Guilt

I am perpetually plagued by guilt. I do lots of things over which I feel guilty. And I can remember lots of things that happened to me, but when I remember them, the mistakes I made in a given situation dominate my memory. Ninety-eight percent of the memory may be neutral or positive, but the negative two percent makes me feel guilty.

Now, since I'm a college grad working full time and living with my parents, I don't have a lot of expenses. So this week I spent a lot of money on various items--Thanksgiving candy, clothes, and Christmas music (and a tiny bit of Thanksgiving music. I can prepare Christmas music but not listen to it yet. My X-mas playlist is currently at 992 songs. Thanksgiving is at 82).

And I feel so guilty buying things. I donate to charity, but could I donate more instead of buying things? And do I have room for more things in my house? And is it wasteful to buy things when I already have things similar? For example, I bought some jeans this week. I have some jeans hanging in my closet that I don't wear often because I don't love how they look, but they're perfectly functional. Is it terrible of me to buy things just for the way they look? Is that vain?

(While we're talking about buying clothes, can we talk about how much I hate the way they package dress shirts? I wear dress shirts every day, but I hate buying them because of the packaging. There's the outer wrapper, and then there's a cardstock square they're folded around, and cardstock or plastic in the collar, and eight or so pins or clips keeping it all together. I either have to go through the hassle of undoing everything to try it on, and then feel guilty for the workers having to repackage it, or I buy it without trying it on and risk it not fitting well--which frequently happens. I can't imagine they make money off of it, because sometimes I won't bother with a shirt if it's packaged that way, and then there's the cost of all the abominable packaging, and the cost of paying workers to put all that stuff in it. Whoever decided that dress shirts should be packaged that way should be tortured. And what should be the torture? Being required all day to try on shirts after removing all the packaging, and then having to put all the packaging back in. Ugh.)

Ever since the time change I have been trying to maintain the same sleep schedule. Before, I was going to bed at about 11, so I've been trying to go to bed at 10. I have had two main motivations in this: (1) don't disrupt my sleep patterns, and (2) have time for a quick trail run after work. (This is less relevant now that it snowed. Sigh.)

I've been doing moderately well at adjusting to the new yet old sleep schedule. But I'm not perfect. It hasn't been an exact hour transition. So when I go to bed at 10:30 instead of 11, I feel guilty about it. Even though it's only affecting me and no one else.

(Can we also talk about how much I hate daylight savings time? I hate it almost as much as I hate packaged shirts. Whenever I hear people talking about its benefits, they usually only talk about its effect on outdoor recreation. Um, I love evening outdoor recreation as much as anyone, but if I want to have daylight for it, it should be up to me to adjust my schedule and priorities. Not force the entire nation, including young children, to lose sleep to accommodate it. Idiocy.)

My ward on Monday did a Family Feud activity, and I was one of the participants. My team ("family") selected me as one of the people for the fast-money round. They asked me to name an animal in the scriptures, so I said the first thing that came to my mind: cureloms. Most of the people didn't even know what I was talking about, and those who did laughed. I should have picked a more common animal. But I don't feel guilty about this one anymore, because the points didn't mean anything anyway at that point.

Yesterday I ran to the Bountiful Temple from my house and back. It was a new record for me, 10.25 miles. It would have been closer to 11, but I walked the last half mile or so by my house because my knee started hurting. Although I regret that I didn't make it the entire way, I'm feeling satisfied. Earlier this year, I don't think I could have done it, and I was slower then. I'm still slow, but not as slow. I guess running up canyons all summer and fall improved my condition.

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Pumpkinundation roundup is another thing that made me feel a little guilty, because I was conserving calories for all this junk food instead of for healthy food. Oh well.

By the way, my last post, asking if pumpkin pie is a Christmas dessert, had forty-five page views, but only four people voted. You know, if you're going to stalk my blog anonymously, you can still vote anonymously.

 One of the fanciest items I've had were these See's Seasonal Pie Truffles, which come in four flavors: apple, cranberry orange, pecan, and pumpkin. I'm happy these exist, as pecan, apple, and pumpkin are the three main Thanksgiving pie flavors. (Mincemeat is the last kind of pie I have for Thanksgiving, but it's the redheaded stepchild of Thanksgiving pies. I consider cranberry orange as more of a Christmas flavor, but I ate it as part of the box.) This was expensive. This box cost more than twenty dollars, yet I didn't find it any better than what you'd find at the drugstore at Valentine's Day. The pecan was the best, and it had a pecan on it. The pumpkin was pretty good too. The cranberry orange was all right. The apple was disappointing--I don't know what, but there was something off-putting about it. I guess a fake flavor. Pecan and pumpkin: 4/5, cranberry orange: 3.5/5, apple: 2.5/5.

