Food and gratefulness
I love the comic relief that Julia has been providing with her forgetting her moment of thanks before eating. This week, Joanie and i both started writing down (in an app) everything we eat. While this is intended to be for health reasons, I must say that it has also made me stop, think, and appreciate food much more. I invariably enter the food I've eaten only after I've eaten it, sometimes even hours later. This delay forces me to think about the food and portions I'm eating so that I can remember it later. This is a stark contrast to the pattern I had fallen into of late, where I would mindlessly stuff my face until lo and behold, the entire package of fig newtons was gone. I think the first step for being grateful for just about anything is to be keenly conscious of it, and that just about any ritual can help make this happen.
So, Julia, I suggest that if you forget to pause for your moment of thanks before eating, there is still time for redemption if you invoke your thankfulness later in the day. Of course, if the clock strikes midnight, your time is up and you must fast for a week ;-)
This reminds me of a good line from a John Wayne movie (paraphrasing):
Sidekick: "You haven't eaten anything in days! Ain't you hungry?"
John Wayne: "Naw. I ate a lot when I was a kid."
-Jon