Day 17, Failure?

 Okay, so I'm still out of town, and still only partially cleansing. I wake up each morning clear that I only want cleansing foods--even in the face of bagels and scrapple and coffee--but by late afternoon, I'm also clear that I want the ease and pleasure of holiday delights with extended family.

It may be time to admit cleansing failure, at least in the absolute sense. I like absolutes. There's a greater sense of satisfaction with them, a stronger sense of attainment. I'm not sure how to "assess" partial adherance to a diet or any other endeavor. I tend to fault myself for anything less than stellar performance.

 On Thanksgiving, my sister had the whole extended family take a personality test. I stood out as the Reformer--the principled, idealistic type--often afraid to make a mistake--and tending toward perfectionism. 

"Fastidious" was another charming descriptor of my personality. The thesaurus sheds some harsh light on that one:  

scrupulous, punctilious, painstaking, meticulous; perfectionist, fussy, finicky, overparticular; critical, overcritical, hypercritical, hard to please, exacting, demanding; informal persnickety, nitpicking, choosy, picky, anal.

 Maybe there is something good in being less than perfect with this cleanse or anything else. Either that, or it's just one juicy holiday rationalization.

Day 13, My Lucky Cleanse?

Keisai, visipix.com

Can I blame each suddenly appearing ailment on this cleanse? The whole "retracing" theory certainly makes it convenient to do so.

What else would explain this recent sinus infection? My sinuses haven't plagued me since my twenties; and these glassy, bloodshot eyes are another harbinger of the past.  Neither makes any sense given my outstanding diet of the past 13 days, which includes (in case you've missed it): the elimination of wheat, dairy, sugar and citrus. (Not to mention alcohol and caffeine.)

On the other hand, I like to credit the cleanse for an abrupt shift in a long held propensity.  This past Saturday, I headed into the woods with a pair of work gloves and a large set of clippers to gather boughs to make a wreath.

Of course plenty of women in Vermont (and other places) do this kind of thing, and many of my neighbors even drive tractors or chop wood or build stuff; but I've never been much of a hands on kind of gal.

Something else I'm not, at all, is "crafty," which made it even more bewildering that instead of waiting for my husband to do it, I sat down on the front porch Sunday afternoon and shaped those boughs around a metal frame with a spool of wire.

I've never made a wreath in my life, and I couldn't even look up how to do it on line because Sunday is my "digital diet" day.  What I relied on was my intuition, of which I've always had plenty.

An hour later, when the rest of my family arrived home from errands, they were shocked (as was I) to discover that my wreath turned out looking like--a wreath.

Every time I walk by it, I'm delighted all over again--and I thank my lucky cleanse.



 Note: Here's a wreath that you can order online if you don't have the propensity to make your own either.  I love the smell of Balsam.  It's what kept me going when I tried to make mine. This one has a ribbon and pine cones which mine does not. 

On the other hand, if you live in my hometown of Vermont, you can order a wreath from the elementary school to help support the P& F.