A Christmas Miracle

 

I know that I was pretty subtle with my thoughts yesterday, but you may have  picked up from my last post that I have been sickly for the last week.  Unfortunately, I’m still somewhat afflicted, and expect I will be for several more  days as my body, once in possession of some sort of pestilence prefers to hold on tight and get it’s money’s worth.  This should make my trip into the mountains later this week, quite enjoyable.  You see, I live at forty feet above sea level.  That’s it.  Only forty feet.  While I believe my final destination on Thursday is a few hundred feet lower, the highest point of my journey will be approximately 7800 feet above sea level.  Given the congestion that I’m already experiencing I can only imagine the assent and subsequent descent shall be torturous and my hearing for the evening will likely be impaired.  Despite how miserable I make it sound, I am truly looking forward to this trip as it is a few days away from home, and off work, and allows an opportunity to have some fun.  This is not the point of today’s post.

Because of the blight that has been placed upon my immune system, I have not been to the gym in a week.  I even canceled my session with my personal trainer last night because I did not want to spread my germs around any more than I had to.  I wish I could say that I miss it.  I wish I could tell you that I love going to the gym so much that this time away has been really hard on me.  I would say those things but, well, I’d be lying!  I am not at the level of enjoyment that makes me  unhappy when I do not get to go, and in fact, I thrill at the valid and worthy excuse  to blow it off!  That’s how I feel about going.  Once I’m there is a different matter. I know it’s good for me and I am seeing results from it, so I want to keep doing it, even if I don’t enjoy it.  Isn’t it strange how you can want to do something you don’t like to do?  This is not the point of today’s post.

I have a weakness for ice cream.  Even in the course of this new endeavor to become a healthier person, I have enjoyed the occasional helping of ice cream.  I like it a lot, but I try to be conscious of how much and how often, I eat it.  I admit that I don’t eat the ½ cup servings the packaging calls for, but I am not eating half the container in one setting as I might have done in the past, either.

I don’t get terribly extravagant either.  I actually, really enjoy a scoop or two of plain French Vanilla ice cream with sliced fresh strawberries. C’est magnifique! (I do not speak French; I had to look that up.)

But when I’m really misbehaving, I enjoy Breyers All Natural Mint Chocolate  Chip.  It’s got a delicious, refreshing flavor that I really enjoy, and t he chocolate chips in it are awesome!  I usually only buy ice cream when it’s on  sale, usually a twofer of some sort, and then I buy one tub of each flavor.

The other day, I was walking through Target (I can be found there nearly every Saturday, sadly, I’d probably be less broke if I weren’t) and I happened to see a display of Nestle Toll House (am I the  only one who always wants to say  Nest-lay Toll Hoose?) chips of various  varieties.  One of them caught my attention because it had green chips in it.  This was a package of Dark Chocolate and Mint chips!  How could I resist?  I thought, I bet that would be great on my  vanilla ice cream! I thought  wrong!  The chips weren’t that  great with the ice cream, but  there was a recipe on the back  that sounded pretty great so last week Wednesday, after I knew I  would not be required to grace  the courthouse with my  presence for jury duty, I made  the recipe.

It was the first time I’ve ever made brownies and I’ll tell you it was an  interesting experience.  I didn’t  realize the batter starts out so thick.  Anyway, they were fantastic, if I do say so myself.  And I ate  about ¾ of them on my own over  the course of three days.  The rest  of them I gave to Michelle for her  niece and nephew.  (hopefully  they’re not plague ridden.)  This is not the point of today’s post.

The house next door to mine is occupied by a family of some  unspecified Asian origin.  The father, I think, works in construction of some sort.  The mother, I think, doesn’t work at all.  And there are  three young kids, the oldest of which looks like he’s about nine or ten years old.

About a year ago, there came a knock at my door and when I opened it the oldest  child was standing on the step holding a bag containing a disposable aluminum  pan.  He handed the bag to me, said, “My mom said you could have these” and walked away.  When I got back into the kitchen with the pan I was greeted by a  simultaneously appealing and revolting aroma.  To this day, I don’t really know what the food item is.  The closest thing I can imagine is that it’s something  similar to, if not actually, egg rolls, wrapped in some kind of wrapper like won tons and deep fried.  They reek of fry oil and they’re made of unidentifiable ingredients.

Now, I did taste the items before turning my nose up at them, but I couldn’t eat  them and I couldn’t stand the smell of them in my house.  I wrapped the pan back up, nice and tight, and took it out to the trash.  I felt terrible about it, but didn’t know what else to do.  I assumed this was a one time thing and it wouldn’t be that big a deal.

Since then, she has sent her son to my door six or seven times with a pan of  these fried food things that I can not stand to smell and must extricate from my  living space post haste.  I’ve found myself in a bit of a catch 22 because I feel bad  throwing this food away, and yet, I feel like it’s too late to tell her, “thanks, but no thanks.” Not to mention, I’ve never spoken to her as it’s always her son to bring  the food.

Come to think of it, I think I’ve told you all this before so I’ll stop boring you with  the unnecessary information.

On Thursday, the little boy knocked on my door and sure enough, he had the pan of greasy fried  things in his hands.  Sitting on top of the pan,  however, was a box of Russell Stover’s  chocolates.  Naturally, I threw out the egg rolls as soon as no one was looking but I kept the box of chocolates and ate everyone one of them, over the  course of four days.  This is not the point of  today’s post.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had grand ideas of all that I was going to accomplish  over the course of this long week-end, things that would mean lots of physical  activity and movement, rather than hours upon hours of sitting on my ass doing  nothing.  And as I mentioned yesterday, this did not happen.  I spent almost the  entire time watching TV and playing Mario Kart (and eating apparently).  This, too, is not the point of today’s post.

So let’s recap, shall we?  Sick for a week.  No gym for a week.  Baked and ate a whole mess of brownies in a very short span of time.  Ate entire box of chocolates  in same very short span of time.  No physical activity to speak of for a week.  Finally, we have arrived at the point of today’s post:  I LOST FOUR POUNDS!!

Despite all the cards stacked against me, I actually managed to continue losing weight and now weigh less than I have since I started this journey, less than I have in four years.

Best of all, as of today, for the first time in four years, the weight on my driver’s  license is actually true!  Now I just have to get my ass back in the gym before that number starts creeping upward again!