United States of Me

A slightly fascinating (well, to me anyways) exercise about food triggers:

Situation #1: My afternoon sugar binge is named Janice. She comes around loud and pushy until I can't think of anything else. She wears loud colors, like orange polyester pantsuits.

Me: Why do you show up when you do?

J: I can sense when you need me. When you need some flair and joy. Something to perk you up.

Me: What color describes your mood.

J: Rosey pink. Always cheery and homey. Like fresh baked cookies on a sunny day.

Me: What else should I know about you?

J: I move fast. Once I'm alerted, I come like a whirlwind. You can't stop me. Don't even try. I know best.

Me: What if I want to feel those feelings?

J: Why would you want to feel bad? That's silly.

Me: Maybe I want to deal with what's causing them.

J: It's no good to wallow. Best to do something to make yourself cheery right away. Besides, don't you like baking cookies and eating cake? Who wouldn't want to do that?

Me: Uh...it makes me feel sick sometimes.

J: [has no answer to this]

Me: Also it makes me fat.

J: Who cares what other people think?

Me: It's not about other people. It's about me feeling slim and energetic and able to work on the things in my life that make me unhappy instead of pretending they don't exist.

J: Shush. Here. Eat a cookie.

Janice is a slippery one and avoids all my reasoning. She cannot be reasoned with, like a born-again Christian. She believes in what she does too hard.

Situation #2: Being hurt or sick

I envision a pathetic looking man with a cast on his leg. His name is Harry. He sits on the couch eating all day because it hurts too much or takes too much effort to do anything else.

Me: Why do you show up when you do?

H: [waves at broken leg] Isn't it obvious?

Me: What color describes your intention?
H: Beige. The world is washed out for you during that time. The only thing that brings color are food, TV, or drugs. I bring them for you.

Me: Wouldn't it be better to care for my sickness with healthy food?

H: That would take too much work. Also, what would you do for all those long hours of sitting around? Eat salmon and legumes? You're sick/hurt. You're allowed to indulge. Sick people get whatever they want. Plus the good feelings and seratonin that things like ice cream bring actually help you heal faster.

Me: Really?

H: Probably.

Me: Why do you stay around so long, even after I don't need you?

H: I'm too lazy to move.

Me: It would be better if I didn't eat so much when I get hurt. If I lost weight, my back and knees would not hurt so often in the first place.

H: Are you sure about that? Your mom always told you that bad joints run in the family. Look at your brother. He's in good shape and he has some of the same problems. So you might as well comfort yourself as well as you can now. You will spend most of your middle ages in pain and probably die young.

Me: First of all, it doesn't have to be that way. I'm sure of it. Second, my brother definitely has LESS troubles than me. What else should I know about you, Harry?

H: I'm just trying to be your friend when you're sad and lonely and in pain. I know how helpless you feel. You feel like it will never end. So I'll stick it out with you. Heck, I'll stay here even longer than that...

#3 is more of a “batch” of triggers. I think these all come from the same place, so I'm grouping them together. Also, separately they would not be that much, like if I only did one of them it would be fine. Taken as a group, it adds up to a lot of extra calories in a year. It's the special occasion eating. Dinners out with friends and my husband. Parties, like BBQ or football parties from friends. Company Christmas parties. Vacations. When people are in town visiting. Birthdays. Saturday nights. SF Beer Week. The Fancy Food show. This is when the party girl in me emerges and declares that you aren't living unless you're having fun, and eating and drinking are definitely fun.

Let's call her Minnie.

Minnie wears a sausage dress and carries a sparkly purse. She has long hair and talks a lot.

Me: Why do you show up when you do?

Minnie: To have fun! Life should be fun.

Me: What is your intent?

Minnie: To help you live your life to the fullest. Carpe diem. Life every day like it's your last, and all that.

Me: I can do that without you.

Minnie: No you can't. You sit home and read books or spend all day in a coffee shop. You get overwhelmed at big parties and try to stand in the corner.

Me: Describe your personality.

Minnie: I'm outgoing and energetic. I can hold my liquor. I like meeting and talking to different people and seeing things. I don't get tired easily. People like me because I'm fun. I don't say dorky things. Also, men find me very attractive.

Me: Whoa, you think very highly of yourself.

Minnie: I'm just confident. It's all true. This is what people are like who go out and get things instead of being frozen by fear.