 I count this Kneaders gingerbread turkey as a candy corn item because of its candy corn. This is one item that confirms to me that candy corn is for Thanksgiving in addition to Halloween. Gingerbread is a Christmas thing, but it's fun in a Thanksgiving shape. The combination of gingerbread, chocolate, and candy corn works surprisingly well. 5/5.

These See's Pumpkin Spice Lollypops are the worst See's pops I've had. I like the texture of their suckers, but the flavors are hit and miss. Sometimes these pumpkin ones taste like caramel. Sometimes they taste like plastic. But they never taste like pumpkin, and they never taste like spice. 2/5.

I've had better than this Kneaders pecan pie. Pecan pie is my favorite Thanksgiving food, and while this one was good, it wasn't as good as Costco's or others. 4.5/5.

Stephen's Pumpkin Spice Gourmet Hot Cocoa has some cocoa in it, but it doesn't taste like it. It's tasty and comforting, but I like real hot chocolate better. 3.5/5.

I think Pecan Pie Larabars are the best kind there is, better than apple and pumpkin. 4/5.

My mom made some pumpkiny dessert. I don't know what it's called. Sorry to be so vague. 4/5.

For the first time in my life, I went to Starbucks this week. I had their Starbucks Holiday Turkey & Stuffing Panini, which has turkey, stuffing, and cranberries on it. This is the third restaurant I know of with sandwiches like this (Port of Subs and Corner Bakery are the others). Stuffing works surprisingly well on sandwiches. 5/5.

One of the most ubiquitous pumpkin items is the pumpkin spice latte, and I think Starbucks is partly responsible for the popularity of pumpkin spice. But the thing is, I don't drink coffee. How can I patronize one of the major pumpkin labels and still maintain the health code? By having a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Creme, which is basically hot flavored milk. I think they put the same stuff in it as they put in the PSL. If so, I don't get the fuss. I mean, I can't know what the PSL tastes like, but based on this flavor, I can't imagine it's worth people obsessing over the day it returns. It was good, but not great. 4/5.

I also had Starbucks pumpkin bread, which is pretty standard pumpkin bread. I give them an extra half point for utilizing pumpkin seeds (pepitas) on top. 4.5/5.

Caramel apples are a Halloween thing, but I could still have this Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory pumpkin spice caramel apple. It tasted nutmeggy and maybe clovey. It was kind of weird on a caramel apple. 4/5.

Arctic Circle does variations on their pumpkin pie shake, so this is an Arctic Circle Pumpkin Caramel Shake. It was sweeter and less spicy than the regular version. although it didn't have crust pieces in it. 5/5.

This mini Sonic Pecan Pie Flavor Funnel has 700 calories, and there are still three sizes larger! In addition to the pecan pie shake, it has pecans on top and a little funnel of chocolate. The chocolate doesn't do anything for it and makes it a little bitter. I also didn't care for the pecans. On a pie, they're chewy and sweet, but here they were crunchy and bitter. Pecans aren't bad by themselves, but they didn't work with a very sweet shake. It was good, but disappointing, considering that pecan pie is my favorite. Could have been better without the pecans and chocolate--especially the chocolate, because you kind of need pecans in pecan pie. 4/5.

This Market Classics Chipotle Pumpkin Soup Mix came from World Market. You add pumpkin puree (it's also made with pumpkin flakes) and cream (we used half and half). It has the distinct flavor of dried soup mix, and it has a kick to it, but it was actually pretty good. 4/5.

These Pumpkin Spice Oreos are an interesting item. Most Oreos seem kind of juvenile--tasty, but juvenile. These, on the other hand, had a rustic vibe to them, both with the flavor and the burnt orange color of the creme. Definitely better than plain Golden Oreos. 5/5.

These Nature's Path Organic Pumpkin Pie Toaster Pastries are new this year, seemingly to compete with Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts. At first I didn't like these as much as the Pop-Tarts, but then I realized they're not worse than Pop-Tarts, just different. I like them. I would give them 4/5, but I gave Pop-Tarts 5/5, so that's what I should give these.

 At a ward activity where I brought candied yams, I had a piece of apple pie. It's hard to go wrong with it. 5/5.

My mom made these pumpkin crumble bars or something like that. These tried too hard to be fancy, and they weren't as good as the other thing she made. They use ginger snaps for the crust and cream cheese. 3.5/5.