Mars is a health and wellness blogger at www.krackedkaleidoscope.com. She is a registered nurse, a mother of 6, and a lover of peanut butter and chocolate.
This mild tomato-based soup takes the place of overly sweet canned stuff, and it is easy to cook in the Instant Pot, making it perfect for busy evenings. It's just tame enough for kids to tolerate but has a comforting flavor that makes me want to find more things to dip so I can eat more. I like to pour it into a mug for maximum sandwich dunking. My favorite pairing is a crusty whole grain grilled cheese made with my beloved Tillamook cheddar.
It is a great way to use up prolific oregano, hidden weird carrots, and the truckloads of tiny tomatoes that are still hanging around the neglected garden of early fall. I like to leave the tomato seeds in: they give just a hint of texture and bitterness that add to the depth of the soup. Leftovers taste even better!
Pour in olive oil, adding onion when hot, and cook for a couple minutes.
Add celery, cook until onion translucent, stirring occasionally.
Add garlic, oregano, and basil, stir to combine.
Deglaze bottom of pot with a splash of water, broth, or stock, scraping any brown from the pan with a spatula.
Sprinkle on salt and pepper.
Add tomatoes, carrots, and rest of 4 cups of stock (or water).
Stop sauté function, add pot lid and set pot to manual, high pressure for 20 minutes.
Use natural release (15-30 min).
When pressure valve drops, remove lid and add up to 2 cups cold water, depending on preferred thickness. Use hand blender to carefully process soup to desired consistency.
Add more salt and pepper to taste.
Pair with hot grilled cheese sandwiches, panini, breadsticks, or crackers for dipping.
I listen to heart monitor alarms all day long at work. My mind must be constantly alert and listening subconsciously for these (which can be life-saving) along with patient call bells, patient screams, code blue announcements, my work cell phone, my personal cell phone, the unit landline, and whatever else is going on.
By the time I get home my ears and brain are fried, but a new set of noises starts. The exhaust fan is on over the stove. The TV or computer might be blaring. I am immediately bombarded by the insistent requests of my family who has been awaiting my return, with homework and dinner and school papers and wanting to talk about their days. I am excited to see them too, but I am overwhelmed by the sounds and busyness. My mind is still in fight or flight mode, but needs to be in nest and rest mode. I want transition time.
Usually I get off work late, sometimes after 8pm, and I want to make every moment count before we put the kids to bed and eventually collapse. But it’s just not that easy. I feel the need to first wash the aura of other people’s feces and disease off my body. I want to reset my brain to stop being hyper alert. In the meantime I only have one foot in the door and the rest of me is distracted and crabby.
I have started taking 15 minutes to shower and decompress in silence every evening before trying to focus on my kids—and it does wonders. Everyone in my house now knows to let me do this. I go straight upstairs to rinse the workday away before they tug on my shirt and ask me to look at something or do something. Until I shift gears from work to home I can’t really be myself and relax.
I also have a hard time with the following transitions:
Waking up…to doing something productive in the morning on my days off
Getting out of the house…to exercise in a timely manner
Being busy…to slowing down and going to sleep
Focusing on my kids…to taking time for my romantic relationship
Transitions are important but don’t get enough attention. People don’t usually budget time for crossing the delta between activities that require different brain cells and a change in skill set. Taking a moment to properly reset can lower stress and increase productivity. It allows for less distraction and more intensity in the now.
Planning for transitions can also set limits on mindlessness. (Such as 2 hr Facebook/gaming/YouTube time sucks!) Repeated, lengthy devotion to mind-numbing activities is attractive when we feel overloaded by real life and need to escape it. If we respect transition time and use it wisely we can reduce the need to mentally check out as a coping mechanism.
The best way to get from one activity to another is to first acknowledge that a shift is needed, and then decide what is important for you to be successful in the next phase.
