Thursday was a long day broken up by a nap in the afternoon. I did a few chores in the morning and decluttered and organized a bit of the bathroom. (Our bathroom is so tiny that it's easy for things to get out of control in there.) In the afternoon, I cooked up a big pot of chili for dinner. No, I know, chili is not really the first thing you think of when it's 100 degrees outside (as it was yesterday) but that's what I felt like eating, so I made a pot of chili with tempeh, pinto and black beans, and a can of beets (don't make that face--ground up beets in chili is awesome) and we had that for dinner with cheese, sour cream, and a ton of chopped red onion on top. We also had a salad on the side, since a bunch of beans probably wasn't going to be enough fiber.


Recently, I've been reading Geneen Roth's book Women, Food and God. I picked it up at the Animal Human Society thrift store when we stopped there last weekend. It looked like someone had made it halfway though the book and then just tossed it into the "donate" bin. I get it. If you were looking for a new diet to follow, this isn't the book for you. Instead, the book follows the same basic premise that all of Roth's other books follow, that you have to cultivate a life that focuses on mindfulness, kindness, acceptance, and so on, so that you don't require a diet or losing weight to be happy with yourself. Paradoxically, that's when many people find that they do lose weight, when they're happy with themselves already, not when they're waiting to be happy until they reach their goal weight.

What any of this has to do with chili for dinner I don't know. Except that it reminded me of a story that Roth includes in her book, about teaching a workshop where she asked everyone to bring in their favorite food. She brought a whole poached salmon and a chocolate cake. About eight people brought in bread. There were a couple of bags of chips. A few people brought in baby carrots or grape tomatoes. And that was it. Would I have taken in my chili? No