Sunday, March 4, 2012

A Little Spring in My Step

Well I’m finally out for spring break (which seriously couldn’t come soon enough), and I’ve picked up a hobby: cooking. Now I used to dislike cooking, and by dislike I mean that I absolutely HATED it. I couldn’t stand it, mainly because dish washing was involved, but also because I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like touching raw meat or cutting up vegetables or doing anything domestic really. Those things weren’t my forte, and they definitely weren’t my cup of tea.

But in the past couple of days I’ve sort of grown to love it. And I have made SOOOOOO much delicious food (all vegetarian of course), and my family is LOVING it. And so am I honestly; I mean who doesn’t like good food that’s actually good for you. Seriously, I’m all over that.

So that’s what I’ve been doing during my break so far, and it got me to thinking about change, and how much I have. I used to eat soooo unhealthily. I’d hit up McDonalds and eat way more than I needed there, and I was a huge fan of potato chips and debbie cakes and any other sort of processed goodness that was out there like…cheese whiz. OMG I loved cheese whiz! But I don’t eat that stuff anymore, and I can’t remember the last time that I did.

However, I do remember thinking that I wouldn’t be able to survive without things like that. I remember thinking that eating chips and candy bars and cakes all the time and in HUGE amounts was the norm, and now, my norm is broccoli and carrots and peanut butter and beans and all sorts of other healthy type things. And now, I can’t even imagine going back to eating chips and cakes and candy bars, despite my past days of the temptation being too much.

Now the norm (and this is the more recent norm) is homemade peanut butter, homemade salsa, homemade strawberry granola bars, homemade rice pudding, and homemade vegetable pot pie (even the crust). And I like this norm; I like cooking so much because it makes me feel healthy AND accomplished. I like this norm because it lets me know that I have changed, and change can be a really good (and often necessary) thing. It lets me know that I have changed so much that the box of debbie cakes in the cabinet doesn’t even call out to me anymore.

And friends, that is progress, progress that I accomplished, and isn’t that what this year is about? It’s about change AND progress. And sometimes I get so caught up in the change part that I forget about the progress part; I forget to reward myself for the progress that I have made during my journey and instead beat myself up for the slip ups that I do have. So instead of beating myself up today, and hopefully every day after this one, I’m going to have a piece of homemade pot pie and say HOORAY ME!  Hooray for the awesome pot pie and HOORAY for all of the progress that I have made because every little bit of progress is important J

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving” –Oliver Wendell Holmes

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