Transitions can include:
A quiet, still moment to reset
Time to get ideas or to-dos written or typed for later
Planning for the next day
A physical move from one location to the next
A change in uniform
Optimizing your environment
Staging or lining up your tools
Cleaning up
Setting the tone with music or lighting
A change in audience and attitude
A signal to focus on the next thing (such as an alarm or timer)
An internal pep talk to get yourself psyched
Anything that clears your mind and gives you peace
Transitioning can mean calming down. It can also mean gearing up, getting focused, planning, or stopping in a good spot. It requires mindfulness and awareness and takes time to make a habit of.
Wearing too many hats at once makes for a very heavy head. Chin up!
*Drawing with a mouse is like eating with a plastic spork or getting dressed in the dark…it can be done, but it is far from ideal.
Trying to express breast milk with an electric pump and a “hands free” bra at the wheel of my car while driving home from work.
Result: very erratic driving, crying over spilt milk, and a sense of incompetence.
Attempting to barbecue chicken legs while gardening and talking on the phone in my underwear.
Result: let’s just say chicken fat can easily catch fire and only idiots don’t wear pants around flaming grease. Or unattended garden rakes.
Trying to cram for college finals while karaoke-ing in the smoky lounge of a Chinese restaurant.
Result: Crab Rangoons and hang over…successful. Calculus test and John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”…not as successful.
Conducting business phone calls while jogging and trying to spend quality yak yak time with my sister.
Result: accidentally leaving a lengthy, inappropriate message on my boss’ voicemail regarding my views on testosterone supplements.
I don’t know who I think I am most of the time, but it’s someone who can handle her shit a little easier. I am constantly overestimating my ability to pay adequate attention to multiple things at once. That’s probably why I have mucho responsibility yet a nagging feeling of underachievement.
Here’s the result of a recent decision to argue on speaker phone with my insurance company while mentally planning a party menu, sweating in the backseat of my car, and trying to console a crying baby:
(Artist’s rendering. And when I say “artist” I mean someone else who has time to take photographs of things I need to talk about.)
I was also eating a piece of candy, but looked down to realize I had devoured nearly the entire box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. For a second I was confused since I really didn’t remember eating that many. “Wait a minute…who the hell took my chocolates?” Oh. I guess I did it.
Multitasking can be dangerous, I tell you! According to brainfacts.org, the human mind can only handle two tasks at once; any more than that is overload. Even with just 2 tasks going the brain must split its resources to get them done, so switching between these tasks costs us in performance. As we age this gets even worse.
Piling multiple things on your plate all at once can make you feel efficient, but you probably aren’t. To show up and knowingly do a half-assed job is just irresponsible, so why set yourself up ahead of time for failure?
Divided attention is bad for us, especially when we are:
Driving or operating tools
Obviously you could kill yourself or other people. So put down the Rubik’s cube while you are working the backhoe, please.
Eating
Mindless snacking or eating on the run is never satisfying and it confuses our bodies. We can either overeat or choose nutrient-poor foods, ultimately depriving ourselves.
Making important decisions
There is a reason we can’t legally sign papers while under the influence. Likewise you should save your heavy thinking for times when you are not distracted. Because, as when you are intoxicated, part of your brain will be unavailable to process the complexities.
Performing precise tasks
Eye surgeons don’t check Facebook while working and neither should you.
Being present with ourselves or loved ones
It does not count as quality time with your family if you are not actually listening to what they’re saying. Also, you can’t really get in the zone unless you have purposely eliminated extraneous demands.
So the moral of the story is: stop freakin’ trying to do a bunch of things at once, because basically your brain is not made to be successful at walking and chewing gum at the same time. Or patting your head while rubbing your stomach.
Not only do we attempt to layer tasks that actually matter; we also ask for unnecessary interruptions. For most of us the day is structured to welcome things that will sabotage the flow of thought. The amount of distractions in modern America only add folly to the already intense demands of work and family life, so why not limit them? How exactly are notifications and commercials useful to your productivity? Are you pretty much always available to be reached by phone, text, email, and social media?
