Day 59: List Love

I had some time to kill yesterday while cooking/waiting for Dom to get home, so I had the brilliant idea of making more lists.

I love lists.

I made four lists: Grocery, Googles, Food Inquiries, and Blog ToDo’s. Actually, I made 5 lists, but the fifth list was all about accounting, and no one really wants to hear about that. ;)

My Googles list is all the stuff I want to research, but don’t have time to do it when I think about it, and then I forget what it was I wanted to look up the next time I’m on the Internet. I spend a lot of time in the car in the summers. A LOT of time. So naturally, that’s where I do most of my thinking. And it would be perfect if that’s also where I could do most of my researching and listing, but I don’t have a chauffeur and probably never will, so the time I spend driving will have to remain The Time I Spend Driving. However, if the day ever comes that cars drive themselves, you’ll see me surfing the web from the front seat. Just sayin’.

Some of the things I Googled in my “spare” time yesterday are:

1) “Healthy substitute for Baker's Joy.” This led me, of course, to the Baker’s Joy website where they are NOT going to tell me what I can use INSTEAD of their product, although they do have a handy list of other healthy substitutions that don’t involve their product. (You're wondering why I need this?  Baker's Joy has one of the forbidden preservatives in it.  Great on my waffle iron, bad on my body.  It's gotta go!) My search also led me to Joy the Baker where I was totally amused for an amount of time I should not have spared, but did anyway. (And Dom wonders why I’m at the computer so much…)

2) “Cuisinart griddler.” This took me to the Cuisinart site where I realized I am not likely to find a Belgian waffle maker with removable plates (if you know of one, for the love of all that is holy, speak up!) and that I can’t afford their way-cool food processor. The Panini maker looked do-able and would possibly prevent us from scrubbing down the George Foreman in the sink anymore.

3) “Angel Hair Pasta Toss recipe.” Found a couple of good ones, I suppose. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I actually put out a search on it. The resulting recipes were pretty much no-brainers. Angel hair pasta…olive oil…whatever else you want…toss it all together…duhhhh.

4) “Calories in honey lemon water.” I have begun to drink hot water with lemon and honey stirred into it in the evenings instead of a cup of tea or coffee. We tend to keep our home at arctic chill levels, so sometimes I just want a hot drink. But, I don’t want to sabotage all the good I’ve done with my weight, so I thought I’d search the matter and see what the ‘net had to say about it. Turns out, honey is a good substitute for sugar because you get the natural vitamins, minerals and amino acids from honey, whereas they are all refined out of our sugar. Something to do with chemical composition and such. I’m all, “Yeah, yeah, so it’s good for me. Got it. Diet progress remains intact. Check.” I like the fact that the honey I buy comes from Bossier, and that this particular bee farm is the one I called when my home was a bee hotel one summer, ala the Amityville Horror. The bee dudes were great. See? Product loyalty does still exist.

But more important than my Googles list, my Food Inquiries list will be another continual work in progress. I have decided to contact our favorite food brands and ask them if they have natural substitutes for the foods we like, or if they are planning natural substitutes anytime in the near future. There’s only one way to get the foods we want on the shelves of our stores. We gotta start asking for them.

So, two new lists have been born and I will try to keep them updated, or at least not crumpled at the bottom of my purse. My ever-so-small, too-tiny-to-carry-everything-I-really-need purse. ;)