The Journey Begins

I guess you could say I have always been on the path to becoming a vegetarian, isn't that what life is one long path?! My son, my oldest child of two, has teased me I would end up a vegetarian eventually ever since I discovered the Planet Earth documentaries. Ok, that might need some explanation... I stopped eating fish after watching quite a few nature documentaries about how the oceans are overfished. Also about how they live, it is disgusting! No thank you, I don't care how good you smell blackened shrimp. 😆 That left chicken, pork, and beef; I am southern, I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma we eat meat. Until I got the phone call.

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore

Thanksgiving 2021 weekend I was with my best friend/adopted daughter and her son, my grandson. My son and grandsons and ex-husband always go hunting on Thanksgiving weekend with my ex-husband's family, if my daughter was in town she would be with them. For this reason, I generally spend Thanksgiving alone with a Doctor Who marathon, bowties are cool 😉. My friend had to work most of the holiday weekend, bonus extra time with my grandson, and we will be lazy on Sunday. I decided I was going to make Posole and let my grandson help in the kitchen, I am a big advocate of getting kids in the kitchen as early as possible and letting them smell, taste, feel everything you are doing. We made the Posole, a hominy stew with tomatoes, and added cabbage, and chicken but my grandson said it was a little too spicy for him. Sunday morning my daughter and I are finally catching up, being lazy when the phone call shattered my life. I've read before where writers say "the sound of the phone shattered the silence" etc... this call changed my life forever.

The Tears Are Always Clouding Your Eyes

Music is my love language. It's how I communicate, how I understand the world around me. The lyrics I have been quoting are from a very old song called The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore by The Walker Brothers. It was probably released before I was born but I heard it in the movie Truly, Madly, Deeply. Released before Ghost and starring Alan Rickman it is essentially the British movie that Ghost desperately wanted to be. Yes, I am brutally honest and yes I still love Patrick Swayze. My ex-husband and I saw TMD in a Blockbuster and rented the VHS tape. It became our movie. We saw a wonderful picture of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy on a beach and immediately decided that would be us someday. 

My son was on the other end of the phone that Sunday morning. He asked me if I could talk. This always annoys me because I don't like it when other people answer the phone when they can't answer the phone. His voice let me know not to give him a smart-ass answer. His voice sounded dangerous and contained at the same time. He told me to sit down. He said, "Dad is dead".

No More Smiles

I don't know how the phone call ended. I hope I kept it together for him, as his mother since he had just lost his father and his children were there too. I may have put my friend on the phone, they are good friends and their children have known each other all their lives. My body, when in shock, might look like I am functioning but I'm not and so I do not know what happened on the phone call or any of the days that followed. I loved my ex-husband, everyone in my family did. We obviously didn't have a "normal" divorce. I do know when I got off the phone my friend, being a Russian mom, wanted to feed me. All I could think was "If I eat anything that isn't liquid I won't be able to breathe" So I stopped eating. My friends would make food and call me to eat and I would politely decline and tell them I wasn't hungry.

I had been drinking water and had been on an Intermittent Fasting diet for nearly a year, not eating and just drinking Ensure shakes once or twice a day was really easy. If you are unfamiliar with Intermittent Fasting I will post some information and a link to some info. I am new to this so bear with me.

Coming Out of the Dark

As I have said previously, I am not a nutritionist or physician. I also knew I wasn't bulimic or anorexic. Like most people, I had a REALLY bad 2021 and when I lost my Hume... it is still too much. I am hoping this blog will help me and also help others who need to get over 2021. I am hoping this blog will reach some vegetarians who can come on board and help me find quick easy veggie recipes that aren't just tearing up lettuce now pour on salad dressing hahaha. I actually do have a few recipes for you already!! Did you know that sugar is vegetarian?! 

Back to the story of why I am a "Fortunate Vegetarian". Well, words do have magic and there are no coincidences in the universe. Several months ago, while placing my Walmart grocery delivery (I am chronically ill and homebound and Walmart is a Godsend) for some reason I ordered about 10 packs of Ensure meal replacement shakes, I keep them around because I'm not really able to do a lot of cooking and they fill in nicely. When everything happened around Thanksgiving I was all set. 

be good to yourself and I hope to see you again