Eating Ourselves Out of House and Home

The Globe and Mail has been running a series of articles aimed at having people try and improve their lives one small step at a time.  Last week’s challenge: try not to buy groceries and eat up what is already in your cupboards and freezer.

Inspired – we’ve decided to take up the challenge. There are massive stockpiles of food in both our cupboards and our freezers – enough to live on for at least several weeks.  Still, I know this is going to be no easy task.  We are grocery store junkies. We frequent them at least three times a week.  We just started the challenge three days ago and I have already had to reign myself in from emailing hubby my list of this and that.

We have set the following rules in place:

1.       Only items like milk, juice, toiletries, etc. can be purchased at the grocery store ( I should probably define etc. – it could mean a lot of things)

2.       Fresh produce can be freely purchased but is encouraged at the Farmer’s Market

3.       Lunch meat can also be purchased from the butcher but must be put on bread that has a questionable purchasing date and is in the freezer.

I think I also need to add a fourth rule because since we began the challenge we have managed to eat out almost every meal.  We are now avoiding the food we have set out to eat.

4.       No more eating out until the challenge is over (rules we meant to be broken, right?)

I can already hear the complaining of the kids. My son will be in all out revolt if we run out of Bisquick. That reminds me, yogurt is on the approved list. Hmmm, what if we have company over?  Are they to be fed from the depths of our freezer, too?  Maybe company should be another exception.

Oh, it’s a slippery slope back to the glorious grocery store. But, we are going to do our best.  It will be amazing if at the end of this we can open our freezer without risk of some random frozen item free falling from the freezer and possibly breaking a toe.  It will be wonderful to open the freezer and actually be able to fit something in it.  Be gone grocery store flyers: To the recycling bin for you. 

I do believe my life can be marginally improved by having cleaned out cupboards and roomy freezers.  Just like I believe my life is marginally better when my bed is made and the kitchen is clean.  The rest of the house could be falling apart but made beds and a clean kitchen gives me a sense of calm. I can often be found making my side of the bed as I get out of it in the morning. Does a half made bed make me half as happy? Some days I think.

Tomorrow we are in fact having company over. Without even having to think about it, I told them we’d pull something out of the freezer for dinner.  They will be unsuspecting accomplices in our quest to rid our house of the perfectly good food, that until now, we couldn’t be bothered to eat.

P.S. You can follow the rest of the challenges by reading the Globe and Mail (obviously) or checking out their facebook page - Globe Life - The Globe and Mail

Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday has always been one of my favourite days of the year. It is second only to Christmas morning.  I’m sure society would like to tell me that as a wife and mother I should not be ranking my own birthday above that of my family.  What kind of mother puts herself first? Well, sometimes I do.

My childhood birthdays looked much like everyone else’s did.  There were parties and cake and presents. And my birthday celebrations began and ended in one day – as one would expect.  But a funny thing happened as I got older.  Instead of celebrating my birthday in just one day I began recognizing my birthday week.

A birthday week – doesn’t it just sound great? Who wants to wait all year for the birthday to come around and have it over and done with in one day?  Now I realize that not all you may love your birthday as much as I do.  And let’s be clear, I don’t like getting older. What I do like is attention and being made to feel special.  Is that so wrong to say out loud?

I think it all began when my friends and family would start doing nice things for me leading up to my birthday. One friend might take me to lunch, another to dinner and then there were cards and visits.  And my husband would plan special nights for us that may have fallen on the weekend before my actual birthday. But that doesn’t mean you don’t still celebrate on the actual day, right?

Yes, I am a lot of work sometimes.  My husband has been saint-like in his efforts to indulge most of my ridiculous expectations. And in fairness to yours truly, I do also love other people’s birthdays and I try and make sure that I make them feel special when it’s their turn.  I am probably setting my children up to have the same expectations surrounding their birthdays as I do but there are much greater problems in life than loving your birthday too much.

I am currently in full on birthday mode and I love it.  Isn’t May the most wonderful month of the year? I may sound (ok, I may be) completely self-indulgent sometimes but we all deserve that once in a while don’t we?  If a person can’t be made to feel special on their birthday then when can they?  Thirty-six - here I come!

