The one thing about doing this new eating plan is that it's forcing us to seriously rethink how we do our meal planning. Funny how many meals included breads or pastas, even though we were being careful with serving size before. Now we ration it out - high fiber, whole grain bread at lunch, whole wheat pasta or brown rice at dinner. We're also having fun experimenting with new recipes. I went poking around online and found a lentil casserole recipe that was a cinch to make and was actually pretty good. I'm not a big fan of beans, but lentils I don't mind. They've got almost a nutty flavor and texture to them, plus they come in a rainbow of colors. We'll be eating a lot more lentils in the future, I can see that already.

I was telling my little sister about our new eating plan in an email, noting that we're buying and eating more organic foods, and she asked if this meant we were going to give up ice cream. Ha! I may have to give up regular bread and the ability to eat cereal for breakfast and have pasta for lunch but there is no way we're giving up ice cream. But oh, real cheese and processed white flour products, how I miss you!

I've been spending the evenings working on knitting a baby blanket for a friend who's due in a few months, giving us an excuse to camp out in front of the TV and watch entertaining fluff. Richard now has me hooked on Family Guy and Futurama - both of which appeal to our warped senses of humor. Last week we caught the second episode of a new series called Lost, where a plane crashes on some mysterious island, leaving 48 people stranded. We were instantly intrigued, enough to forgive the Hollywood inconsistencies, like the fact that all the women on the plane are both thin and beautiful, even the woman who is 8 months pregnant (who would not ordinarily be even allowed to fly), while the men are still allowed to look rugged, dirty, and even slightly unattractive. If this is how Hollywood portrays the regular passengers on airline flights, no wonder the airlines still persist in their belief that the seats they provide in regular coach seating are actually an adequate size for the average human being.

I think the reason I like this show is that it reminds me very much of a Stephen King novel. Notice that I did not say a Stephen King miniseries, because as much as I admire and adore King's writing and the way he can make words do amazing and unexpected things in a story, he should really have never been allowed to come close to a television camera or a movie script, because with few exceptions (The Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile being the only ones I can think of without cringing), his work on film is usually cringe worthy, and a sad and unworthy tribute to his work on paper.

Richard noted that, as a new, interesting and intelligent show, it is sure to be cancelled within a few episodes, because a television watching public which prefers the vile pap that is reality shows will never support something like Lost that actually requires thought. But I can remain optimistic, at least for now.