This is the question I asked myself when I was standing at WMart contemplating peanut butter. The kind I like JIF Whipped only comes in small jars while the less liked JIF Creamy comes in a gargantuan tubs. Vats, really. Barrels.
I don't usually stand around contemplating peanut butter in the first place. I'm on sort of a kick right now where that is all I want to eat for breakfast. Peanut butter on toast. Not exactly inventive, but oh so good. So I'm going through some JIF fast. The whipped is light both in texture and in calories at about 150 for 2 tablespoons. The creamy is 210 calories for the same amount. So, should I get the big one that I like less and has more calories because it's cheaper or stick with the little one and spend more money?
I bought the vat. Being poor is hard.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Happy Valentine's Day!
I love all holidays. I think it's because we celebrated even the smallest one when I was a child. I don't celebrate much anymore. Birthdays, anniversaries, and even Christmas has become a little toned down. I'm not one to celebrate Valentine's Day ever (relationship or not), but I think this year I will. It seems strange that THIS is the year I chose to participate in a holiday about love. The fact is that I have lots of love, and I want to celebrate it! I might celebrate Daylight Savings Time too. Don't put me in a box! I'm unpredictable!
Back to the things I love. First of all, I love THIS
Why yes, that is very inappropriate for a child's valentine. JUST WHAT I WAS THINKING!
I also love THIS and THAT!
And in closing... someone asked me to be their Valentine, and I responded with "Is this a mass text?" It wasn't. It doesn't get any better than that!
Back to the things I love. First of all, I love THIS
Why yes, that is very inappropriate for a child's valentine. JUST WHAT I WAS THINKING!
I also love THIS and THAT!
And in closing... someone asked me to be their Valentine, and I responded with "Is this a mass text?" It wasn't. It doesn't get any better than that!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The Fear
I used to live my life in a... we'll say fearless way (for lack of a better word). Young people are accused of thinking they are invincible, and for me that was true. Two things happened to change me: 1) I matured and stopped making idiotic life choices and 2) I lost someone very close to me in an accident. It is lucky (if you could ever call someone you love dying lucky) that the accident happened AFTER I had matured. Otherwise it might have pushed me further into avoiding reality by employing some BS theory that you only live once. YOLO, as it has been coined, is the bread and butter of today's youth. They use it as an excuse to act stupid and bratty, get their way, or justify their lack of responsibility. It has become the battle cry of a generation. If a generation too self-absorbed to get off their iPhones needs a battle cry. 
Saturday Night Live spoofed the YOLO craze with a Lonely Island music video featuring Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar. Their message was if you only live once you should be uber careful. The song is great. It features examples of how to be watchful from the true "there's no such thing as too much Purell" to the hilariously ridiculous "two words about furniture - killing machines." My take on YOLO is somewhere in between the two worlds. If you are only meant to live once, make it meaningful. That doesn't mean do whatever you want or nothing you want. Everything good is bad for you. Just don't go over the deep end. (Hello, I'm addicted to Aspartame, deal with it.)
We are going to pretend Zac Efron was interrupted while tattooing Yolonda, the name of his dying grandmother because aside from this ill-fated choice of body art, I think he's very dreamy.
What it all boils down to is fear. You can either laugh in the face of fear by saying (and meaning) that you only live once and to heck with everyone else but yourself. Or you can acknowledge the fear and try to shelter yourself from it. I am the latter. I have lived dangerously in the past, so now I am aware of every single risk. What if, like a cat, you only have 9 lives and I used 8 of mine before I turned 18? Which brings me to this week's fear. I didn't even know I had it until it was too late. Sometimes things sneak up on you like that.
This is a 26 ft Uhaul truck.
I can drive pretty well. I grew up in the country. There is no public transportation here. If you want to get somewhere you drive. You could walk, but in most cases you'd have to pack a meal or two and a blanket for nap time. I have driven many vehicles in many different weather conditions. I do not like to drive on the interstate. I try to avoid it, but if it isn't avoidable I suck it up and do it. I have been in a few accidents over the years both as a passenger and a driver. None were my fault. Technically one was, but I blame it on that the road was covered in ice. Anyway...
