Contrast

By chance, (well, actually by location), my errands ended up taking me directly from aldi’s to whole foods.

Dramatic contrast.

But kinda got me thinking a bit.

We only really get basic items at aldis… things like eggs, produce, dry pasta (they actually have whole wheat spaghetti and rigatoni now for a buck each), and sometimes the 93% ground turkey. Honestly, because most of the non-name brand processed stuff really hasn’t been that great. (Their spaghetti o’s are in tomato sauce with no seasoning.. their potato and rice mixes taste like only salt was added… pudding wasn’t sweet.. etc)

But it kind of struck me that in some ways, a lot of the whole foods stuff is similar… just usually more intentionally, whether in the name of being healthier or being organic or preventing allergic issues. Google particular products, and it’s frequent to find “this is great, when we do this or that to it”.

But somehow, I’m more tolerant of having to add seasoning to a supposedly pre-seasoned box of quinoa than I am of a bag of supposedly pre-seasoned rice that cost less than 1/4 of the price.

 

Reduced selections (well, all the ones around here are just whole foods, not the markets… i’ve been told those have a lot more options). Customers bringing own bags.

Customers having preconceived notions of the other customers in the store and their wealth.

 

A lot more similar than I’d really noticed I guess… just catered towards totally different segments of the population. Value on natural vs value on thrift.

 

It struck me as a bit more interesting though that I saw a lot more people leaving aldis with fruit and veggies in one trip that I think I’ve ever seen leaving whole foods with something that wasn’t in a box or processed. While not organic, the aldis here had about 5 times the amount of space for fresh produce as the whole foods, which doesn’t even match the local grocery chain’s organic section of produce.

 

I found myself really wanting to ask if whole foods takes food stamps that were being used so much at aldis… just out of curiosity, but, well, I already stick out like a sore thumb being a fat chick in a health foods store, and had a child who was trying to juggle a single organic lemon (that she had begged for to turn into lemonade, which i agreed to buy only to get rid of the thought of the 3 buck organic brownie mix she previously wanted) so I really wasn’t looking to win myself any more odd points for the day.

Aren’t quinoa and zylitol common enough yet to be carried at walmart yet?

Non-electronic fruit

I almost titled this “blackberry review” until I realized I was going to have google thinking I was talking pda.

And after laughing way too hard after I was scrolling to get to a past draft and happened to glansing-ly notice someone found my blog by searching for “big bear issues” and got my post about a too big teddy bear… i wouldn’t want some person wanting a new toy to be overly bored by my fruit discussion like that person that I REALLY hope was not having an issue with a big bear at the time of the search. (it was memorial day weekend… a big camping weekend…)

 

Anyway… lol

I randomly picked up some unexpected blackberries at the store the other day… because they were on sale and next to the peaches I wanted to put into some of the homemade yogurt from the other day…. which made me think they would make nice yogurt as well.

It was about the time I got in the car that I really started thinking about it…. and wondering if I’ve ever actually even had blackberries before… outside of like mixed berry or fruit salad mix type things.

 

So I got home, and while unloading the groceries I tossed about 4 at once into my mouth. 

And was not thrilled. I pretty much wrote it off as not liking them.

But tonight I decided to mix them into yogurt with some raspberries… and so I smashed the juice out of about 10 between mason jar lids above a yogurt jar then scraped the smashed part in too.

I already had stevia in it, so I decided to try it before the other berries went in… and discovered I actually liked it.

So I left that one as it was.

 

But then I tried the berries again… one at a time this time. And I figured out… what I don’t like is the middle crunchy part. Raspberries usually have that gone and are all soft.

But just smashing the berry in my mouth instead of biting down on that crunchy part, I actually really liked the flavor of the berry.

 

Gotta remember to try to figure out exactly what I don’t like in new things…. maybe sometimes it can be worked around. 

But I still don’t like kiwi. Or mangos unless mixed with other stuff like a smoothie.

Should probably start a list… fruit ratings.

Blackberries get an 8… losing 2 for texture. Mangos get a 3. Kiwi a 2.

