Open-Book Exams Are The Hardest

So, we celebrated Thanksgiving, and watched our family's favorite Thanksgiving movie.

The three eldest children did an excellent job of helping me to prepare The Dinner. It was delicious. After watching the movie, we (me and DH) flopped into bed in a tryptophan-induced coma, assured by our offspring that they would put the food away; something that they had done before... usually because they want to stay up late and watch DVDs while they work.

In the morning, as is my custom the day after Thanksgiving, I walked into the kitchen to nosh on T-Day leftovers, and I couldn't find them. As the children woke up and staggered into the kitchen, I interrogated them about the location of the food.

It turns out, that the food was neatly bagged up and stashed in a portable oven on the kitchen table.

Overnight. With neither heat nor refrigeration to keep it from spoiling.

So, all of it had to be thrown out. Food that would have meant 'no cooking' for the weekend - gone.

I'd like to tell you that I was grateful that I had discovered the spoiled food first, so no one had eaten it and gotten sick.

I'd like to tell you that we opened up a few boxes of cold cereal, ate it and had a good laugh.

But, like I said in the post title, open-book exams are the hardest.

Not because the material is not available, but because you have to know how to locate and access the material in the time allotted, and show a mastery of it as well.

I failed the test.

Why?

Because, instead of doing what I should have done (been grateful, laughed it off), I lost my temper and blew my stack.

Never mind that it was a mistake, and that the children had just as much work invested in the meal as I had. Never mind that they felt as bad about it as I did, and that yelling about it wasn't going to change anything. And I won't even think about the money that was wasted in throwing that food out - it was much less than doctor and/or hospital bills for food poisoning!

Nope - I didn't stop, take a deep breath, or think.

I just reacted. From a place of fear.

Why? I've never been hungry. I've never gone without food. There has always been food to eat when I was hungry.

But somewhere, I picked up this fear that there won't be any more food if what I have is wasted. I don't mean that it is ok to waste food, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just thinking that I could have messed up a perfectly enjoyable day for our family by letting my fears grab the upper hand.

The only reason that the day wasn't destroyed wasn't because of me - it was because the children had been listening (when I'm not acting like a crazy person, lol!) to what I've been trying to do, so they apologized for their error, and ignored the rest of my rant.

Once I calmed down, we made some turkey stew (there was a little bit that was kept hot all night), and everything settled back on an even keel. We even had fun the rest of the day.

So, time to get back on that horse, and get to work. I will be counting to ten (slooowwwwwllly) before I speak, to give my brain a chance to catch up with my mouth (maybe I'll have to count verrrrrrryyyyyyyyy slooowwwwwllly, lol!!)

Open-Book Exams Are The Hardest

Healthy living

Don't you hate it when Mom is right? Exercise, get 8 hours of sleep, eat your vegetables. Turns out that good old Mom wasn't so old-fashioned after all... she was cutting edge all these years.

When my friends asked me how I lost the weight (I used to weigh 180 pounds after the birth of my last baby), I told them that I stopped eating (not recommended, long story)! Then, I explain that I drank plenty of non-carbonated, not-heavily sugared beverages (mostly iced tea, *very* lightly sweetened) whenever I thought that I was hungry, then I went on about my business. If I was hungry twenty minutes later, then I ate a reasonable meal. I found that a lot of the time, I wasn't hungry, I was thirsty! And when I did eat, I didn't want a huge amount of food.

I also learned to ignore my desire to eat when I wasn't hungry. Like a lot of people, I picked up the habit of eating when I was bored. That alone added 15 pounds to my weight, easily dropped when I started paying attention to what and when I put food in my mouth. Make no mistake, it is *not* easy. Sometimes, your body literally has a mind of its own when it comes to the last piece of chocolate cake, lol!!

Some days, at bedtime, my stomach would be growling. But I knew that I shouldn't eat another helping of dinner, not if I wanted to fit into that favorite dress that was 10 pounds too small!! So, I'd have a cup of lightly sweetened tea, and read a book before bed. Some days, I thought I'd die! But, I didn't :-).

Today, my biggest problem is my eldest... I'm closing in on her size (we share a wardrobe), so just like a typical loving daughter, she's decided that I'm suffering from a homemade doughnut deficiency, or that I need to eat more ("You're wasting away... eat!!!")... I see through her machinations... she just wants to keep my skinny clothes to herself, lol!!

I have quite a bit of work to do in my garden this fall, and when I'm done, I will have lost the last of the baby weight, and then I can wear everything in my closet... of course, now I'm thinking that I'll have to brush up on my Kung-fu skills to win the clothing battles in the morning. But it *is* a good problem to have :-)!!

©2007 LaVeda H. Mason All Rights Reserved.

Healthy living