Descent into …. Habits:

How a family of 5 survived for 3 weeks with a mini fridge.


Part 2

Space Jam

So we shopped for a refrigerator. It only took one day to find the one we wanted. There is an amazingly limited selection of appliances in Lowe’s and Sears' inventories at any given time. The one thing we brought into the search that accelerated the process for us was that we would not be purchasing another Whirlpool—anything—ever again. Some day I will relate how our one-year-old Whirlpool oven conked out on us, but for now I will simply state that this is beginning to look a lot like a trend with their appliances. So, a new problem arose:

We chose the most popular one.

What does that mean, exactly? Basically, it means our delivery date was scheduled for 1 ½ weeks after the day of purchase. (OK, gulp… exhale… negotiate in vain… accept.) This brings us back to the mini fridge…

Two 12” x 12” shelves, about eight inches above and below each—had to remove one to fit gallon milk jugs inside. One 12” x 6” x 8” drawer. Freezer approximately 12” x 12” x 6”, with this ridiculous inch-high pullout tray thing underneath. Two little joke shelves in the door. There are five people in my family—three adults and two children. My family drinks a gallon of milk every two days, but I could only keep one gallon in the house at a time because of this thing. For the first time in our lives, we all had to be brutally honest about whether we seriously planned to eat our leftovers. Each night at dinner, the previous night’s leftovers were tossed out. I had to prepare each meal so mindfully—exactly five servings of each item, and if anyone wanted seconds, they could have whatever the baby only ate half of. All the “refrigerate after opening” condiments had to be thrown out. All the frozen food—except for a box of tempura shrimp and some tiny individually-packaged ice cream cups—had to go. I had to buy ice trays and make ice every few hours (can you say, "third world style?"). I was shopping almost every day. Logging my food journal was privately humiliating, because I didn’t have enough fresh food to eat properly for a day—any day. There were jugs of spring water all over the counter. And my two-year-old was constantly playing with what she naturally assumed was a toy refrigerator placed next to her chair for her personal amusement.

So, we learned how to eat. It took a few days, but we actually learned how to eat. And we learned how to shop, only for the necessities, and how to not waste them. It was a little like squeezing ourselves through this tiny, uncomfortable mini fridge chrysalis and emerging as conservative, mindful shopper/eaters with menu plans and purposeful appetites. We were even learning to be content with our daily bread (well, the bread didn’t really count, because we had plenty of that in the pantry, but we definitely learned to be satisfied without a backup loaf in the freezer).

As the days drew closer for the new refrigerator to be delivered, I began to think outside of the box. I downloaded a sketch of the inside, and began planning how to keep our groceries organized. Assigning shelves to certain meals, mapping out where each family member would keep his/her snacks, consciously deciding to only use one small space in the freezer for one week worth of meat. I was so excited, and my passion for our newly-awakening lifestyle was spreading to the children.

Three days before our new refrigerator was scheduled to be delivered, we got a telephone call from the customer service department. Remember how we chose the most popular model? The manufacturer could not keep up with the demand, and the earliest we could get delivery would be the following Saturday. Exactly 3 weeks from the day the old refrigerator broke. Ummm, could you tell that to my husband, please (while I run dramatically sobbing from the room)? Tribulation is such a lukewarm expression of what that telephone call put us through. If you’ve ever read Lord of the Flies, you can begin to imagine the breakdown of civilization in my home as we waited an extra eternity for relief.

Be sure to check back for Part 3: 

Cold as Ice, Willing to Sacrifice Our Love

Descent into Madness, Hunger, Disappointment, Premature Elation, Creative Meal Planning, More Disappointment, and Overly-Conservative Eating Habits:

How a family of 5 survived for 3 weeks with a mini fridge. Part 1

Reality Bites

This story is so shocking, so poignant, so full of twists and turns and unforeseen aggravation--it just has to be told. I never thought it was possible. I never thought about it at all, because I always hoped that this type of horrible experience would never touch my own life. But it did.

