Ups & Downs, and Thanksgiving plans

Looks like a lot of people took a look at my blog at least once to see what it was, but haven’t looked at it since. The number of page hits is definitely dwindling. That’s alright, though. As I said at the beginning, this is mainly for myself. To quote one of my favorite artists/muscisians/authors, Amanda Palmer, from her recent blog “when i decide that i need to cut something out (like, say, i decide to go sober for a month, which i did the month before i started writing, to clean my system) then the best way i’ve found, is to announce my intentions to everyone around me. that way i’m beholden to my entire network of friends, and my community, and stepping out of my commitments feels like a breach of trust to them, not just against myself. so when i decided not to read any reviews (which came out of a long conversation with Jamy Ian Swiss, my book doula), i told neil, told my publishers, told my team, and them, lastly, told my blog. and i turned off my google news alerts. and after i did all that, i was like: well, NOW if i click on the link i see on twitter saying “17 reasons amanda palmer’s book is made of pure bullshit” i’m really….breaking my promise, to everyone. so, final advice: announce your intentions. it helps.”

Sorry guys, I’ve been breaking my promise to eat a reasonable amount of calories every day. This hasn’t been a great week for me. I’ve been tired and grumpy and haven’t had much motivation to stick to my goals. And I made a recent trip to the import store, at which time I stocked up on peanut butter. I’m afraid I might have to just quit buying it…

I also haven’t been exercising much. Although, I did get one workout in the other night, with a bonus challenge at the beginning which I filmed! This is probably the highlight of this week’s summary, so please watch and join me in laughing at myself. Say it with me now, “I can’t do pistol squats!”

This weekend is a three-day weekend here in Japan, and so it’s when we (my group of friends, organized by Dave) have decided to celebrate Thanksgiving. There will be a big gathering with the full Thanksgiving feast, all the works. It’s not a potluck, but instead all dishes are planned and supplies bought ahead of time, then everyone pays to participate. Most of the dishes I will be choosing not to eat. I know, that sounds unbelievable and impossible, but I have a plan! I’m going to bring a bunch of safe and delicious dishes for myself that I can eat instead. I’ll bring a great big awesome salad, maybe with persimmon & walnuts or maybe make the salad Emiko brought to the Halloween party. I’m also going to try this quinoa stuffing recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quinoa-stuffing/. I’m going to make my dairy-free, egg-free pumpkin pie, but without the crust, so I guess it’ll be more like pumpkin custard. I’m going to make gravy with my homemade chicken bone broth and cornstarch instead of flour. And I might also bring some mashed sweet potatoes that don’t have any butter or sugar, but spices for flavoring instead. So probably the only thing I’ll eat at the party will be turkey. Lots and lots of turkey! It’s the one chance a year I get turkey in this country, so I’ve got to make the most of it.

And to finish off this post, here’s Today’s Trash:

 Actually had to open one to see if it was safe or not. Not.

Hopefully lots of Thanksgiving picture to come!