New Year's Resolution

Five days into the New Year, and five days past the beginning of our New Year's resolutions. Ever an optimist, I set my goals for the year as high as ever, despite the fact I typically go back to life as usual after only a week. This year, though, I know things will be different - I set goals I actually want to accomplish rather than goals I thought I should set.

Resolution One - Find one thing to truly savor in each day. (I told you they were fun!)
Have I kept this one so far? That's a definite yes! Here's a run down of the things I've found to enjoy so far this year:
January 01 - I ate a lingonberry crepe at IHOP. For those of you who have never before had the pleasure of eating lingonberries, they are small, tart red berries with a deliciously sweet aftertaste, similar to cranberries.
January 02 - I took an early morning walk through the local neighborhoods, and enjoyed the cool, but cloudless morning, especially after surviving three days of heavy rains. Every leaf seemed crisper, every flower brighter and clearer than normal. It was just one of those perfect days!
January 03 - Today I stopped to look at all the flowers that are blooming as a result of the recent rains. It feels like spring here! Also, I read a great book, The God Gene, while drinking hot tea flavored with honey.
January 04 - Ok, I indulged quite a bit today, but I loved every minute of it! I washed down an old fashioned cake doughnut and a Bavarian cream filled eclair with a cafe au lait from a local doughnut shop I just discovered. It has been almost seven months since I last ate a doughnut, and every creamy, sugary bite was like a little piece of heaven! That evening I had the house to myself, and treated myself to a pint of Haagen Dazs mint chocolate chip ice cream while watching two episodes of Sex and the City. Sinful, but deliciously wonderful!

I never realized how much joy each day could hold until I made the conscious decision to live mindfully and pay attention to even the trivial parts of each day. So far I have realized the things I thought were trivial, are in fact momentous and beautiful. The small things have now become the highlight of my day. Each day, the list of things I've enjoyed in the day is growing longer, not because I am doing more, but because I am seeing things more clearly. For example, today I went to the grocery store, which is a task I normally dread due to the long lines and tediousness of choosing which product to buy. Today, however, I walked out of the store with a smile on my face. At Piazza's, a local family-owned grocery, I can talk to a knowledgeable butcher and choose my cuts of meat, pick up a loaf of bread hot out of the oven, choose from a variety of organic foods, buy produce from family farms, spoon out the day's portion of spices, and choose from an array of fragrant flowers. Almost everyone I have met there is friendly, and people there are willing to pay a little more for quality and organic foods. I never know what I am going to discover when I go there to pick up the day's groceries, but I usually come home with one or two things that weren't on the original list. Today I brought home a pound of ground veal to put in the spaghetti, and some creamy Straus butter for the fresh baguette. The other day, I bought strawberries and a type of cheese I had never tried before. The day before that - blueberries and Kashi seven grain cereal. On the way out of the store, I chatted with the cashier about his new diet, and we talked about foods that are high in fiber. I carried my paper bag full of groceries to the car, ready to cook dinner, and smiling in the afternoon sun.
One of my other New Year's Resolutions is to live more mindfully. In other words, I want to think consciously about what I am eating, what I am wearing, and how I am behaving, rather than just going through the motions. One of the easiest ways to live more mindfully is to change eating habits and to think about where food comes from. About seven months ago when I was eating a breakfast of oatmeal, toast, and tea, I decided to think about where the particular food I was eating originated. After a lot of internet researching, I discovered that the Sarah Lee corporation, which produced my loaf of white bread, owns everything from Hanes to EarthGrains. I was absolutely amazed that a bread and food company could have so many varied interests! The particular loaf I was eating came from grain shipped from all over the world to a factory in Ohio. The bread was made and packaged there, before being shipped all around the country.

In our modern society, it is easy to forget where food comes from, and to whom we are indebted for our daily bread. It turns out that I was indebted to the Sarah Lee corporation, the factory workers in Ohio, the plastics manufacturers at an undisclosed plant, and the wheat farmers from around the world. I am also indebted to the manufacturers of John Deere and other brands of tractors for creating the machines which harvest the grain, and the truck drivers and companies who deliver the bread to the store. I never realized how much work went into a loaf of bread!
The tea I was drinking is another long and complicated story, which I will share in another post, but I will say that I am indebted to people from Britain to Indonesia and beyond for my glass of Earl Grey tea. From the simple exercise of being conscious of the food I am eating, it is easy to see how people are all connected, and equally clear that the choices I make in what I consume have an impact far outside the confines of my kitchen. Since moving to California, we have discovered small farms and the world of organic food. Unfortunately, we did not have as much choice over the products we consumed back home as we do out here. Fortunately, farms in California, and family farms across the country are pioneering the comeback of the small, organic farm. One of the products we have discovered since being out here is Straus milk. Their website is worth a look, as it explains their eco-friendly farming methods, which are truly innovative. I'll probably talk more about Straus milk in a future post as well. If you want to check out the website, it is: www.strausmilk.com
So far this New Year's resolution is opening my eyes to many new ways of looking at my life, and I hope that it will continue to do so. One of my other resolutions was to post on this blog site more frequently, so we'll see in a few weeks if that resolution is working out as well as this one! HaHa! I hope your resolutions are going as well for you as this particular one is for me. May this new year be one of happiness and peace, not just for us personally, but for the world as a whole. In this global age, it is increasingly possible for one person to make a difference through changing habits and perspectives. May this new year also be one of personal change that will have a lasting impact for the rest of us!
Well, I'm off for a walk in the Baylands, to fulfill resolution #3 - exercise three times a week. So far, so good!
By: Rebecca
Photo: Courtesy of www.strausmilk.com

P.S. We're having some technical difficulties uploading recent pictures because they were taken in Raw format, which is too large a file to post on this site. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. Until then, I will be posting images from the web or clipart that corresponds to the daily blog. Sorry!