Happy Mother's Day...

Happy Mother’s Day – prepare to be disappointed.  At dinner tonight I actually said these words to one of my sisters on the eve of her first Mother’s Day. The words escaped my mouth before I could think about what I was saying and engage appropriate filtering.  Why would I say something like that? Oh right. I remember. Mother’s Day has consistently failed to meet the expectations the name of the day itself suggests:  Mother’s Day – a day for mothers. A day created by men with good intentions possibly? (I’m not sure, I haven’t done the research). Sadly, the best Mother’s Day a girl can have is the one experienced within the confines of her mind.

Rarely has a Mother’s Day lived up to its unrealistic expectations.  How could it?  I want my house to be clean, but I don’t want to have to be the one to clean it. I want appropriate and thoughtful gifts.  I want to be near my children but I don’t want to have anything to do with their care or discipline (oh, let’s face it, a day without children would be amazing – I’m for sure going to hell now). I want to sleep in and lounge in my bedroom for the morning without disruption.  I really could go on and on here. Clearly I am the one who has made this day so complicated. Why can’t I just be satisfied with a card and flowers? What is wrong with me???

Yep, the lower I can try and keep my expectations the better. I am not trying to be mean.  My husband does all that is humanly possible to make me happy. Yet somehow, it’s still not enough. It is really a double standard.  It’s not as if I make him King for the day on Father’s Day. And he never seems to mind. My hopes for a day like Mother’s Day on the other hand are so high I’m doomed to be let down.

So tomorrow I will wake up and try to quiet the diva inside me who will be screaming to be spoiled all day. I mean this literally. I may actually be screaming about this at some point tomorrow. I will tell her to look around and see all that she has to be grateful for.  I will tell her that in spite of her fighting children, messy house and the fact that the day will look very much like the other 364 days of the year, this is actually exactly where she wants to be – knee deep in domestic bliss.

And one day, when my kids are grown and I pull out my box of homemade cards and pictures they so excitedly gave me every Mother’s Day morning, I will cry and wish for these days all over again.

Say Anything

I think we sometimes forget how easy it is to make someone feel good.  We forget that the smallest gestures and the smallest acts of kindness are often the most significant. 

Standing in line somewhere today, a woman (a complete stranger to me) told me that my hair was beautiful. Now inside me is still a girl who is traumatized by having her short hair permed when she was eight years old. I don’t look at myself – ever – and think my hair is beautiful. This woman did not have to say that to me but she did (God bless her) and it left me (and my eight year old self) feeling great about me and my hair.

How often I have looked at someone and admired something about them only to keep the compliment to myself - where it usually burns as envy. Why not just say it?  Say what I’m thinking and make someone else feel great, if only just for a moment.

A compliment has the power to disarm the distance between two strangers.  A compliment can connect you with another person and bring out in them a genuine smile.  And strangers aren’t the only people worthy of our admiration.

Far too often I overlook the amazing qualities in those closest to me.  I almost expect them to look great as they always do and I should be saying, “You look great, as usual; I anticipate being greeted with their ever-positive outlook on life and I forget to tell them that I appreciate that about them; I see past their huge, infectious smile because I see it every day and I must remember to tell them, “I wish I had a smile like that”.

Some people (too few) are so good at paying people compliments on a regular basis.  They are always building people up and I love to wallow in their company as I always walk away feeling like I’ve got the world by the…you know.

I am going to try and pay this compliment I received today from that lovely stranger forward.  I am going to stop thinking nice (envious) thoughts about people and actually say them (one must be cautious not to come across as a total weirdo when paying strangers compliments).  And I am going to try and remember to acknowledge the great things I see every day in my friends and family (now that it’s on paper I won’t be the only one holding me to this expectation).

Challenge yourself today to give a compliment to a stranger or somebody close to you. Don’t just say anything, say something to make someone’s day.

***Time lapse*** 

There, I did it. I just told a woman in the pool that she looks fantastic in a bikini (as I’m writing this it seems borderline inappropriate) as she’s toting her two year old on her hip.  What was I really thinking - skinny bitch!