It started on a Saturday afternoon, about 3 weeks ago. My family was just returning home after being out all morning. When I took some meat out of the freezer to defrost for dinner, something seemed wrong. The carton had little white droplets hanging from the bottom, and there were tiny puddles on the next shelf down. I pressed my finger into the side of the ice cream carton, and it was soft. I dismissed it as the freezer trying to defrost itself (does that even make sense?) and started to prepare lunch. A few minutes later, I mentioned it to my husband. He said, “We must have left the door open when we left this morning.” OK, I guess.

About an hour later, my oldest daughter asked me, “Are you defrosting the freezer?” I told her about my observations and the general conclusion that the door had just been left open that morning (although I wasn’t really convinced yet—I just couldn’t scrape up a memory of it being cracked when I came home). The uneasiness started to close in on me, but tried to ignore it. That evening when I took out the ice cream, it was totally melted.  I checked the refrigerator side, and it was room temperature. The milk was room temperature. The yogurt was room temperature. The cottage cheese was room temperature. My fears were confirmed—the refrigerator was dead.

Let’s take this opportunity to reflect on my life at this moment—today. Before you go thinking I am going to over-simplify my refrigerator-to-mini fridge debacle, I must point out that I didn’t have a chance to blog on Saturday…or Sunday. So this is going to be long. “A long story,” as they say (technically, a 3-part series with 2 cliffhangers). But I will discipline myself to stick closely to the necessary details. And if you do belong to my growing online following, please forgive me for not blogging daily. I really do try. The adventures of James just unfold far too quickly than I can type.

Upstairs, we keep a little black mini fridge, apartment sized. It has come in handy in the past when we had company. Perhaps they wanted to keep ice and bottles of water or cold beer in their room (or whatever snacks they don’t want my children to gobble). All we had to do was sit it in the guest room and plug it in—instant refreshment convenience. I admit that this mini fridge is a purely utilitarian appliance with absolutely no design presence whatsoever. But if you’ve been driving for 13 hours and you don’t want to put on a robe and go downstairs in the middle of the night for a drink, it is a welcome presence in the room. This is the mini fridge that went from dearly cherished domestic device to bitterly despised object of hatred in a matter of days. This is the mini fridge that my daughter and I carried from her bedroom upstairs down into the kitchen. At the time, we had no idea that we were about to plug in our family crucible.

Be sure to check back for Part 2: Space Jam

The true definition of a counterfeit non-scale victory. And a faux scale victory.

I did it! I woke up this morning as soon as my alarm went off! I turned it off, stood up, inhaled deeply, stretched, and went straight to the scale. And the gravy? I was a pound lighter! What is most invigorating about these "victories" is that they were simply handed to me. I cannot honestly claim to have "fought" for either of these so-called wins. But I'm taking my prizes and plastering them all over the Internet anyway, just like my "Miss Congeniality" awards in elementary school. When you are lazy and self-entitled to do the barest of the bare minimum in any undertaking, the rewards are few and far between. So I say, take your token trophies and run, run, run! Celebrate the easy wins just as lavishly as the real go-getters celebrate their hard-earned ones, except without the excesses of sweat and fatigue. For now, I am celebrating the following:

1. The I got up in the morning when my alarm went off after practicing for 15 minutes yesterday award.

2. The I lost a pound after 2 1/2 weeks of eating almost halfway perfectly and working out four times.

Who wants to join me? Let me know what victories just fell into your lap today, or this week, or this year. Get excited about doing nothing and making out like a bandit! It takes longer and the results are random, but when you get a little wink, shout it out to the world.

It's so much fun to be me today.

Why do you cover your eyes when you space travel?

I did not practice my waking up right away yesterday. And I did not wake up right away this morning. I woke up early, before my alarm went off, but then I changed my alarm and slept until the last minute again. But I did practice this afternoon. This is what I did:

1. I closed my bedroom door.
2. I slipped into my sleeping attire.
3. I set 5 alarms, each 2 minutes apart (starting 2 minutes from when I set them).
4. I got into bed and relaxed.
5. Each time an alarm went off, I stopped it, got up immediately, inhaled deeply and stretched my 4 limbs, and walked to my bathroom scale.
6. I got back into bed and relaxed until the next alarm.

