Everyday Systems

I am an excellent baker. My history of baking, in addition to eating far too much the finished baked goods, includes plenty of licking the bowl, licking the spatula, eating a few chocolate chips as I bake....

Today I needed to bake for a celebration of a friend's birthday. As this is my fifth week of No-S'ing, doing so with no slip-ups came quite naturally! I did not lick or eat anything. I will take the chocolate banana bread to a meeting tonight, and will not have any (There are 15 of us, and we celebrate birthdays. I refuse to have 15 extra Special days for this purpose!)

The three Real Pleasures that I found in baking today are:

1) It was a real pleasure to smell what I was making.

2) It was a real pleasure to put a piece in the freezer and look forward to eating it on Saturday.

3) It was a real pleasure to be able to stick to No-S'ing!

Congrats! It was a real pleasure to read your success!

Well done!

I'm also a keen baker of sweets and bread. This week I baked a dozen fruit mince and spice muffins. You are spot on - they smelled fantastic. My husband, son and old work mates enjoyed them. I didn't eat any, because it was on Wednesday. If you had told me 3 years ago that this would be possible I would have laughed.

It's been a revelation to me this week that I can say "no" to something very tempting and be okay just a short while later. In fact, it's nice not to have regret over saying "yes" in the moment.

That's fantastic! I could never get the hang of it. Kudos.