I love you, Skinny Mom

My Momma: circa 1970s

Is it too late for a Mother's Day tribute to my mom? Of course not! Nothing is ever late in Holly Land. 

My mom is skinnier than I am. In fact, with a few brief exceptions, she has weighed less than me for the past 15 years. I'm the only one in my family of origin with a weight problem, but that's a subject for another lengthy post in the future (Title: Holly's Family: Skinny Candy Junkies). We are both 5'9" tall, so comparing and contrasting our weight load is fairly easy. 

Guess what? Mom doesn't spend every waking hour at the gym, nor does she fight weight gain at every turn. Do I sound jealous? I am...just a little, but I also recognize that she is not a glutton and that is probably a big part of why she's not fat. In fact, she kind of eats like a bird a lot of the time (she's on the worms and seeds diet!)

As much as I struggle with losing weight and keeping it off, I do have a good nutritional foundation, thanks to my mom. I am grateful to her for teaching me what healthy eating is from a young age. 

Thanks, Mom, for:

*buying only wheat bread. I yearned for squishy Wonder bread like all the other kids, but I know now how disgusting that stuff is (if you can mush a piece of bread into a tiny ball, there's something seriously wrong with it)

*making me eat my vegetables. I could have done without the cardboardish frozen pea-carrot-lima bean abomination, but hey, it was the 70's and that's what was available. 

*growing a garden and cooking stuff like beet greens, chard, and mixed garden vegetable stir fries. I will never, ever thank you for the squash, though. 

*stocking our cupboard with Grape Nuts, shredded wheat, raisin bran and Wheat Chex. And not allowing us to dump sugar all over them. I'm fairly sure that I could survive on handfuls of bark without too much damage to my digestive tract, thanks to my fibrous upbringing.

*canning fruit in the summers so we could have peaches year round. I don't think I appreciated then how good home-canned peaches are, but I do now!

*not making me eat the wormy cherries that Grandma canned. Sterilized worms are still worms.

*making do with little to no money, and making sure we didn't go hungry

*all the times you said you weren't hungry and let us finish what was left of dinner (I know you lied sometimes)

*bringing me orange juice in bed to help me wake up. Sorry I was such a lazy bum of a teenager!

I love you, Mom!