A few days a week I can be found in a strangers backyard wearing safety glasses sitting on a five gallon bucket turned upside down. There is a purpose, other than getting arrested. The house is usually vacant, and I am there to clean the cement off of the bricks that have been torn from the house and need to be re-used for whatever remodel the new homeowner has in mind. Cleaning cement off of bricks involves a brick hammer as the tool and my thigh as the workstation. The task is hands on, which I enjoy, and monotonous, which I don't. My monotony secret weapon: podcasts.
One of my favorites is called Smart People Podcast. The idea revolves around interviewing smart people in various fields and asking them stuff that relates to their specified knowledge. Last week they interviewed a comedian, and I found myself laughing out loud at this guy's particular sense of humor and relatable self-deprecation. A good part of the podcast was about a term revolving around the word immaculate. He had been at a fairly low place a few months back in nearly every area of his life. Ten years prior he had spent a month abstaining from all of those things that all those health experts caution one to abstain from. It had worked wonders for him years ago, so he decided to, as he calls it, "immaculatize" once again. No alcohol, no pot no smoking, no coffee, no sugar, no fast food, no sodas, nothing fried, and nothing else any like any of those other things. Plus meditation at least twenty minutes a day as well as a lot of exercise (I can't remember the specified amount). The goal was to do it for thirty days. He did want to lose weight, but mostly he wanted to get out of the funk he was in and to a place where he could recognize himself, and LIVE as a person who is excited about life.
He did it, and it worked.
After chipping bricks that day, and once I had washed the film of cement off of my person, I spent a good portion of the evening reading more about his immaculate journey, and again, laughing out loud, a lot. His perspective was refreshing. He didn't claim to know much about anything, and he typed openly about his struggles and pitfalls with lots of sarcasm and humor.
And so, I decided to immaculatize. But first I ate a really big cheese burger.
A new year's goal of mine was to eat out less and save more money. This was a big part of why I decided to sign myself up for this thirty-day immaculate journey. An immaculate diet is do-able via the restaurants of the world, but it certainly isn't convenient. Developing that discipline is a part of what makes something like this fun for me, but it's a lot harder when I am surrounded by all of the things I am avoiding. So cooking in helps.
Alcohol is an expensive luxury, especially if you're particular about the kind of alcohol you drink, and concerned about what it actually tastes like. I am. Abstaining from this for thirty or so day saves money.
And my other conviction is health. My tendencies are mostly healthy. I don't crave meat a lot. I like vegetables. But liking vegetables doesn't equal eating them. Most days pass by without a green on my plate, even though I have read an enormous amount of material documenting their health benefits in nearly EVERY area of life. I get into the rut of craving the same things. These things aren't necessarily deep fried, but they aren't necessarily healthy either. A scone for breakfast multiple times a week? Sure! The more I thought about immaculatizing, the more I liked the idea thirty days of necessary vegetables. The goal is balance, right? So the hope is that an extreme of not many at all to an extreme of a lot will hopefully lead their regular appearance in my every day life.
Experiments are fun. Themes and words like immaculatize are too. This is why I am sharing all of this cool stuff here. Hey, I've got a blog! I have a forum. Sharing stuff about life that people can relate to and/or be entertained/amused by is what I do. Sometimes. So if I bring up the word immaculata or its sister non-word word, immaculatize over the course of the next thirty days, you have been told.
And here's my own personal twist: pictures! Those diet experts that advise people to make a major life change tell their followers to write it down. Record what you eat. Scratch down every morsel that passes through your mouth. Ate a chip off of your friend's plate? Write it down. Pizza for breakfast? Write it down. I am not dieting, and also, I don't like having to write everything down, so I am not doing this. BUT I do love documenting things, especially visually, so I am photographing my immaculate journey with my i-telephone, and then I am going to share these pictures here on whimsically far from the surface, starting now.
Day one! Post cheeseburger I was attempting only fruits and veggies throughout the day. I got these two things from Quik Trip. It can be done.
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