Food Hoarder

Please forgive the long post. This has been on my mind and writing usually helps me figure things out. I welcome your input as well. :)

I'm trying to figure out my relationship with food. I don't mean in a diet way, like food for comfort or food as the enemy. I've got that figured out and feel that I have a pretty healthy diet psyche, thank you very much.

No, it's food storage and gardening and home canning that I'm trying to figure out. Sure, I'm Mormon, so all those things have been important my whole life. But the mystery is why I have such an emotional connection to it all. I mean, nothing makes me happier and feel more secure than a full pantry and a full fridge. It's a deep, to-the-core thrill, yet somehow it never feels like enough.

My sister introduced me to a book that totally feeds that need: How to Grow More Vegetables... Sure there are lots of chapters on soil prep and composting and all that, but the chapter that takes my breath away is the one with sample garden plans for a year-round garden that will supply all of your food needs for a year. I study those diagrams with glee and fantasize about the mini farm I'll have one day, when I add chickens and beehives and maybe a few goats to the mix. It really wouldn't take that much land, except for the goats. It thrills me to think of buying and filling a chest freezer and basement shelves with summer produce and using it all winter.

Yes, I know that this plan requires a great deal of dirty work, both in the gardening and the canning and freezing. But it's work I want to do, and it's the kind of work that makes me feel competent and human and alive.

But gardening and canning aside, I'm also feeling more urgent about a basic year's supply of staples and a three-month supply of standard meals. I get the same feeling about my savings accounts, and I'm having major conflict at the thought of pulling money from savings to buy food storage. Which is more important right now? Which will make me feel more secure--the food or the money?

What I'm trying to figure out is my motivation for all this. Several people I know who have a lot of food storage are preparing for "the big one," a major disaster or food shortage or political uprising. I'm not really concerned about those things. I mean, if the fault line we're sitting on goes active, our foundationless 100-year-old house and all the food storage in it will be reduced to a pile of sticks and rubble in two seconds flat. And I have no desire to move out to the middle of nowhere and start stockpiling guns to keep marauders at bay.

And it's not like I ever went hungry growing up. There were a lot of us, and there were never enough mashed potatoes no matter how huge a bowl of them my mom brought to the table (we really like mashed potatoes), but we always had enough to eat. So that's not it.

What do you think it is?

"Hunger" is not a four-letter word

I've been hungry lately. Constantly hungry. But I'm ok with that. It's a strange feeling. Let me explain.

I am trying to lose weight, but I don't believe in diets. Diets mean self-deprivation, which for me means setting myself up for failure. So I don't diet. I just eat less and exercise more, and so far it's been working.

But lately my appetite has been going crazy. I eat breakfast, and I'm still hungry. I eat a good lunch, and I'm still hungry. I have a snack, and I'm still hungry. I have dinner... you get the idea. The odd part is I can't think of anything else I want to eat. Sure, I could go eat another bowl of Cheerios right now. Or a peanutty granola bar. Or even potato chips and ranch dip. Nothing's stopping me, and it's all in my kitchen right now. I'm not counting points or limiting carbs or anything. But instead here I sit, hungry. And I don't mind. I just don't want those things right now. And I don't think they'd make the hunger go away. At least not for very long. And I'd rather be a little hungry than overfull and bloated.

This is an odd thing in my history, and quite revolutionary. Part of me hopes this is a permanent thing, and another part wonders how long it will last before I go back to eating everything in sight. We'll see.

I have a theory

("...that it's a demon. A dancing demon! No, something isn't right there.")

Ok, maybe less of a theory than a realization. Here's the background: I have two pairs of pants that, according to the tags, are the same size. But one is uncomfortably snug around the waist while the other literally falls down so bad I need a belt. I haven't needed a belt since high school, if even then. Very frustrating, this discrepancy in sizing.

And then just this week I figured out the difference. One is meant to sit at my waist, while the other is meant to sit on my hips. I carry most of my weight in my belly, and I've been losing weight in my hips and butt. So even though the hip pants ride across the peak of my belly, that circumference is still smaller than the hip/butt circumference of average woman my size. So the pants sag and slip. But I haven't been losing much in my waist, so the waist pants are still snug.

That, and every brand interprets sizing differently. Even so, I think I'll be shopping at Old Navy more, which is where the hip pants came from. I know size is just a number, but right now my ego could use some smaller numbers.

I don't know why anyone would care about this, but I felt the need to share. Enjoy. :)

"Wooka wooka BY-dee"

This is Atty's new all-purpose phrase. He says it and sings it all day, sometimes shortening it to "g'BY-dee" or just "wooka wooka". I have no idea what it means, but it obviously means something to him. Sometimes he'll be babbling and singing and start laughing all of a sudden, as though he'd just said something funny. I laugh with him because he's just so dang cute, so maybe he thinks I understand him. I wish I did. There's a lot going on in that little brain of his, and it would be fascinating to tap into it and understand his view of the world.