The main reason I have such issues with doing too much at once is assigning similar priority to each task, instead of eliminating or delaying others to focus on the most important one. When I plan ahead I can easily see what is important and what’s not, but when I’m reacting or already running crazy the logic is more elusive. Every single little busy thing just isn’t THAT important, not even barbecued chicken, compared to my well-being and relationships.
Trying to do only one thing at a time might make me feel like I’m not doing enough, but if I nail it—if I get it right—it should be more rewarding. I would rather have one complete success than a bunch of mediocre finishes or downright failures. In the end I should be getting more out of life if I simply give my brain enough space to work. Important people and processes deserve my full presence, pants or no pants.
“Life ain’t nothin’ but a funny funny riddle.” —-John Denver
At my son’s football game today I found myself getting a little worked up. The refs had made a call that displeased the other team, and the families across the field in the home stands were livid. The sound of “those people” booing and carrying on made my stomach churn. My heart started beating faster and for a moment I felt genuine rage. I wanted to yell and tell them to go straight to heck and get bent. “Go eat a bad hot dog from your sorry concession stand, assholes! Who the fuck sells Twizzlers instead of Red Vines?” So there!
I stopped before I could get ejected or at least make a minor fool of myself in front of a bunch of kids. I remembered that this was the kids’ game, not mine, and that the stakes on the outcome of the call, the game, the season were so very tame. No one was going to die over this, and it wasn’t really my battle to fight. There is no “mom” in “team”. (Unless you call yourself a “team mom”, but that is just a sexist and outdated term so please just stop.)
It wasn’t actually me out on the field taking hits. My ass was safely planted in the bleachers, somehow taking it all personally. I do this kind of stuff all the time like a typical human, feeling the “we-ness” of situations that I am not directly involved in.
In Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens he explains how humans do this, where we see ourselves as connected with others in idea, not only in practice, and that’s part of how we are able to organize as one with large groups, even if we’ve never met. We are animals of ideological habit. It has helped us survive and take over the world (for better or worse).
Then we create us-and-them situations, like those in a sporting competition, to define who we are by what groups we identify with, as well as those we don’t. We must belong somewhere! We must defend our somewheres and our somebodies! Oh, and we shouldn’t probably fraternize or sympathize with the otherbodies.
The problem with these ideological memberships is that we feel so connected or repulsed that we let things stress us out, no matter the true impact on our lives. In addition to being a sideline schmuck, you may have also gotten upset about:
Someone being voted off or killed off a tv show
The romantic problems, political views, or evening wear of celebrities
The everyday mundanely controversial social media comments of friends of friends
The death, crime, war, and abominations in countries that are worlds away from your home that you have never and will never visit
The depressing mess on the evening news, featuring dramas and people who you don’t actually know and will never meet
I am not going to advocate for the abject ignorance of horrors affecting people we don’t know, but I do think that healthy living requires a stress budget. So how much can we devote to things outside our reach of influence?
Most of my life I have tried to keep unnecessary we-ness from invading all of my conscious thoughts. I don’t really watch the evening news. (Unless I’m just trying to find eye candy: I’m talking to YOU, Lester Holt! And when I say “eye candy” I mean his glasses, obviously, since they are delicious.) I don’t have a personal Facebook account, and I try to invest my emotions into people and causes I know and love. But I do have these moments where I can’t help but get caught up in the Right-Fight.
There are signs that your we-ness may be misguided or could be getting in the way of your happiness:
Spending time impulsively checking notifications or browsing your newsfeed instead of interacting with people you love or doing things that actually matter to you. You fear you won’t “know what’s going on.”
Complaining on a daily basis about the affairs of politics at home or abroad but don’t actually vote or put time or money toward causes you care about.
You know the roster for your favorite team but can’t name your child’s teacher. Or, you have the channel numbers memorized for the networks you watch but not your Mom’s birthday.
There isn’t time to exercise or cook your own meals but you somehow find time to stream videos and post pictures of restaurant food.
