Am I? I just like to think that I’m making good choices for my health and for the environment. Just yesterday, we started buying 100% recycled paper towels, tissue paper, and laundry soap. They were the last to be ‘transitioned’ because it was remarkably more expensive than from the regular supermarkets if they’re not on sale. It makes me feel much better to do what I can do to save the environment. Next week, once I get the stuff that I need, I’m going to try making our own cleaning agents from environment friendly ingredients. The store-bought, chemically-laden ones are starting to irritate my sinus. Anyway, as I was saying — good, responsible choices — these are what I’m trying to make.

Now, a lot of people (including my mom, a total penny-pincher at times), have said that it’s more expensive than your regular stores. I think it’s just a little bit, when it comes to food. Some are even cheaper at the organic market (and definitely cheaper at farmer’s markets). I also don’t like buying like a truckload of food (from meat, to other bulk stuff) that will end up going to waste anyway. Being a household of two makes it cost-ineffective to buy bulk because if we do buy a lot, half of that will just go to waste. I’m not the type to overstuff myself with food just to finish it either. My old roommate told me this before, and it stuck: “Don’t treat your body like a waste disposal system. If you’ve had enough food…stop eating! Don’t try to eat what you intend to throw in the garbage.”

According to Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” [if you'd like to learn more about the book, I wrote some long-ish post here], Americans spend less than 10% of their income on food. I was absolutely surprised. In the last decade, I’ve spent a LOT on food. On some months in my younger years (living much more frivolously), I spent more on food than clothes. I like good food. I celebrate good food. And I don’t have good friends who don’t like to do as I do. We all like to eat. And eat well we do!

Also, one of my personal logic to this spending is: if I can spend this-and-this on clothes to make me look good, why won’t I spend good money to nourish my body as well? Plus, I work hard, and I deserve to treat myself well. Right? I don’t see it as an indulgence, I see it as a good way of living.

What do you think? What’s your take on food and spending?

I know some people say they could not simply afford to live healthy and environment friendly. Hmm…really? Do what you can. I’ve lived on half a budget before, but I still ate fairly healthy and I still did what I can for Mother Nature. I never was a big fan of fast food, or those sandwiches that have a billion calories. If you think about it, you are ’spending less’ in the long run, because you are taking care of yourself, and therefore the ‘maintenance’ later on in life wouldn’t be as bad as when you don’t. I think we just have to make a conscious decision to live healthy and green, and we’ll find ways to do so, no matter the budget.

Now that I think about it, if I really want to, I can live on less than $50 a week (or even $30!), just eating vegetables and grains, and occasional meat. [No precious wine, though.] Hmm…perhaps I’ll challenge myself to that!

The fact is, life is not easy. Fact is, we will always have problems. Fact is — and this is always I have to remember and apply to my own life — there will always be negative people, emotional dumpers who will throw their misery at you, and people who can’t stand your happiness and your successes and will do anything to dishearten you.

Fact is, we can all be above that.

Lenses, for photography, are crucial to good photographs. And filters help in some ways, if you know how to use them. Ever heard of polarizing filters? I’ve used them not only for photography, but also for microscopy during college for a lot of laboratory work. Polarizing filters allow you to see and emphasize certain characteristics of what you are looking at, depending on the orientation you place them. When taking photos, for example, you can use a polarizing filter when taking outdoor photos to make the skies look bluer, make your pictures pop with colors…with life.

The way we look at life is similar to having lenses. We see through them. We can choose how we would want to see these things and add “filters”. Do you want a positive filter and see life as very vibrant and wonderful? Or would you don a negative filter and see things boring and sad?

One thing I’m continuing to learn is “polarizing” the way I see things - Do I look at thorns and think they’re ugly? Or do I think they possess their own beauty just waiting to be appreciated? I’ve always been a happy person and at any given time or day, I can tell you that I am 1000% happy…truly, wholeheartedly. It baffles some friends and they asked me — how could that be?! I chide that it could be possible that my cup of happiness is very shallow and easy to fill, thus it overflows. Perhaps, that’s it. To me, there is no point in misery. Life is short and I will live it the best way I can, and as happy as I can. Yes, I have really bad days, too, and I’ve hit rock bottom at one point in my life. It was the darkest, ugliest place I have been and I resolve never to let myself be in that awful place again.