When my work started renting Uhaul trucks, I had no idea I'd have to go pick one up. Not to mention that I'd have to drive the biggest one (and the biggest truck I've ever driven). Across town. By myself. With no practice. Now some people may say I'm overreacting, but I have a respect for human life, so I'll tell you that this supposed road trip was routed to be on the DEADLIEST HIGHWAY EVER! So deadly in fact that its nickname is I'll-kill-ya Highway (actual name Alcoa). If that ain't fear, I don't know what is.
It wasn't actually that bad, which is the tricky part about fear. The anticipation is almost always worse. I prayed the whole time. Sometimes it was a normal prayer "please Lord, let me not kill that car full of people next to me. God, please don't let that truck pull out in front of me." Most of the time, however, it was incoherant ramblings "help me and be with me" over and over and over again. One terrific surprise was that I only had to drive a 17 ft truck instead of the bohemeth 26 ft one. The 9 feet probably makes a world of difference.
The tiny by comparison 17 ft truck.
I realized something during my drive. God doesn't want us to live in fear. He wants us to be confident and at peace. He wants us to live. Not because we ONLY live once, but because we GET to live once. Life is a gift. And thankfully I didn't cause any returns with my big ol' truck!
Saturday Night Live spoofed the YOLO craze with a Lonely Island music video featuring Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar. Their message was if you only live once you should be uber careful. The song is great. It features examples of how to be watchful from the true "there's no such thing as too much Purell" to the hilariously ridiculous "two words about furniture - killing machines." My take on YOLO is somewhere in between the two worlds. If you are only meant to live once, make it meaningful. That doesn't mean do whatever you want or nothing you want. Everything good is bad for you. Just don't go over the deep end. (Hello, I'm addicted to Aspartame, deal with it.)
What it all boils down to is fear. You can either laugh in the face of fear by saying (and meaning) that you only live once and to heck with everyone else but yourself. Or you can acknowledge the fear and try to shelter yourself from it. I am the latter. I have lived dangerously in the past, so now I am aware of every single risk. What if, like a cat, you only have 9 lives and I used 8 of mine before I turned 18? Which brings me to this week's fear. I didn't even know I had it until it was too late. Sometimes things sneak up on you like that.
I can drive pretty well. I grew up in the country. There is no public transportation here. If you want to get somewhere you drive. You could walk, but in most cases you'd have to pack a meal or two and a blanket for nap time. I have driven many vehicles in many different weather conditions. I do not like to drive on the interstate. I try to avoid it, but if it isn't avoidable I suck it up and do it. I have been in a few accidents over the years both as a passenger and a driver. None were my fault. Technically one was, but I blame it on that the road was covered in ice. Anyway...
When my work started renting Uhaul trucks, I had no idea I'd have to go pick one up. Not to mention that I'd have to drive the biggest one (and the biggest truck I've ever driven). Across town. By myself. With no practice. Now some people may say I'm overreacting, but I have a respect for human life, so I'll tell you that this supposed road trip was routed to be on the DEADLIEST HIGHWAY EVER! So deadly in fact that its nickname is I'll-kill-ya Highway (actual name Alcoa). If that ain't fear, I don't know what is.
It wasn't actually that bad, which is the tricky part about fear. The anticipation is almost always worse. I prayed the whole time. Sometimes it was a normal prayer "please Lord, let me not kill that car full of people next to me. God, please don't let that truck pull out in front of me." Most of the time, however, it was incoherant ramblings "help me and be with me" over and over and over again. One terrific surprise was that I only had to drive a 17 ft truck instead of the bohemeth 26 ft one. The 9 feet probably makes a world of difference.
I realized something during my drive. God doesn't want us to live in fear. He wants us to be confident and at peace. He wants us to live. Not because we ONLY live once, but because we GET to live once. Life is a gift. And thankfully I didn't cause any returns with my big ol' truck!
