I'm Chipper

I know better than to have any kind of “snacky” food in the house. I obsess over it like it is something that needs to be checked off of some kind of “to do” list. My recent obsession was a box of Frosted Mini Wheats. I’ve had a long running relationship with these little critters. They actually never make it to a bowl of any kind; I just eat them like popcorn…highly frosted, packed in calorie popcorn. I eventually vowed to break off this relationship as it was causing more harm than good.

So yesterday I had a giant box of Frosted Mini Wheats sitting in the passenger seat, wearing a seatbelt (don’t judge). I am still a bit paranoid after the road kill incident from the other night. Heaven forbid I should have to hit the brakes and lose an entire box of candied wheat (I have a strict “no eating off the floor mat” policy).

I am not sure if I was telling myself that I would just have one or two every now and then when I got the munchies or not. I know better. I knew that box was going to be empty by the end of the day. I am also not sure why they were there. It’s not like I was on some kind of road trip and might have to go for miles without seeing a gas station or something (do those areas even exist anymore) but I had my survivalist box of Frosted Mini Wheats there by my side…just in case.

Once that box was opened, it was all over. I was riding down the road running through those tasty squares and happy as the city wood chipper the week after Christmas. At the end of the day, there was Frosted Mini Wheat shrapnel all over the car. When I got out of the car in the gym parking lot last night, after a fifteen minute sugar coma nap, I noticed that I had a mini wheat up on my dashboard. I have no idea how it got up there. I opened the back door to get out my gym bag and there on the back seat was another mini wheat. Seriously? How in the world did it get back there? Did I, at some point, just start throwing them at my face? Oh my word; I hope I am not on someone’s Facebook page today in a video titled “ The human woodchipper”. It’s a good thing I don’t have any kids. They would hate me. Their bags of Cheerios and Fruitloops would never make it through a church service…as a matter of fact, they would probably arrive at church with empty bags.

I was worn out when I got to the gym. I was blaming it on the fact that I had just taken in month’s worth of sugar in a matter of hours but it could have been all that chewing. I was exhausted. New rule: no more desert cereals allowed. I wish Kroger had a way of cutting a person off. You know, like a way you could go online and set up an account and put a list of things on there that it won’t let you buy. I think that might work. It would be like, if I tried to buy something on the hit list, it would sound an “alarm of shame” and not let me scan the item. I know it sounds extreme but maybe it’s time large corporations took a little personal responsibility for their customers. Maybe it’s time for Kellogg to also step up to the plate and show some personal responsibility and not put Frosted Mini Wheats in such big boxes. Who knows, I might even sue. I am concerned that the increased sugar and subsequent weight gain might be detrimental to my health. Maybe this would be a wakeup call to big business. Personal responsibility, it seems to be a thing of the past and such a hard thing to teach. All I know is that I have got to go to the $5 car wash today with the unlimited time slot vacuum. I have work to do; there is wheat to harvest.

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut Sometimes You Don't

I don’t know exactly what happened tonight. I have been doing so well. I’ve been watching portion control, sugar, calories, everything. Tonight I went into Kroger with the idea that I was going to do a little “reward session” and make a sugar free, low fat, apple cobbler. There we apples in my cart; I do remember that but the rest is a blur. Something took over, something powerful. The only thing I can think of was, yes, you guessed it, my inner manbearpig. It had come out of hibernation and what with the pending snow storm, decided to prepare for a re-hibernation.

All I can tell you is that when I left Kroger, I had the ingredients to make an Almond Joy cobbler. “How do you make an Almond Joy cobbler” you might ask? I have no idea but I am assuming that my inner manbearpig does. I checked on it a few minutes ago and realized that I had made the basic cobbler recipe wrong. If you have ever made a “quick cobbler” then you know that rule number one is that the butter/oil does not get mixed into the batter. It goes in the bottom of the dish and the batter goes over the top. If you mix it all together is too thin. Well, in my “haste to make waist”, I mixed it all together. I think I remember making this mistake once before, years ago and it took about two days to get done. I am pretty sure that it makes it turn rubbery or something. I also noticed that I forgot the almonds…the almonds! How do you make an Almond Joy cobbler with no almonds? Let’s face it; it is no longer an Almond Joy cobbler. It is a Mounds Bar cobbler. Basically, I took the “joy” out of the cobbler. Still, my love handles are quivering in anticipation.

