But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits. (Andre Gide)

November seems to be my month for resolutions. I always seem to go on a full-fledged, give-it-all-I-have diet in November. (Yep, just in time for the holidays.) I join NaBloPoMo (vowing to post every day not just for the month but for the rest of my life), as well as NaNoWriMo (with every intention of finally writing my novel). And I promise to exercise regularly, clean my house faithfully, and basically just live cheerfully ever after.

I think it has something to do with my birthday, which seems to me to be a much better benchmark for a life accounting than the first page of an annual calendar.

This year, I decided to convert to pesceterianism. Okay, I admit that just being able to say that phrase is a big part of the draw for me. (It's even better when I say that I'm an Episcopalian pesceterian. Don't you wish you could say the same?)

A pesceterian is a vegeterian that doesn't eat meat or flesh animals, but does eat fish. I don't have any great moral reason for making this decision. I'm not trying to save the world or even to protect animal rights. At the same time, I'm not doing it just because my daughter did it. (Although I don't think I would consider trying this change if she hadn't shown me that it could be done and how.)

I'm making this change purely for selfish reasons. For people with inflamatory diseases, such as arthritis and fibromyalgia, research shows that relief can be found by eliminating red meat and limiting poultry, while increasing antioxidants through fish, fruits, and vegetables. I figure that it's worth a month without hamburgers to see if it makes a difference.

Of course, today is just the second day and I'm already sitting here hungry and grumpy because I was too tired after work to make dinner. None of our local drive-thru's have vegeterian options. So the kids are munching on Angus bacon burgers while I'm eating a slice of cheese toast, trying to decide if the cherry-chocolate-chip ice cream left in my freezer could really be considered a fruit and dairy option.

It may turn out to be a really long month.

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By the way, while I did join NaBloPoMo, I have steadily avoided the NaNoWriMo site this year. Which means that my novel will remain unwritten for now, but hopefully my blog will offer an acceptable daily substitute for anyone looking for something amusing to read.