The real estate agent wants us to list the trailer for less than what we bought it for. *I don’t think so.* We’ll wait until this time next year to put the trailer on the market.

First the snub from my former employer and now this. It’s been a disappointing day.

And I was so looking forward to being in a house. A house with a basement. A house with space.

I got my Baker Creek seeds in today. The package included

Boston Pickling Cucumber
Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumber
Tigger Asian Melons
Sweet Yellow Stuffing Sweet Peppers
Connecticut Field Pumpkin
Early Prolific Straightneck Summer Squash
Pink Brandywine Tomato (free gift!)

This year when I did my seed selection I tried to be cognizant of my climate (zone 4, I believe). There were a few things I couldn’t help but buy though. The Tigger melons are an example. Oh, Spring, please come soon! I want to dig in the dirt.

Oh, an regarding the Seed Swap, our Idahoian friend, Peppy, still has the seeds. I don’t know what she chose, though (hint hint).

Here’s a list of the seeds from High Mowing which I received a few weeks back.

I woke up this morning to Sun’s beautiful rays, Sky’s blueness, and warmish Air. It was warm enough that I didn’t need a hat or gloves, nor did I need to zip my jacket. Such a tease for Spring.

It’ll be short lived however. Freezing rain is moving in tonight. I guess it’s good in the sense it’s a primer for Spring but freezing rain sucks. I’ll take snow over freezing rain any day.

Spring! Spring! Spring!

(chant with me)

Spring! Spring! Spring!

I had this memory sneak into my brain a few minutes ago. I want to write it down before it flitters away.

Papa Ginos, my home town. I’m in either Junior High or High School. I’m sitting with Jessica K. along the front windows. She’s sitting across from me and she’s doing something weird to her pizza. I ask her what’s she’s doing and she says “don’t look. I hate pizza sauce so I scrape it off, then put the cheese back on, but I don’t want you to watch because it’s gross.”

End of memory.

Again.

NO MORE! I CAN”T TAKE IT ANY LONGER!

Over the last few years I’ve tried made significant progress on the path of “eating right.” I quote that because I really don’t know how to “eat right.” That is, I know to stay away from processed foods, I know to stay away from industrialized foods. But there are times when I can’t. And I mean two things by “I can’t”. First, it’s just too expensive to all healthy food. I grow what I can — I learned to can last year to preserve the harvest — and buy “organic” and “natural” foods when I can, but often times it’s cost prohibitive.

Second I mean there are times when my impulse to eat potato chips is just so overwhelming I don’t know how to stop myself. But I have learned to cut down on the *amount* of junk I eat. No more do I binge on Slim Jims or eat an entire bag of chips in one sitting. Now I put some chips in a bowl and eat until the bowl is empty. This may not seem significant to you but it’s huge to me.

Recently I gave up a decade of vegetarianism because, well, I’ve gained 50 pounds in that decade. And I don’t think weighing 180 lb at 5′4″ is healthy. Maybe it is for someone else but not for me. There was a time I wanted to go vegan but every ounce of my body said no. Not that I eat much dairy to begin with. I *loathe* milk and have since I was a kid. I don’t remember the last time I had a glass of milk. I do eat cheese but not a lot. By that I mean, not more than once a week usually. I do eat goat cheese, which I very much like, and soy milk in oatmeal or the rare bowl of cereal, but I won’t drink a glass of soy milk (eww).

Carbs seem to be my weight-gaining trigger. And it’s not that I want to lose weight to the point where I look like a concentration camp survivor. I want to be a round 140lb, give or take 10 so when I read this post it struck a cord. You see, nothing appeals to me more than bread. I *heart* bread. Bread can be a entire meal for me. Bread dipped in olive oil, bread spread with butter* and preserves and a cup of tea, just like Nana and Ma used to make. I love bread. I love carbs. I can’t imagine cutting them out of my diet.

I eat bread every day. Be it 1 piece of toast in the morning, a tuna sandwich at lunch, and whatever’s for dinner, bread is pretty much a staple in my diet. Rice is too. Wolf and I eat a lot of rice. Usually that’s the carb we have for dinner. Rice and kalamata olives or rice and veggies, or rice and something. Rice, bread. Those are the lynch pins of my diet.

As much as I love veggies, if I don’t eat carbs with a meal, I’m hungry very quickly. And that’s when I get into trouble. When I’m hungry I can’t control my impulses. That’s when I do and say things I later regret. I can’t concentrate when I’m hungry. I get irritable. Bitchy. Rude. Dismissive. I’ve combated this by staying full, by keeping food with me. And that’s where the weight comes.

Learning how to eat when no one’s looking was easy. I’ve had the perfect model: Ma. You rarely see her eat — aside from the three staple meals — but if you look in her purse, car, desk, you’ll see all kinds of snickers wrappers, potato chip bags, etc. I’ve had the template to secretly eat before my eyes for the majority of my life. And I’ve taken on some of her tactics. But I’m noticing now detrimental secret eating is for my body (hers too but that’s another post) so I’m making an effort to stop the secret eating by not bringing food with me in the car and by keeping myself cash free.