You know details about the president of Russia, or the leader of North Korea, but don’t know much about your town’s mayor, if you remember their name at all.
The solution to a misappropriated we-ness is not that hard to figure out. You just have to make real connections the point of your life and put yourself out there to actually take the hits on the field. Give your attention to the real world in front of you and the people you know best. Get out of the safety net of virtual or remote drama and take on real challenges.
Taking the weight of the world on your shoulders is unnecessary, especially if that weight is made up of things you really can’t change or control. Stress for the sake of stress is our way of avoiding real risks, but that just keeps us disconnected and wastes our energy and talents.
To sit in the stands and watch with an angry face is simply not enough. I need to use my we-ness to change the world! Or at least to focus on cheering my team on toward victory.
*I found out what a wenis was by actually spending time with my tween son instead of scrolling on my phone. Now I am self-conscious about my sagging wenis, so maybe it has backfired.
This morning’s run was very nice. I went farther than I thought I would. The weather wasn’t dry but it was perfect. I just can’t complain.
Running is a habit (again, finally) because I’ve made it so. Exercise Happens! I wanted it back in my life and it took awhile. Though I still have goals to reach I feel relieved that I am in the striving zone instead of the not-yet-started zone.
Here are the keys to today’s workout success:
I scheduled it into my day ahead of time
I planned to hit the track directly after my son’s ophthalmologist appointment. Didn’t allow for the slippery slope of indecision or procrastination. I told myself where I was going and when and dressed appropriately for it.
Found secondary wins
Today’s wins included keeping my son occupied, by the change of scenery from the stroller, while getting the time to listen to a podcast episode I was looking forward to.
Sabotaged the saboteur
I knew it might be rainy so I mentally prepared myself to go rain or shine. Then I was rewarded with sunshine and cool temperatures but only wet pavement was left from the rain.
I set a goal
I have a target distance I am working toward and I have a plan for distance each day to get there. I exceeded today’s goal because I was in the mood for being better than me.
The best part of running first thing today? I feel righteous because I already exercised, which makes me feel empowered to do whatever I want. I’ve got the rest of the day off, bitches. I am already homeless-looking in parachute pants and eating chocolate covered raisins. Thanks to running endorphins I feel like a champ!
Getting out of work on time is hard for me most evenings. I tend to want closure, to wrap up a thought so I can send it away from my mind safely, without it dangling underfoot like an untied shoestring. This leads to me doing “just one more thing”, and the thing leads to another issue of some sort that sends me off on a tangent. I get waylaid. But I want to be able to quit without feeling weird and perseverating over open loops.
It’s not only at the end of the day, or simply a problem at work. Not stopping is an affliction that makes all my boundaries blurry and keeps me from feeling accomplished. I see a something that needs doing and I want to fix it, but I can’t possibly fix everything today, this week, or ever.
Why can’t I be happy simply making progress?
Working as a nurse manager is the type of job that requires a lot of pissing on fires and on-the-spot decision making. I spend most of my time being called/approached/interrupted by patients and employees needing help. This suits me in some ways because I never have to pay attention for long before another issue comes to usurp the last one. On the other hand it is very hard to get long term projects done, or to actually finish fixing anything brought to my attention, no matter how small.
What’s missing is the daily satisfaction of seeing something though, to be able to choose the priority of a project and work creatively with focus until it’s done. Because the nature of my work is busy and reactive I push those desires to the fringes of my day and I end up not wanting to leave until I feel in control again.
I also have the martyr’s habit of taking responsibility for more that I should, leaving me with a big pile of unfinished business with varying levels of urgency. It is hard at the end of a long scatter-brained day to triage those priorities, and I might spend a few more confused minutes picking my ass or looking for a lost pen when I should be getting home to my family. (I should note here that these ass-picking feelings can also be the same at home, so I rarely really feel productive.)