He's at the stage where he's figuring out the boundaries and limits of his world, and it can be so frustrating for both of us sometimes. What happens if I pull on this chair? Mom said "no" last time I banged on the glass door with a stick; what will she say if I do it again? Or with a toy? Or with this other toy? Look at me! I climbed onto the coffee table! Yikes! How do I get down?!

This boy is definitely an explorer. He'll play with toys, but his favorite thing to do it just walk around and check out the place. He LOVES to run outside. Last night he walked around the whole block with James. He'll run up driveways so he can run back down on the slope, and he loves climbing our neighbor's stairs. He'll stop to pick up sticks or leaves or poke at dirt, but mostly he loves to run. He gets so mad when we bring him back inside, and he gets so bored in our apartment. This kid really needs a back yard and things to climb on. One day we'll have that. For now he'll have to make do with the coffee table and the sidewalk.

July is family visit month, Part 1: Adam

When my visiting teacher Chalee (cute girl in picture below) found out that my brother works for the show "So You Think You Can Dance," her first question was, "Can he get us tickets??" Because she can fly free and get me a buddy pass. So I asked, and sure enough, he could. So Chalee and I hopped on a plane and spent the day in LA with my bro. (If you look close in the picture above, you can see the Hollywood sign on the hill behind us.) Oh, and the shirt Adam's wearing is left over from Adam Lambert's wardrobe on American Idol. The boy has connections. :)

We didn't need to be at the show until 5:30, so we did checked out the Chinese theater and walk of fame (avoiding the crowd at Michael Jackson's star). Adam needed to pick up his credentials for the ESPN awards at the Nokia theater, where he was going to work coordinating the seat-fillers the next day, so we got a backstage tour and got to check out the stage and dress rehearsals. Not that any of us cares about sports or ESPN, but it was still pretty cool.

When we got to the CBS studios, we met up with Adam's partner, Thaddeus, who was working (they both work for SYTYCD, but Adam had the day off). We got to meet their friends and bypass the line and metal detectors, and they took us to our seats. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but Chalee got a shot of the stage before they told us to turn off our cell phones. (The people around us wondered why they hadn't been confiscated like everyone else's.)

The stage and studio look a lot bigger on TV, which shouldn't be surprising but still is somehow. But that means we had great seats, even though we were toward the back of the bleachers. The bleachers don't get on camera very often, but it was a heckuva lot more comfortable than being in the "mosh pit," where you have to stand the whole time. Backstage info: the cute girls in front of the judges' table and along the edges of the stage and up on the platforms above the stage come from an agency. They probably don't get paid, but they get to be on camera. And they have to be sure they're really into the show and cheering a lot, or they get talked to about it.

Speaking of cheering, we did a lot of it. The show isn't live, and it took about three hours to tape. So before any of the "talent" came out, they took all the audience shots: clapping and cheering, clapping without cheering, cheering while people held up signs, etc. I was almost tired of cheering before the show even started. But the show didn't disappoint, and I was thrilled to be watching it in person. (I won't bore you with details of the show; if you're a fan, you watched it, and you know it was great.)

After the show Thaddeus joined us and we went out to dinner at their favorite Thai place. We were also celebrating Adam's birthday a day early. The food was great, and Thaddeus filled us in on all the backstage gossip: Mary's high-maintenance but loves Thaddeus; Nigel is friendly and low-key and gets his own food; Kupono's a diva with special food requests (Thaddeus does all the grocery shopping for the contestants); Jason and Janean are dating (no surprise after their steamy dance together). The stress level among the contestants dropped when it came down to the top 10, because if you're in the top 10, you're in the tour, which means you'll get $100K and have a steady gig for a year. So even if you get eliminated, you're set. So don't feel too bad for anyone who gets eliminated anymore.

After dinner we hung out at their apartment for a bit, but then Chalee and I had to get back to our hotel and sleep, because we had to be up at 4:30 to try to catch the 7:15 flight home. Here's a family picture of Adam, Thaddeus, and the kitties (Simon didn't want to cooperate).

So while I wouldn't call this trip relaxing, we had a great time. It was fun to see the show, but even more fun to hang out with my brother and Thaddeus again. They plan to work for the show for season 6, so maybe we'll get to do it again. :)

Nana!

We were happy to have James's mom and her husband come visit us the first week of June. (So sorry it's taken me this long to post! I plan to make up for my absence with a few posts this week.)

Atty wasn't sure what to think of our visitors at first. When they first walked in, he looked at them, then at us, and burst out crying. He must have thought we were leaving without him. Once he realized we were staying, though, he started to warm up.

By the end of their visit, Atty and Nana were good buddies. She'd chase him around the chair, and he'd squeal and run away but then run back so she could catch him and give him loves. Nana got some pretty juicy kisses from that boy.

He was sad to see them go, and so were we.

Can he get any cuter?

You'll want to turn up the volume.