Whole30 Day 2

I think I'm starting to understand the differences in my hunger. I've been slowly learning how to distinguish my types of tired. I no longer think "I'm tired", but try to distinguish between "I'm physically tired" and "I'm mentally tired". More times than not, I'm mentally tired which let's me reflect and figure out what is mentally tiring. Usually it's a whirring in the back of the brain I'm not fully conscious of, but does take energy. Now I'm trying to figure out if I'm carb hungry or whole food hungry. Usually if I feel carb hungry but have been good on other fronts, I realize I'm not really hungry. Sugar cravings are pretty obvious and luckily not much of those ...yet. 

This morning I woke up early again, but not until 4:30, so the jet lag is getting better. Decent energy and not too hungry but as 6 am rolled around, I was feeling the hunger. I decided to go with more cooked meal for meal 1 instead of raw vegetables. 

Meal 1: soft boiled eggs and vegetable stir fry with chicken sausage

- 3 eggs

- one sun dried tomato chicken sausage

- half large red pepper, sliced

- half medium onion, sliced

- one tablespoon, for cooking

I filled up on this meal, on the last few bites I was conscious that I was pretty much full. I think the sausage helped. I had pulled out the ingredients to have monkey cereal, but glad I didn't prep a serving. I'm not sure if I got the fat in this meal as the oil got lost in the juices of the stir fry. 

Meal 2: Leftovers salad

- 1/2 chicken breast

- 1/3 cup salmon

- 10 asparagus stalks

- 1/4 sweet onion, sliced

- 2 handfuls lettuce

- 8 strawberries

- small mango

- 1/2 lime juiced

- 1 tbsp olive oil

This meal, I wasn't sure if I had enough meat, we'll see. I was pretty full by the end. This was made from stuff in the fridge that was pretty much ready to go - cooked already. I'm curious what it will be like as it gets hotter this month. I usually eat yogurt or sorbet to help keep my body temperature down on hot days. And I feel like there is a bunch of cooking. Everything has been pretty quick, but still, stove/oven in the summer isn't great. I always have the AC units I can put in if needed. On another note, I don't think I'm drinking enough water. Need to start a water log I think. First I got to figure out how big my glasses are. 

This afternoon I was sluggish but I blame it on the heat - it was in the 90s and I really slow down in the heat. I had my first craving. Luckily it wasn't in the house which is good. My go to is cold yogurt with homemade strawberry jam or some Italian sorbet. It was kind of a sugar craving but more psychological since I associate consuming those items with an initial cooling down. 

I have boxed up the freezer and fridge - taped boxes in out of sight spots. As I was working on the pantry I was reading the ingredients religiously and realized I already messed up. Turns out it's ok since it's a sugar thing and a small dose. My balsamic vinegar, which is on the ok list, has caramel coloring. It seems obvious this is a sugar, but only discovered after I googled about the vinegar and another ingredient. Who knew?  And that's the point, to be aware of exactly how much you consume has sugar in it. Looks like my other vinegars are good and frankly I've been liking the lime juice vinegrette. If I want I think there are compliant balsamic vinegars, maybe in week three I'll pick it up, along with mustard - mine has wine in it. I really don't have much on stock which feels strange. I left the tea out, but mainly so I had something on the shelf. Frankly it's too hot to think of tea, even without honey. 

I find I'm referencing the book "It Starts with Food" a bunch to remind me of the particulars. I'm still reading the science stuff behind how the foods work and feel like I should get a notebook out and take notes, I keep forgetting the particulars. I think it's due back at the library soon. I hate buying hard cover books, but it's not out in paperback - bummer. 

The heat has effected my appetitie, but am glad I had cooked up leftovers. I've learned from previous years to pace myself with raw leaf vegetables (from my years of having a CSA were I ate salads morning, noon and night). So I'm trying to limit one salad meal per day, at least at first. Maybe I'll try the monkey cereal tonight. I definitely find myself wanting snacks, but am finding what I really need is either water - dehydration or, as right now, I need to just fix a proper meal and not have a snacks dinner, which I often do in the summer, years past. 

