I Love My Local Grocery Store

My local grocer is undergoing an immense, store-wide remodel. New shelving is being installed for merchandise, along with new freezer and refrigerator cases and shelving, new cash register lanes and a new extended-length salad bar. I love the new look a lot, but of course it also means that I can't find anything quickly any more. It's going to be quite beautiful when it is finished, and I already thought it was pretty darned nice. 

Both Lunds & Byerly's grocery stores have been around for more
than 50 years. They merged several years ago and have been
updating and remodeling their stores ever since. It's time for
my local branch to get a re-do and even though it's annoying
to live through, it's going to be glorious when completed. 

What brings on this topic? Yesterday, on what happened to be my "day off" and the day I normally go grocery shopping for the week, they had a "flash sale" for the day. I got the text early in the morning - "Flash Sale - Salad Bar $3.99/lb from 9 am - 9 pm only". It was limited to two pounds at this price, but you can get a lot for two pounds of salad bar. I knew what lunch would be - LOL. So I indulged in a wonderful salad bar experience and treated myself to lettuce along with extras of marinated and raw mushrooms, crab pieces, bacon, dried cranberries and fresh goat's cheese on top of my usual green things. It was delightful, and only weighed 1 lb, 6 oz, so quite inexpensive. 

Three photos of the Woodbury store after their remodel ended last
year. They've already installed the hot meal bar at my location, and
were working on the fresh vegetable department yesterday. 

I love it when I can eat healthy and still have something tasty to eat. I do eat a lot of salads because I enjoy them. I also have my weekly baked chicken meals, but salads are my mainstay. I won't be indulging in my grocer's salad bar often, the usual price is hefty. But it was a delight to have two excellent salads yesterday - the fancy one for lunch, and my more standard one for diner. A total win/win. 

The salad bar selection has more than doubled and yesterday's "Flash Sale"
was a nice introduction to their new offerings. I approve - it was a
delightful lunch. 

Tonight is "Project Runway All Stars", so tomorrow's post will be a no-spoilers synopsis and Saturday's will be the Runway looks and the final results for the week. I'm trying to remember what the designers will be working with today, but can't bring it to mind. No matter, it's Runway, it's personalities and fabric, and it's fun. Have an excellent Thursday, I'm going to enjoy our little heat wave before Sunday brings back our snow once more. 

Questioning Obesity - What is Your Perception?

Yesterday one of my LJ friends posted a very basic statement about obesity and perception. I want to pull that topic out and look at it a bit more closely today. 

Time to examine a topic of societal interest. Life isn't just fluff and bunnies, after all. 

The basic topic had been the increase in obese children and how it concerned him. All to the good! Obesity is a world-wide problem that will affect the health and well-being of 1000's of children and adults. He said the following paragraph: 

One has only to walk down the main street of this small town to see that a large percentage of children, teenagers and adults, especially females, are grossly over-weight. And the number seems to be growing. Why? Is it the wrong type of food, lack of exercise, or just plain laziness? It cannot be healthy and must at some stage become very embarrassing, especially for young girls.

(italics are my addition)

This is part of an advertising campaign for strongforlife.com. Obesity is a
problem at any age, but more children than ever are obese.  That
obesity is caused by many factors, though, not just the buffet line in the ad above. 

Now, I really don't have a problem with society perceiving obesity as an issue that is on the increase. My friend is absolutely correct - it is an epidemic in our modern society and the reasons for obese people are myriad. But I did call him to task about his words "especially females" and "especially for young girls". I called him on his terminology, because I think there are an equal number of obese males out there as females. His response was: 

Yes of course obesity and ballet are relevant to both sexes. I was very much aware of that as I was writing. ... But one must admit that one notices girls and women more than boys and men in both cases.

(once again, the italics are my addition)

Like father, like son? Obesity is not just environment and
food choices. Basic body type is genetic.
I will never be 5' 8" tall with a very low body mass index.
My personal genetic profile won't allow me to be
taller than 5' 6" and gives me a propensity to gain
weight in my midsection. 

I'm not posting this to embarrass my LJ friend at all. Some of what he was discussing truly merited comments and thought. But I am curious and throwing this out to my LJ friends. Do you notice obese females more readily than obese males? How about in children? Are the girls the first to catch your eye, or do you just notice all obese children and then mentally separate them by sex. 

Would you be more likely to ignore the weight of these
women if they were nicely dressed in finer clothing that
suits them more than the tank tops and denim? 

I do think that often obesity is forgiven and overlooked more often in males than in females. As a female who is overweight, perhaps I'm more conscious of it because I wish I was back to my weight of twenty years ago. But I've worked with obese males in the past, and their weight problems seem to often disappear under the carpet of a well-cut pinstriped suit. 

Santa Claus is one obese businessman who has made his
weight a positive instead of a negative. Can you imagine
an obese tooth fairy though? 

