I Blame the Vegetables

I woke up this morning with what I refer to as brain fog. It didn’t really clear up today, which is not good because I am in sales and had appointments. With people. Who generally have expectations of me that do not include me saying “Wait, what?” every four minutes.

When I am feeling like this, out of sorts, off kilter, or a little bonkers and I am 95% sure that it’s not a brain tumor, I sometimes refer to a list I like to call “Heather’s 10 Rules for Mostly Not Going Bonkers” for a little personal evaluation:

1)Eat 5 Servings of Vegetables…EVERYDAY

2)Avoid fast food and large* quantities of candy…EVERYDAY

3)Eat 3 Servings of Fruit…EVERYDAY

4)Exercise for at Least 30 minutes…EVERYDAY

5)Drink a bunch of water…EVERYDAY

6)Pray…EVERYDAY

7)Send a handwritten thank you note to someone…EVERYDAY

8)Write…EVERYDAY

9) Make someone laugh…EVERYDAY

10)Be kind to all people and most animals and plants** who cross my path…EVERYDAY

*Large quantities meaning that life is too short not to consume small quantities of candy. It’s a bags vs pieces deal.

**I say ‘most’ because what if I happen to be eating them? The plants and animals. I find this action to not be very kind but sometimes necessary…refer to #1 and #3 rules…and to the fact that I really love a good steak or some hamburger helper now and then. So I am mostly referring to concepts like water your lawn/house plants and don’t ever kick the dog or flush the fish when it’s still alive when I speak of being kind to animals and plants. Just in case you were confused.

It turns out that this last week I have not followed most of my own rules and actually tried to redefine a couple of them, despite the fact that most are pretty black and white.

For instance, I need to admit publicly (to gently help others, if they too, have confusion, see #9) that Almond Joy candy bars DO NOT count as one serving of fruit on account of the coconut .

Also, showing enough self-discipline to suck the chocolate off of a fun-size Heath Bar and slowly let the hard toffee center dissolve in my mouth without ONCE biting down on it does NOT count as any kind of meditative prayer.

(As a side note: David, our 11-year old said that he thinks it’s silly to call a SMALL piece of candy FUN-SIZE, that the King Size version is much more FUN…I have to concur).

And I KNOW in my deepest heart of hearts that French fries, pickles and catchup are NOT vegetables and lettuce contains very little vegetable nutrition so it doesn’t count…it’s just not green enough.

So I am pretty sure this is why I had brain fog this morning. I didn’t follow my own simple 10 rules.

I don’t have a valid reason why I am such a rule breaker. And there is nothing worse than KNOWING what the right thing to do is and not DOING it.

I blame it on the vegetables. Had I eaten (EVERYDAY) my five servings of vegetables last week, which is the hardest rule on the list for me, I would then have been more COMMITTED to the other 9 rules.

It’s a simple chain reaction.

When I get the five veggies done, I DO NOT want to un-do all that incredible effort by eating fast food and (bags)of candy and turn to consuming the fruits for a sweet fix which creates energy and makes me want to exercise which leads to needing to drink lots of water which then makes me feel grateful that I HAVE water to drink so I become prayerful and then want to express it to someone in a hand written thank you note which is a warm up to other writing which is almost ALWAYS a very happy thing for me to do, and the writing usually makes at least SOMEONE laugh, which makes me even happier and it’s always easier to be kind to all people and most animals and plants who cross my path when I am happy which generally clears away the brain fog.

And this is why I am having five of THESE for breakfast tomorrow. As soon as I figure out what they are. (They were in the vegetable section…but they might be fruit…who knows.)