Mindful Eating

I was given a mid-week lieu day off. I don’t even know what it was in lieu of!! But I’ll take it!

Today is that day!

It happens to have fallen on an anniversary day – my precious grandmother passed away on February 2, 2005.

She was my moon and stars when I was a child and remained so throughout my life.

Now, she’s a celestial being herself… though I occasionally still smell her perfume.

A neat serendipitous thing also happened, as a friend is offering a daytime workshop on becoming a fierce wild woman. I want to be a fierce wild woman! LOL

I wouldn’t have been able to join, had I been working today, so this is a treat! It’s online, which is awesome since we’re expecting another mega snowstorm this afternoon (and into tomorrow, for gosh sakes!)

Can I just stop here and say that I’m sick of snow? We still have frozen blocks and humps of dirty ugliness blocking driveways and roads from the last storm (two weeks ago? I can’t even remember!). This has been a brutal winter – the after January part, anyway. I haven’t seen this much snow since the year I moved here (back in 2000). It’s bitterly, brittly cold and it doesn’t help that I HATE my winter coat. Every spring, I think I should replace the darned thing but never do. Procrastinate much? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I really *must* do something about it! I feel like a beige silo when I wear it, especially after losing weight. Of course, it’s also completely out of style… as in… WAY. I usually don’t care about such things and wear what I want… but in this case, blah, blah, blah, blah. Does any of this matter? I make me laugh.

Ahem. Anyway.

This morning, my husband prepared breakfast in bed, which is usually a Sunday experience. Lucky me!

I could hear him whipping and chopping and occasionally cursing, which is par for the course. LOL He outdid himself today, including homemade home fries! Yum!

He brought me the plate and I gently ate, savoring every bite.

Not really.

I ate it in 4 minutes flat, barely breathing between bites.

It was absolutely delicious… though I’d hardly have known if it weren’t. I inhaled it.

As I looked at the empty plate, I thought…

A half-hour of work gone in four minutes.

And then I thought…

There is nothing mindful, which is my word for 2022, about how I just ate that.

Mindful eating, indeed!

It’s one thing to decide on a word for the year. It’s quite another to incorporate it into EVERY facet of life.

Food is something many of us struggle with. My own struggle is spewed – er, written about – throughout the posts (and years) of this blog.

It occurred to me, as I got my phone to snap the featured photo, that I am very UNmindful about eating. And, ya know, that might make all the difference to my physical health and emotional well-being this year (and beyond!).

So, after scarfing my husband’s lovely breakfast… I have decided… to change my eating habits. At least, one aspect. I need to slow down and smell the coffee, taste the eggs, feel the granules of salt or the sting of pepper on my tongue…

In short, I need to be a mindful eater.

What do you think of that?

I think it’s a dandy idea!

I’ll let you know how it goes!

PS: You may notice our peachy cloth napkins. It is our nod to less waste. I bought the entire set at a thrift store for $5 or so about two years ago. Less convenient, sure, but it feels good to be doing this small thing to help our environment. 🙂