When life gets you down

Happy Wednesday, friends!

I had planned a happier post for today, but sometimes life finds a way to mess up our plans, doesn't it? Anyway, one of the not-so-good curveballs I was thrown over the summer has returned. I don't want to go into specifics because it's kind of hard to talk about, but I'd really appreciate any positive thoughts you can send my way.

Over the years, I've learned that one thing that helps me when I'm down is poetry. Its language is universal, and when we read it, we all take something different away. I find solace in the words of others; I get lost in them and am able to forget (for a time, at least) whatever it is that's bothering me. (And sometimes a little chocolate doesn't hurt either!) When the curveball came yesterday, though, it felt right to lose myself in some poetry, like this piece by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins:


(Read by Billy Collins and animated by Julian Grey of Headgear.)

Where do you turn when life gets you down?

Wishing us all a wonderful Wednesday. ☺

Six-word Saturday

Ha! Take that, Magic Cookie Bars!

I'd been promising my three-year-old daughter all week that we'd do some baking, so yesterday we made this recipe for Magic Cookie Bars. Talk about decadent! Chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, walnuts, sweetened condensed milk, coconut... These bars are definitely not low-cal!

 

Now, I'm a huge chocoholic, but for the past couple of weeks I've been trying hard to lose a few pounds for summer. I knew these bars would be my nemesis if I let them—but I didn't! I ate half of a bar, exercised away the calories on the treadmill (which took me about forty grueling minutes), and said sayonara to the rest of the pan. They're good, but for me, they're just not worth the calories (and the work it takes to burn those calories). The rest of the family can have them. Take that, Magic Cookie Bars!

 

 

Wishing you all a wonderful Saturday. ☺

 

 

N is for Nestlé Nostalgia

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Admittedly, today's bit of inspiration probably comes off as a bit strange. It's kind of like one of those Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon games—sort of. ☺

Here goes: As a child, I loved Nestlé Quik. I couldn't get enough of it. I'd drink it; I'd put it on ice cream. When I got older, I'd sometimes put it in coffee. I thought it was great. But in another way, it was very, very bad. I think—no, I know—that it started my chocolate obsession.

Nowadays, chocolate is something I need, and not in powder form. Oh, no. I want the hard stuff: the Cadbury and the Hershey's and the Lindt. My waistline begs for mercy, and still I crave milk chocolate and dark chocolate. I'll even eat unsweetened baking chocolate. (It's actually quite good!) The only chocolate I don't care for is white chocolate, which technically isn't even chocolate at all and shouldn't be sullying chocolate's good name—but I digress.

So I know what you're thinking: Dana, your A to Z theme is about things that inspire you. How in the world does "Nestlé Nostalgia" fit in? It's a good question. Here's your answer:

If it weren't for Nestlé Quik, I wouldn't be a writer. (How's that for dramatic? ☺) Seriously, chocolate is my writing reward. Chocolate drives me to create—to eat chocolate, I must create—so therefore, I find chocolate to be very inspiring.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Nestlé Nostalgia is on my list of things that inspire me.

Now please enjoy this nostalgic Nestlé Quik commercial. It's glorious in all of its cheesiness!



My daily haiku is up at the Pulitzer Remix site. You can find it here. Thanks again to everyone who has been reading and commenting. I love writing haiku, and I'm having a great time with the project. Your support means so much!


Wishing you all a wonderful Tuesday. ☺

Five things I learned yesterday



Image courtesy of Steve Woods,
rgbstock.com

"What did you learn today?"

I ask my son that question every day when he gets home from kindergarten, and since he's only five, he actually answers me—although I suspect that when he gets a little older, the always-popular "nothing" will be his go-to response. ☺

Yesterday, as he told me about all the things his teacher had taught him, I started to think about the things the day had taught me. Although my new knowledge might not be as exciting as my son's, I do learn a few things every day. Yesterday taught me that:

1. I don't have to give up on a recipe like this one just because I'm out of cream of mushroom soup. Instead, I can make my own. It's easy to do, and there's no worry about canned soup and BPA.

2. Sometimes it's just too cold outside to make the effort to go to the grocery store, even if I really, really want chocolate.



Squirrel?

3. It's fun to discover animal tracks in the snow. (My kids taught me this one!)

4. It's heartbreaking to see a Facebook friend receive happy birthday messages from people who don't realize that she recently died.

5. The new season of Project Runway starts tonight! (I'm a little excited. Can you tell?)



What things have you learned recently?

Wishing you a wonderful Thursday!

C is for Chocolate (Of course!)

It's no secret to those who know me that I adore chocolate. It's an addiction, really; I can't let a day go by without having some, which is starting to become a bit of an issue now that my metabolism seems to be slowing down. Will that sad fact keep me from my craving? No way.

