Back it up...

Where were you?? I waited all night but you never came, so I left. I've been worried sick! Are you okay? What? That was me? I didn't show up? Oh. Uhm. That is correct.

Yesterday I went to this killer grocery store extravaganza called Jungle Jim's. I may have driven 5 minutes to get there or I may have driven 2 hours to get there. You will not be able to hone in on my co-ordinates based on the information I supply to you. Nosy. Stalker. Anywho, I needed to stock up on Amish chicken breast. I put out an all-call on facebook as to whether or not that was a marketing buzz word for jacked-up hormonal cruelty chicken (yes, yes, vegans – I get it. Eating any animal is cruel. I know. I know.) or if it was a legit thing that would be a viable alternative to billion dollar a pound organic chicken. The first answer I got was that it was chicken raised without electricity. I don't know if she was being serious or funny but that is hilarious. And true. And hilarious. The next answer was a bit more informative and was the long and short of it. It's not mass produced by big business meat peeps. And that is a big deal. I'm telling you. Watch some of my recommended food docs and it changes you. Food, Inc. Wow. When I called up the Jungle Jim's meat department, they clarified that the Amish chicken they carry is antibiotic and hormone free. It's also gluten-free. Which I find very fascinating. So, Amish chicken – not made of wheat. I trucked it on up there (you don't get to know what kind of car I drive!! Nosy. Stalker. Also – I have like 17 kids and I'm a mom so do the math. Yes, it's a mini-van. But I am a COOL mini-van mom. Like the kind that puts reindeer antlers and a Rudolph nose on my car for Christmas but then I remember to take off the antlers but NOT the nose so I spend plenty of the new year driving around with a ginormous red nose attached to my hood. It's alright. I just pretend it's a clown car.). I bought about 12 packages o' Amish chicken because it was $2.99 a pound. A dollar more than my previous target price for chicken but I think that is a price worth paying. I've done my part to raise a few barns. My total for that trip was $165. Yeah. So what that means is that I have already spent ½ my grocery budget and we are only 4 days into the month. BUT I don't have to buy much in the way of meat for at least the rest of the month and a big portion of next month and here is why. Venison. I have about 2 deer worth of meat in my freezer right now. It's pretty guaranteed to be organic. The price was unbelievable. And it's fresh. I know that because it takes a lot to get used to the smell as it's cooking. I still have to mix in some regular mass produced ground meat to cut the flavor a bit when I'm making chili and pasta and such but I'm hoping that I can decrease the addition gradually as time goes on. The other reason that my food bill was so high is that I bought 13 boxes of Kashi waffles. Yes. 13. Because they were $1.49 a box and that is well over ½ off each and that's what Hubs eats for breakfast every morning – a peanut butter and jelly waffle sandwich- so we go through quite a few waffles. I'm playing it fast and loose with the expiration on those babies but it's Hubs eating it, not me. What? He'll be fine! I bought more fruits and veggies and plan on making juices and some kale chips with my goodies. Speaking of which, I thought I would include juice recipes with you as a public service. Last night the juice was made of fennel bulb and stalks, blueberries, strawberries, two golden delicious apples, ginger and Swiss chard. I enjoyed it very much! We now return to our regularly scheduled blog entry. Uhm, I also bought some clearance Christmas goodness. Look. If you saw a pistachio toffee bar made with Belgian chocolate, Wisconsin butter, sea salt and pistachios for .99 what would you do? What would you do? Well, if you would walk away, you are a far stronger self than I. I bought that sucker. I ate it too. And I'd do it again. Probably you would have walked away from the .99 Bahlsen gingerbread assortment cookie bag that made you nostalgic for when you lived in Belgium too. Pphtt. Whatever.

When I went to Jungle Jim's, I wore a pair of shoes that I don't wear much. I really like them but there are others that I like even more so they don't always make the cut. But I wandered around for well over 2 hours (what?? I'm a search and seize shopper!) and those shoes have NO arch support. Or heel support. Basically, their whole existence is based on being foot covering and nominally cute. I have been having MUCH back trouble lately and that did not help at all. One might say that in fact, it did more harm than good. I might say that. I am saying that. It killed my back. I've got to figure out something to do to have a better back. I think yoga would help. I don't have a foundation as to why that would be better than another form of exercise. I think it's purely based on the fact that you are nearly required to wear some of the most comfortable pants around while doing it. It says so right on the apparel – yoga pants. Also, it's a fairly relaxed atmosphere with no jumping up and down staring at the instructor who has every bit of business jumping up and down because she is all taut and tone and such. Yoga instructors look all taut and tone too but it's not as in your face as jumping up and down is. It feels more attainable to look like them. Even if it's not. Probably I should wear some more sensible shoes. Like today, I should be sporting a pair of Birkies, but I'm not. For one thing, I'm not a hippie or over the age of 60. For another, the only pair I own have all myriad color stripes. They don't go with my outfit. And finally, some might count this as reason three, but I don't- Hubs hates them. Like wants to throw them out hates them. That's okay. He has some apparel that I do not care for. Of course, it's apparel that I have moved to a different portion of the closet to see if he notices and looks for it so that I can take it a step further and just toss out already. So far, he hasn't noticed. Fingers crossed! Also, I get compliments on those shoes EVERY time I wear them. Compliments trump hate, every time. So, I've checked out orthopedic shoes and we have a problem. They are NOT cute. If you have foot or back problems, you are not allowed to have stylish or trendy shoes. And if you are allowed to have trendy or stylish shoes, it's because you severed an arm and a leg to pay for them. I might be reduced to buying a Dr. Scholl's product that compels men to proclaim that they are gellin' like a felon or some stupid non-nonsensical rhyming comparison. Anywho, I spent most of last night laid up on the couch trying to be still and trying not to burn myself with a heating pad. And playing Cleopatra's Pyramid card game on my iPhone. Because none of my Words with Friends friends are being too friendly. Ahem. Play your words, friends!! Quit acting like you have a life and such! Sheesh. Productive people are soooo... inspirational. Yeah. That's what they are. So, that's the scoop on where I was last night and why I didn't come out to play. Perhaps that was the perfect posture from which to write a blog entry. But I didn't do that. Because I was kind of still feeling sheepish about my day what with spending $165 at the store. And because of this next bit...