Respecting the end of the shift
What I’ve started to do is try to respect the end of my shift, to honor the boundary of the end of the day. I have a million and one semi-formed thoughts to process. Instead of letting these things keep me there, or fester overnight, I need to process them accordingly. Here’s how I do it:
Remove myself from the action
I need to stop the onslaught of requests by making myself unavailable. At a reasonable cutoff I no longer answer calls, alarms, or emails. I physically go somewhere quiet where no one can easily find me to finish urgent work.
Hand off the baton
Delegating pressing matters to someone else is the only way to get out the door sometimes. Trusting that others can finish up on things that can’t wait until my return is hard but necessary.
Planning and prioritizing for the next day
I physically write a prioritized list of all my thoughts and leave it in my desk drawer. It gets ideas out of my brain and tucks them in for the night so they can sleep while I do. I might also break one idea into a bunch of smaller pieces so that there is a clear way to get started, and make incremental progress, when I return the next day. I feel much better leaving when I know there’s a plan.
Making an exit strategy
Having a wind-down routine for the work day is just like a bed time routine. Setting a realistic quit time and having a reliable mental checklist to get there is key, as well as starting this in the last 1/4 of the day.
Humans thrive off of doing, making, innovating. I would like to experience more of these things in a meaningful, productive way. I want to feel good about my efforts and have a work-home balance that suits me. What I need to do is clock out physically and mentally when the day is through so I can return ready for action in the morning. Doing “one more thing” shouldn’t tackle any new issue, nor an old thing that can wait until tomorrow. It should be the act of leaving itself.
I spent a lot of money this weekend on myself and my family. About $450 is gone and it’s only the wee hours of Sunday so far. I went crazy over-budget with food and entertainment. We blew $40 on pepperoni and bacon at the local butcher shop alone. BACON, people, should not cost more than a tank of gas or a co-pay at the doctor’s office. Then we went on to hit golf balls and sip cold drinks to the tune of $200 at the fancy pants driving range. This is all after rushing the gourmet sandwich shop, the all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, and loading the grocery cart Friday night with 5 different kinds of ice cream (did you know they have a Twinkie flavored kind now?).
I think we overindulged a bit, and my bank account and waistband are feeling it now. So why did I let this happen? In a nutshell I have confused a treat with a reward. In my opinion, a treat is a rarity that is pleasantly enjoyed without expectation. A reward is something you get for putting in effort, so the more you work the more you potentially get, and the getting has no bounds so long as you pay your dues.
I’ve been rationalizing the gifting of expensive, unnecessary things to myself for working so hard. The Hubs and I have been on the chain gang all week, missing our kids, and the easy way to make it okay is to blow all that hard-earned money on bullshit, right?
WRONG!
Did we have fun? Yes. Was it $450 worth of fun? Hells no. I can think of a million other things that feel just as worthy but cost slim to none.
If I feel the need to treat myself, I can enjoy these truly indulgent things:
A long, hot shower
A late night with a book I’ve been wanting to read
A picnic at the park with my kids
A batch of homemade cookies
A nap
(Would homemade cookies overshadow the sushi buffet? Sadly, yes. Sushi just wasn’t meant to sit on a slab for an hour or two drying out. Shoulda known better!)
If I want to reward myself it should be more like a carrot at the end of a stick, something decided on ahead of time, a goal to work towards. It also doesn’t need to cost a pretty penny to be motivating. Rewards should be used as impetus for effort. Randomly squandering my earnings when payday comes is foolish and generally anticlimactic.
The more action I shove into a weekend the less punch each experience packs. We get desensitized to special food and the glory of high-end recreation. And once the flood gates of haphazard spending open it is hard to shut them. The worst thing is that I’m teaching my kids that spending this way is normal.
The sense of entitlement I feel is misplaced and detrimental as I focus on the wrong rewards. True rewards of working hard are that we have food at all, a warm and safe place to sleep, and the chance to use our money as a tool to do things we really desire. What do I want more than 5 types of ice cream? To travel. To do needed repairs on my house. To invest in hobbies and things that recharge my energy or provide a learning opportunity.
