New Year's Discoveries & Determinations

Not your typical New Year's Resolutions article, here's some discoveries that will help you live a better life in the years ahead

Happy New Year! Blessings on you all. I hope you’ve had a happy, safe, sane holiday season and I want to thank you for your enthusiastic support of my scribblings. As we head into 2025 there are some discoveries I’ve made and determinations I’ve formed which may be of interest to you. At the very least, I hope it’ll motivate you or provoke a few smiles.

Post Braces Benefits

First, (yahoo!) I finally got my braces off! I’ve had them on since last January and there were days when it was a mighty struggle to maintain patience. (If you missed it, you can read all about my frustrations with braces here. But now that they’re off, I’m free to eat all the gooey foods I had to avoid — like pizza!

You’d think I would have lost weight during the year of “deprivation,” but nooo! So my New Year’s “to do” goals are to shave off a few pounds and increase my exercise. Thank goodness for my husband who urges me to walk the 1.5 miles around our neighborhood with him. We’ll see how disciplined I can be to keep that up during these cold, windy winter months. (I’m afraid I said this last year, didn’t I?)

The Fountain of Youth

But there is one area where I’ve had success. I read an article about how drinking alcohol contributes to aging and leads to the bruise spots that appear on my forearms whenever I bump into something. So, no more wine for me! Not that I’ve had a lot of it - about 4 oz. in the evening and whenever we went out for dinner. But since I’ve cut it out, the bruises have all but disappeared. I’m also saving myself some calories and we’re not spending as much at the grocery store. Yippee! The jury’s still out on the aging benefits though. Despite my best efforts, I’m sure I can only fool Mother Nature for so long.

I gave up wearing makeup/foundation this year once I learned it fills up the cracks in my face and accentuates wrinkles. (Yep, I have plenty of those.) I also discovered that when I’m outside and the wind blows, sand accumulates in my crows feet. Good grief. Sometimes I feel like a walking Navajo sandpainting.

So I’ll drink more water to plump up those facial lines and keep the wrinkle wolves at bay.

Fun with Food

With all the talk of chemicals in our food, I’m paying more attention to the ingredients on labels. I used to spray Pam to coat cookie sheets, etc. I thought we were safe because they proclaim “no preservatives, colors, flavors” — that is, until I looked on the back of the can. Holy cow, whatever is Dimethyl Silicone anyway? They say it’s an “anti-foaming agent.” (It makes me think of fire retardant.) Instead I’ll be using plain old butter and olive oil.

Now I was on a roll so just out of curiosity, I googled “food additives in bakery products” and found this article.

It appears there’s quite a list of hard-to pronounce chemicals swirling around in our favorite cookies, crackers and coffee cake. Makes me want to break out the flour and start baking from scratch. But even flour is jam-packed with all kinds of additives I can’t pronounce. I wonder how the Europeans do it. Their food is relatively free of chemicals. Recently I heard of someone moving back to Paris after getting allergies from U.S. cuisine. Turns out, she was healthier in France. So don’t get me started on the palm oil, corn syrup and lead in our cinnamon.

In pursuit of healthier choices, last year I decided honey would be a wiser option than sugar to sweeten my coffee. I also thought it would cut some calories. But again, curiosity got the best of me and I looked at the label. Considering the amount of honey I’ve poured into my coffee, I discovered that between the two, sugar has fewer calories. It’s also cheaper. Honey is $11.00 a bottle!

So the choice is clear — either bide your time and hope that smart people get rid of the toxic sludge in our foods, or look at the labels and throw out the contents of half your pantry. No more white bread, processed cheese or Cream of Mushroom Soup casseroles!

In the meantime, our counter is covered with plates of cookies, a chunk of fudge, apple pie and chocolate covered pecans. Easily within reach, we’re doing our best to whittle down that supply of sugar. I figure, once we’ve eaten it all up we can pursue a more healthy diet.

It’s best to start the New Year with a clean slate, don’t ya think?

Have a wonderful New Year, friends!