It's Cold

I love this time of year. The air is cool and crisp, but the sun shines through and feels so cozy and warm through the breeze. If there was a place where it was the beginning of fall year-round, I would live there.

And that makes me think about the holidays. And that makes me stress over what I'm going to eat at the nine family dinners that we'll be attending over the next couple of months. I need to start to narrow my dishes down, the dishes that I'll be contributing to these bountiful potluck meals. I want to take something healthy and beautiful.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how healthful our dinners are becoming, but they lack some sort of visual WOW factor. I need to learn to carve roses out of radishes or fashion swans out of white peaches. I just want to be visually pleased while eating healthy. For some reason my mind believes that if a dish looks good, it will be. I tend to go for the chocolate cake or brownie because it looks so good. If I can get our healthy plates to look good, I think it will make a big difference in not wanting to go "off program."

I wonder if I dare challenge myself to lose four pounds by Thanksgiving...

My day in points:

Breakfast: oatmeal: 3 points

Mid-morning snack: banana: 2 points

Lunch: chicken/cranberry salad: 6 points
100-calorie Three Musketeers: 2 points

Afternoon snack: mixed nuts: 3 points

Dinner (pictured above): grilled sausage: 4 points
fruit salad: 2 points
grilled tomatoes: 0 points

TOTAL: 22 points. It's nice to be back on track...