Meal 3: monkey salad + chicken/tomato/asparagus salad (no lettuce)

- 1/4 chicken breast

- 4 asparagus stalks

- one small tomato 

- 3 tbsp chopped basil

- 1 tsp olive oil

- one banana

- 1/4 cup cashews

- 1/4 cup blueberries

- one tbsp almond butter

- one tbsp coconut flakes

- dash of cinnamon

Not as many vegetables and I've exceeded the recommended 1-2 fruit helpings per day. But I think I ate the fruit because it went with the meal and not for sugar cravings. I need to pay attention next time. And the plate for dinner was a small lunch plate, so although I had my meat, and filled the rest of the plate with veggies, it was on the small side. But I was reading that if you had too much meat earlier in the day this is you trying to balance things out. That, or it's just hot out and my appetite is low.  Found I gobbled everything down, so although I didn't feel supper hungry I was actually hungry. Good to know. 

Whole30 Day 1

This morning I woke up early - still jet lagged, so I did a bit of stuff before breakfast but then realized I need to get going since breakfast will take longer than usual to prep. And usual means making eggs, pancakes or something decent sized. I really have no idea on proportions, so am trying to track these too as I go along. Oh, and I'm not supposed to think of the three meals in the traditional sense as it effects what food I think of, but instead call them meal 1, 2, and 3. Totally makes sense, especially for a big breakfast lover like me. 

Meal 1: poached eggs on spinach salad

- three handfuls of raw spinach

- six biggish strawberries, sliced

- half an avacado, sliced

- two tablespoons of olive oil

- splash of balsamic viniger

- one tablespoon of sliced almonds

- one teaspoon chopped chives

- three poached eggs

I couldn't figure out how many eggs to have. They say whatever you can hold in one hand. At first I was going to have just two but I'm glad I had three. I did feel hungry after, as I was in the car driving an hour to pick up Wallis from surgery. Which is strange since just the morning before I was driving to drop her off and in the rush went out the door with no breakfast and only had a granola bar on my drive home. I think there is some major psychological stuff going on. I know I can't have carbs so I'm missing them before they are even gone. That, or it could have been that I accidently skipped dinner the night before - falling asleep early, and was even more hungry than usual.  I was still tired after eating breakfast - felt like a dip, but could also be the jet lag and having woken up extra early (3 am). Recipe note, the chives got lost in the vinegrette. Next time sprinkle them on top or try something stronger. 

Meal 2: chicken, asparagus, sweet potato

- 3/4 large chicken breast - with seasoning (no salt)

- one smallish sweet potato

- 10ish asparagus 

Nothing fancy, mainly because I had to run to the grocery store to get my food that I was supposed to have bought on day zero. I felt hungry and still had that salad stomach feeling - fullish, but not stick to your bones full. So I figured I'd eat non salad food, something I would have considered as a complete meal prior.  Even though it has no carbs.  Not sure I ate enough as I still felt a bit hungry afterwards but was reading about satiety versus satiation. It seemed like it should have been enough. I did feel awfully tired in the afternoon. But again this could be from jet lag and my messed up night sleeping. I had minor sweet cravings but then I drank some water and all good. 

Meal 3: Salmon, avacodo salad

- 0.5 pound of salmon fillet

- half an avacado

- quarter sweet onion

- two handfuls lettuce

- one tablespoon olive oil

- one half lime juiced

- one small tomato diced

Even though I was hungrish I didn't snack.  Mainly because I read if you do need to snack it should be a protein. Maybe I should hard boil some eggs in case. At least for this first week as I try to figure out portions. 

Summary for day one. Felt tired and hungry.  And learned I end to start making my meals earlier.

Whole30 Day 0

I was going to set up a separate blog to record this month but the app doesn't allow me on my ipad and I'm too lazy to do it on my computer. 

So day zero is my prep day (technically on Thursday). I swung by my local "farm stand". If I've taken you, it's like a Whole Foods but attached to a large farm. Lots of expensive goodies, but if you focus on the produce they grow on their farm and not the stuff they import, some real bargains. I picked up some local asparagus, spinach, baby lettuce, radishes, rhubarb, eggs, strawberries and some potted basil. The place is also a nursery. I meant to swing by Whole Foods too but was hungry for lunch and then the afternoon flew by. I feel hung over with this jet lag. Luckily I had enough for breakfast on day 1 and made a grocery run in the morning. I usually stay along the border of the grocery store but this time I stayed just at the front half - produce and meat counters. 

