Phew! 2½ months since I last posted! I don’t share too much of my personal life with you on this blog but I’m sure you could tell by my last posts (from fall thru early winter) that I was not in my normal state. I started seeing someone who was a great person but had a lot of issues, and due to his instabilities and lack of discipline my lifestyle was hindered. I was way out of whack, mentally and emotionally; I was eating horrendously, not getting enough sleep, being exposed to a great deal of second-hand smoke, add his unpredictability to that and I was struggling to keep my sanity. Hence why I dubbed him “The Distraction” from the beginning. (Of course there was plenty of goodness mixed in with that, or so I thought.) I finally ended things for good a few weeks before Christmas and have been working on Me ever since.
With the Distraction gone, I was able to regain control of my life. I was back to cooking on weekends, eating all organic again, I also started going back to the gym. My sadness subsided and I was feeling even better than I had before he had come into my life. Around the end of January I was invited by an old co-worker (whom I’d been out of touch with for about 6 years) to go to Mexico mid-February. The people in my life questioned me about food in Mexico; to be honest, I wasn’t really worried about it. I mean I didn’t want to eat GMO’s but I didn’t want to be a PIA to my travel companion (who didn’t seem to completely grasp the definition of organic although he is a vegetarian and super into yoga and somewhat practicing Buddhism) so I was just going to go with the flow. I packed a lot of food for the plane (have I mentioned my new addiction to Kind Bars??) as to avoid the food at the airports. I was doing well until our flights got a little mixed up and we spent 16 hours traveling. I ate a turkey club at the airport and a tuna melt at the Crowne Plaza. The next morning we ate at the airport, I had a yogurt with fruit and granola. When we got to Mexico I felt much better about the food. I don’t know for sure, but I assume the produce is much fresher and less likely to be from GMO seeds, I also suspect less pesticide usage or at least less dangerous chemicals, but I may be naive in this assumption. I ate a lot of fresh fish and never have I enjoyed fish so much in my life!! I ate bacon! You would have never known that I hadn’t eaten bacon in over a year the way I was ordering up that fatty pig! Oh, and french fries too! Ha! I know, pretty relaxed huh? 
The bacon was so different from what we’re used to here in the States. I can’t describe it but it seemed to be made better; I pictured healthy pigs rolling around in a muddy pen snouting for roots and flowers and such. And I couldn’t resist the BLTA, a BLT with avocado and a special avocado mayo – OH IT WAS DELISH!!!! The fries? Ok, admittedly I could have done without the fries. Our trip back was a little messed up too, leaving us to eat at yet another hotel restaurant where Iagain ordered fries… I was starting to become worried about this reunion of grease and good feelings. I had been fighting a cold the whole week and it definitely caught up to me on the return; as soon as I got home I passed out for 5 hours and when I woke up, I was hungry and realized how accustomed I had gotten to eating out. I was in between week-long vacations so I hadn’t done any food shopping and it took everything I had to not go get something, anything!
I made it through that week and found myself in a Friday’s at yet another airport (with my Mexico travel buddy). I wasn’t too hungry and really didn’t want to restart this nightmare of conventional crap so I didn’t order anything. Too bad that didn’t stop me from eating the sesame jack chicken strips and one or two of the potstickers that was ordered 
I vowed to be more mindful and unwavering while I was at my parents’ in Florida! Remember last year’s visit? Well, it almost brings a tear to my eye to admit that on our way from the airport at 1opm I was so hungry I asked for anything. Anything! My parents listed some choices and all I could think about was how I’d give anything to be back in Mexico, I longed for their fresh food! After reneging on my original request, rejecting McDonald’s and Burger King I was left with one option, Wendy’s. Wendy’s. I’m shaking my head as I write that. I ended up with a jr. bacon cheese burger, a jr. chicken sandwich and split a small fry! WHAT!? I know. I can barely stand to type that. Might as well get used to it as I have a whole shitload more of this to tell you about. Chick-filet is on the list. So are a number of other sit-down restaurants, at least 3. I lost track of the crap, it was easier to count my organic meals; on average it was one a day. And that doesn’t even touch on the rum drinks and beer! Well, at least in Florida my rum drinks were made with organic juice
With that aside, there was some great things happening in SWFL since my last visit. Remember the co-op I had found for my mother? She has been using it all year and is really happy with it. I was able to join her to pick up her meat order and was happy to see the project in action. They also built a Trader Joe’s in Naples so my mother is very happy about the savings she finds there. I wasn’t able to make it out there again this year, there’s just so much more to do than groceries! I did get to visit Publix in Cape Coral though and found that they had a section of natural and organic foods at the front of the store. Prices were still high and the selection left a lot to be desired, but it’s better than nothing! As a side-note, last year at this time, Girl Scout Cookie time, I had ordered a couple of boxes from my niece to be shipped to my Grandmother via my Mom. The shipment happened to arrive while I was there and I ended up eating 2 or 3 cookies that week. This year when my niece came calling, I ordered a box for support but told her to donate them herself. No temptation for me! Despite all the other crap I’ve included in my diet over the last few months, I cleared GSC season without eating one!
I also never updated you on my caffeine detox. Sun Roasters sent me 2 lbs of flavored beans about a week after I requested them ($20!). I’ve been cutting the decaf with caffeinated Sun and have been loving it. I’ve been meaning to cut down more, I’m still at 50/50% but I feel good and don’t see any reason to cut it out completely. Thanks to Charlie at Sun Roasters for all his help! (No, I don’t know what I am going to do when I am out of the beans!)
I think that pretty much brings you up to date on where I’m at now. Except for one thing, and even though I don’t keep you up to date with my personal life, I have to share this with you for I can’t keep it to myself and take every opportunity to tell anyone who’ll listen; I’m in love! After being single for close to 6 years, briefly dating only a couple of people in that period, I have finally found where I belong! My travel buddy and I fell in love in Mexico, maybe unbeknownst to us, but we quickly became conscious of what was going on during our visit to my parents’. It’s just so wonderful and perfect! People used to give me a hard time about being too picky or afraid of commitment but I knew even though I had met a lot of great guys over the years, none of them were for me. I always said I was perfectly happy by myself, that anyone who came into my life would make it brighter, not complicate it. When I was with Tom in Mexico everything was … pfft like there are words in the dictionary to describe it! It’s the stuff you see in movies, what girls dream of. He’s an extension of me, makes me feel like I’m walking on air; my heart is full and though I’ve been in love before, never anything like this, ever! Everything about us amazes me! He is just the perfect person for me in every way! We even compliment each other in our differences, it’s like we were truly meant to be!
Okay, I’ll stop myself – I could go on for paaages! But I do have to tell you all about how we eat now that we’re back home… oh yeah, I forgot to mention, due to future plans we have, I’ve moved in with him 
So for the last week we’ve eaten wonderful meals with barely any effort at all! It’s crazy! You know how much I hate preparing dinner after work; well Tom is so fantastic and such a great cook and we work so well together that it’s like we question what’s for dinner and before we know it there is a delicious complete meal on the table! BAM! He’s got me eating all sorts of fish and I’ve introduced kale and quinoa into his life, funny that I don’t even like quinoa but now that he does we’ve eaten it just about every night. I like that he doesn’t like kale but when I cooked it (once steamed with salmon, which he ‘doesn’t like’ either, and once steamed in tamari), he liked it I love that he likes my cooking and I love that he jumps in without hesitation or question and starts a dish or finishes something I’ve got going on. He’s just so terrific! Oops, here I go again! I just can’t help it! <3
