say that he reached that conclusion while several thousand miles away from me! Since then we've never really eaten much meat but we'll grill burgers or chicken kebabs and no one can say no to crispy bacon once in awhile. :)

On and off I've thought about going veggie because currently we eat less meat than ever before. I'm not exactly sure why that is; we just seem to pick veggie options even when we eat out. So this afternoon thinking on this topic once again I decided that I would conduct the experiment and see what I learn. That is, until my birthday, three weeks away, I will refrain from eating meat. I have no idea what to expect. Will it be ridiculously easy? Will I miss it? Will I feel healthier? Or will I never feel full? Since I don't have answers to these questions I will collect the data and see what happens.

I mentioned this idea to Timmy and immediately he said he would do it with me. I told him, "You won't have any problems because you're an old pro". So here goes nothing. Embrace the veggie!