beet juice and blood

Did that get your attention? It got mine, right around 12:30 today, when I was busily peeling beets for lunch, and ended up slicing off a sizable chunk of my finger <sigh>. My consolation prize? It was a clean cut, thanks to my new and very sharp vegetable peeler. I soldiered on through lunch prep and, with the help of several bandaids, thoroughly enjoyed lunch with my dear friend, Marge. Then I picked up my two littles from a big day of outdoor 
activity, leisurely came home, and realized that my finger was *still* bleeding.

After a visit to the local urgent care clinic and a surprising amount of pain, I now have a synthetic clotting material lodged on my finger, and the whole lot is covered by a large pressure bandage. I even had my choice of colors: would you like a middle finger conspicuously wrapped in lime green, red, or purple? I chose purple, that most stylish of colors.


With a pain med prescription in my pocket, snowy weather, and ridiculous traffic, I had a serious inner war about the merits of stopping at a fast food place (any of them, I was feeling desperate--hungry, tired, and a little faint) vs. sticking to "The Plan." Now, dear readers, just this morning I was discussing the benefits of feeling accountable to all of you...who wants to publicly confess in a blog about a downfall involving an eclair?

In the end, I stopped and got my favorite salad from our local grocery store: it's called a "Nature's Market Salad" and is composed of salad greens, broccoli, feta cheese, kalamata olives, garbanzo beans, edamame, grape tomatoes, brown rice, tamari almonds, cashews, and sunflower seeds, tossed with a curry yogurt dressing. I'm telling you, I could live a long time with this as a mainstay of my diet.

Was it cheating? No. I prefer to see it as being flexible in the face of life. And I must say that I am darn proud I didn't get any of the 4,000 calorie so-called comfort foods that were calling my name. See ya' later, guys...I'm in with the cruciferous crowd these days.