Quick Recap

I am here.  I had a great Christmas & New Year, but it wasn't without hiccups.  

First, with my diminished stamina still, I just didn't do as much.  That, turned out to be a very good thing.  I didn't binge bake, like I have in year's past.  Somehow, I had the idea that Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without red velvet cake, caramel cake, coconut cake, pecan pie, apple pie, chocolate candies, sugar cookies, and on and on and on ALL made from scratch by me.  

This year I baked sugar cookies two times. Once in early December for a party, and once for our family party!  I made the chocolates with lots of assistance from 65MD and it took two days.  We made that for gifts for his peeps, or I would have skipped that too.  I made no cakes, or pies.  None!  No one said a word.  No one cried on Christmas morning because they couldn't have red velvet cake.

I did make cinnamon rolls for Christmas brunch and they were all eaten, so I made another batch for NYE, and they were all eaten.  I like it a lot better that way.  I prepared what was most requested and everyone enjoyed it.  And, I had the added benefit of not trying to figure out how to get rid of all of the leftovers!

Sort of like the Grinch, I learned that Christmas would come without a bunch of sugar laden treats.  Not only would it come, but it would be just as enjoyable if not more so.  I was not stressed trying to bake every baked good known to man and no one was suffering any ill effects from too much sugar.  I am hoping we can keep this new Christmas - lite for next year.

Second, some sort of upper respiratory virus ran through most of the family.  We tried to keep the sick folks sequestered in one house, isolated from the healthy ones, but it still spread more than we had hoped.  Not everyone got sick, but enough of us did, in turn, that there was no gathering where all of us were there.

On New Year's Eve, everyone was healthy, but two family members had gone back to their home town.  Those, that had been sick, were better but not ready to stay up until midnight to ring in the new year.  So, I stole an idea from a dear friend.  Her family always picks a country and pretends like they are in that time zone and celebrate the new year then.  My family loved the idea.  We pretended we were in Rio de Janeiro.  They are four hours ahead of our time zone.  My sister looked up the local cuisine and did a fantastic job of making something Brazilian with what she had on hand!  We looked up some local customs like wearing white for good luck and all in all enjoyed a lovely, early evening.  So much so, that we are all hoping to add this to our annual celebration.

My out of town sister, left with her family yesterday.  My out of town nephew and his wife are leaving tomorrow, so it is back to reality now.

65MD and I have spent some time discussing our life and future and made some resolutions to keep life good for us.  Once again, and hopefully for the last time, I am determined to lose weight.  I'll share specifics of that in another post.  

For now, I'm glad to be feeling as well as I am and extremely grateful to have the resources to do something about my weight and overall health.

Happy, healthy new year to all!