Experiment on self #221

In great quantities, over long periods of time, soda is bad for you. Who knows what the artificial stuff in Diet soda will do really? You know that. I know that. The fact still remains that I am addicted to soda. At work, I drink for one of these reasons: A) I'm thirsty, B) I need caffeine, C) I want something flavored in my mouth, D) because I suck on any consumable liquid put in front of me. With the exception of maybe, MAYBE reason B, There is no reason why I need to drink soda specifically. So why do I? Because I'm lazy and forgetful. Some days I just don't feel like walking down the hall, cleaning and filling my teapot and waiting for the water to boil (lazy). On days that I DO go get water & put it on to boil, I start doing work while it boils and realize 2 hours later that I've never made my tea. I turn the hot-pot back on and then promptly forget about it again, ad nauseum... Really, it's much quicker and yeilds more predictable results if I go pop money in the vending machine and grab a diet Coke. Finally I've hit a breaking point and realized that I MUST stop because the amount of soda I'm consuming disgusts me and the waste from all those bottles disgusts me and the waste of money that is my habit is disgusting.

I've come up witha solution and I will be seeing if I can stick to it.... A big vat o' iced tea. This satisfies both my need to drink and ease on environmental and financial impact while appeasing my lazy, forgetful self. I went out and bought a Thermos Pump Carafe in a 2 qt. size. and made 3 qt of iced tea in my tea maker last night. This morning, pour tea in carafe & off to work with me. I have my stainless steeel travel mug and plan to refil it all day. I dunno if 2 qt. will last all day, but we'll see. If this works, and I strongly suspect that it will once I make it a routine, please don't harass me about bringing my tea with me when I come to visit on long road trips.... It's really hard to find good unsweetened bottled tea in gas stations and 7-11s.

In other health and experiment related news...
I'm always impressed at how well minor home surgery seems to work. I took a spill in a parking lot over a week ago (literally tripped over my own feet, quite embarassing) and scraped up my hand. I must not have cleaned it & dressed it well enough the first time around because after 5 days it was still hurting, a bit red, and raised in one spot. Seemed like beginning infection to me.... So I reopenned it, applied alcohol, HO, and more antibiotic cream and it cleared up by the next day and was completely fine in another 2. Love it when that works.

Also, allergy season is starting up full swing again and I am once again going to try to subject myself to as much fresh air as possible to acclimate to the allergens. Yay! So far, so good.

Lastly, after realizing that I was no longer on a "plateau" for weight loss, but rather the La Brea Tar Pit (yeah, that's me...), I started looking at what I was eating and I've once again dropped all green vegetables, if not all vegetables period, out of my diet. AGAIN. So I've been trying to get 2-3 servings of veggies in per day again. I think it's helping already and that's only been 4 days ago. Wheee.... veggies are so critical.