Category: The Life I’m Living

I hate throwing away food.

I am cleaning and organizing my pantry.  In it are lots of expired foods.  Food I never ate and am now going to throw away.

It’s a terrible thing and exposes me as the ugly American that I am.  I often buy a thing because I’m sure I will eat it or use in a recipe and then it languishes forgotten on a shelf.

3 years ago I lived in a car and quite naturally didn’t have a pantry of food.  And this year I’m throwing away food.  In just three years I accumulated enough to nearly fill the kitchen trash can with expired foods in packages.

I admit it – I have been carefully and thoroughly inoculated by the American Food Industry.  I won’t eat their food after the little printed on date. I am aware that they are probably still safely edible.  There is a whole ridiculous thing around food expiration dates in the US, which basically mean nothing.

Expiration Dates are triggers the manufacturers put on the packaging, sometimes by law, sometimes because it’s just damn good business.  They make us feel that the food turned bad on that day but in reality it’s just a date, often fairly arbitrary, that the manufacturer claims the food won’t taste as good anymore.  Of course it is also a nice way to get more sales. What it ISN’T is a date when the food is no longer safe.  But consumers think it’s that.

But…  But… there are a few foods that can go bad after a period.  Not all of them have obvious warnings in smell.   And that right there is just enough uncertainty for me to throw it all away if the expiration date has past.

The likelihood is that EVERYTHING I am throwing away is fine.  A kitchen trashbag full of perfectly edible foods.  Most free food pantries won’t take expired food either.  So that’s not even an option.  Plus that feels even shittier somehow – like throwing a moldy bread crust a starving man.  So yesterday I bought $20 of non perishables for the free food store.  Because… it felt like a bit of nonlogical atonement for my sin.

I live in middle of a boxing match in my head.  The Intellectual knowledge and the guilt of throwing away food vs the FEAR of bad food.  Fear has won.  Guilt is throwing a wake for my morals.

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Smiling like its normal

Yesterday SmirkPretty posted an amazing essay on 100 Blessings.  Take a moment and read it.  It’s worth your time.  Seriously worth your time.

I decided to try it.  Just look for a blessing, a small thing to be grateful for, a small thing that made me smile, a small thing of worth.  100 of those things in one day.  I called them blessings, although I’m a non believer, because I think we all recognize that a blessing is a good thing in life, a thing worthy of gratefulness.

I really can’t tell you how ridiculous an undertaking this is for me.  There have been times in my life, just as recent as last week, where I can’t find a glimmer of hope or light or good in the world because my brain has painted all the world into a deep void of darkness.  On those days finding even one or two things to be grateful or happy about is an olympic level effort.

And then on a whim, inspired by a gorgeous blog post, I just decided to do 100 of them.  In one day.

I took the approach that anything in my life or that touched my life, that was good, was a blessing worth counting.  I got 20 done in less than 2 minutes.  After that the hardest part was remembering.  My brain is not in the habit of looking for the sparkles of light in the darkness that inhabits my life.  I’m busy feeling my way in the dark.

But when I remembered, I could just look up and find 5 in under a minute.  Look up right now and you can too.  For example in front of me is a book shelf of my absolute favorite books in the world.  Curled up next to me is a fluffy ball of pestering love, covering me is a quilt made by my grandma,  under me is a comfortable bed, surrounding me is a safe apartment… Later it was the smell of cut grass, the newly planted flowers at work, the laughter of friends, the job, the purple pen, the kindness of my boss, the hard work of a co-worker, the generosity of a co-worker, the safety of the water I was drinking…

As the day progressed my day became lighter.  I definitely forgot about it for hours at a time.  And I lost track of what number I was on several times.  I have no idea if I accomplished 100.  I do know I accomplished a personal moment of revelation.  I became both lighter in heart and more aware of my surroundings by merely noting to myself the blessing.  It made me far more mindful.