I am going to practice again this evening if the kids will do something together. I really, really do want to make this habitual.

In other news... I was planning to stop eating fiber bars some time in the near future. I love to have one with my morning coffee, but I have begun to think of it as a bit of a crutch. A crutch that I don't really need, now that I naturally consume an average of around 400% of the recommended daily intake of fiber. So first, I was going to stop drinking coffee, then I was going to stop eating fiber bars. It would have been so easy to just quit with the coffee this morning, since I drank the last of my creamer yesterday.

But what did I find when I was in Walmart this morning? Fiber Plus Antioxidant bars have a new flavor: Caramel Coconut something. So I slipped a small creamer into my cart and decided to give the coffee thing a little more time. When I finally stop the madness I will be banking around 300 extra calories from breakfast that I could easily invest in Greek yogurt and honey. Happy to report, though, that I kept myself to one mugful today.

Some have wondered why James covers her eyes during space travel. Really poor depth perception, especially in the dark.

I don't have time to share everything I'm into this afternoon. I wish I could be with you here, in this moment, all day.

The first day that I ever finished something I started.

This is the maiden post on my new blog. Actually, I only decided to start this blog about four hours ago. Just like this web page, I am under construction--rather, under renovation. I am nervous, and excited, and bubbling over with so many subtle and obvious and trivial and not altogether benign things to share with the world. But since I have to pick up my son from school in a half-hour, I will simply introduce myself.

My name is James, and I am halfway healthy. What I mean by this is:

I used to be morbidly unhealthy, and

I wish to be extremely health-conscious

But I am only halfway there

And I refuse to cheat

So what makes this blog any different from the countless others chronicling this path to lifestyle enlightenment or that road to bodily contentment? What difference does it make? If you are reading this post, then you voraciously plow through every piece of information and/or misinformation you can find on the subject of healthy living, just as I do. So enjoy this journey with me. Stop by often, leave a comment, link, follow, whatever suits you.

My journey begins with what I truly believe to be the greatest obstacle to being my personal best. All of my health concerns, all of my perceptions of failure, all of my excuses for not having the "time" to accomplish my goals, boil down to one uncomfortable fact:

I need to wake up earlier.

It seems so basic, doesn't it? So silly on the surface, but if you go a little deeper into my past, into patterns of success and perceptions of failure (my favorite new expression, which I will abuse profusely. I never admit to actual failure--that word is so permanent, so conclusive, so presumptuous--as if success weren't just as possible, which it absolutely is). If I slumber a little longer, I am caught in a whirlwind of daily activities and unpredictable outcomes that make it so easy to put off what I should have been doing rather than sleeping in. Late night--forget about getting anything done then. I need to GET UP!

So I found this method for waking up automatically that seems truly promising. This is going to be the first obstacle that I overcome. I don't want to rewrite the article, so check it out for yourself: 

How to get up right away when your alarm goes off

I have planned my first practice session for this afternoon, so be sure to check back for the results. I will also be accomplishing such milestones as: breaking free of my coffee drinking habit, renovating my body composition, maintaining a regular workout schedule, and whatever else I choose to improve in order to be my best self ever. Of course, I will also be keeping up with my favorite blogs!

How I got halfway here: A Shout Out to Nutrimirror

I have not lost a miraculous amount of weight or inches--in fact, I have gained back some of the inches and weight that I lost. However, by using the tools on Nutrimirror, I did lose weight and inches (and got super  healthy). By not using the tools on Nutrimirror, I regained weight and inches (and went halfway back to my old unproductive habits). What does that mean to you? Don't ask me, just go to the web site and start using it. You will be eating right, you will not need to take vitamin supplements, and you will see big payoffs for doing whatever exercising you choose to do. It's free, so try it. Visit the Nutrimirror free online food and exercise tool that will help you gain the control you need to make the improvements you want in your lifestyle. Before you know it, you'll be half as healthy as I am. Click Here to Get Started with Nutrimirror.