This had better be good. I haven’t had the real thing in a long time and these calories had better be worth it. If not, the neighbor’s dog is in for a treat. That dog should like me by now but it just growls when it sees me…hmmmm, now that I have put that in writing I think I just figured out why it hates me so much. It’s probably blaming me for all its stomach aches. I know they feed it people food but my cooking mistakes can be pretty epic. My recent crockpot “rice/broccoli loaf” and subsequent rice/broccoli patties probably topped the charts for culinary tragedies. It’s much easier to throw away a “grain wreck” than it is a desert-gone-bad. No matter how rubbery or joyless this desert turns out to be, I have a feeling that it won’t be anything that a little microwaving and scoop of ice cream can’t fix.
#yumgrrroink

Pictures Don't Lie, Unless You Pay For It.

I’ll be the first to admit it…wait, that’s a lie, let me start over. I’d really never admit this but one good thing about glasses is that they offer a bit of haze between the crow’s feet and the general public. Plus, they also give some shape to tired drooping eyes. I don’t go out in public without my glasses any more. Today was picture day for our church directory; no one is overdue an updated picture more than myself. I have known for a long time that I need a new one and that profile Facebook picture made me look five years younger five years ago.

I forgot, imagine that, that this was picture day until my phone reminded me. I didn’t have time to go home first but luckily I wasn’t running around in my sweats. I was however, dressed a bit like Johnny Cash with my solid black shirt. I hoped that I wasn’t going to stand out as someone from “the dark side” in the church directory.

I went into the room to have my picture taken and the lights were really low in there. It was a good sign. We did several in the “thinking man” pose and then switched up to a different shade of sponge painted backdrop and took a few shots from my other good side. The photographer decided to take a few pictures “sans glasses” . I took off my glasses and she took a few quick pictures, looked at her camera, looked up at me, and then said, “Oh honey no, no you need your glasses…uhuh, no, …” She looked at her camera pics again and continued, “No that’s not going to work….you need those glasses to kind of , you know, give your face some shape or something…yeah, that’s not going to work at all; just go ahead and put your glasses back on.” I was horrified at my hideousness; it was hard to go on and put on my happy face for the camera.

After the session I had to go look at them on the computer. That was tough. When we got to the “glasses free” ones, I almost screamed. Yikes! I swear I had “crazy eye” in all of them. She was a good salesman and had me whipping out my credit card in no time. She was clever. She said, “As much as none of us like to admit it, we are not as young as we used to be. Let me show you something”. She put two pictures out in front of me. The first was just a good, normal picture of herself and the second had been “Airtouched” . She pointed out, “You seen how, in the Airtouched picture, the teeth are a little whiter, the lines on the face are a little softer and the eyes appear a bit brighter?” I saw it; I saw it all. I looked at it and then turned to my big 8x10 mug on her computer in High Definition and said , “Yes please”. She smiled at me, said “Excellent choice” and swiped my credit card…all in one move.

Dear Baby Jesus,

Please forgive me for being so vain that I spent extra money (that could have gone to that country where the kids get mad when you don’t clean your plate) on generic Photoshopping for a picture that will go in a church directory to be viewed by people that I see every Sunday in broad daylight. Is that a big sin? I know it might be false advertising. I promise to be more frugal in the future and will use this as my business card photo and Facebook profile picture for the next ten years. In my defense, I thought the photographer/saleswomen must have been an angel in disguise when she showed me the photo upgrade option…sorry…that was a lie…that thought never entered my mind. Yeah, let’s just stick to my first request and I’ll stop talking before I rack up a list of things that need to be addressed.