A Hazardous Road

We got married 3 days before we moved here.  As a new wife, I wanted to be sure to feed my new husband properly and being a Southern Woman, that means biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes, roasts... all those things that should be taken in moderation.  I soon found out that church people love to share what they have and they love to cook.  Since they love their preacher, one of the ways they show their love is to share the produce from their garden with him.  I LOVE this part of it!  Fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, beans, squash and best of all, collards!  There are times when I almost feel that I've died and gone to heaven.  Right now, as I sit here, I have a drawer full of cucumbers in the fridge just waiting to be peeled and sliced into a salad.  Just a few days ago I finished off a drawer full squash.

Our church has Wednesday Evening Fellowship during the school months.  Usually various people or groups in the church will come in and prepare the meal with the proceeds going either back into the church's fund or it might be designated to one of the church groups or missions.  Usually those attending will bring the dessert.  Or if no one volunteers to cook the meal we will have a potluck.  Sometimes we'll have some theme such as Favorite Casserole, Favorite Fall Fare, Favorite Soup or even a Chili Cook Off.  The food is always delicious and the desserts are to die for.  The preacher and I do our best to eat in moderation at these things, but man is it hard.  The desserts are especially hard to resist because these people are the BEST at cooking!  


So... since we've been doing all of this fine eating and enjoying our blessings, we've gained a wee bit of weight.  They say (whoever "they" is) that it isn't what you do occasionally that hurts you, it's what you do every day.  Well, we don't eat desserts every day and when the summer months roll around we almost starve ourselves trying to get that weight off that built up over the fall, winter and spring months.  Fortunately, we eat lots of vegetables with no gravies, no biscuits, no mashed potatoes, and no desserts.  We have watermelon for dessert (unless we get snookered into making homemade ice cream and get stuck with the leftovers).  

There was a time when I would eat anything I wanted, as much as I wanted and didn't gain an ounce.  Those days are gone.  Now I feel as if I'm constantly fighting to keep the weight off and when I do have something good, I can't decide if the guilt I feel for having it is worth it.

Maybe I could cut back to eating just one meal a week... on Wednesday Evening.  Maybe then I could have the dessert.