 

 

(and bananas with nutella spread on the side gets a 10… but we aren’t even gonna ask if that’s healthy after the other day. it does have hazelnut and less calories than the peanut butter. but, um… sugar is number 1 ingredient… and its basically molten chocolate.)

Controlless counting

So as mentioned, I’m feeling like I’m pretty much up to pure chance on the job hunt… and like things are out of my power to control.

So I’ve decided to start a diet, sort of.

Which of course makes little sense. Because weight is probably the one area I feel the least able to control.

I don’t lose weight. A combination of adrenal gland being out of whack, and pcos throwing about every other single chemical level out of balance… and no matter what i eat, nothing ever seems to really happen. With the one exception of the herbalife, which stopped weight loss about the time I stopped peeing constantly.. so was probably water weight stuff.

 

But, I don’t gain weight either. It stays in about a ten pound range. No matter how badly I eat. The three big exceptions being during pregnancy, and two different spells of being on different medications that created gains and didn’t help much else.

And this is part of the bad thing. Because I use this fact as an excuse to eat junk a lot more than i should. Because it doesn’t change anything.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t what I should be eating.

And I’m sure it doesn’t help physically any even if it doesn’t create more extra weight.

 

And so this feeling that I should be watching things more. And eating as I know I should, even if it doesn’t matter.

And so the random diet. Even though I don’t feel like it will change anything…. and don’t feel like anything i do will change anything really.. but just because i should.

 

And it really makes no sense on one level. And perfect sense on another.

Interestingly enough, the night before one week was up… the night before i was going to check weight in the morning to be somewhat dissapointed still by being proven right by lack of weight loss… that night, kiddo was playing around in the tub, and got water drenching everything in the bathroom, including the scale. Which now does not work.

I’m thinking this is one of those trust things. Having faith that it is the right thing to do, in spite of lack of signs reinforcing that.

So I think it’s related somehow in the big picture… though i don’t quite get entirely how just yet.

though, unfortunately i’ve discovered i can give myself the exact same sugar crash by eating a large bowl of cantaloupe by itself as i can with a milkshake alone. also that a banana with peanut butter has more calories than 2 twinkies.

i’m still hoping the fruit is somehow being more helpful, even if by the surface it doesn’t yet show it. Because it seems like its supposed to be.

Economy hits the atm?

So I was using the local credit union’s atm… something I try to avoid, but sometimes can’t. So its been a couple of months.

But I got surprised by one of the screens. 

Where it usually tells you to enter the amount requested “in multiples of 50, 20, or 10″, this atm now says “in multiples of 20, 10, or 1″

1? interesting….  i don’t think i’ve actually even seen an atm before that would give you 1’s to allow an exact dollar amount.

but it did. kinda odd, but kinda cool.

my first thought was its probably a sign of the economy and a change in withdrawl amounts and people cutting things close to 0.

but then i needed to make a deposit of this atm cash into my local account. and i remembered… and realized its probably not the economy.

its the fact that their staff can’t figure out simple transations like making change without being asked to do each step on its own. if the atm can give you ones, at least you have an option when the staff is clueless.

Unqualified

The job ads have got to be one of the most depressing things to read.

 

Nothing like realizing that by their standards, you aren’t even qualified to deliver pizzas, wash the outside of trucks at a truck wash, or be a cashier at a random mall clothing store. 

All three are able to be picky enough right now as to require experience doing them.

I have to wonder how many experienced truck washers are around here.

Cheese and the dork

Just a random fastfood service rant… ignore away. lol!

 

So my mother sends me to pick up arby’s for everyone who was at her house. Namely, a simple order with large numbers of only 3 items, but an order filling 4 bags and nearly $40. 

I give the cashier the order. Food is prepared, and correctly even. 

And then he notices that he forgot to charge for cheese sauce on one of the groups of 5 for 595 sandwiches. The sandwiches have the cheese on them…. the 1.25 charge for adding it to them just wasn’t in the total.