Most of all I want to have more time and less mandatory work. So the carrot I should be dangling is TIME–which I get with less spending, so the reward actually works in reverse. The reward is to not spend. Modeling this behavior and teaching young kids this is challenging. Pavlov’s dog would’ve also had a hard time wrapping his mind around it, especially if bacon was there to confuse him!
I was raised in what most people would call a hoarder house. My parents had problems getting rid of things, which made for a challenging environment to grow up in, and it shaped how I feel about my own house now. Although I am not a hoarder in the traditional sense I am keenly aware of hang-ups I have about sorting and discarding items. They say that people with hoarding tendencies are creative thinkers and can come up with multiple uses for items. But the reason for keeping things goes beyond that, and anyone who has anything in their house is keeping it for a reason—reasons that can be personal and linked to our deepest fears.
Human beings flat out DO NOT need the amount of stuff we have in a typical American home, and anyone who says they NEED everything in their possession is probably stretching the truth. I know homeless people who have a discretionary thing or two in their backpacks. When we decide to keep something (rationally or not), the root reason generally falls into one or more of these main categories:
Assuaging guilt
Preventing loss (avoiding fear)
Keeping connections with people
The associations between objects and our psyche can be easy to ignore most of the time, are not conscious decisions, and we would rather not think about loneliness when buying a hat or shopping for a new blender. Deep fears shape our buying/acquisition decisions as well as our discarding decisions. If you keep asking “why” to yourself on these things you might arrive at the root causes of owning your stuff.
Let me show you 3 items that most people would consider garbage that I have kept in my house (and my reasons for keeping them):
Old Bread Tie
Why: it can be used to help save food.
Why: sometimes I need to save food, and I don’t want to waste.
Why: it is irresponsible to waste food, and I need a lot of food to feed my big family.
Why: I don’t want my kids to be hungry like I was when I was a kid.
I feel guilty if I waste and I fear hunger for myself and family. I don’t want my family to hate me for not providing for them.
Plastic Grocery Bag
Why: it can be reused to line small garbage cans or brought in for recycling.
Why: it can help me get rid of garbage in my house and I would never just throw it away by itself.
Why: I have too much garbage in my house, but I can’t just throw away useful or recyclable items.
I fear having a messy house and being like my parents. I feel very guilty about throwing away recyclables since I am a wasteful, privileged American, but when I don’t take these in they pile up. I also feel guilty that I did not remember to bring reusable bags to the grocery store—I’m so stupid! Why can’t I remember?!! I don’t want to be the kind of person who kills the earth.
Lone Sock
Why: maybe I will find its mate, and these are expensive compression socks I use for work. I feel wrong throwing it away.
Why: I will be very upset if I throw it away and I find the other one later—it’s like making a mistake. I also need compression socks to work comfortably on my feet for 13 hours.
Making mistakes is not being perfect, and I fear not being perfect. I feel guilty about not being organized enough to find my socks, and this is failure. I feel guilty about wasting money if I throw expensive socks away. I want to be comfortable at work so I can take care of myself and best provide for my family, and they will love me forever and ever and ever…and ever.
I could go deeper, and on and on about my garbage, but you get the point. In doing this exercise with enough items in my house I am able to see patterns in my stuff, and the chips on my shoulder. Basically I am afraid of being a poor, stupid, irresponsible, hungry hoarder whose family does not love her. I feel guilty over the privilege and affluence I have gained as a middle class American. And I am constantly afraid of not being perfect, of making the wrong choice, which perpetuates the irony of my decisions. In avoiding the wrong decision I am refusing to make decisions. In trying to not keep garbage I am keeping garbage.
The skeletons in my closet are actually the skeletons in my closet, collecting dust. If you pile up enough skeletons you have a mass grave, so bury those skeletons deep enough that you forget you have murdered anyone. (Just kidding—burn those skeletons and scatter their ashes about town to hide the evidence.) Or, at least think regularly about why they exist in the first place.
