Holiday Greetings

I don't know if I'll be posting again this month, so I want to make sure to wish all of you a happy holiday season, and all of the best for the upcoming year.

I'm still on my Weight Watchers program. I've found a bunch of recipes for holiday goodies at low points! I'm going to fix some of them while staying with my family, while they eat the high points stuff, that is! I even found an eggnog recipe on the WW site that is only 3 points per serving.

I'm going to make a special Christmas morning brunch, and I'm collecting the recipes now. This meal should only be me and my parents. The whole family is together for Christmas Eve dinner, and most return for left overs Christmas Day. I'm making some side dishes for the dinner, one is brussel spouts with cranberries which sounds delicious. Another one is latkes, potatoe pancakes, that are baked instead of fried to make them low points. I'm also thinking about making my traditional Yorkshire pudding, even though the points are through the roof. Just a taste sounds really good to me.

I'm slowing losing. It was four pounds last week, only a pound this week for a total of 5, which I think is great. My goal for the holidays around food:

• To find some new foods that I love
  
• To enjoy every single bite I put into my mouth
  
• To maintain my current weight

If I end up losing through the last weeks of the year, that would be great, but as long as I stay the same, I will be THRILLED. I'm going to make sure that any special indulgences are planned and thoroughly enjoyed.

Yet Another Quick Post

I'm getting settled back into my life, slowly. I'm back on Weight Watchers, and doing OK. My scales got broken, somehow, and I have just replaced them. So I'll know soon how the weight loss is coming.

The eating process is a bit challenging these days. Some of my old regulars just don't taste too good to me, so I'm looking for new foods to try to replace them. I've got a pot of Sloppy Joes in the fridge, and they are as delicious as ever. I've also developed a real keenness for green beans, of all things.

As you might guess, after going through such a life changing experience, I'm still sorting out what goes and what stays in my life. For now, at least, this blog is IN. The jury is still out on some of my other blogs.

I'm feeling a lot of things these days. A bit of frustration over my slow recovery, and ongoing mobility problems. A bit of sadness over all of the pain and some of the horrible parts of the whole experience. A bit of anger, too. I'm not back to my regular, but I am making progress, slowly. But slow and steady is good, as my friend Alan tells me, "make haste slowly..." and that seems to be my schedule.

The thing I'm most grateful for is that I'm feeling. Feelings, no matter whether they are happy or sad, are evidence of life, and the road to life passion. I'm feeling my life, sometimes quite deeply. And I'm not taking all of my current challenges too seriously. I know that one of these days, I will wake up and realize that I'm better. Just like that watched tea pot that never boils, my own recovery will come as a surprise to me when it is time. I'm doing my best to rest, to relax, and to let go of my strong-willed determination to push my way through my own life. I'm trying to remember that I'm always doing the best I can do in the moment, even if I can remember back to before my illness, when I could do something different. Some tomorrow, what I can do will be different from today. I'm not worried about marking that change date on my day timer... I'm really trying to just allow my life and my experiencs to unfold. To forgive myself. To show myself some great compassion. To be kind to myself. It's a real change from how I used to live. I can only trust that I'm on the right road, and making great progress.

Right now, I'm thinking that I will be laying low the month of December, and will return to things full steam in January. Of course, "full steam" may not mean the same thing that it did last year. But a new year, a fresh restart, it feels like a good decision. I'm going with it.

I'll pop in here from time to time, but you can expect the full diet thing to resume in January. After all, I'm still learning how to create my own healthy lifestyle, and I would like to lose at least 50 more pounds. And then there is that red Ralph Lauren towel hanging in my bathroom...