Trader Joe's Haul, Stuff I Ate and Some Art

Hey everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was ok, as ok as it can be right now I suppose. My mom pushed back our Aldi trip to next weekend so I just went to trader Joe's to pick up a few things so I could eat some fresh food this week. I have that haul along with some delicious meals I've been eating. As a quick update, I'm still struggling. I miss him every second of every day. It's very difficult to go from having someone that became such a huge part of my life (we literally were in communication from the minute we woke up (often before 5am) until the minute we went to sleep (while we were both available of course… but it added up to hours every day) to never hearing from them again. I'm still working on living in his honor so I submitted an application to volunteer for my local chapter of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) as mental health/illness is my platform that I am most passionate about (another thing that we had in common). I am hoping to hear back from them so I can get involved in any way that I can. My next goal is to get in some more self care time by myself. Before he came along I was alone all of the time and it became my comfort zone. Now I fear being alone but I know that I need some time to myself to do something that brings me comfort and joy.

All that said, I have a lot of images to show you today. I have my Trader Joe's haul, a little meal prep, some stuff I ate and a piece of art I created.

For produce I got some strawberries (finally!), an onion, eggplant, zucchini, baby carrots, grape tomatoes and sliced mushrooms.

For groceries I got two cans of dolmas, Mediterranean hummus, tots, the pizza crust I've heard a lot about, sliced almonds for oatmeal, inner peas, sunbutter cups and marshmallows.

I got the veggies to roast and eat with hummus. I roasted up the mushrooms, onion and eggplant with some black pepper and garlic powder and I love this mix with hummus and some fresh veggies and dolmas. I was supposed to add the zucchini but when I was cutting it I didn't like how slimy it felt so I just didn't feel comfortable using it. I actually really like this combination without it so it all worked out.

I made myself a little flatbread sandwich of roasted veggies and hummus with a side of some tots. This was such a simple but delicious meal.

I also made a little lunch plate of roasted and fresh veggies, dolmas and hummus. So tasty.

My dad kindly got me some watermelon and grapes so I had this to snack on throughout the day as well.

Another simple meal of Morningstar Nuggets and some corn.

This is the lunch I prepared for myself today. I made a bento box with my Monbento box with some roasted veggies, dolmas, hummus, carrots, tomato and grapes. It's going to be delicious.

The last piece of art I created I made the night Doug passed away. I was lucky enough that I shared it with him after I made it, so he saw it before the accident. Needless to say, I haven't felt very inspired to create since. Over the weekend I felt that creating a piece for him may be cathartic for me so I made a mini (4x4) canvas for him. I wanted to make a bigger piece but I didn't know how it would go or how I would feel so I stuck with a small one.

I thought this sentiment was perfect for how I felt about him. We waited for each other. We were not in each other's life for long but the impact that we made on each other was huge and we both knew that we had a beautiful future ahead of us. I wanted to include the butterfly because he was the catalyst of my metamorphosis. I'm a completely different person than I was before I met him. I will carry that with me forever but the pain that I have knowing that he won't be here with me to see the transformation still hurts me to my core.

I'm sorry to end this on a depressing note but I am sure it will be difficult for a while. As I continue to grieve and process I will also be moving forward with my life and working toward achieving my goals as I know he would want me to. I will continue to miss him and honor him as best as I can. And part of that is eating awesome vegan food because I know that we would be doing a lot of that together. I can't wait to share that with you.

I hope you all have a great week and I will see you on Friday. 💚