How do you grocery shop when you live in a bubble?

The inside of my refrigerator tells a subtle tale of the last week.

Yep, it is clean, but we had no food.

It was last Thursday when I officially realized we had no food. I managed to make dinner with some frozen pork chops that I found in the freezer and apples left over from a jaunt to an apple orchard in September. And it was tasty. Thank God for the Internet as it is a great resource in finding recipes that meet paltry ingredient list requirements.

The following night, dear husband had the left over pork chops for dinner and I ate a English muffin with cream cheese, along with some blueberries and yogurt that was set to expire in a couple of days. I wasn't too concern about the yogurt's level of quality. It’s yogurt. Isn’t it already spoiled milk?

It was Saturday afternoon before one of went to the grocery store. Dear husband blinked first and he did the thankless, but necessary, task. It is out of pure laziness that I didn't go out and fix this problem earlier in the week. On Thursday night I went to a spinning class, followed up with a Body Step class on Friday evening. What was dear husband’s excuse, you ask? He claimed he was too tired to do anything other than put darling daughter to bed and pick up toys off the living room floor.

Now, since I’m a stay at home mom, it would make sense that I would go out to the grocery store and buy my family groceries. But since all this H1N1 stuff has happened, I am very careful where I take darling daughter. I thought about stuffing a couple of disinfectant wipes in a Ziplock bag to wipe down the grocery cart, but that still wouldn’t prevent her contracting a cold or the flu if someone was to cough or sneeze. The poor kid. The only time she has left the house was a week ago tomorrow for Kindermusik. And now since Kindermusik is now over, I have no clue when she’ll leave the house. We were suppose to go to a playdate this morning, but I had to cancel because I have a cough and it looks like I may be coming down with a cold. So much for bubble living because it seems the germs can still infect my imaginary force field.

So basically we are suffering from bubble syndrome. And I’m not alone. I surmise from conversations from other moms many feel like they are living in a bubble, trying to limit their children’s interaction with the outside world. And who can blame them or me for that matter? But living in a bubble is boring. And I’m unsure how much longer I can take of this. A woman can only listen to Fred Penner so many times. But that, my loyal readers, is a whole different post for another day.

If I ate this massive bag of chocolate chips to stop the temptation, it would take a heck of a lot of step classes to work off the damage

I find that one of the draw backs of being a stay at home mom is having easy access to the refrigerator. Before having darling daughter, I worked in an office located in an industrial park. The nearest restaurant was Tim Hortons. And to be brutally honest I'm not a big fan of Tim Hortons. (What a very unCanadian statement!) I find their service to be slow. I'm not a fan of coffee and once they switched from Coca Cola to Pepsi products, that was it. No more Tim Hortons for me. Plus, I was too lazy to walk there, so I rarely went. Basically I ate whatever food I had brought from home. Ocassionally, I'd go out to lunch with my co-workers, but those lunches were a special treat.

But now, I find myself around an ample supply of food. When I was breastfeeding, I'd make allowances for myself as I told myself that I "needed" extra calories to make milk for darling daughter. I'm no longer breastfeeding, so that excuse doesn't hold water. For the most part, I eat fairly healthy, but there is always room for improvement, including not opening the freezer door to help myself to a tiny handful of chocolate chips.

Me and semi-sweet chocolate chips have a long history. They are a great when you need a chocolate pick-me-up and you have no chocolate in the house. They give my banana muffins a sweet little something. And they just the perfect topping on my toasted English muffins coated with peanut butter.

I bought the two kilogram bag about two months ago when I was shopping in Costco. I thought it was a steal of a deal for $10. At the time, I was making a lot of banana chocolate chip muffins and I thought I'd save some money by buying chocolate chips in bulk. To be fair to myself, I mainly use the bag for when I'm baking. However, there have been days where I've grabbed a handful of chocolate chips to satisfy a chocolate urge. A couple of days ago, I asked dear husband to put the bag in the downstairs freezer. Out of sight, out of mind, I reasoned. He did. But somehow the bag managed to find its way back in my refrigerator's freezer.

I'd eat the entire bag so in order to stop the temptation. However, that is a lot of chocolate chips to consume and it would take a lot of Body Step classes to work off the damage. In a couple of minutes I'll hide the bag in the freezer downstairs. Thankfully I have no Halloween candy in the house. Then I'd really be in trouble.

Willpower? What the hell is that?

I'm having a bad day.

The household chores are piling up and I can't seem to get on top of them. Darling daughter got up before 6 a.m. this morning and has been in a nasty mood ever since. I've got sand all over my bedroom floor after sorting through our wet bathing suits we used at the beach yesterday. I've got a withdrawal headache as I'm currently swearing off diet coke. And now I've got a big piece of chocolate cake calling my name.

Yeah, it is just one of those days.

I should know better than to have chocolate cake in the house. Once upon a time when I worked outside of the house, I used to brown bag my lunch and I rarely ventured out of the office to indulge in a treat. But since I'm home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it is just so darn easy to indulge in items that I shouldn't indulge in and that includes chocolate cake.

Oh, I won't lie. I have already had a bite or two of cake this morning, but it is now lunchtime, I still have a headache and eating a piece of chocolate cake would be a great pick me up. I'm trying to rely on my willpower, but I can't find it. It must of ran away with my motivation last week.

So here I am, sitting in front of my computer, tired, suffering from a headache and to dive into the remainder of dear husband's birthday cake. It is a no win-win situation. It would be wasteful for me to throw the cake out and it would be counterproductive of me to eat it as I have absolutely no motivation to go to the gym. So if my will power is reading this post, do you think you could return home? And if you see my motivation, do you think you can drag it home too? I really miss you guys.

It's a bad food day and it isn't even 1 p.m. yet

Well, so far today I have ate some yummy banana bread, a chocolate timbit and I just polished off the brownie pie I made yesterday. Although I tell myself that dear husband ate most of it, I'm sure I helped and most of it will land on my hips. I wouldn't be all upset at my little indiscretion when it comes to eating too much chocolate goodness, but Saturday wasn't a good food day either. Tomorrow isn't likely to be any better as I'm hosting a potluck and those usually spell trouble. It is easier on the conscious to bring sinful food to a playdate and share it with others than it is to eat it at home alone.

To be honest, it is hard to eat healthy when you spend most of your time at home. Cookies, potato chips and chocolate that some how find a home in my kitchen cupboards usually make their way into my mouth.

It is a never ending cycle that I'm trying to stop. But that chocolateness goodness always calls out to me. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.