Part 1:Nourishment and the Priceless Value of Jelly Toast and Quesadillas

Nourishment and the Priceless Value of Jelly Toast and Quesadillas
Part 1:
Every mom knows the value of a good nutritious meal. We took Home Economics in junior high. For single moms, its value goes up drastically as its price goes down and ease goes up. I have been known on dinner dates to be so thrilled with a free meal that I did not only clean my plate, but also devoured all the bread, crackers, cheese whiz topping, and neighboring tables’ condiments. It was all just so easy and thoughtless… and I think I was hungry for someone else to feed me… a sign that the date was not really going that well!

Anyway, in addition to the expense, food can be a drudgery of creativity, fore-thought, preparation, ending in gross dirty dishes. Despite its nutrition, I have been known to boycott meals altogether on occasion. My favorite birthday dinner is buttered popcorn and Milk Duds at the movie theater with my kids. I know we need to feed our kids. But I can get pretty overly overwhelmed if I think of food, meals, sit down family style dinners on Sunday noon, 3 veggies and a potato next to a slab of meat, and freshly made desserts. The thought of preparing those makes me decidedly un-hungry. Unappetizing.

It might be that the Stress and Rejection (S&J) diet came and went so often for the last year of marriage and subsequent year of divorce and then 2 or 3 years of financial firestorm that I singed my taste buds off with too much coffee and toast. I try not to notice much that my 14-year old and I can share clothes (yes, shirts mainly, you know where we lose our weight first!)
So lately, I’ve decided to let myself off of the guilt hook. My mom cooked 6 dinners a week and a Sunday post roast dinner that took us about 2o minutes to eat (but we had to sit at the table for an extra 2 hours with Gramma Doud to make it all worthwhile to someone. I decided last night that Stouffer’s frozen lasagna is magnificent enough to make it onto my Club Awesome gratitude list this week. Have I become entirely too lazy? Maybe! I found beauty in the bowl of honey nut cheerios this morning and decided that we all 3 needed more beauty in our lives and re-ran them for dinner.

Need to finish this later, time for yet another meal…!