DAY 212 -- My mom and bread.

Yesterday as we were purchasing groceries, I noticed the people at the cash register in front of us had a loaf of Wonder Bread in their basket.  And I "wondered"... do people actually still buy that kind of bread nowadays?  I didn't even realize it was still on the market.

My mother never allowed us to eat Wonder Bread.  First of all, she didn't approve of the light-weight white flour sliced bread.  You know... the kind you could wad up in your hands to form a big blob of dough to eat.  Then there came a time when some renters ditched out of an apartment my parents had rented out.  It was about a month before they knew for certain the renters were not returning, so my mom and I went in to clean out the stray items left behind in their hasty exit.  In the kitchen cupboards, mom found a loaf of Wonder Bread.  After all that time, it was not even moldy.

Now some might claim that as a testament as to how "wonder"ful the bread was since it lasted so long.  But in reality, it was a testament as to how many chemicals and preservatives were in a loaf of that bread.  That clinched the Wonder Bread Ban at our house.

We didn't suffer too much, though...my mom made terrific homemade bread.  I have fond memories of sitting around the kitchen table, eating mom's freshly made mulit-grain bread with homemade jam.  Mmm. Mmm. Mmm!  Mom developed her own recipe for the multi-grain bread and was often told she ought to market it, but she never did.

Making sandwiches out of homemade bread was a little tougher since it was hard to slice it thin enough, so we had store bought bread too.  But usually not the fluffy white stuff.  

Between seeing the Wonder Bread in the grocery cart and making homemade rye bread yesterday, then trying my hand at homemade raisin bread today, I'm missing my mom.  And wondering if she ever wrote down the recipe for her famous bread.  Sure wish I had the recipe, and definitely wish I had my mom.

DAY 211 -- Good deal, good bread, and good people.

This morning I bought an Oster bread machine for $15 at a garage sale.  Good deal!

Then this afternoon I made dark rye bread, using a recipe recommended by a reader (thanks Susan!).  It turned out fantastic.  Good bread!

But I hope you don't mind if the remainder of this post is about... Good people!

For back story... last night as my husband drove home from work in our one and only car, he realized the alternator had gone out.  We already had an appointment with our mechanic for this Monday to replace the alternator and hoped it would function until then, but it was not meant to be.  He made it home, and as we discussed the situation, we decided to hurry and drive it to our mechanic's place (two miles away) while there was still some juice left in the battery.

We made it there safely, and parked the car near the mechanic's garage where he works behind his home. We left our key and a note in his dropbox, letting him know we would pick it up on Tuesday if it was ready.  Then we walked home.

Around noon today, the mechanic called.  Our car was ready!  He explained that he saw our car parked by his place last night, and since he knew we only had the one vehicle, he decided to get up extra early this morning and work on it so he could get it back to us.

That's right.  Extra early on a Saturday.  His day off.  Talk about above and beyond the call of duty!  His kindness touched us.

Another good person was at the yard sale this morning, where I bought the bread machine. It was a large sale with multiple people contributing.  While I gathered my purchase, a man holding a small tea tin approached the woman in charge.  He explained that he bought it from her "booth" earlier, had taken it home and discovered something out of the ordinary inside, so he returned to the garage sale.  He asked the woman if the tin belonged to her or if she had been selling it for someone else in the complex.  She told him it had belonged to her sister who had passed away, so technically it was hers.  The man told her, "Then the money inside should be yours too," and pulled out a wad of cash.  Six hundred dollars.  She broke down in tears.

There are such good people in this world and I wanted to share it on my blog.  It doesn't have anything to do with healthy eating, but certainly has to do with the health of our society.  May we all live near such people.  And may we all be such people.

DAY 210 -- Poem: Growth

When I posted about Last Bites Mulligan Stew, a reader commented, "It goes to waste if it goes to waist."  Very well said.  It reminded me of a poem, "Growth," I found in a diet book years ago.  


Then this morning I read a blog post about clutter that, for me, served as a reminder of how my time and life are wasted when I overeat, since overeating clutters my body.  Again, the aforementioned poem came to mind.


Even though I cannot give credit to the author of the poem since I failed to record it those years ago, I feel the need to share the poem...and to hang a copy on my fridge.

GROWTH

I can learn to

Give away food and

Throw away food

and leave food

Because

It's wasted

If I eat it.

Time is wasted

By being fat

My aliveness is wasted

and I don't want that.