Whenever we spend hours looking for an important paper, or an object; when we are at a point of frustration because we can't find it.....
"The house does not lose anything."
That is what I say, and it is true. Lately, things have gone missing. There one minute, gone the next. Two days ago I was frantically looking for cocoa powder. I was making pudding at 10pm at night, and I KNEW I just saw the cocoa the day before. I searched, and search the kitchen. I looked where it belongs, I looked behind the pots, I looked in my pantry...nothing. I even interrogated my kids the morning; they just looked at me like I was crazy, since our cocoa is raw and bitter :). Who would want to sneak that in the night??
This morning my coffee ran out, and I went to find my emergency stash of coffee beans. Since they are whole, I also had to dig out my grinder, which I have not used in about 7 months or so (I buy ground coffee, I am a practical girl). Right behind it, stuffed in the very back of the cabinet, was my cocoa powder.
My little deranged kitchen fairies...
Digging around made me find things I have, but don't use.
I grew up in a family that always had food. My dad always cooked for an army, literally :). He was a Staff Sergeant, and he often invited his troops to our house and cooked for them. He cooked for everyone, and food was his remedy for everything.
Tante Erna, who was practically my second mother for the first 13years of my life (I will dedicate another blog just to her), cooked. She was a refugee from East Germany, and as humble as they were in the beginning, there was always food. Lots of it.
My husband is one of eight kids. They were poor. My husband is like a kid in a candy store when we go to Costco...he buys like there is no tomorrow.
When we have parties, or just a dinner, all this "training" comes to surface. There is always enough food. It is as if we have a fear of not having enough, and so there is always excess.
What prompted these thoughts?
As I was digging for my grinder, I had to move a one gallon bottle of vinegar. It is half full. My first thought was: Darn, now I have to go to the health food store TODAY and get another gallon.
I could feel the panic set in. Is that crazy?? My house is so full of food, another family could live of this for at least 3-4 weeks, I am sure. We are far from affluent, yet we spend so much on food, and other things we could live without but feel a need to have. Both my husband and I have been trained to panic..Afraid of not having "enough" has thrown us into a habit of excess. Excess is like a pimple on my butt these days, everything in our life is "stuffed".
On that note, there are some interesting theories that these habits stem not just from childhood, but from past lives (if you were hungry in a past life, you tend to overcompensate with food in the next ones...and so on). Healing the past and can change the future.....
It is time for a "re-training" and a simpler life. My spirit, my wallet, and my fridge will thank us......Labels: excess, remedy, simpler life