The 'What Do' of Changing How You Eat: (Smeeps Crosspost)

For better or for worse, I actually have another blog running side by side (as it were) with this one. It's called Scribbles and Meeps, and it's a less structured blog- I use it kind of as a way to get ideas, questions and general thought processes out of my crowded brain. Indirectly, I use Scribbles and Meeps (Smeeps? Yea, alright)to explore my lack of knowledge on a subject, or to air the questions I have about life in general to the internet world, whether people actually look at it or not.

For awhile now, I've been trying to plan my food for the week ahead of time, and do shopping and cooking and all that jazz.
I have, for the most part, been unsuccessful. Today, on that theme, I found myself writing a post about the difficulties of changing the way you approach food when you frankly have no idea what the hell you're talking about. It occurred to me that this post - surprise- is health related! So, I figure this is a great time to exercise my right to cross post.

The post can be found here.

You want a quote? Well, I thought you'd never ask!

"I, like many people in the world, eat too much junk. I eat out too much, and my food choices need a serious overhaul- I know this. I am aware of it every damn time my stomach gets mad at me after a bad choice, or when my mental energy is shot, or I'm hungry even though I JUST had a really heavy (and probably fattening) 'meal' not an hour and a half ago.

The thing is, I desperately want to change that, in the moments of clarity in the storm of chaos that encompasses life management when you have chronic health issues and a generally 'work in progress' life, I dream of healthier food choices and how they'd change things."

Once More, With Feeling

It's just after midnight, another weekend gone, and I'm lying in bed in my cluttered room with Lucy, as she contentedly snuffles around with a black and orange duck toy left unattended by another of the household canines.

As I watch her, playing a sedate game of 'tug' as I grab the duck, my hand under the blanket, and she tries again and again to free it, my heart is calm. For these few moments, the world has shrunk down to encompass the goings on of a placid game of tug of war.

She wins. Comes and sits, staring at me, expectantly. I don't know what she wants,  so I just guess-  I reach out and I stroke her; her silky ears, her soft, warm head, her neck fur which, like the rest of her curls has been cropped off in an attempt to give her some comfort in the coming heat, down to her chest, where I slip my fingers under the straps of her harness and scritch her there. She sighs, her chocolate eyes sinking closed slightly. I talk to her softly,  tell her how much of a good girl she is,  and how much I love her.
I realize that I tell her that a lot.

I wonder, and not for the first time, whether it's weird how much I care about this being who I can't even communicate with. I don't know what she wants, what her favorite way to be scritched is (if she has that one place that will turn her into a puddle, I haven't found it), or what she really likes to play with (the search for the ultimate toy is ongoing).

I'm not sure what her facial expressions mean,  or how often her tail should wag. I don't even know how much to feed her since she's 10 pounds bigger than breed standard (not fat, but genuinely larger built).

Mostly daunting, though, is the question of whether or not this beautiful girl is happy.

It may seem strange to some people, how much I care about this mystery being in my life. But the truth is, as much as I don't know, sometimes she's the thing that makes the most sense.