But I I need to purge the toxins out of my body to eliminate the cravings.

And then I wonder if I’m just following a fad. I went on a fast two years ago May. For 10 days** I did the master cleanse. It was the first step in healthy eating for me, and a way to protest the Iraq War. And it was a first step for me. I had hoped it would “cure” the loose bowels I have every day*** but that didn’t happen. I did, however, purge the need to eat cheese almost every day. While I haven’t lost any weight, I have become more sensitive to junk foods and I *have* cut down on what I eat. But I feel myself slipping back so I”m thinking of doing the fast again later this year (in the summer when lemons are more abundant). I won’t do the 40 days, I think that’s too much, but I will do another 10 days.

What other changes do I have to make? Obviously the junk food. I’m going to ask Wolf again, to stop buying junk food. He did for a while but then we fell off the wagon. I’m not going to beat us up about this. Everyday is a new day and it’s an opportunity to eliminate industrial food from our diets. So again I will try today. And tomorrow. And if the only results I see is a decrease in the amount of junk food I eat, then that’s a success.

Yes I want there to be a day when I look at chips and say “no thank you.” And to give myself credit, I have. One thing I’ve learned about myself and food is if I don’t eat it I don’t want it. Well, that’s not totally true. Totally true is more like “When I give into the temptation to eat junk, I can’t stop. So if I don’t eat it at all, I’m ok.” It’s like me and beer. I can’t have one. I can’t drink responsibly, so I don’t drink at all. I have to take the same approach junk food. It’ll take time like eliminating alcohol did. I just have to be patient with myself.

There’s an herbalist class I want to take but I can’t come up with the money. I am really very sad about this because the woman who’s teaching the class will be retiring. And the reason I want to be an herbalist, besides the spiritual connection to Our Mother, is to learn how to care for my body, and Wolf’s and our pets’, in a better way. In an appropriate way. In a way in which we listen to our bodies and treat them with the ingredients we have in abundance.

What I wonder is why we’re killing ourselves. Really, what is wrong with our brains that we, as humans, are poisoning our food and water. We’re poisoning ourselves and others.

*Hannaford brand butter, but still butter. Not margarine or any of those other yucky substitutes. We haven’t found a local source for real butter but, honestly, we haven’t looked too hard.

**I was planning on doing it for 40 days but lasted 10. My GERD was unbearable and I found out I was going to DC unexpectedly with a 14 year old so I ended the fast early to stop the stomach pain and so I could be alert while in DC with Jacob.

***I found out what’s causing this: our well water. Whenever I go away for 2 days my bowels return to normal. In order to treat the well we risk contaminating it even more so we’ve not done anything about it. One thing I can say, though. For the first time in my life I poop everyday at the same time. That is, I’m “regular”. Americans spend millions of dollars trying to “get regular” with pharmaceuticals such as Metamucil.

We’ve decided to put the trailer on the market. I don’t think we’ll sell for at least a year or two, which is fine. It gives us time to save some money for a down payment. Wolf said he’s going to get a second job after he heals from his surgery to help propel us into a better house.

I start my new job on Feb 4 which will help our financial situation. I know we should wait to move until we get my student loans “under control” (whatever that means. I didn’t way to say “paid off” because that’ll take at least a decade. And I’m not staying here that long.) but I can’t take another winter with this driveway. Obviously I’ll have to cope but if I know we’re taking steps to getting us into a house I can hack the driveway.

Still on the list is to buy land and build, but I don’t think we’ll come up with the money for something like that. Not unless $2 million falls out of the sky.

We looked at a house up on the mountain. It has a wonderful living room and kitchen but the three bedrooms are minuscule and there’s no basement, nor an attic, so no storage space. The yard is awesome as is the land attached to it (4 acres) but it being so far up the mountain we’re not sure where it is on the town’s priority list regarding plowing the road. And, as I said, it felt too cramped. The whole point of moving out of the trailer is to get into a house with space.

Another house we looked at was in town. It’s a *beautiful* 1906 New Englander. It so reminded me of Nana’s and Aunt Nancy’s. I was in love with the house immediately. However, it’s too much house for us. It has four bedrooms, all small but the master, with an attic and basement. It’s on a small plot with some open area and some wooded. It’s too much money for us though. And, like I said, it’s a little too big. The heating costs alone will kill us.

Since we’re in no rush to move we can be choosy. And we’re going to be. When we bought this place it was the only place we could afford. I don’t want to do that again and neither does Wolf. I asked him to make a list of “non-negotiable” requirements. On his list is

Minimum 1200 square feet (not including basement or attic)

Minimum 1/2 acre

Attic or basement or third floor

Newer home or an old one in fantastic condition

NO STEEP DRIVEWAY

My list look similar

Minimum 1200 square feet (not including basement or attic)

Minimum 1 acre

Basement

Space for woodstove if there isn’t one already

South facing with good sunlight for gardening

NO STEEP DRIVEWAY

We plan on staying here in town because we like it here. Wolf’s on the fire department and I like the quietness of the town. Besides, it’s between our jobs: Wolf an hour south and me an hour north.