One of the things that irk me on a daily basis are emotional dumpers. They get to me like stinging ant bites. There are a lot of these people and I really try hard not to be affected, but like ant bites, they’re hard not to scratch! One of the things I have been doing is just filter out these negative comments altogether and just focus on the good things.

What do you do when someone tells you something just to make you feel bad, just because they are in a bad mood and want to spread that gloom?

January flew right over my head and I couldn’t even catch up. Well, I haven’t even caught up with everything since my vacation. One of my two luggages is still in one corner of our room — untouched, unpacked. I’ll have to deal with it this weekend. I keep telling that to myself.

Do I sound whiny? Far from it. In fact, I am happy to achieve a few goals in January that I intended to accomplish for 2008, and it’s not even related to cleaning and OCD. [A major plus since I have always been bogged down by the details of cleaning...irked me to no end! But I feel...that I am free from those shackles!] I’m giddy, and it’s not just from the caffeine.

Tell me — What are you grateful for today? Hold that thought.

Remember me talking about The Secret Gratitude Book a few weeks back? I’ve been writing on it daily since the day after I bought it. I’ve always had a paper journal and written lists of “Things I’m Thankful for Today”, but it was never a consistent habit and I only do it when I remember it. I have to admit that having a separate journal and a gratitude journal has been something short of life altering. Writing things I am grateful for is one of the best things about my morning — a few minutes of quiet time where I concentrate all my thoughts on positive things — Good things! Happy Things!

There are two pages for each day on the Gratitude Book: the page on the left is for the things you are grateful for in your life at the moment, and the page across is for the things you are grateful for in the future (i.e. things you want to come into your life). I am an open-minded skeptic, have always been, and I am also a ‘tester’ and an ‘experimenter’. I’ll try things at least once before deeming it unfit for me [but I have my limits, too--no drugs, thanks.]. When I picked up The Secret about a year ago and watched the DVD thanks to my then roommate, I wasn’t totally bought into it, even if I realized that I have been doing these suggestions for years now. When I got the Gratitude Book, I had the same attitude, but I’ll try it…we’ll see, I said to myself.

Aside from being a little skeptical, at the beginning I was also worried of running out of things to be thankful for right now. How long can I do this before I run dry? I fill out every line for each page, no exceptions — there are no more written lines of gratitude for the future than I have for today’s. So that scared me. It’s never happened, though…the river keeps flowing.

Here I am, Joy the Skeptic, telling you now that I am left speechless. Why? The things that I have been lately thanking for the current day, were the same gratitude intentions I wrote days before. I’m as surprised and humbled and just well, insanely quieted from all these. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve already accomplished some of my goals for the year after the first month. Some of these goals are part of what I’ve written down as a “future” gratitudes. The other future gratitudes were just plain wishful thinking really, and I treated them just like I was catalog shopping for wonderful what-ifs: I’ll take one of that, one of that… All absolutely positively wishful thinking, from the dreamer in me.

So here goes. A three good things I’ll share with you. They were part of my written ‘intentions’ in the middle of January:

• Driving. The word itself send shivers up my spine, but you better believe it I am slowly getting into driving again after over half a decade off driving school, and after being rear ended by a drunk driver. I’m driving! Little by little. It’s crazy and lovely at the same time.
• Gourmeted.com, me and Dan’s foodcrazytastic blog — a couple of weeks shy of two months old — has seen many thousands of new visitors and almost 5 digits of page loads. I’m floored.
• AAAANNNNNDDDD…

As I write this on my lunch break, we received an email informing us that we have been nominated for a food blogger contest — a real contest to be judged by well-known chefs and other culinary experts. Stay with me here. A few days ago, I fancied our blog being nominated for something at some point in time..someday — doesn’t matter for what — and how good it feels to be recognized for what we both share and enjoy doing. I even said, “How cool would that be?!” I actually wrote something along those lines on my gratitude journal.

As I read the nomination email I let out an audible, “What the f*ck?!” Are you kidding me?

I feel like I have an empty basket for fruits, and I was told to to pick the best fruits the farm has ever seen when the fruits are out of season. Impossible! But I set out to do what I was told, cheerfully, and what have you: a field of the best harvest with more than I can fill several hundred baskets with.

It’s true, the chances of us winning the trip to Napa is remote, but it sends my heart and imagination aflutter. Our blog of more than a month old seems amateur compared to other famous food blogs out there that have been around for years. But we can dream! Nonetheless, someone out there made us smile with that nomination. So, thank you. I’m truly grateful..

What a nice welcome, February…