Taking a break ...

I'm stepping away from my goal of posting once a week, just for awhile.
We bought the hoarder house and are in demo and renovation mode.
Here's what the living room looked like when we got the keys on Tuesday:

 And here's what it looked like 4 days later:

No doors, no floors, no railings. There is a hole in the master bedroom floor into the kitchen and the french doors in the master bedroom have been pulled out. We have drywall guys and painter guys and carpeting guys and furnace guys all coming around to give quotes ... we have a large hole in the hallway closet, pictured above, that is filled with rat poop. We have 2.5 weeks to move in. That's right, 2.5 weeks before we hand over our current house keys to the new tenant.

Beyond the fear and stress of the house though, I have to say I am more and more excited about the new neighborhood. It was a beautiful afternoon yesterday, all the cherry blossom trees were dropping pink petals and kids were running out to meet Liam. Neighbors were streaming over to greet us and tell us how great the block is and how happy they are to see us. I keep telling myself "you can fix the house, you can't fix the neighborhood", and I think we lucked out. Right now I'm busy researching stair railings and packing up the house, so blogging will either be an afterthought or a place to document some of this change. I'll be back later this Spring/early Summer!

Eating Crow

My acupuncturist has advised me to eat some meat.

• She told me she didn't eat meat for 14 years and found there was a cumulative effect of poor health, nothing she noticed right away or on its own.
• She urged me to think about how the human body is built, that our teeth and digestive systems are designed to eat flesh.  
• She pointed out that there are benefits from meat, occasionally and in small amounts, that we can't get from other sources.
• She also talked with me about the climate we live in, and during these cold, wet months our bodies need to eat warmth in order to flourish.
• She provided me with a hand out, told me it was of course my decision, but she'd been down this path and really felt I should reconsider.

So, here I am, in limbo. Once you make the statement "I don't think meat will ever be a part of my diet again", whaddya do? It's not that I haven't had meat at all. There were some occasions over the holidays, a little turkey here, a little pot roast there. I didn't claim to be a strict vegetarian, but I was making more intentional choices around consuming meat, and for me that meant little to none.

I suppose, on a very basic level, I’m struggling with death and my contribution to the cycle of life. When I say that not eating meat allows me to feel that “I'm living my convictions, eating with empathy and thoughtfulness", I’m talking about honoring life. I'm grappling with whether its true that being of the human race makes me a carnivore. I do know that by just being alive I’ve benefited from death, ashes to ashes and all that.

Many themes of death and renewal for me right now, appropriately in the midst of Lent. The discussion of death always bring me back to evaluating ritual and prayer in my life. I'm still not sold on eating much, if any, meat, but I can at least make a re-commitment to ritual and prayer: if something died in order that I should live, I give thanks.