I'm buying tons more meat than usual. You are supposed to have a palm size of meat per meal, at a minimum. I used to eat meat a few times a week. I decided on chicken breasts, fresh salmon, ground lamb and chicken sausages. The last one I had to go through a lot of reading ingredients before finding two packages I could eat. And bacon may be challenging - they all have sugar in them - who knew?!  

I bought a bunch of vegetables and a few fruits. Not too much more than what I usually buy and picked up some cashews, coconut flakes and almond butter. Figured I'll try making monkey salad. So at the end of the first round of shopping, I'm at $138 spent. I'm tracking my spending too since I'm anticipating my food budget will go up twofold at a minimum this month.

I did sign up for a meat share from a local farm. I signed up for 15 lbs a month for the summer cycle (six months). I hope that's not too much. I'm guessing that will be about half my meat for the month and if I scale back after 30 days for whatever reasons, it's just the right amount of meat. I was thinking why I don't eat meat much and it came down to most meats are not healthy (the hormones and food they consume) and the happiness of the animals. I hate seeing the meat farms, so I just don't support them with my money on a regular basis. The meat share takes care of these issues by providing healthy and happy meat. Not cheap but that's why people eat junk food and that's not good. As I'm switching my material purchases (I.e. Having a smaller closet, but with better quality items), it correlates into food. Why consume (and spend money on) empty calories or food that does you damage. Spend the money on the good stuff that gives you energy. Luckily I'm in a position where I can afford not buying the cheap stuff. And I'm thankful for that. 

I still need to box up my pantry, fridge and freezer. I figured it best to get all the non-whole items out of sight and easy access, but keep them for the reintroducing period in a month. I'm hoping to get to that in the afternoon. And just have taped up boxes in the fridge and freezer. Makes it harder to dive in and get to the chocolate chips or crackers.

Right now, the two things I don't think I could live without are dairy and sweets. I just love them - you only need to check out my pinterest boards to see all the goodies. I don't love carbs, but there is no denying they are a staple of my diet. It will be interesting to see if my taste usd/cravings/enjoyment changes after the thirty days. 

The last thing I thought I should do on day zero is write down all my general ailments. I have no grand expectations that after thirty days they will all be gone, but I do want to be cognitive of any that do disappear. And I'm horrible at noticing these things. So here goes, my ailments in no particular order:

- low energy - in general

- low energy dip after eating breakfast especially

- weight gain

- bigger stomach (I'd say I'm nearly in my second trimester)

- bigger thighs - noticing it in some clothes

- stuffiness in the nose (afraid I'm allergic to cats or have house mold)

- redness on the nose - seems to worsen and lessen but don't know why

- minor face acne - at first I thought I had bed bugs or something

- general body aches - just feeling old all of a sudden

- joint discomfort sometimes - not sure if it was from working out

- lethargic at times - maybe due to new lifestyle - no deadlines/stress

- headaches sometimes - I think from dehydration - need to drink more water

- sweet cravings - sometimes correlating with my cycle and I've noticed it when I'm hungry

- cholesterol - I'm still in the good range, but each test show me creeping up close to the limit and some of my family members have high cholesterol. 

As I think of more, I'll add them. The main ailment I'm hoping this program will address is my tiredness. I thought I was getting more and more tired because of work and related stress. But this year I've been good about removing mental stress from my life. And I've tried different things to combat the energy. When I get out and exercise - my big thing at the moment is orienteering, I'm really tired after and it doesn't seem to be right. Disproportionate. Something's up and I dont think it's because I'm just getting older. Doctors have done tests in the past and find nothing so therefore nothing is resolved - just the general exercise more and eat healthy. Im excited to finally have a framework to figure out what "eat healthy" means for my body. Here goes!

Istanbul and Athens and life back home

We just got back from our trip, Nick, mom and I. I feel like I've experienced a ful spectrum of travel styles this year from traveling solo (amsterdam) to traveling with a tour group (Transylvania) to traveling with family. The other interesting difference, is that I usually visit only one city per vacation. This time we squeezed in two. The challenge being, I mostly remember Athens, being the last placed we stayed. And we stayed at a really nice house just steps from the acropolis, on a quiet residential street.