Me: So then why do you just show up to get me to eat at parties? Why don't you come around during job interviews?

Minnie: Booooooring. I show up to have fun. Otherwise I'll stay home and sleep or get a manicure.

Me: What would be so bad about eating a reasonable amount of food at a party and talking to the few people I know?

Minnie: You tell me. You get all nervous and tense and want to go home right away. Like at D's birthday. If you hadn't known there were cupcakes coming, you would have left an hour earlier.

Me: I just feel like there are better things to do with my time. I could be home writing or working on my business. I could get better sleep to have better energy the next day and work out and clean my house. I could learn to play the banjo.

Minnie: If you actually did things like write or take banjo lessons, that would be great. I'd let you go. But you never do. You find other distractions that never lead anywhere. You spend your time frozen with uncertainly and don't accomplish anything. As for the other things, boooooring. So you might as well stay and party. At least then you have friends and memories.

Women and Beer

So there's this thing called Squidoo that is supposed to be able to help your page rank and drive more traffic to your site. I made one for the beer stuff:
http://www.squidoo.com/womenlovebeer
It can't hurt, and I can write about anything I want, which is kinda fun. I feel like I have to be professional and legitimate on Beer at Joe's.
Also, I'm being profiled by and writing a guest post for another beer blog. I'll give y'all a link when it goes up.

Camp 20 Cabins, Laona, WI

I finished the new cabin website a few weeks ago. Check it out: Camp 20 Cabins.

Winter Solstice

Every year, Muir Woods Park Services hold a Winter Solstice party. There were bonfires and singing and free apple cider. But the most amazing things are the candles. They're just little tea lights in white paper bags, but the rangers line all the main paved paths in the beginning part of the park. We wandered through once when it was just getting dark, and I'm glad we did. You could still see the redwoods stretching above you, but you could see the candles stretching into the woods like fairy lights too. A few hours later, that's ALL you could see. Our camera isn't good enough to capture all those, but we got a few decent closeup shots (see me above!) It got SO COLD, but it just made you want to huddle around the bonfires. Our night ended with watching a group of men do what I can only assume is a traditional pagan dance to the sound of a recorder. The best (and first) solstice celebration I've been too!

Silly things

And so this is Xmas,
I hope you have Jasmine.

Merry Xmas (War is Over)
from the Christmas Song Generator.

Get your own song :

Ahahahahahahahaha!
And almost as funny:

I'm dreaming of a white Jasmine,
Just like the ones we used to know.

White Christmas
from the Christmas Song Generator.

Get your own song :

In real news, I'm making peanut butter kiss cookies today and I did the thing where you substitute unsweetened applesauce for half the butter and before I got all the other ingredients in there they tasted like apple peanut butter cookies which is not a bad thing. Not bad at all. Now we just have to see if they will hold their balls.
We're going to get a Christmas tree tomorrow!

Hotlanta

We're back from Atlanta! We didn't actually see much of the city, of course, being almost entirely wrapped up in Bar Mitzvah activities, but the skyline was pretty :)
Also, it was colder than I expected. Not like Wisconsin or Delaware cold, but cold enough to require a sweatshirt and hat at night.
I met Joe's "extended" family at this gathering. His Aunt Jacki is really his godmother, and an old friend of his dad's, but Joe thinks of them all as family. His cousins are really cool, and very easy to hang out with.
As soon as we got to the hotel (the Hyatt), a hotel employee met us at the door, told us they were overbooked, and sent us "next door" to the Hilton. The Hilton was actually half a mile down the road.
Nobody explained anything to us. The Hyatt gave us a letter saying they were paying for the night, but we assumed we were still paying for the original room...we were very confused. Also the Hilton did not have free breakfast and that annoyed me too. In the end, it turned out we got our first night FREE which made me very happy. If only they would have explained that to us in the first place, I wouldn't have gotten all irritated with them. Also, we came and got our free breakfast from them Saturday morning anyways!

Our Fun New Project

Because you know you've missed watching Joe drink beer on a couch:
http://www.beeratjoes.com/
Don't worry, I'll make some appearances eventually. But I'm more of a behind-the-camera, writing the post text, kind of gal.
Eventually, though, I hope to do a women in beer and beer for non-beer drinkers series (if we managed to find a beer my mom likes, I should be able to please anyone!)