Sleeping with Bread

It is quite simple. You simply ask yourself, in the last day/week/month what gave me consolation and what caused me desolation.

There's a personal touch people add to things that make those 'things' uniquely theirs....different from whatever I could create or what I could receive from other places.

That's true of the bread makers in my life.
My step-mother made the best bread on the planet..... Maybe it was her 'pinch of this, dash of that'. Maybe it was that someone else made it and I didn't have to.... Or maybe it was just the personal touch of her hands as she kneeded.

It was different from what I tried to re-create.
It was just uniquely 'hers'.
I never could replicate it.
Neither could anyone else--which is just fine.
I want it to remain 'specially hers'.

And there are those folks who can get away with saying things to me that other people cannot.
No, I don't get to shoot the messenger.....but I can hear things differently based on the nature of my relationship with the person giving me the message.
Right, wrong or indifferent--that's where it is today.

I can (and do) pray I outgrow that some day--but for today.....I'm grateful for the personal touches that the people in my life add to 'things' and to 'life'.
It makes what they give me, what they offer me--uniquely 'bourne of their heart' and somehow more 'special' and 'different'......

It's those 'personal touches' that have been my consolation this week.
The gift of things said or done have made the world of difference to me and my attitude and my actions this week.
And because I know my attitude and actions don't stand independent of the world I live in, I know a bit of how those personal touches rippled out to those around me.
I'm very, very grateful for that.......



The desolation.......
......of all the silly things--and I do know there are 'bigger deals' going on around me......was the silly visit with the nutritionist.
I picked my battle--and she won....or lost, however you care to look at it.

I'm still on 'rawr' mode about that ordeal.
Perhaps it's my way of avoiding all those things I feel out of control of.

But--
I swear--if I heard 'you need more protein' ONE MORE TIME from that nutritionist, I was gonna do bodily harm to her.

Here comes the attitude---

I drink the stupid Ensure shakes.
For a year I've done 'em.
For years I've not liked 'em.
I still don't like 'em.
But the nutrionist said....

*sigh*
So I drink the stupid shakes.

People have tried to talk me into meat.
........I like meat even less than I like Ensure shakes.
The texture is what does me in.
I can do poultry--I won't do meat.

And himself promised me wayyyyyy back that I wouldn't HAVE to eat anything I didn't like ANYmore.

He's stuck to that, even when he hasn't liked the protein level I sported. He's kept his word.
It's not like he's not tried different things to entice me into having a different relationship with meat--he has.
He's also accepted when I held it in my mouth, shook my head, did the 'uh uh.......' and spat it out.

Yes--that's how childish I can act......

Hand over the shake, that's the compromise--I'll deal. But do NOT make me eat meat.
Dunno when I went over that edge--I just know I did.


For years I'd been hearing about 'boiled-peanuts' from one of my southern friends. For years I dismissed it as one of those 'southern things' that us 'yankee' folks don't DO.
For some reason, it was the 'you need the protein--I'm worried about you' that got it.
'Bourne of the heart'--it was that 'personal touch'.......

And tonight I won't be consuming one of those evil Ensure shakes the nutritionist has ordered me to drink.
Amen to that one.

And just for the record....... I won't be giving up my divided red plate either.
Pfooey on her. (Yes--I still have a bit of an attitude......)

Perhaps for some folks the 'eye' is the deceiver--they can put a chicken breast on a bigger plate and convince themself that the chicken breast is 'smaller' than it truly is.....cuz it 'looks smaller on the bigger plate'.
Good for them.

I ain't givin' up my little red divided plate.
I won't 'eat more' based on the size of the plate.
Really.
I won't.

Oy brother--
I did mention that I still might have a bit of an attitude........right?

*sigh*
Somewhere in all this I did mention that I know enough not to shoot the messenger.....
.............dang........