The real question is – can this be done everyday?  Can I count 100 blessings every day?  The idea doesn’t seem overwhelming.  The idea makes me smile.  Perhaps it feels doable because I’m not at the bottom of the Abyss this week.  But I will take it because it feels like a celebration rather than an existence.

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I’m sitting in the Living Room.

This is so rare that I don’t even remember the last time I did it.  And I know that in the 2.75 years I’ve lived here I’ve sat in here less than 5 times.

I sit in bed.  It’s not healthy.

But I am waiting for the UPS guy and I won’t hear him in the bedroom, so I’m sitting in the Living Room like a normal person.

I opened the blinds, which are always closed.  Its actually quite bright and cheery despite the greyness of the morning.  Huh.  Lily is all kinds of interested in this new development and is sitting on the window sill.  This is probably not wise, since she is kind of a lease breaker, but the management is aware of her and pretending she doesn’t exist because I keep her litter clean and she’s not destroying the place. And they are a service for mental health.  Not having her would destroy my very tenuous path to mental health.

I am wondering if I could rearrange the furniture in such a way that I would be more likely to use the Living Room.  I think if I had the small writing desk in front of the window, with a chair, I might sit in here more.  It’s kind of nice to look out the window and see the world.

The heat is still on in the apartment.  Low, but on.  Because it’s run by an agency that is NOT always super efficient.  They usually turn ON the heat in mid November to Early December.  This is the first year where they forgot to turn it off though.  I may have to call. sigh.

Anyway, that’s life in my house this morning.  I feel like I’m in a stranger’s apartment because I’m sitting in the Living Room.

Cleaning the Bathtub…

This apartment building is 75+ years old.  The bathtub is also that old.  It’s no longer a shiny slippery white enamel.  Its got a fine tooth of many scratches from many scrubbings which have accumulated enough to create lots of surfaces for dirty to just settle in and just roost.

For a long time I struggled with it.  I used every type of cleaner on the shelf, EXCEPT Comet.  I was taught never to use Comet powder on enamel.  But this bathtub would not get properly gleaming clean.  So I started to waver on the Comet.  It’s not like I could ruin an already ruined surface!  That day past at least 30 years ago.

Anyway, I finally broke down and used Comet with Bleach.  And then like some sort of mad woman I scrubbed my bathtub at 11 pm last night.  I’m sure my neighbors though I was crazed.  And it was like a sweet song of relief.  Comet works in this bathtub.  I was happily and vigorously scrubbing for 45 minutes last night.   Its cleaner looking that it’s ever been.  Significantly cleaner than it was when I moved in.

It’s clean enough that I am contemplating an actual BATH.  Baths are like nirvana to me. But this bathtub always looked so gross even after cleaning that I couldn’t bring myself to soak in it.  Only shower.  But now!!!

Tonight, I BATHE!!!

I’m smiling like a maniac just anticipating it.  I know – only a mad woman would add a boring post about scrubbing the bathtub to a series about Smiling.  But seriously, I’m full of joy over this little thing.

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“There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.” ~Sylvia Plath

Dumping Syndrome ruined my recipe.

It’s a terrible thing.  If you don’t know what it is be grateful.  It’s about the only side effect that makes me question whether the gastric bypass was worth it.  Happily it doesn’t last long.  It basically makes you feel like you have a fever, you get shaky and weak and you just feel horrid everywhere.  Like you are sick, in fact.  In the first several years after the bypass I had it daily.  I was not a good girl about certain foods, so sometimes I brought it on knowingly, but often, like today, it happened inadvertently.

I licked the extra brown rice syrup off the spoon I used to put it in the recipe.  I didn’t even think about it.  I just didn’t want to put the sticky spoon on the counter and I couldn’t take my eye off the pan on the stove, so I just did it.  And then as I stirred my pot, I began to feel like crap. I was so distracted with my recipe that I still never thought about why.  As I was getting into the crucial stage of recipe I was shaking and weak and hot and I just couldn’t do it anymore.  So I finally set everything down and curled up on my bed wondering if I was getting the flu.

