I've been telling myself for much of this past year that when I'm finally done with houses, my body is going to be my next project. I still have this house to finish as we are without a furnace, and our bathrooms and kitchen are not fully functional. However, I don't think I'll be able to get much work done if I put off addressing my health issues any longer.

My airport experience made me decide to DO something, NOW. The question was, what? I've been resting up this week, and also studying up. Surgery is expensive, the recovery, painful, and would only address one joint at a time. I won't rule it out, but I wanted to do some alternative things first.

In the past, I've had good results at eliminating joint pain by adopting a mostly vegan way of eating. I've done it twice, losing over 20 lbs each time. The first time I did it, all pain disappeared completely after two months! The second time, I don't think I stayed on it long enough. Just when I start to feel better and look better I tend to go off of it.

Inspired by Donna, and motivated by how I feel, I'm taking the plunge and going at it again. I'm fortunate in that my husband and daughter are very enthusiastic about eating this way, too. I'm also happy that there are a lot more recipes to follow and get ideas from on the internet.

Getting bored with the food, and feeling unimaginative, were two of the pitfalls I succumbed to last time. We found a couple of websites, StraightUPFood, and 101cookbooks.com/vegan_recipes/ which are full of yummy looking dishes that fit what we're trying to do. If I could turn this into a hobby, or even an obsession, maybe I could see it all the way through.

Perhaps it would help to envision my body as a house... move this, clean that... get rid of the garbage and clutter! If I could deal with the hoards in my house, I ought to be able to address what I've been storing inside my skin? Like my house, it's a daunting task, and to be perfectly honest, one I'm not sure I'm up for. However, just like this house, to not do it would be worse.