Totally Tuesday Randomness

{my pensive face. and an homage to vivian maier.}

Wow! Today was looooooooooong. I was busy ALL day. Seriously. I don't think I sat down. The girls had school so we were out of the house at 8:40am to make it there by 9. Then I took Snowdrop with me to run a couple errands. We had to get our money back for some rotten pork-steaks that we got from Whole Foods. I love Whole Foods. I'm not sharing that info to diss them. They offered to replace the meat... but.... well, I'm kind of outta the mood for pork now. I had actually been SO EXCITED about finding them, that I had called and left my husband a message that we were having pork-steaks for dinner. While not organic, the meat was humanely raised on a vegetarian diet, no hormones, antibiotics, etc etc. It was as close to organic without being organic. Whole Foods has this great rating program for animal wellness. In fact, they won't accept meat to sell unless the farm participates in the rating program. AND the farms are rated by a complete third part ~ a factor I find to be very important. ANYWAYS ~ I was excited to be able to make pork-steaks for the kids AND us, and for it to be a healthy meal. Oh well. Maybe next time... when the meat isn't rotten?

While we were there, I checked out the "nut-free peanut butters" and to my horror {okay I wasn't horrified but I was a little put off}, the nut-free peanut butters were mixed in with the regular peanut butters. In fact, I actually saw a Sunflower Seed Butter {a type someone with a peanut allergy might eat} inbetween a Peanut Butter and an Almond Butter. Most of the rest of the "nut-free peanut butters" {yes I know that sounds a little confusing but I'm hoping you understand!} were on the bottom shelves. So after I left and saw the regular grocery store's peanut butter set-up, I called Whole Foods and offered some constructive criticism. I was SUPER NICE. Really, I was. Because it was totally constructive criticism. I really think someone just didn't think of what I was thinking of.

My advice to them was to mimic the regular grocery store's shelf. They had all the nut-free peanut butters on the top shelf and none of them was mixed in with regular peanut butter. I explained to the gal that my daughter has a peanut allergy so we can only have nut-free peanut butters. But I can't feed her a nut-free peanut butter if it's been stored next to a regular peanut butter. I do not expect the world to change for us BUT if I can make it easier on us by getting some things to be changed... I am all for speaking up! :) The girl totally thought what I was saying made sense and she said that they take customers' suggestions very seriously. I hope next time I go there, I see a change. That would be cool. My daughter is not SO allergic that she'll die from inhaling a peanut particle ~ but I still would not buy a nut-free peanut butter that was sitting next to a regular one.

So I spent my $4.59 for 15oz of SoyNut Butter at the regular grocery store. {$$$$$$$$$$$$$} I will let you know if that works out for us. I know I thrive on knowing that other people are going through similar experiences ~ I haven't really found a peanut support blog out there. Any of you know of any? I've got an idea in the works for a peanut allergy blog... advice, brands, etc. Like I said, it's in my head so.... it might take some time to get worked out of there. If there is any other peanut allergy parent out there that would like to tackle this with me, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE comment or email me. I could totally use another brain on this one. :)

SO I got my package yesterday. I'm not going to talk about the events leading up to this, I won't even link my blog post {but if you go back in the last week it's there, haha}, but the supervisor I spoke with on Monday was very apologetic. I was very nice and didn't say that Kim was a bitch. I said "Kim was very helpful, I'm so glad she was able to find my package. I do have to say however, and I don't want to just speak ill of her or anything but her attitude when I called was just out of line. I might have been all up-in-arms but she gave me the attitude of like "And what do you want me to do about it?"" The supervisor seemed to agree with my description of Kim's attitude. HM. Whether or not she really agrees, at the very least I was given that impression. And that's what counts, right? :)

So this package was from my paternal grandmother. My Nana Kay. I love my Nana Kay. Shit. Tearing up already. We actually have never met in person. I know, I know!! Get my ass down to Florida and meet this lady! {We were hoping to be there right now, at the end of March. Unfortunately due to money & work, we could not.} She & my Pop-Pop {now deceased} were actually the ones looking for me when we first found each other online. {Have I told you before that I love the Interwebs?} We have a terrible lot in common, the backbone of which is our love for theater, dancing, singing.

Anyways, so she sent the girls coloring books and $10 to Snowdrop for her birthday. Wouldn't you know it, the girls have been BEGGING ME for new coloring books for the last couple weeks. BEGGING. I know so many people, in real life and BlogLand, who have adopted children or are considering it ~ and I don't say the following to frighten you or give you fears or anything like that, or make you feel badly about your own relationships with your adopted children, etc, this is just MY personal experience, my sister doesn't even feel this way, so this is just my perspective on my life experience as an adopted child ~ I have never felt like I "fit in" to my family. {I promise I will write a post, or many posts, about my adoption and my thoughts on it some day. I need time to sort things out in the ways I want to share them, you know? Because I DO want to share them. My feelings on the whole adoption thing grew a billion times stronger when I became a Mom. It's often hard to rope in. Thanks for being patient.}. They are all golfers, I LOATHE the sport. Yeah, I play it but I LOATHE it. I wanted to be an actress, an artist, a dancer, a designer, a writer; they are doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers, etc. This would not have been an issue, of course, if my adoptive family had made more of an effort to develop my interests instead of forcing theirs on me. Very Briefly, I just feel that they so often tried to change me to fit them instead of accepting what they got and loving that (what they got) instead of what they "dreamed of". {My mom actually once told me that she prayed the baby (that ended up being me) wouldn't be redheaded.....}

So when my Nana Kay {who I've never met in person, who I actually haven't talked to in the last few weeks} sends my girls coloring books, without knowing that it's a current wish of theirs... it just reminds me {tears} that somewhere out there are people just like me, who think like me, and act like me; people who know what I'm thinking without me saying anything. We are on the same wavelength in the same dimension, though we've never even touched hands. That's just so f*ing cool. :) {To be noted: The girls colored for two hours non-stop yesterday.}

And it also makes me wonder what other times in my life that we were connected like this and we didn't even know.

~

Thanks for listening/reading! :) 

{if you made it this far. hahahaha}