Friday, February 8, 2013
Interest lost
It has been so long since I've logged into this blog that I typed CrabsVsCountryGirl. That is a whole other story all together, and not one that I know anything about (thank God). I'm not a fan of ocean life. Haha. Bet you thought I was going somewhere else with that. Anyway...
I've been going through some pretty drastic changes in the past year. I moved, I separated from my husband, and I've had some medical issues (no, not crabs, although I do appreciate a good throwback joke). In all of this, plus the consequences (financial worry, emotional distress, financial worry, unorganization that comes with uprooting your life, did I mention finances yet?) I seem to have lost my way a little bit. Things that used to bring me pleasure no longer do.
I've been a reader my whole life. Even before I could read I was fascinated with books. Lately I've tried a few different books, and I just can't seem to be engaged. The first one I really noticed a problem with was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. The lovely and talented Jen recommended this book to me. At first I was intrigued by the idea, but as I got further and further into the book two things struck me. 1) This lady didn't start out unhappy. She came from a place of discontent and ungratitude for all the blessings she had, but stopping to smell the roses is not the same as finding happiness. 2) I'm a little too bitter right now about my divorce to hear about how she spent a week being really nice to her husband. The second book I tried to read was Warm Bodies. I saw the trailer for the film, and I thought it looked interesting. Surprisingly the book was donated to my thrift store about a week later, and it seemed like a magical sign (we get lots of great books, but rarely are they THAT new and pop culturally relevant). I've been reading it for month, and I'm about 60 pages in. Normally I read a book in under 2 days. Finally, I tried Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. My friend Jessica thought the two of us should read it because we both have a penchant for YA Fiction. Coincidentally it is also being made into a movie, and if we both liked the book we would plan to see the movie. She was waiting on me to give her the copy of the book when I was finished, and she helpfully reminded me of the movie's release date a couple of times. This nudging was the ONLY reason I finished the book. To say I hated it was an understatment. It inspired me to write a bad review, which is pretty unheard of. I can generally find something nice to say. I could not find a thing in this book that I enjoyed. (If you are interested in my review, you can read it here.)
I've had a problem with writing recently too. If you couldn't tell by how long it has been between my blog posts, you could look at my Twitter feed which used to be filled daily, or my Facebook which hardly ever gets anything but a shared link from Yahoo News. I mentioned before that I took a writing class last summer. It helped me write a novel in 2 weeks. Unfortunately it also changed my opinion of the writer who taught the class. I use the term "taught" loosely. She was flighty 99% of the time, never responded to anyone's work, didn't bother to update her syllabus from 2008, and didn't follow through with the features of the class that were promised. She did, however, demand we purchase her new book (after already shelling out $100 for the class) during week 4 of a 6 week class. Finally she resorted to bribery by asking that if we could work as her own little mini publicists and get her to a NYT bestseller that she would "take us under her wing". I was so disillusioned by the hard sale, that I dropped out of the class and haven't wrote much since. Granted, I did get my novel out of it, and I am so so proud of it, but I haven't bothered to go back and revise it.
Finally I get to fashion. Or more accurate I suppose is appearance. I love clothes. I love buying them. I love watching shows about sewing them. I even love selling used ones to needy families. It may just be part of the grieving process, but I don't spend as much time as I used to on the way I look. I let my hair's roots go un-dyed. Forget plucking my eyebrows. I chose glasses over contacts more frequently than I used to. Part of it is that I feel like I don't have anywhere to go. I work, I come home, I sleep, I repeat. The other part of it is that I feel like I'm in this great big holding pattern. I'm not divorced yet, but I'm not married either. What good would it do me to feel confident and pretty? I can't move on. I can't go back. I can't afford a divorce. I just have to sit and wait. In the meantime, you can bet I won't be reading, writing, or grooming.
To get myself out of the funk I'm in, I'm trying to do other things to occupy my time. I exercise although I could really kick that up a notch. I cook although it's easier to just eat out when it's for one. I'd love to try my hand at making clothes, but I'm a sewing machine killer. I can break one so fast it isn't even funny. What will I do to pass the time and ease the boredom? Will my love of reading, writing, and fashion ever return? Stay tuned!
