Happy Green Bean Casserole Day

Did you eat mindfully?
I tried and think I did well.



After writing my column about mindful eating on Monday, I really did try to eat slowly and carefully and with at least a speck of grace yesterday on Thanksgiving. Particularly during dessert. It is really almost inhumane how much we stuff ourselves on this day. We eat mashed potatoes and squash and green beans and stuffing and yams and corn and cranberry sauce and rolls and gravy and wine (and turkey, if you do) and then we sometimes have seconds--and then we clean up and then we eat MORE. It's gluttonous!

So this year, in light of my column and just generally what I always try to do but often fail at, I took about three or four bites worth of only what I really like. Except the green bean casserole, which is my favorite. Haha. I was still very full at the end--certainly not ready to go for a run around the block--but I wasn't ready to roll over and pass out either. And I tried some of this pumpkin cake thing my mom made for dessert. She got the recipe from Paula Dean, so needless to say it was the richest dessert I have ever tasted. I don't usually like pumpkin things (hate pumpkin pie--blech) but that dessert was darn good. Way too rich to eat more than a couple bites.

Then, I loaded up the dishwasher, mopped the floor, went back home with my parents, walked a couple miles around the neighborhood with them, then fell asleep on the couch watching Home Alone. Thankful.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoys their break (if they are on one!).

Practicing What I Preach

So I started writing a column for The Scene section at The Eagle this semester. So far I have written five. I have gotten a few compliments on them from people other than my mom, so that is encouraging. I even got a few emails in the first couple weeks.

I like writing columns, because it basically allows me to talk about whatever I want to talk about, kind of like a blog, but do so in a more 'legitimate' way, in printed form, in a newspaper. Also, I always bring in real research, whether it be from an interview or from the Google machine, and I always bring in my own personal connection to whatever topic is at hand. This is easy for me to do with health topics because frankly, I have done and tried it all. Good and bad, healthy and unhealthy.

It's the unhealthy things I have done that I like talking about most, which is what I did this week. When I write about my mistakes, I think it shows I'm not perfect, just like my readers, just like everyone. None of us are perfect.

[That's another thing I like about blogs, you can get off on mini-tangents and it's OK because there's no word limit.]

Anyway, I am particularly nervous, but excited for my most recent column about the dangers of tanning, because as a person who has gone tanning since the age of 15, I always knew it was bad for me, I just chose to ignore that fact. Now, it's kind of like, grow up and get over yourself. I'm not invincible and on top of that, I don't ever want to have my skin look like my mom's friends' down in Florida. Yuck.

So, in a sense, my column has been about being the change I want to see in other people. Sort of like Gandhi said. If I want my readers to change, I have to change myself. Clips aside, experience aside -- I think that is where the real benefit of writing this column will lie.