It was a fun trip and both nick  and I were happy we could take mom on this trip since she really enjoyed herself. Now I'm back and getting over the jet lag and it already seems like another world away. I'm so happy I don't have to go into work and can enjoy a leisurely recovery. I've really been enjoying my sabbatical and am starting to get used to this lifestyle. But now that I'm back, I'm at the point where I need to figure out the next chapter. And cram in a bunch of projects. I've been getting a bunch done - I will be having a garage sale next weekend, weather permitting, with my neighbors that will finally empty my basement that has been filling up from my editing. I liked the Marie Kondo approach to organization and I keep reminding myself of the mindset shift, it's hard to break old habits.  But it does help that I'm on restrictive spending mode. 

Along the same lines, I'm tackling a new mindset project, moving from my environment changes (stuff around me), to my physical/psychological environment. I'm starting the Whole30 on friday - tomorrow. I'm off to shop for a bunch of vegetables and meat. I think I eat pretty healthy and up to a month ago would say I didn't eat hardly any processed foods. Until I realized single ingredients are processed too, like flour. My main goal is to have a healthier body and I'm realizing my body is reacting to food.  I've had low energy in the past, especially last year, and I attributed it to the stress of work.  But after removing the mental stress, I'll still find I have dips in energy, especially right after eating breakfast. I started experimenting with different foods but felt like it was a jumbled mess and not getting anywhere.  And then someone mentioned the very popular Whole30. Just what I needed, a road map to healthy figure out what food effects me and how. The premise is that you detox your body of potentially challenging food.  Basically all my favorites, dairy, grains, legumes, sugar, alcohol.  And you eat meals around a serving of protein, vegetables and healthy fats. I do eat these types of meals often - especially fancy salads. But the dairy, carbs and sugar are what I'm going to be challenged with since I'll often throw in some quinoa and cheese into my salads.  Although I am excited to beat the "sugar dragon" as they call it.  My vague New Years resolution was to cut the sugar intake down.  It was a lot of Will power battles. Around Easter, it was a real fight not to go back to the store to buy more Cadbury cream eggs. This was after I had already consumed several. And frankly, my thighs are proof that my battle with sugar isn't going well. But honestly, the more I read about sugar the more I realize it's a drug, so my results are only expected. You can't expect not to be a crack addict, when you still have a little bit each week. Hence the need to detox the system. 

It will be an interesting month, but frankly this is the best timing - no stress of work, no travel, and fresh produce is blooming.  I'm dropping Wallis off for surgery this morning, eating the last of the non-whole 30 food in the fridge (yogurt, cheese, bread and waffle mix), filling the fridge with new food.  And emptying the pantry - I'm putting the non- whole30 in a bin in the basement.  So I have to work at greeting to the pasta and other foodstuff. I'll keep you posted. 

Wallis is going in for surgery on her right leg and to do some follow up repairs on her left leg. She's going to be my bionic cat by the end and hopefully have much better knees. I have no idea what to expect, even though we went through this only recently. Before whe could use her good leg to move around with, but now, with both legs out of commission, how... How does she use the kitty litter box, move to eat, drink, etc. So many questions, which I'm sure they will answer tomorrow, post surgery. She's been a trooper, but it's a battle to get her in the pet carrier. She was so easy going before when it came to the vet visits but I guess it's only expected after all the vet visits recently. Hopefully this is the homestretch.

Arrived in Romania

After a long day of travel - three flights, I'm in Cluj. 

This is us waiting for our luggage at the end of the trip at 11 pm. I was exhausted. 

 It's Sunday morning and we just got back from service at the Unitarian church just down the road. Our choir were guest performers and I quickly snapped a picture

I also found out I don't have access to email on this trip. My account can tell I'm oversees and since I'm using a device I'm not already logged into it's requiring verification through text. Which I don't have over here. So hopefully no one is emailing me anything important. Luckily I sent my family contact numbers of fellow travelers in case of emergency so in not completely cut off. 

2016 Catch Up

Lots of big things in the first two months of 2016. First, I decided to step down from my position at work (I quit). I'm doing it a bit back words. Instead of lining up a job and then quitting, I'm doing the more modern thing - a sabbatical. 2015 was me trying to make work work. There is so much of my job that I loved and got satisfaction and pride from, but the higher I climbed the corporate ladder, the more challenges I faced.  I love the good fight - as I make the environment better, and the work place better for women.  And I have to say, looking back, last year I grew so quickly, learning how to handle situations and put things in perspective. As a result, I was able to step back and see that the position I was in was a lot of effort to over come change with diminishing returns on effecting change. It was healthier to spend my energy on something else. I figured that much out but not what to spend my energy on.  The challenges weren't limited to my company but to my industry so I didn't want to just move laterally. Hence the sabbatical. Financially, I followed some wise advise from a colleague, and as the salary went up, I kept my spending constant and as a result was able to squirrel away a good chunk.  So as a result, after The holiday vacation, instead of going back to work, I was able to enjoy a guilt free time off. 

