Thursday

A "little" dessert?

Today I was riding in my car when a commercial started playing.  It was a Walmart commercial, which I don't know if I've heard on the radio before.  The commercial started off by talking about how Walmart can help a busy mom by having already prepared meals in their freezer section  (more to come about that at a later date).  The commercial then said- and you can grab dessert while you are in the freezer section because "a little dessert never hurt anyone."  Seriously???

While I feel there are many things wrong with processed foods, I'm not going to go off on that today.  My problem, today, is with the statement: "a little dessert never hurt anyone."  How many people buy a container of ice cream and eat the specified 1/4-1/2 cup serving size?  The only people I know who strictly abide by the serving size are people on weight watchers or other dieters.  So how does this  "not hurt anyone"?  Well let's see, when I was a nurse taking care of adults my back hurt constantly from the increasing size of my patients.  Obesity is a HUGE problem in this country, as has been reported in various media outlets.  Heart disease, diabetes, joint and back problems are just a few of the diseases connected to obesity frequently seen in hospitals around the country (I'm speaking strictly from experience, not from research I've done).  These problems seem to contradict the idea that "a little dessert never hurt anyone."

Now I am in NO way saying that I'm healthy, because I am JUST as guilty as anyone else when it comes to sweets and portion control.    However, when we hear a commercial telling us how they can make our lives easier, it catches our attention.   And then we hear something like "a little dessert never hurt anyone."  Come on, can we have something in our lives to help us out for real?  Something to encourage us to strive to be healthy?  Just last night, when I was watching some television  (because I'm lazy sometimes) there was commercial after commercial advertising for food during the supper hours.  These commercials were not for raw fruits and veggies, coupled with healthy fats--they were fried chicken and greasy hamburgers, topped with huge slabs of bacon.   Now, not only do I want that huge juicy hamburger after watching these ads, but if I'm going to be "bad" I might as well have dessert too, because that's what I really crave.
I don't want my daughter to have dessert be the norm.  I don't want her to think that all foods come out of a carton or bag of some kind.  I want her to realize how amazing a juicy nectarine is, or the way a pear melts in your mouth--not a frozen ice cream sandwich or frozen cake.  I want her to actually experience the taste of real strawberries, a homemade Popsicle made of yogurt and fresh strawberries.  These really won't hurt anybody, and take seconds to mix up, plop in a dixie cup, and throw in the freezer.

So, I may not have all the time in the world, and I may have cravings for all kinds of bad food, but it doesn't help when there are commercials telling me that it won't hurt to eat dessert.  How about a commercial that says "and you can stop by our frozen section and pick up a bag of unsweetened frozen blueberries for a cold, sweet and refreshing dessert."  Now that is really convenient and helpful for a working mom!


Come on Walmart, how about whole, raw, pesticide and chemical free food to help your family have more energy, better health and an overall longer life, because that really "never hurt anyone."

*Soon to come, how a working mom can avoid those premade processed frozen dinners that are oh-so-convientent.*

Tuesday

Oh the babyweight diets....

The Preacher and the Teacher: Things I would Like to Eat Right Now: "I'm on a diet because I believed what people told me when they said that I could eat whatever I wanted when I was pregnant because I was eat..."

I go to bed with dirty dishes

Yep. That's right.  I go to bed with dirty dishes.  You can call me what you want, but I hate doing dishes, Munchkie's Daddy hates doing dishes and so they don't always get done.  Especially when the dishwasher is full of clean dishes because we equally dislike putting away the dishes.

(I'm having a slight panic attack about showing this)

When you get married sometimes you assume that your relationship with your husband or wife is going to be a mirror image of your parents, or you may go the opposite direction and say "I will never EVER be like my parents."  Either way, it doesn't always turn out the way you think.  Growing up my mom stayed home with us.  She cooked almost every meal and in the words of my brother as a child "we're having salad and gross stuff for dinner."  That means she always served very healthy, well-balanced and food pyramid guided meals.  After dinner we would clear our plates and then my dad would stand at the sink and do the dishes.  If the trash needed to be taken out, he would do it.  I never saw my mom asking him to do either.

So the day came that I got married.

Naturally I assumed that Munchkie's Daddy would gladly without hesitation do every dish and take out the trash whenever it got remotely full.  I guess I never thought about how the division of chores were created in my house growing up.  I also was so naive that I didn't realize my mother's frustration when she asked my dad to vacuum and it wasn't completed to her standards.  In the early days of my marriage I remember being so frustrated that I started to vent to my mother on the phone (something which I try not to do- talk about my husband and I's relationship to my parents) and I will never forget what she said to me.

Amanda, why do you think that your dad does the things he does?  It took me years to train him.
 How could I, just months into my marriage, assume that my relationship with Munchkie's Daddy could be the mature relationship of my parents?  While I know my mom was joking about the training part, it's true.  It takes years to figure out the division of household chores.  And guess what, they aren't necessarily divided because we enjoy doing something, like the dishes.  I guess that you just suck it up and do things that you don't like because they have to get done.

So for now I am going to go to bed with dirty dishes.  Since I don't like doing them and he doesn't like doing them, they will sit out for a few more hours.  Maybe someday there will be HIS chores and HERS chores, but I think those are a few more years in the making.  And in those years I will be grateful for all of the things he does do, like make dinner most nights, do laundry and pick up around the house.

Hopefully by then Munchkie will be old enough to have her own chores and we can pay her with a measly allowance to do the chores we don't like "to teach her responsibility."

Fake Cranberry Joy

I'm addicted to blogs.  Seriously.  I read them, I laugh out loud, I forward them, I dream of my own blog that is witty, brings a feeling of community while giving great tips and helpful ways to live life.

But I have a lot of self doubt.  Who would want to read about my struggles to just survive.  You know that everyone only posts the great things about their lives on those equally addicting social networks. But what you don't know that their bathroom shower actually has mold growing in it while they are posting about how great that homemade loaf of whole wheat bread smells baking in their breadmaker.

Oh shoot, those are my posts.

Well not everyone is perfect.

I sit on my couch and read all these blogs and wish that I could be that perfect mom.  You know, the one who stays home all day, makes every meal from scratch, has the perfectly immaculate and basically sterilized home, are so frugal that they buy their week's groceries while spending $1.72 wearing the same size 0 jeans from jr high because they lost all their baby weight the day the baby was born, AND their kids are always perfectly dressed.  (Ugh, I'm getting that sinking feeling in my stomach even as I type this.)

But then I look up.  And I see this clearance shelf purchase I made several years ago at an after Christmas sale.  It is made of those fake red plastic coated styrofoam cranberries and spells out the word JOY.  Even though this is a Christmas decoration I keep it up all year round.  I have moved it from house to apartment to house and keep it in a highly visible location.



I remember that I need to have joy.  Joy in all situations.  Joy while I take care of someone else's kids for 13 hours at a time while my own child is at home without me.  Joy while Munchkie is face down on the ground screaming because I won't let her watch Elmo on "DDD" again.  Joy while I am so tired that we get Chinese take-out instead of cooking a "real food" meal.  Joy while I try to get makeup stains out of toddler clothes because someone wanted to be like Mommy.   Joy while a sloppy wet kiss is planted smack on my lips.  Joy while the beautiful white swans are floating on the water out my window.  Joy while blessings are showered on me.

See where this is going?  Something as small as a fake cranberry covered Christmas decoration can remind you that life isn't as bad as you think. Basically you can do anything with a little joy.  With a hopeful attitude and a desire to share who I am, I am starting this blog.