I know that obese children have a difficult time through school. My nephew was seriously overweight throughout school and was teased and ridiculed for years. He finally found acceptance on the football field where his weight was suddenly seen as an asset instead of a problem. 

So I ask all of you. Is society more apt to focus on an overweight female than a male? Are overweight males given more leeway and societal understanding for their physical appearance than a similarly overweight woman would be given? And how about you? Are you overweight? Have you ever received snubs or been ridiculed for your weight? I'm opening this topic to discussion, please share your experiences and feelings with me. 

Happy Friday! 

Wednesday Crazy and Diets are Expensive

As many of you know, Wednesdays are my studio days - my days off - my 'time for myself' days. That basically means three to four loads of laundry, errands in the morning, grocery shopping, food prep, and for fun - my hour-long weekly conversation with Aearwen.

I love my weekly talks with Aearwen.

Yesterday was no exception, but the schedule was all akimbo because my city, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to update all of the water meters in the homes to radio-signal types for easier reading and less personnel hours. This required an appointment with a technician carrying a new meter and a very large pipe wrench accessing pipes in a hard-to-access part of my basement while he changed things over. Of course, this appointment was in the early afternoon so I had laundry started at 3:30 am to be sure I didn't get caught in the middle without water while said technician was changing things over.

My tech wasn't this good looking. Mine was rather
young and uninteresting, although friendly. Oh - there
was no hard hat either *sigh*

But - success. The meter has now been changed and the city will have even more control over my life and available funds *sigh*. Of course I was working on a repair at the time he was working and it ended up breaking on the final knot. Nothing like being on my knees with a powerful flashlight trying to find very small beads on my basement floor *le sigh again*.

One of the things I do is grocery shopping on Wednesdays. This is when I get the things that I want to eat. I indulged in a container of mango salsa which led me to chicken breasts on which to put the salsa. Yesterday evening's dinner turned into something wonderful with a beautifully seasoned chicken breast covered with mango salsa, brown and wild rice mixed and a large salad. NOM!

I love produce - fresh veggies and fruit - NOM

Of course, I picked up a lot of grapes, two pounds of strawberries, two pounds of kiwi fruit, a bag of organic navel oranges, lettuce, a bit of cheese...can you say expensive? By the time I swiped my debit card I had racked up more than $70 in groceries and almost all of it was produce. Eating healthy is expensive!

Studio Day? Not Today :-(

Today is Wednesday. It's supposed to be my studio day. But we're doing a 3-day End of Year sale starting tomorrow and my Manager gave up most of his Tuesday day off to check pricing on our sterling silver supplies so that they could be offered in the same merchandise. So I promised that I would come in for at least part of the day to make up for his giving up his day. Isn't that more like two wrongs not making a right? Oh well, one way or another, I'm working for the morning and probably part of the afternoon.

Although I try my best to ignore the scale for the holidays, I know I've gained weight because I can feel it. I'm looking forward to New Year's because after that, I can begin to watch what I'm eating again, and hopefully build exercise back into my regime. Ideally, at least. I really need to get my body back under control, but even though I had lost weight in 2011, I need to keep that trend going in 2012.

And I finally got a First Place in A Long Expected Contest. The fact that I had the only entry...well, I'll just call this a nice Solstice gift, because I'm pleased with the story I submitted. I'm grateful, though, that friends of mine didn't submit that month, so "thank you's" are going out to Aearwen and Fiondil. LOL. I'll be posting the story in my usual places tonight when I get back to my computer.

Saturday - A Day of Recovery

I love the Holiday season for many reasons, and dislike it for as many. My reasons for dislike center around the long hours that I work, the hectic deadlines of getting gifts ready on time and shipped for others who have purchased items from me, and the family obligations when often I would rather crawl underneath a rock and escape to some solitude. The reasons for loving the Holiday season center around a celebration of the continuation of the progression of the year, the traditional foods that we prepare and eat at this time of the year, and the joy of watching someone that I love opening the perfect gift for them. Right now, looking at my bathroom scale, the dislike is outweighing the love by about 5 pounds. OOOK!

I had been doing really well at starting to lose this extra weight that I have been wanting to lose. Then my Honey Baked Spiral Cut Ham arrived, and my traditional Chex Mix was made, and the holiday cookies were purchased, and my "diet" or at least my "controlled eating" went to heck in a handbasket. I know I'll lose the weight again - it's just a setback that happened so quickly - within five days. So, my goal is to finish eating all of these wonderful things as quickly as possible (only one more week until New Year's and a new start to the calendrical year) and then I can get back on track.

At least the food doesn't affect my creativity - LOL. I won't be able to enamel this coming Wednesday because of time constraints for my end of the year requirements at the shop, but I am already looking forward to my first enamel day of January. I also got this wonderful new mini from Dark Sword Miniatures to paint - I need to get her cleaned, primed, and ready to go. I already know the color scheme that I want for her. So creativity goes on, despite other more mundane issues. Enjoy your weekend, take an hour to cut out a snowflake or color in a new coloring book.