The pendulum swings...

People change.  They do.  They DO!  If it seems like I am defending my position on this one it is because I am fully expecting someone to come on here and be all, 'People don't change!', or, 'Once a (blank) always a (blank)'.  Well, I disagree.

As an aside, I was just about to give you the old 'The cells in the human body replace themselves every seven years' line.  Then, I thought maybe I should actually look this 'fact' up before putting my hand on my hip and waving my finger in the air.  Ha!  It turns out that this is a hotly debated topic on the internets (try it, you'll see) and about an hour later I emerged from that wormhole, my brain a hot, hot mess and needing some leftover chocolate cake to help me re-focus.

Ahhhh, chocolate cake.  The whole reason for this post.

I will leave the '7 years' theory alone for now and gently return to my suggestion (and now humble opinion) that people change (a little bit anyway, can we agree on that at least?)

Case in point (finally!):

About 10 years ago, when I moved into my first 'big girl' apartment (condo actually), it was my very favorite thing in the world to have people over for dinner.  Like a lot of people (sometimes up to 20!), in a 900 sq. foot apartment... I would spend the week before planning (many of the dinners had themes), preparing, shopping, and fighting with Trent.  Then I would spend the ENTIRE day cleaning the condo and slaving away in my tiny, tiny kitchen (while Trent hid from me and/or pretended to be busy with something else).  I must admit that on many occasions, I outdid myself.  So much so in fact, that I think that I wrecked it.  I now live in a humongous house (not to brag or anything, but it really is humongous - much, much too big for three people) with the biggest kitchen that you have ever seen.  The counter space!  The cupboard space!  It is a wanna-be-chef's dream!  And, for the most part, I could absolutely care less about entertaining here. 

It's not that I don't like my friends anymore (I do!  I love you guys, I promise!).  It's just that I think I burnt myself out on the whole dinner party thing.  See?  I changed!  Something that I used to be passionate about now makes me want to crawl into my bed and hide under the covers.  It is just so much WORK and EFFORT!  I would so much rather do something outside with my friends, or go out for a meal... or better yet come over to your house for dinner!  (What? I am being honest here)

Anyway, I am way off topic (and I apparently needed to get that off my chest), but we did have friends over for dinner on Saturday.  And yes, I cooked a meal.  It was... average.  Nothing fancy to be sure.  But it was edible, and even followed up by another thing about dinner parties that I hate - dessert.  I don't eat the stuff (well, rarely anyway), but it seems that there is an expectation that people serve/eat that stuff at dinner parties.  Soooo, I mentioned to Trent that I was going to bake a cake.  Here's how that one played out:

M: 'What should I make for dessert?'
T: 'Nothing, we don't eat dessert.  Don't we have some week old cookies or something?'
M: 'Um, I am not serving those... what about if I make a cake.  I would totally eat a chocalate cake with whipped cream and canned cherries.' (Don't ask me what that was all about, I must've been on my period)
T: 'You are the worst baker in the world.  I would strongly suggest that you DO NOT bake a cake.  Just buy a cake mix.'
M: 'Cake mixes are gross, and full of chemicals.'
T: 'Trust me, a cake mix would be way better than anything you would bake.'
M: Silence as I perused my various cookbooks... and then, 'You are totally right.  I hate that about you.'

So there you have it folks.  From a year of 'Marebare Necessities' making everything from scratch right down to my own SHAMPOO all the way to Duncan Hines.

Um, who says people don't change?

Marebare

Taking off the blinders

Of late, I have become the 'master of repairs' in my house.  I used to have a pile of stuff that sat for years in a 'to be fixed pile'.  I am sure that some of you have the same kind of pile: clothes with buttons missing, clothes with holes in them, books with the binding coming apart, etc.  Today I actually got to the bottom of the pile and have officially fixed everything (that I was capable of fixing) in my house.  While not being able to buy anything new was certainly powerful motivation to put some of these items 'back in circulation', it was also just wonderful to have accomplished one of those tasks that just never seems to get done. 

On a completely unrelated topic, I have been attempting to decode the food labels of the products that are already in my house.  It is not good news.  I have unknowingly been poisoning myself and my family with some of those 'crazy additives' that I alluded to in an early post.  Included in these items are:

• Salad dressings
• Some crackers
• Cans of soup
• Cereal

Don't those items sound innocuous enough?  Not so my fine friends, not so.  The salad dressing contains BHA and BHT, some of the crackers contain MSG, cereal contains trisodium phosphate which is most commonly used as a cleaning agent and has the ability to corrode metal (!) and canned soup often contains MSG as well.  Gross right?  Luckily, I have come up with substitutions for all of them: I recently made a batch of homemade crackers which are delicous (and thank goodness the 'cracker man' of the house, aka Chephren, approves of them).  Salad dressings are also easy enough to make, I just have to get into the habit of making them on a more regular basis.  While I will definitely miss the convenience of canned soups, I am willing to give them up (assuming that I can't find a more suitable alternative to my current brands at the grocery store).  And cereal, well, Chephren is going to have to give up his Cheerios.  Thankfully he loves toast, oatmeal and eggs so we won't be strapped for breakfasts.  It looks like we are well on our way to eliminating some of those dreaded additives from our pantry. 

Sorry to burst your bubble if these were facts that you were happier just 'not knowing'.  I hear that.  Food additives are literally in almost everything and trying to eat foods without them is quite an arduous task these days.  However, it is not my intention to be the 'voice of doom' or to look down my nose at anyone else and the choices they make, I simply want to see whether or not I am able to eliminate these items from my pantry... and of course, I plan on sharing my strategies with you.  Take or leave the information as you like.

You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.  - Tony Robbins


Here's to 'knowing' and doing something about it!

Marebare :)