New Year Old Song

This is a testament to how well I am getting along with my resolutions.  Last day of the week and this is my first post of 2017.  I am doing a few things right, though.  Might as well list them here before they are completely forgotten and I give up and start shoveling
gallons of meat, dairy and oil down my throat.

1. I gave blood Tuesday.  It’s a good way to start the year, because I’ve been off my game in terms of eating and exercise since the holidays started.  It seems to be that way every year.  Each December I pack on a holiday 10 and then spend most of the next year trying to lose it.  Theoretically, giving blood should take a pound off immediately.  And Blood centers of the Pacific seem anxious to receive it.  I am universal donor ( 0-) and I am CMV negative, otherwise known as a Baby Donor.  Trust me, that moniker has nothing to do with my size.  On a few occasions a blood center attendant has told me that a single donation of mine can be used to help up to 5 babies.  So it feels very good.  I used to get a personalized desk calendar each year with a thank you note on each month and a story about how a blood donation had changed a recipient’s ( or a relative’s) life, but they haven’t sent one for the last two years.  I really loved it, and would proudly set it up at my work cubicle.  Since I got laid off in May I don’t have a cubicle anymore.  I always thought I’d love that, too, but I’m rethinking it.  That’s for a future post.
2. I’ve been looking at a lot of Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) websites and coming up with heart healthy recipes.  I made Susan Voisin’s  (Fat Free Vegan,) tortilla soup.  It was thinner than I expected,  But it’s given me an idea of using it as a base  for an Albondigas soup using Jeff Novick’s burgers, spiced Mexican.  That will be fun.  As I was perusing the web trying to find videos for prep tips, I saw a carnist, greasy  way to make  huaraches, my current favorite restaurant meal from Flacos in Berkeley.  I will take the grease out and just toast the base in my LodgeLogic griddle and paly with toppings, that are not as bad as the soy toppings Flacos uses.  More fun.  And tonight I am making a Vegan Jambalaya modified for McDougall from Amrita at .  We bought the Field Grain Chipotle Sausage for that.  We’ll see how that goes.
3. While watching some of Terri Edward’s (BLOG.EatPlant-Based.com) videos yesterday I got this crazy idea to try to film some of these crazy experiments.  So that may happen.  Of course at Anginamonologues,net we do not have a dedicated Director of Photography, so I may have to do some creative editing to get it into something that can be viewed without splitting your guts laughing.  If that works out I’ll put up the link in a future post.

The other disappointment is that I weighed myself for the first time since October this morning and I managed to put on 15 pounds (so much for the holiday 10) over that break.  So I’m back to the weekly weigh-ins at the McDougall Forums.  The upside of that is that it should come off pretty quickly as well.  But I’m worried about how the TC will come out when the results of the blood donation are posted.  And it’s hard to have such a long hill to climb to get back to the level I should be at.  The bottom line is 2017 is going to be a lot of work to get back to a level I’ve been used since I started McDougall in 2009.