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“We saw a couple I had met when they first hooked up together seventeen years ago.  The woman . . . had always been thin, and tense, and exciting.  But after sixteen years of marriage, [she] had gained a good thirty pounds.  And she was radiantly happy.  So I thought, Huh — maybe happiness sometimes weighs a bit more.”
— Lank, in Crooked Little Heart, by Anne Lamott

I’m spending the afternoon cooking, making soup and a casserole to portion out, take for lunches, and freeze for later.  This is something I used to do regularly after I moved to DC, but I have gotten out of the habit.  I don’t mind telling you that, like many of my other healthy habits, this one went out the window right around the time David and I got together.  It should come as no surprise, then, that in the four months I’ve been with David, I’ve gained about 13 pounds.  This is not acceptable, and I’m trying to figure out why I let it happen.

The receptionist at my WW meeting, when I remarked during a week I gained that I was on the “I’m in love diet,” said, “Oh, well, now that you’ve got him, you don’t have to keep trying,” or something to that effect.  I just smiled and didn’t respond, but I was floored for two reasons.  First, the implication that I was losing weight in the first place to attract a man, as if no one would find me attractive unless I were skinny, or as if I weren’t choosing to lose weight for myself.  Second, the idea that once you “land” a partner, you can just let yourself go because he loves you no matter what.  The “loves you no matter what part” may be true, but the idea that you can just stop taking care of yourself boggles the mind.

What I’m getting at with this is that, for me, the fact that I’ve found the person I want to be with for the rest of my life is not the reason I’ve stopped taking care of myself.  Whatever David may think of me, I don’t feel good about myself when I don’t take care of myself the way I know I should and the way I did pretty consistently for the first two-plus years after I started WW.

Being with David has certainly changed my life quite a bit, and I don’t have the routine that I had when I was single, which I think is the hardest challenge of all.  Going to the gym after work, especially in the beginning of our relationship, came second to coming home and making and eating dinner together.  I’ve gotten better about this lately, and he will sometimes come with me to the gym, but I need to be doing a much better job.  Part of my problem, though, is that I like to be where he is, so I often choose not to go (by reaching into my rather large bag of increasingly flimsy excuses) or to go for less time than I ordinarily might, in order to spend more time with him.

Of course, we also go out to eat quite a bit, where I almost never did before.  I think I’m still in the mindset that eating out is special so I don’t have to be as strict with what I choose because it’s not a common occurrence . . . only it kind of is now, and I need to start looking at it the same way I look at my everyday meals.

I think I’ve said this before, but I think the central challenge in any relationship is not to lose yourself.  I spent a long, long time single, learning who I am, where I’ve gone wrong in the past, and what I want out of life.  I’m lucky that way, because it allowed me to recognize in David a partner, and I have approached this relationship from a position of really trying to learn from mistakes I made in prior relationships, and it’s so different than my past relationships because of that.  But I think it also made me so lonely for companionship that I’ve been willing to compromise things that are important to me in order to be close to him.  I should make it clear that the idea to compromise doesn’t come from him at all – I’ve talked to him about all of this, and he always says, “Tell me what I can do to help you,” and “Do what is best for you, and don’t worry about me.”  It’s me, because I’ve apparently decided that, right now, building this relationship or being with him takes precedence over just about everything else.

Ever since I started WW, I’ve had a goal, and I’ve worked pretty steadily toward it.  It’s not about a number; it’s about being as healthy as I can be while still living the life I want for myself (and recognizing what’s realistic about the life I want – I’m never going to be the girl who can just eat whatever she likes, no matter how much I wish that were true; I need to accept that and work around it, not pretend like it’s not true and hope for the best).  I need to refocus and remember how I got as far as I have, and figure out how to bring a better balance into my life on these issues.   Being with David makes me wildly happy, but there are other things that I need to be happy, too, and I have to devote as much time to those as I do to my relationship in order to get all of the things I want out of life.

And today is as good a day as any to start.

I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tuna fish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock.
— Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

As promised, here’s the recipe for my favorite of the cookies Karen and I made last weekend:

Peppermint Candy Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients

1 c. butter (no substitutes), softened

1/4 c. sugar

1/4 c. crushed candy canes or other peppermint candies

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 c. corn starch

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Mix butter, sugar, crushed candy, and vanilla thoroughly using an electric mixer.  Gradually blend in flour and corn starch.

Form dough into 1-inch balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Gently press down on each cookie to flatten using fingers or bottom of a glass dipped in sugar (to prevent sticking).

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until bottoms begin to brown.  Cool on pan for 5 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool completely.  Ice if desired (see below).

