I am now essentially vegetarian, heading to the vegan side of the spectrum, I am on buses and metro as often as possible, I am becoming involved in a civic activist group trying to improve community input into planning and land use, and generally heading towards middle aged hippy-dom.

Why – and will this stick? These are two questions that I want to explore here over the next few weeks.

This weekend Nancy is going away, driving a van load of old classmates down to Virginia – and she really wanted the door fixed. The cost of getting it fixed at a dealer would have been around $400 -$500. The cost of a new part was $240 – but I found the broken motor on sale on eBay for $70. That plus the tips that were found on-line allowed me to fix the problem in only a few hours. Yeah!

So far I have not inflicted this on Nancy or Jake, instead I have been cooking things that can have meat added at the last stage. I will be trying a few things this week though!

Longer term I think I would like to get to the point where meat is in our diet, but at a greatly reduced frequency – maybe once a week or at most. That will be better for our health, I believe, and will then allow us to actually purchase “better” meats, locally raised in sustainable situations, rather then from the concrete pens in the Midwest.

I will be very interested to see what the boys have absorbed from their short trips to new places. We were all in Costa Rica several years ago, so the general South/Central America atmosphere may not be a total surprise to them – but on the other hand they have not had much exposure to other kinds of places even here in the USA. The atmosphere, sounds, and smells of the villages they will be working in may not be very different from what you can find in a poor Appalachian or Mississippi Delta town – but they have not been exposed to either of those places here in the USA. Alex especially is not a very observant or curious person about the world – self absorbed is a good description – but I imagine that he will find it impossible not to be affected by what he will see in the volunteer clinics where he will be working.

In just over a week they will be back home, with pictures to show us, tales to tell us ( and a greater collection of stories to share with friends, stories we will only hear many years later). Until then I will wonder where they are and what they are doing and pray they are safe.

I wonder what this year will bring – last year certainly had some surprises, a few sad moments, and a few pleasant events. Biggest surprise for me in 2011 was my different job, which  is generally a good situation, certainly a twist from what I had been projecting for my self – which I should know not to do. The span of my control is always much smaller than I think.

So the eating is in good shape, The house is still a mess, but we are planning on putting all three boys to serious work as soon as they awake ( or are woken ).

Of course I will have ?to ?cha?nge the quantities somewhat.

It was a fun evening, saw a few folks I know. It would have been a tough game to lose and I was kind of happy not to be too interested!