So what do I have planned and what have I been doing?  Well, at Christmas, mom, Nick and I booked our vacation together. We are heading to Istanbul and Athens in May.  And I was able say yes to a pilgrimage to Transylvania with Cece that will be in April. And I think I might have mentioned, last summer I got a good deal on tickets to Amsterdam for a trip in March.  So a ton of traveling I wouldn't normally be able to do. 

January I spent just chilling.  I had the best excuse - Wallis.  I had gotten an XXL crate and she entered full restriction, locked up in that cage for 4 weeks. 

Webster and I kept her company so she didn't feel abandoned. We had a pretty regular schedule by the end.  I would wake up in the night and find my bed empty, Webster, sleeping beside the cage to keep his sister company. So parts of the day, Webster would climb into the cage, and sometimes I would pull her out and snuggle with her in my lap under the covers. She's so good, she quickly learned to stay put and just snuggle while I watched a movie. After thanksgiving I had splurged on a 40" flat screen that I installed in my back room.  

Sad news, at the end of the 28 days, no change, other than her knee got worse. She's scheduled for surgery in two weeks and then we'll have to do it all over again.  I think they said recovery takes 6 weeks in confined movement. I can't believe my cat is having knee surgery. I did shop around and found that the place I liked best (nicest staff and doctor) is also a thousand dollars cheaper.  Granted, I have to drive an extra 20 minutes since it's farther out of Boston, but I don't mind.  In the meantime, Wallis is loving running around no playing with her brother. You'd never know she didn't have a bum knee unless you looked closely. She's learned how to walk favoring the other leg. 

January, was also the start of my KonMarieing my house. I mentioned the Marie Kondo book earlier, and I finally broke down and bought a copy. Basically, I have been going through every single item in my house.  Initially I was naive to think I'd crank through everything in January. Granted she says it takes a good six months, I figured since I had more time I'd fly through. I was already a bit ahead since I already have a precluvity for organizing. It's quite mentally exhausting since you are going throughout every single item, holding it in your hands and facing the hard truths and making a decision. A lot of decisions. Instead of doing books second, I moved them to second to last and just finished them up this month. All I have left is mementos which is the hardest. I literally have like ten boxes full of stuff from my past. 

But man, how free I feel after the deep cleanse of letting go of stuff. It's really not about getting rid of things, but just keeping the stuff you love and use. It also includes rediscovering things and giving more prominence to this tuff you love. It's a new mindset. Hopefully, I'll do another post on the topic, mainly to remind future me of the process and mindset shift. 

I also got a new car!  Well a used car, but new to me.  I searched and searched and searched.  I found pinterest helped me.  I forgot I had a "car" board that I've been pinning beautiful cars to for years. Mostly it's classic jaguars, but nestled in there, was a car I kept finding turning my head when I saw it on the road. The Audi A6. 

But my dilemma was that the Audi A6 was above my price range.  And the Audi A4 I could probably make work (even if the GPS screen didn't disappear). But it didn't do well in Consumer Reports for safety. And both were going to be expensive to repair, which would happen often.  Still I kept looking, but nothing I could find with great milage. In the meantime, I was negotiating with my insurance company for the value of my old car. They said I had to find comps to make my case. I was dubious since my car was one of a kind, with ultra low milage. I could find cars with triple the milage and occasionally double the milage of my car. And then... there it was. A 2006 Infiniti G35 fully loaded with 42k miles. It was my car but in silver inside and out (instead of gray on the outside and rosewood on the inside - my old car). It was 11 PM by the time I found the car. So I slept on it. Bracing myself that the car was probably already sold. It was a private sale and the fellow was  actually going to pull the listing down and keep the car until spring. His mother had died and he was going to use the car for winter (since he didn't want to put winter tires on his Audi S6).  He could still smell a little of her perfume in the car. I had to practically talk him into selling the car to me.  In the end I couldn't be happier and the insurance company came through resulting in me almost getting an upgrade - newer tires, better paint job and a whole laundry list of other improvements over my old car. I do feel bad sometimes about this new car since it spent it's life in a heated garage being driven to church once a week. And now it lives outside in the cold. Ain't it a beauty?