Icing (this is the recipe we used, not the one that came with the cookie recipe – halve this and you’ll still have more than enough)

1 c. powdered sugar

3/4 tbsp. butter, very soft

1 tsp. vanilla

2-4 tbsp. milk, depending on consistency (if too thin, add more sugar; if too thick, add more milk)

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth.  Drizzle cookies with frosting and top with crushed peppermint candy, if desired (When I make these again, I’m going to skip the frosting step – it’s good, but I think they’d be perfect plain).

We had our work Christmas party today.  There was a bake-off as part of the festivities, so I attempted the Death by Caramel bars that I was considering as part of cookie weekend.  I couldn’t find dulce de leche in the grocery store, and I didn’t have time to go to the Latin grocery store, so I attempted to make my own by melting caramels with cream.

The recipe calls for the dulce de leche to be dolloped on top of the batter in the pan and then swirled into it to create pockets of caramel, which, in theory sounds heavenly.  The batter was pretty thick, though, and I’m not sure much of anything could have been swirled into it, and if it could be, it wasn’t this stuff I cooked up.  I ended up with a layer of caramel sauce on the top that just cooked with the rest of the batter and didn’t come out gooey at all.

The result was just ok, and I’m disappointed I wasted all of what it cost to make it on something that wasn’t anything special.  I’m willing to try it again if I can find the dulce de leche, but I’ve still got nearly the entire pan of this batch left (it should go without saying that it didn’t win the bake-off).  Boo.

I am still convinced that a good, simple, homemade cookie is preferable to all the store-bought cookies one can find.
— James Beard

So this:

Turned into all of this:

Six batches of cookies and two batches of fudge, and we did it all in 12 hours.  I’m still exhausted, but it was a great time!

Oh, Karen’s cookies were Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies, Kissy Cookies (the peanut butter ones with the Hershey Kisses on top), and Peppermint Shortbread – I don’t know if that’s the official name of it, but it’s my favorite cookie of the six we made, and I’ll share the recipe if anyone’s interested.

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts.  No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.
— H.U. Westermayer

Of all the holidays, Thanksgiving is my favorite.  I love going to my grandfather’s, knowing all the usual suspects will make an appearance, everyone will prepare something (my job is mashed potatoes and, for the last several years, also a dessert), there will be lots of catching up and storytelling, much laughter, maybe a few tears, and we’ll all leave a little fuller – both literally and metaphorically.

Here are some things I’m thankful for today:

1. my family, obviously – these people who hear me, and believe in me, and encourage me, and who I love tremendously

2. David, who is going to be my family one day

3. that David saved my computer from the jaws of the blue screen of death Monday night by spending 3 hours googling possible solutions on his computer until he found the right one

4. Facebook – what a genius invention; it keeps me up to date on my friends’ lives, even when we can’t be in touch as much as we’d like (and coming across a clever status message always makes me smile)

5. that my job is essentially guaranteed, at least for the next year, so unlike many people, I don’t have to worry so much about ending up unemployed

6. my friends – the ones I talk to all the time, the the ones I don’t hear from very often, the ones who are always in my thoughts, and even the ones who aren’t really friends anymore but who graced my life for a time

7. Chapstick – I never leave home without it

Wherever you are today, whoever you’re with, I hope you’re taking a moment to remember your blessings.  Enjoy your day!

If this was adulthood, the only improvement she could detect in her situation was that she could now eat dessert without eating her vegetables.
— from Kinflicks, by Lisa Alther

The great Christmas cookie weekend is upon us again.  Karen is coming next weekend and we are going to bake up a storm, and maybe even make some fudge and/or peppermint bark.  Last year, I had my cookie choices well in hand by this point, but not so this year.  The Kris Kringle cookies were a huge hit last year, so they will be making a return appearance, but beyond that, I’m still undecided.  So, I thought I’d let you know what’s on my radar and see what you all think I should make this year.

First, Death by Caramel bars.  I love caramel, and this sounds so good, but I’m afraid this might be too rich, plus, it’s not really so Christmasy.

Next, Caramelized Sugar Cookies.  These really appeal to me; I bet they’re chewy and buttery and yummy.

How about Chocolate Malted Cookies?  I love Whoppers, and I bet that’s what these taste like, only in cookie form.  Oooh, maybe I could crush up some Whoppers and add them to the batter!  Yum.

Maybe Lemon Sugar Cookies?  I like the idea of a little departure from traditional sugar cookies, and this would satisfy my need to use my cookie cutter collection.

Finally, what about Mint Chippers?  It’s really just a twist on chocolate chip cookies, I suppose, but the mint flavor makes it a little special for the holidays, don’t you think?

At best, I think I can make three kinds of cookies, since Karen will choose several as well, and we want to make fudge or peppermint bark (speaking of which, does anyone have a good recipe for bark?), so which two of those five possibilities do you think sound best?

Thanks for your input!