Baking Bread and Other Resolutions

Here we are again at the end of yet another year.  I am one who does make resolutions, most of them are attempted and some are even considered successful in retrospect. Many though are tweaked from year to year in an attempt to make them a reality. 
Over this year past I have been successful in losing some weight, not what I had envisioned but definitely a decent start.  I joined the Y and I actually go!  Amazing.  Exercise makes me feel good.  I had forgotten over the years just how important it is, just how important I am.  So many of us, as mothers, tend to work on the successes of those in our lives..husbands, children, even friends, and forget the very most important of all. Ourselves.
This now leads to the title of this blog.  In my quest these past months to reconnect with myself and what is important to me, I have done some research on 'clean' living.  I am not a fanatic, and take everything I read with a grain of salt.  What I do absolutely and without any doubt believe is that Americans are digging their own graves.  We are the fattest and the unhealthiest society on earth.  You don't need any scientific study, all you need to do is look around you.  I am a nurse who works in the area of Case Management. What I do among other things is work with families on post hospital care and management. I am appalled at what I see on a daily basis. Young people are literally killing themselves through the choices that they make.  We are overrun with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, food abuse, no exercise, no preventative medical care, no basic understanding of healthy living and nutrition.  We have a generation of elderly who are neglected by their families and by our social system, resulting in depression, illness, alcoholism and malnutrition.  We are a total frigging mess. 
As one individual, I cannot change the world, but I can change myself and try to positively affect those around me. If we all do a little, the effect will be great.
Hence, making bread.  I have had a bread machine since the 80's.  It has been dormant since the 90's. No more!  Just one of the many things I am doing to hopefully avoid cancer, heart disease, diabetes  and on and on the list goes.
I have decided to use the 'clean' principal in the following ways:  avoid preservatives and artificial anything like the plague. I read the labels on everything I buy and am making better choices.  There is a lot out there that is made without the ingredients that I cannot pronounce and don't know how to define.  I make my own bread and it's delicious!  I buy organic produce as much as I can, organic eggs and chicken.  I eat very little beef and am choosey when I do. I eat more non-meat meals.  No ariticial sweetener is found in my home and all the alcohol is gone. 
My intent is to live the next year making a conscious effort to improve my health and wellbeing and influence my friends and family to do the same.  These are my resolutions.