I've had this obsession with chocolate all my life, but it didn't get to be as bad as it is until I was pregnant with my second child. After my first pregnancy, where I watched what I ate with so much dedication I would get headaches whenever I thought of food, I decided that with my second pregnancy I could relax a little. And I did. Well...a lot.

With my first pregnancy I ate chocolate only rarely, but with my second I ate it every single day, and I've carried on with that habit for almost three years. I feel like chocolate is more of a necessity now than a treat. It calms me down when I'm having a bad day (or at least I imagine it does), and I can always find excuses to buy more: I did some writing today. I'll celebrate with chocolate! or My husband and I had an argument this morning. I'll feel better if I eat some chocolate. or The kids won't stop fighting. Better stuff my face with chocolate so I don't lose my mind. There's really nothing that chocolate can't fix!

Are you addicted to chocolate, too? What's the one food item you feel you can't live without?

I spy

Today's 100 words:

My parents' bedroom shared a wall with my bedroom, and I remember surreptitiously taking a glass from the kitchen before going to bed one Christmas Eve, then holding it up to the wall, trying to hear what my parents were saying as they wrapped gifts. When morning finally came, my sister and I sneaked peeks at the tree in the living room while we waited for Daddy to get up, then headed to our stockings, always filled with chocolate and small gifts. Christmas was the only day of the year that Mom allowed us to eat candy for breakfast.

Day gone wrong

My husband has been working on a project at his office all day, and although the kids and I had a good day together, we had a horrible evening. All the ambitions I had to write are gone, and I'm sitting here at the computer with a glass of wine (actually, my second) and a plate that once held graham crackers and peanut butter. (We're out of chocolate.) I had some good things happen writing-wise earlier in the day, and I wanted to write about them here tonight, but the bad Mom evening I just had has taken my excitement away. Tomorrow will be better, right? Meanwhile, here's a bit of writing I posted at another site this morning. Although fictional, it describes how I feel about my current stage in the writing process:

The beginning was always the hardest. Oscar would spend days on it, searching for the best words to recreate the images that played in his imagination. Translating stories to paper was difficult; describing exactly what he saw in his mind did not happen easily, and characters who moved freely in his imagination would sometimes become stilted and two-dimensional on the page. For him, the beginning of the story was the story, and if he could get it just right--give those characters depth and breath and life--then he knew the rest of the story would follow.

After a long day...

Tonight is wine and Sex and the City and chocolate, then reading and sleep and dreams.

Good night.

No joke

I used to joke about my "addiction" to chocolate. That's how I would talk about it--with air quotes. But I've realized recently that my "addiction" really is an addiction. I have been eating chocolate every day since I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now almost nineteen months old. And I'm not talking about small amounts of chocolate--a Hershey's Kiss or two, a couple of squares from a candy bar... No, I'll eat a half-pound of Hershey's Kisses or an entire candy bar (maybe even two, and maybe even king-sized). All at once. At one sitting.

It's actually a little hard to admit I have this problem. I use chocolate as my drug of choice when I'm stressed out. Anytime things start to get to me, I reach for the chocolate, and I really do feel better after consuming it. The other night, I sent my husband to the store for chocolate (my poor, tired husband who had just gotten home from work), and when he asked me what kind, I said, "I'm still on Hershey's Kisses." And it wasn't until I said that, that I was on a certain type of chocolate, that I really understood how dependent on it I am. It was scary to hear myself say those words, but I realized that they're true.

It's really a miracle that I don't weigh two hundred pounds. So far, the chocolate hasn't affected my weight, but  I do wonder what it's doing to my health. I need to try to cut back, but honestly, the thought panics me. I need my chocolate. There's really no substitute for me, and I don't know how to deal with stress without it.

"Hi. My name is Dana, and I'm addicted to chocolate."

Help.

Who needs the time-out today? Oh, yeah. I do.

Today has been one of those I-suck-as-a-mother days. These days seem to be happening all too frequently lately, most of them falling on Mondays, which shouldn't be too surprising, I guess, since Mondays usually signify my first day back as a full-time mom. (I take part-time mom status over the weekends when the husband is home all day.)

Anyway, I let the noise and the whining and the fighting and the "I wants" and the "She hit mes" get to me today, until I finally lost my temper and yelled, thereby rendering all of my "Don't yells" and "Be polites" null and void. Oh, well. Good thing the kids don't know the word "hypocrite" yet, huh? Seriously, I do get discouraged on days like today. I'm a perfectionist, and I really want to be a good mom, so when I have days like this, I really beat myself up. I guess, though, that I just need to chalk it up to a bad day and promise myself when I wake up tomorrow that I'll try harder and do better.

But a little chocolate and a time-out might make me feel better in the meantime. :)