It is Easter in a stubbornly persistent Covid-19 world. While we have some light duty plans today with friends, I am thinking about all the families that have been separated because of infection precautions that are finally starting to breathe easier with the availability of the vaccine. Many older people were the first to get the vaccine, and they are able to get out again with much more confidence. Despite the determined stupidity of local governments, they sure are certainly quick to accept the credit on the the rapid action so long suppressed by their own administrations. It shows who they really are, and it was no surprise.
Lunch yesterday at the Manila Kantina was wonderful of course, and we brought home a 15 pound pork belly roll. I cooked 1/3 of it all night last night. The rest is held in the freezer for some special occasion. The skin was pretty perfect, and that was the weird end. I was pretty impressed with the way it turned out. Still, I can't imagine doing the whole thing without a giant coal-fired oven. They also sent us home with a bunch of other things because we paid for the belly despite their insistence of it being a gift. That was simply too much to let them give away.
I am traveling next week to Houston, so I am not really looking forward to the travel parts as I am the change of scenery. I have lost 10 pounds since I was there last, so I hope my clothes fit a little more comfortably. I had to rush out and buy some shirts because there were not enough Xs in the size. I am determined to fix that part now.
I think that my food diary was especially helpful in realizing just how much I eat in between meals. I hardly eat anything now, so it is less useful. However, I know that whenever I fall down on holding off on eating, the pounds come right back. I have not fallen very hard yet, but I don't think I can ever get engrossed in the short sighted gluttony like I used to. Plus, the vegan aspect makes so many things so much easier by nature of simplicity, and I definitely appreciate the simplicity of good food. Elaborate preparations can be fun, but only when it really makes a difference with simple ingredients. I have found that is the only real reason to go to extremes in preparation, to make something simple, absolutely delicious on it's own.
I took a deliberate break from Skyrim modding this week, since I felt like I was getting a little too obsessed with the options and ideas. I love that I can turn into a creative engine with too many ideas spilling over, but I don't like to have all these ideas with nothing completed. So, I went back into a divergent phase, looking for new ideas and creating scenarios where I could develop them further later on. I have some flash cards coming to provide a little more structure to my work, and I also hope that some of it can be used to structure some planning and journal keeping efforts too. I would love to get my personal planner in a state where I can start using it on a regular basis myself, and then work out the bugs for others to follow along. I want to stop thinking of it like a ticket system, and more like a graph of relationships. That will keep my efforts focused on things that matter, instead of things to do.
I read an important distinction somewhere on personal goals. You should focus on steps that lead to an outcome. Having an outcome is not going to work as a goal. Lose 10 pounds is an outcome, not a goal. Goals are the concrete steps you take that lead to becoming a person that weighs 10 pounds less. Big difference in focus.