February I spent long weekends in NH visiting my dad and Barbro while they were in town.  Witnessing them voting in the NH primary, skiing! celebrating my birthday and just hanging out. 

And now I'm prepping for my trip to Amsterdam. I can't wait. I stumbled upon a private collection (the Six collection) that you can only visit by invitation. On a long shot I asked and just got this email from the Baron J Six van Hillegorn permitting a private showing next week.   How cool is that?!

2015 Catch Up

It's been a bit of a radio silence on my end and a lot to catch up on. So I'll break it up over a few posts to catch up and then I'll still be leaving out too much. Another lesson to stay on top of the posts. 

Last I left off I was on my way to Virginia for thanksgiving. Great to see the new place, catch up with my step-sister, hang out with my niece and nephew and the rest of the family. We ate, played, explored the area, and had an earlier christmas resulting in playing with the new lego set that was given to Mateo. Gotta love the lego. And playing other games, even if made up.  Nick took over and Marianna loved it.

On the way back we got to use the small local airport. It was so strange, only one terminal and limited staff. So the person who comes over to the counter to check us in, a little while announces security is open and runs the X-ray machine where we then wait in another littler waiting room and then the same person then takes our ticket as we walk out to the plane. It was a bit humorous. I felt I was on that show Wings, but smaller and not as many people. 

There was some funky weather. I love the look of the sky after a thunderstorm with the sun coming out. 

I also found that the bed in the back room for Wallace just didn't work. Too much jumping. At least, I got my bedroom painted. Here's the before and after of my back room. Fun slumber room:

Fun regular sun room, with cats wondering where the bed went:

I'll need to buy a dog crate and try full confinement. 

At work I had the brilliant suggestion that our companies green operating group do a cell phone collection and they liked it and took it on. My hidden agenda was to finally off load my old flip phones without having to mail them in myself. How brilliant right?  Only problem is that in I could have sworn I brought my phones in and drop them into the box, but I found them in January... After the drive was over - ugh. The good news is that we donated a ton of phones to good causes. I dug around and after asking the IT guy and a guy in accounting, check out all the old company phones I rangled up!  

And not just phones, cords and accessories too.

And I'm really proud about how well I know my staff. While I was gone for Thanksgiving, the staff that were in town made turkey hands and I was able to identify all of them. I also love that they love to have a good time. I think I have the coolest department. Actually, I know I do, since several folks from other departments have mentioned it too. 

Nick and I went out to see the Martian - good movie, and I like that it was based on a book that was written where most of the science in the scifi is actual science. While we were at the theater, I ran to the bathroom after and stumbled upon this museum:

Yes - the Musuem of Bad Art. I forgot it was there (in Davis Square). I had heard about it on NPR years ago and didn't realize it was in my own back yard. Here's one of my favorites. 

In case you can't read it, it is Madonna with Floss. All real art collected from real artists and rotated often. I'll have to go back and spend more time. Didn't want to keep Nick waiting too long.  He introduced me to a new find Amsterdam Falafal. It was really good. Who knew amsterdam was known for their falafals. I'll have to check them out on my visit to Amsterdam.

I did take some slightly better pictures of my "finished" bedroom. I still have a few final touch ups. I'm not usually wild about light blue but I really like this color and it just keeps growing on me.  It changes with the light and thought the months. I've decided to not go with the navy blue velvet curtains and go with a lighter cream curtain. The room is darker than the white walls so it all balances out better. 

Mom really liked the color and got to see the finished product when she came to visit for Christmas.  Nick  and mom and I had a great visit and I was able to get almost all my christmas decorations out. 

 Including finally my Waterford 12 days of Christmas ornaments my aunt sue gave us in the 90s. Not something you can hang on a tree when you have pets. And after last christmas I picked up this great display at the Crate and Barrel outlet. Perfect, right?

I got to test out my new dining room set up.  Very cozy, but I think it worked for all three of us. 

Well, that's not everything in 2015, but it's what I had pictures of to jog the old noggin. What else, I saw Maggie in the nutcracker, again. Looks like a tradition.  I borrowed by brothers car a bunch to run errands and look for a new car. I like my independence. Although I mostly walk, bike and use public transportation, I still like to know I can hop into a car at a moments notice. Carless is not for me. But more on that in 2016.