It took me 5 minutes before I finally realized what it was.  I haven’t had it in so long I didn’t even recognize it.  I thought I was sick.  As I type this my hands are still trembling even though the worst horrible sickness is gone.  It wasn’t that much sugar thankfully.

My recipe is ruined because in a moment of thoughtlessness I licked a spoon to avoid having to scrub a counter for a few seconds.  Beware the small moments in life – they are the ones that kill you. Or your recipe.

Sigh.

Allergies make me sick

I have Spring Hayfever.

Allergies.

Sneezing, Runny Nose, Post Nasal Drip, Sinus stuffiness, headache, itchy eyes.

It’s a cornucopia of hellish symptoms.  If it were January, I would call it a cold.  But since it’s April, I’m not sick.  I have allergies.

What?

I feel like HELL.  But I’m not sick?

I’m also tired all the time from a combination of allergy meds and allergies disrupting my sleep.  But I’m not sick, I’m miserable.

Allergies.  I’m really sick of them.  dog-keyboard_mini

 

Smiling

Today I was reading Cecelia’s daily update on her farm life and I favorited it, as I always do because she is one of my favorites.  And I thought “How odd that I’m always in the first spot on her list of favorite stars.

And them my very slow morning brain recognized why and I smiled.  At my own stupid brain failure.

***

On Monday, my co-workers were full of stories of their April Fools day.  I had forgotten they love it and I AM glad I took the day off.  But I did smile at one of the stories and at their joy in retelling it.  One of them took a large paperclip and put it on the copier and then copied it 10 times.  She then took those blank sheets with a paperclip image at one side and put them back in the paper stack of the copier/printer.  So when people innocently printed something from their computer it showed this paperclip.  I liked how clever it was.  They spent 10 minutes poking around that copier while she watched.  She finally told them.  It sparked a prank war I’m glad I missed but I did think her prank was clever and I smiled at her joy in telling it.  So, I guess I’m going to have to back down at least partially on my April Fools opinion post of last week.

***

My smiles this week are representative of my brain being open to enjoying the small moments.  To being able to smile at my own cognitive failure moment and being able to enjoy the story told by my friends who were all so full of fun and cheer over their pranks.  There are many days when I can do neither, so I’m pleased by the smiles in the small moments.

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Some people have service animals for coping with their mental illness

Animals that will make you hold their paw if you are anxious, or will stop you for self abuse, etc.

I have an Enabler animal.

Lily loves it when I am home and in bed because then she can cuddle with me. So she actively puts herself on me, refusing to move when I want to and makes it harder for me to get out of bed.

She trained herself, so that part was saving me money, I guess.

I’ve had a bad week and decided to take off Thursday and Friday so that at least when the implosion of my Depression happened I wasn’t calling off work.  Lily approves.  I’m not sure if I do.

It’s almost like I’m supporting the depression when I plan for the implosion, but I also know intellectually that the implosion was coming, whether I asked for the days off or not.  The only difference was whether I proactively handled it better for my job.

And this does at least keep the depression from using an unexcused absence as fuel for a bonfire of self hate.

And also Lily enjoys it.  And frankly, it’s all about Lily.  She knows it, I know it and we are all better off if everyone agrees on the state of things.

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Learn by Harpiya

-LEARN-by Harpiya

In which Lily is sure I bought a shoe box, not shoes.

I bought shoes.  For those of you who don’t remember the minutiae of my life updates, there was much debate on whether or not to buy shoes as the money that had been allocated to them was spent on trivialities. (AKA a rather painful UTI.)

Lily, the cat, has assumed that this was the purchase of an expensive box for her.  Shoe boxes are of course the second greatest thing since catnip.  And this shoe box is from Dankso, who created a non traditional shoe box to justify their expensive shoes.

Lily is fairly sure that this is like moving into the penthouse in Manhattan.  Possibly overlooking Central Park.

Caturday pictures of Lily’s new diggs will be forthcoming.  Stay Tuned!