Surviving Easter

Major holidays can be a major form of stress. There's the preparation, the whiny kids, the overabundance of food, and the change in your normal routine. I'm lucky that I don't have a whole lot of preparation to do, since I don't do the cooking. I provided a turkey for my mom to cook. I did cook some asparagus at her house, but that was the extent of my actual cooking for dinner.

The day started out with breakfast, made by me. I've mentioned a few places now that I made blueberry pancakes, bacon & scrambled eggs. I REALLY love Weight Watchers! I can eat anything I want to. The pancakes that I make come from a whole wheat mix. It's really good, and is a favorite new food find.

After breakfast, my daughter and I went to church. It was my first time going to an Easter church service. There were a lot more people there than on a normal Sunday. The kids stayed with the adults, instead of going off to their Religious Education classes. My daughter drove me nuts throughout the service. I threatened several times to take her home & not let her participate in the Easter egg hunt. After the service she got to go on the Easter egg hunt, which was set up outside since the weather was beautiful.

After that, we attempted to find some food & gas. The only thing that we could agree on was Taco Bell, which was closed. The 24 hour gas station was also closed. Luckily I was able to find another gas station open, or we wouldn't have made it to my mom's house. In fact, we wouldn't have even made it home because I was so low on gas. Talk about stressful! Amazingly, the giant mall that we have to pass on the way to my mom's house was open. In what world does that make sense?

We had some snacks at my mom's house, while waiting for the turkey to be done. It took forever! I guess my turkey was just stubborn. The good news is that it comes from a local company. My mom made way too much food. In addition to the turkey & my asparagus there was salad, deviled eggs, rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, stuffing & pineapple upside down cake. Way too much food for 4 people. (My daughter doesn't count since she won't eat 90% of that stuff.)

I had a good size serving of turkey, some of my asparagus, some salad, 2 deviled egg halves & a sweet potato. I also went back later, after a walk, for some pineapple upside down cake. I didn't even put gravy on my turkey. I was able to ignore the mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce & rolls. I can get all of that any other time, so why stuff myself?

That has to be one of the most powerful things that I've learned on this journey. In the past I would have stuffed myself. I would have eaten at least one serving of everything, even though for the most part they are ordinary foods. It's not like I can't get mashed potatoes any other time of year. But I had to eat them. No wonder I was over 250 pounds!