So he has to call the manager over. Because he can’t just sell the cheese upgrade on its own, because it isn’t an option. 

So what does manager do?

3 minutes later he comes up with two options that they can add on that cost 1.35 together and charges me for those and makes me wait the 3 more minutes or so it takes to run the card through their system again to charge me for just the cheese sauce. 

So I ended up paying more and standing around for more than 5 minutes waiting on them, just to fix their own mistake. 

Ya know, considering the size of the order I’d just given them, and that it was something less than precise and packaged like cheese sauce, I really would have thought the better customer service option would have been to let the 1.25 go as their own mistake rather than making it into a major pain for all involved. 

I guess I just wonder sometimes what the point is with some people. Yes, the price is the price… but is it really worth it to make people annoyed with your business over something so trivial that wasn’t caused by their mistake but yours?

Whatever. I’m not the type that will vow off every eating there again. 

But you can be sure it will be come into my thoughts when arby’s is suggested as a possible choice in the near future. Is that the impression you want in your customer’s thoughts when they are deciding which restaurant of the 15 or so in a mile radius to purchase their $40 worth of food?

Favoring the poor

Exodus 23

3 And do not slant your testimony in favor of a person just because that person is poor.

 

It seems like most of the time we’re getting reminded not to oppress the poor. So this one struck me as interesting, being about the opposite.

Slanting things in their favor.. doesn’t specifically lie… and probably even has good intentions. But not fair and just anyway.

Given the context, I’d first assume this was meant regarding court. But its bringing to mind way too many media reports… putting a spin on what is said out of pity.

Did the editors have the day off?

I’m finding myself really wincing at the local news tonight. 

I realize a lot of people are hyped… but really… can we get at least a few people to interview with interesting insights?

Yes, the girl so passionate about never thinking she’d see this day is representative of many feelings. But, um… she looks roughly 20. She really didn’t think that anytime in the next 4,5,6, maybe even 7 decades she might have left here we wouldn’t have a single african american president? even if she only sees age 60, thats 10 more elections.

perhaps we can swap her for the lady who looks to be about 80 they had on. from her, it would make sense. much more sense than her discussion about how she sees her grandsons all wrapped up in drugs and gangs and now they really can be president. as if magically their possibility of making good choices popped up overnight and had never been there before.

Followed by the “now i’ll be able to get a job and all of my problems will be over” by someone i wanted to ask if was the grandson of the other lady. i believe it was bill cosby who said something about having a hard time being a doctor speaking ebonics. i find myself wondering a bit about what happens a few years down the road when obama didn’t turn out to be a fairy godfather after all, and places looking to hire still expect not to see more than 4 inches of underwear.

 

Come on… we have two large colleges in town, one of which specifically has a minority studies department, and both have various political studies classes. we have many intelligent politicians and businesspeople. 

can we please get some balance? or are you trying to make everyone look full of hype and lacking in any depth or insight for a reason here?

And its still a cookie.

Take 3 fresh (aka soft) fig newtons, in one of the non-fig flavors like strawberry.

Lay them down flat, then push all 3 together like a single bar.

The resemblance both in appearance and taste to a nutrigrain bar is striking.

But the cookies? Those are like 45 for a buck generic… making about 15 bars worth.

The bars? 6 for two or three bucks.

I’m a bit surprised they haven’t started out and out selling the cookies as nutrigrain bites at 4 times the price.

But then, I haven’t seen anything really pushing the cookies in years. Maybe they are just waiting for us to forget about them first.

Year plan is over again

I’m discovering one thing I don’t really like about the one year reading plan I use.. (http://www.oneyearbibleonline.com/ and most of the tyndale one year bibles)

Namely, that when it hits December, the New Testament heads into Revelations, while the Old is in the prophets.

As much as I think in metaphors… having a double dose of “huh?” isn’t exactly my favorite reading section.

 

But, soon we will be back into creation… and Jesus on earth, as Genesis and Matthew start again.

Sort of an interesting transition… from end of the world to the start of the world.. from the prophesy to the fulfillment.