I also went to a store that rhymes with Appall-Mart. I hate, HATE that I need anything from that store. And if I take the time to really evaluate the situation, I don't NEED anything at that store. But from time to time, you can't buy some things at the grocery, not even at somewhere as awesome as Jungle Jim's. And I can't afford to shop at environmentally friendly (what IS that?? You have to be rich to love the planet properly. Slow down, one soap box at a time...), ergonomic, recycled from batteries and diapers, vegan store of home products. We needed a space heater for “the Saudi”'s room. He comes from a desert and finds our climates below the 120 degree mark a bit chilly. His space heater stopped working so, being the hostly hosts that we are, I needed to replace it. Now, I'm trying to hold true to that stuff in my "about me" box that says that I'm not here to judge. So, if that link embedded in my Appall-Mart reference just offended you, well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm merely showing you someone else's impressions of the situation and letting YOU judge. And really, if you are going to go out in public like that, you are just asking for it. I'm just keeping it real. Have you ever noticed when a thug, I mean a person, says that he or she is keeping it real, it's always about anyone and everyone but themselves. It's true. But, I'm here to keep it real, for real. I'm calling myself out. And it's not easy because I am no jokes ashamed of myself. I felt like the most appalling thing at that mart. Here's what happened. I heard a woman yelling at her kid. And, that is NOT stand-out behavior at the mart. People yell and curse at other people, including children, all the time there. Unfortunately, you let it become the soundtrack that you ignore as you speed through like a bat out of hell to get out of there already. But I happened to glance over and caught her spanking her little boy. We could have a HUGE debate on the merits and demerits over spanking. But this isn't about that. This is about the fact that after she spanked this roughly 3 year old little boy, she yelled at him more about being quiet. You know, because she was spanking him and humiliating him in public and he was crying because he was hurt. Then, she spanked him again and told him to walk right. I stood frozen. I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to stop her from hurting that little boy- because whether he was all weather padded and couldn't feel the spanks or not, if he wasn't feeling it physically, it was making it's mark emotionally. But I didn't yell at her. I didn't come to that boy's rescue. And it makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it and it makes my soul ache to relay it. So, here is my next resolution:

4. Be a Stand-up Girl.  Did you know that there are people who put their lives on the line to rescue girls out of sexual slavery in India? They set up stings and try to fight a mostly fully corrupt police force to rescue girls so broken that they sometimes run away from the rescuers and return to the life they have resigned themselves to. These people work undercover with people who would happily kill them to protect a BILLION dollar industry. One of the men who worked with this organization is on staff now at my church. He heads up the initiatives that our church is doing to help combat this atrocity. I am in awe of Don and the things that he has seen and what he has put on the line to make things right. He has a wife and kids and they all lived in India while he fought for justice. And here I am, in my own neighborhood, looking at someone without his own little voice getting hurt and I'm being a coward. Why? Well, for one thing, the neighborhood I live in, it's not all the time safe. This mart serves one of the poorest areas in the city. As well as one of the most dangerous. Yeah. I was afraid that I would piss someone off that would hurt me. I put my life first. And, I think about the fact that I put Hubs and my kids first along with me. If that woman decided to hurt me, to some degree, that hurts my family. Would I really have been risking my life if I had called that woman out and told her to stop? Probably not. But I was too chicken to find out. Fear is the faith of the enemy. You can determine if that is the enemy of awful, disgusting people who prey on the innocent or if it means a far more looming darkness of the opponent of God. For me, they pretty much equal out to be the same. Either way, the same holds true. Fear is used to oppress and keep the status-quo, or to downgrade the status-quo to even worse. Bad people count on apathy, fear, and people burying their heads in the sand. God's call is to wake up and stand up and fight – especially for those who have no fight left or who have been rendered voiceless. We are called not to be worriers but to be warriors. It's not enough that Hubs and I are pouring money into our church to funnel out to fund homes where these girls can be rehabilitated. It's not enough for me to be careful about where I spend my money so that I am not supporting industries or countries or individuals who objectify, dehumanize and use people up and throw them away. It's not okay that I leave the voice to others. That I leave the back-breaking hard-core out in the field dismantling a hydra work to others while I shuffle around or straight up run away. God made me a warrior. If you know me, you know that I can be combative. If you are Hubs, you know that I am nearly always combative. I don't think that God made me the warrior that people in organizations like IJM and Invisible Children or so many other outstanding organizations are. And that doesn't come from a place of denial or fear. God makes all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. Some of us are supposed to be out in the field and some of us are supposed to be supporting them. But we are all called to say stop. Stop treating God's child this way. Stop treating my brother or sister of the human race this way. I don't care if you believe in God or not. Okay, I do care but that's a story for a different day. Whether you believe in God or not, you likely believe in a benevolence that we are all supposed to uphold to have a society. Whether you are Democrat or Republican or any color of the spectrum, we are all in this together. Me. I gotta take a stand. I have to start saying Stop. STOP!

So that's it for today. I have a back-bone to build. Smooch.