I did it.  I totally threw away the Christmas fudge yesterday.  This Christmas was the first year I attempted to make my own fudge.  And it was darn good.  And there was a lot of it.  I started out with two 9×13 pans because when I went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients, they were out of the 7 oz jar of marshmallow fluff, which forced me to buy the 13.5 oz jar of marshmallow fluff, and also there was no 5 oz can of evaporated milk, only a 12 oz can, so after making my first batch of fudge with 7 of the 13.5 oz of marshmallow fluff and 5 of the 12 oz of evaporated milk I thought, “What the hey?  May as well make another batch.”  Because what on God’s green earth can you do with marshmallow fluff besides mix it in with a bunch of other stuff that’s actually edible to make fudge.  And I don’t even get what the story is with the evaporated milk.  I have very limited knowledge of the ways of the culinary arts.

So I had these two huge pans of fudge, of which I gave almost a full half pan to my sister, but I still had fuuudge.  Like I said, it was darn good.  So I ate it.  A lot of it.  But every time I would go back to the two tupperwares containing the fudge, they always seemed to still be more than half full.  No matter how much I ate.  There was no bottom to this fudge container—very Mary Poppins’ carpet bag or Jesus’ bread and fish basket.  It was starting to mess with my mind, and it wasn’t doing any favors for my thighs either, I’ll tell you what.

So last night I did the unthinkable and threw out the Christmas fudge.  It obviously didn’t want to go because I had to pry it from the bottom of the container.  But eventually I vanquished the beast and now I’m living in a fudge free home again.  It feels good. 

I’ve actually done pretty decent this holiday season, weight-wise.  As of this morning, my scale says I’ve only gained maybe 2-3 lbs, which has to be some kind of record for me.  I’m not overly concerned about my weight.  Don’t get me wrong, I could stand to lose 10 or 15 lbs, but I think I look fine.  That’s just a fine, not a fiiiiiine.  My husband would say I look fiiiiiine, but then he’s looking through the eyes of love, and we all know that love is blinder than an up and coming figure skater with dreams of Olympic gold who knocks her head on a garden table whilst showing off with a triple axel.  Or something.  What I mean is, I don’t have a super poor body image, so I’m not overly motivated to lose weight.  Or I’m not overly concerned about it as far as how I look.  But I’m starting to realize that when it comes to the food I inflict on my body, it’s not just about how it translates into the numbers on my scale.  And yes, here’s where I say it’s not about looks, but about my health.  And somehow I’m managing to keep a straight face.

I’m a grazer, a snacker, a lover of all foods healthy and mostly not.  I eat when I’m bored, when I’m tired, when I’m hungry, when I’m wandering around the house aimlessly, when I’m trying to avoid the housework.  “That laundry will just have to wait.  It’s elevensies!”  It’s just unnecessary, so I’ve decided to try to curb it.  Notice I didn’t say stop.  Any time I speak with any kind of finality, I’m totally screwed.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told myself, “I am not going to eat any sweets today” only to find my self popping a single m&m in my mouth with the rationalization that it’s just one and what can it hurt.  But once I have that one, some kind of switch is triggered in my brain and I get this flashing “mission failed” message before my eyes and then my new mission, should I choose to accept it and I always do, is to eat everything in sight.  All or nothing, baby.  All or nothing.

So I’m not making any kind of goal or resolution or anything.  I’m just going to do things like throw away the fudge and stop pretending that I’m buying the Cheetos for BigHugs.  That is all.  No mission, no mission failure, no inhaling of the pantry in a single bound.  And if my body decides to relinquish a couple of pounds or not, so be it.