I've been going through some pretty drastic changes in the past year. I moved, I separated from my husband, and I've had some medical issues (no, not crabs, although I do appreciate a good throwback joke). In all of this, plus the consequences (financial worry, emotional distress, financial worry, unorganization that comes with uprooting your life, did I mention finances yet?) I seem to have lost my way a little bit. Things that used to bring me pleasure no longer do.
I've been a reader my whole life. Even before I could read I was fascinated with books. Lately I've tried a few different books, and I just can't seem to be engaged. The first one I really noticed a problem with was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. The lovely and talented Jen recommended this book to me. At first I was intrigued by the idea, but as I got further and further into the book two things struck me. 1) This lady didn't start out unhappy. She came from a place of discontent and ungratitude for all the blessings she had, but stopping to smell the roses is not the same as finding happiness. 2) I'm a little too bitter right now about my divorce to hear about how she spent a week being really nice to her husband. The second book I tried to read was Warm Bodies. I saw the trailer for the film, and I thought it looked interesting. Surprisingly the book was donated to my thrift store about a week later, and it seemed like a magical sign (we get lots of great books, but rarely are they THAT new and pop culturally relevant). I've been reading it for month, and I'm about 60 pages in. Normally I read a book in under 2 days. Finally, I tried Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. My friend Jessica thought the two of us should read it because we both have a penchant for YA Fiction. Coincidentally it is also being made into a movie, and if we both liked the book we would plan to see the movie. She was waiting on me to give her the copy of the book when I was finished, and she helpfully reminded me of the movie's release date a couple of times. This nudging was the ONLY reason I finished the book. To say I hated it was an understatment. It inspired me to write a bad review, which is pretty unheard of. I can generally find something nice to say. I could not find a thing in this book that I enjoyed. (If you are interested in my review, you can read it here.)
I've had a problem with writing recently too. If you couldn't tell by how long it has been between my blog posts, you could look at my Twitter feed which used to be filled daily, or my Facebook which hardly ever gets anything but a shared link from Yahoo News. I mentioned before that I took a writing class last summer. It helped me write a novel in 2 weeks. Unfortunately it also changed my opinion of the writer who taught the class. I use the term "taught" loosely. She was flighty 99% of the time, never responded to anyone's work, didn't bother to update her syllabus from 2008, and didn't follow through with the features of the class that were promised. She did, however, demand we purchase her new book (after already shelling out $100 for the class) during week 4 of a 6 week class. Finally she resorted to bribery by asking that if we could work as her own little mini publicists and get her to a NYT bestseller that she would "take us under her wing". I was so disillusioned by the hard sale, that I dropped out of the class and haven't wrote much since. Granted, I did get my novel out of it, and I am so so proud of it, but I haven't bothered to go back and revise it.
Finally I get to fashion. Or more accurate I suppose is appearance. I love clothes. I love buying them. I love watching shows about sewing them. I even love selling used ones to needy families. It may just be part of the grieving process, but I don't spend as much time as I used to on the way I look. I let my hair's roots go un-dyed. Forget plucking my eyebrows. I chose glasses over contacts more frequently than I used to. Part of it is that I feel like I don't have anywhere to go. I work, I come home, I sleep, I repeat. The other part of it is that I feel like I'm in this great big holding pattern. I'm not divorced yet, but I'm not married either. What good would it do me to feel confident and pretty? I can't move on. I can't go back. I can't afford a divorce. I just have to sit and wait. In the meantime, you can bet I won't be reading, writing, or grooming.
To get myself out of the funk I'm in, I'm trying to do other things to occupy my time. I exercise although I could really kick that up a notch. I cook although it's easier to just eat out when it's for one. I'd love to try my hand at making clothes, but I'm a sewing machine killer. I can break one so fast it isn't even funny. What will I do to pass the time and ease the boredom? Will my love of reading, writing, and fashion ever return? Stay tuned!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)