Sitting in a hammock, slowly rocking beneath rustling leaves. Feeling warm sand squish between my toes. Napping with my kids on the big couch after binge watching comedies. Eating lunch at a noodle shop and running the track with my sister. These all sound like good ways to spend an afternoon.
My days off are usually packed with appointments and grocery shopping and housework and homework. It’s summer now, and I want to squeeze every bit of sunshine and joy out of my days. My kids haven’t been off school for a week and I am already finding ways to not clean, excuses to not cook the food I’ve bought, and reasons to generally slack about my house wearing no bra and cut off sweat shorts.
Days come and go without a feeling of doing what I really want to. Either I feel guilty about unaccomplished burdensome tasks, or I feel a loss over not doing all the great, fun, exciting, relaxing, or productive things I tell myself I’m going to. The summer is short, and so is life. I recently lost a beloved Auntie, and I think about what she was doing in her last days, and if she was content.
If you were to ask me how I would want to spend my last living days, they would include the following:
People I love
Laughter
Good food
Good conversation
Moments of flow
Flights of creativity
Reflection
Comfort
Occasionally I will have a really awesome day, where the burdens of worry seem to be locked away in a dungeon and I am never caught looking over my shoulder. I get swept up in doing, in being. I get focused on who I’m with and not where I’m supposed to be going or prepping for the next item on the docket. More days should be awesome days.
I have been intermittently tracking Worth-It and Not-Worth-It Foods—trying to pay more attention to what I eat, recognizing food experiences that are worth it in terms of calories, taste, and enjoyability. On the flip side, I am trying to stop myself from making eating decisions that are not worth it to me and make me feel bad in the short and long term. Here are some of the things I have eaten:
Not worth it
Horrible (work meeting fare) grocery store doughnut with chemical aftertaste
Reheated old stale Belgian waffle found in back of my fridge on a busy morning
Sonic drive in chicken sandwich with soggy bun and limp lettuce, eaten in the car before grocery shopping
Carl’s Jr. “salad” with $5.49 of iceberg lettuce—what a rip off
Hard salt water taffy (couldn’t tell you what flavor) at my desk from the community candy bowl
Boring pizza, even ate the crust nubs, in my underwear while sitting on the family room rug
Worth it
Half of a buttery croissant with raspberry jam on a sunny lunch out with friends
Fresh berries and spinach from my garden, from ground to mouth
Corn on the cob at dinner with my kids
The Hubs’ homemade clam chowder with bacon, made with fear that we wouldn’t like it (and also with love!)
Smoked pork butt, on a lazy group camping weekend, along with delicious potluck samplings
Vanilla ice cream with coconut cookie crumbs in the quiet dark of my kitchen, kids tucked in and asleep
A tall glass of iced tea with lemon—the same drink my mom always likes
Chicken enchiladas verdes at my kitchen table, in a late but hearty home-cooked meal
Most of my not-worth-it experiences happened when I felt rushed and unprepared. Or when I felt desperate to not taste the inside of my mouth after hours of work dehydration. When I make food an afterthought I also make myself insignificant, worrying more about completing tasks or shoving more plans into my day. The more panicked and overworked I am the more I feel like junk and eat like junk.
Worth-it foods happen when I am relaxing with my family and friends, or savoring a snack in a peaceful moment alone with the sun of my backyard. If I am in a good place the experience tends to come out positive. The contented feelings already in progress contribute to what I decide to eat and how I enjoy the food.
This exercise has made me reevaluate how I judge my intake. Foods never stand alone, but instead are part of a story. So much of popular good/bad food rhetoric is shaped by nutritional science and hard to follow rules. But when it comes down to it we are shaping our own sagas, with food as a supporting cast. What we eat is a byproduct of how we live. I am in charge of my own story, so I should worry less about what I eat and instead think more about creating a happy and satisfying life in general—good choices should follow.
