Brain misfires and other musings

It occurred to me only today that I’d previously said I’d have a review coming up today. My neurons must have been misfiring when I’d written it (yet I’ve left it in, only because it seems incongruous just to edit it without comment); the review can’t be published until NEXT Friday due to a media embargo. Sorry about that. Here’s what’s running through my head right now, so that I can actually avoid be totally called out for the whole “post Friday morning” thing.

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I will eventually get around to posting something about those last few veggie boxes…probably. The more I think about it, the more I feel sad that the kids don’t eat squash reliably, which leaves dh and me with the burden of being the ones to eat aaaaaalllll of the squash that comes into the house. Worse still, unless we just put it into the crock pot, it’s relegated to the weekend only. Our work schedules don’t get us home until (best case) 5:30pm, and there’s just not enough time to get squash cooked to our liking between then and 6:15pm dinnertime. Oh, the joys of a schedule dictated by younglings’ bedtime.

We were also surprised to see that this week’s veggie box (which we didn’t purchase) is the last one of the season. I guess I should expect these things, but the other veggie box program went so deep into the winter that I didn’t think too hard about when this one would end. The farm does, in fact, have another veggie box program that’s all organic, but the focus of that is ORGANIC, not LOCAL, so the overwhelming majority of box contents come from farms as far away as California and Mexico. Sub-optimal. I can do that myself at the grocery store. Sigh.

We did get a hankering to make some baked potato/leek soup after seeing a suggestion for baked potato soup in the e-mailed flyer from our grocery store. Good thing we have a bunch of CSA potatoes just waiting for a purpose to their existence. Now, to acquire some leeks and a really good crusty bread. (don’t mind me while I just drool in anticipation)

 

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I’d like to pause for a moment to talk about my love/hate relationship with shopping. Being a person of relatively hefty size (typically 14/16 in clothes, shoe size 9W or 9WW), shopping for things to put on my body can often feel like self-inflicted psychological torture. I spent the better part of an hour browsing Kohls the other day, picking out items to wear to work, and finding…one dress. Of the several shirts, dresses and pairs of pants I dutifully hauled off to the fitting room, I found…one dress. That’s it. Decent deal, but a bit of a disappointing outcome (which I attempted to amend with an addendum purchase on their web site that night, looking for the right size of things I’d seen in the store in the wrong sizes).

My shoe travails are also well-known among friends and family, since wide shoes (and shoes for people with feet that can fall into ultra-wide or WW, depending upon the manufacturer) can be incredibly hard to find in decent styles. Prowling the aisles of the DSW near my office, I find cute shoe after cute shoe, with the manufacturer offering only the Medium/B width. It’s to the point where I just want the manufacturers who don’t even bother with wide shoes to stop labeling their shoes with a width. If you only manufacture one width, just don’t waste my time giving me hope that there may be a box labeled wide. Please. It’s cruelty.

Thankfully, I’ve had some decent luck with Clarks. It seems like they’re becoming my new go-to manufacturer, since their wide shoes are comfortable for day-wear, even pumps. Seriously: Me. In pumps. Previously unthinkable for an all-day affair. Of course, the flip side to that is that the shoe I found is completely and totally discontinued and can’t be found anywhere in any other color but the one I have.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds something that fits and says, “Order me 2 or 3 of that in different colors!” Or if I am, screw it. I don’t mind being that person. As I’ve learned, when you find something that works: GO WITH IT. That philosophy works for clothes, shoes, and dealing with the kids. At least it has so far…

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