TJ Hirst

“I just want to lay under those trees and take a picture,” my teen told me.

And so I did.

Now, I’m can share a playful Wordless Wednesday.

“That can’t be food just for one week, can it?” said the couple in the grocery line behind me.

I’m used to curious looks and odd questions when I grocery shop. By the time I unload, pay for, bag and reload my groceries I’m bound to be pushing one cart and pulling another behind me.

Grocery shopping with me can be embarrassing. I grew up with six brothers and sisters, and we routinely took two loaded carts to the check out. I only have three children, but I learned my shopping habits from my mom. I never leave the store without one person commenting on how much I buy at one time.

With the economic crises of the last few weeks, though, people are beginning to look at me with admiration instead of confusion. The guy at the check-out this week said, “That’s smart. In these time, you never know when you’re going to be able to come back to the store.”

I shop on the pantry principle. I stock my pantry and my chest freezer with the non-perishable and frozen foods that I consistently use, and then I restock them as we use them or as those products go on sale.

My Three Points to Keeping A Well-Stocked Pantry:

Make a list of 25-30 menu items your family likes to eat and keep at least a few of each of the products to make these on hand in your pantry, your freezer or your fridge.

Shop non-perishables once per month. Shop every 10-14 days for perishables like fresh fruits and vegetables and dairy products, but only buy those things.

Repurchase what you use. We keep a clipboard in our pantry. When someone takes something off the shelf, he or she writes it down on the clipboard. That list is the start of my grocery list for the next big stock-up.

Back at the store this week I asked my daughter to grab two packages of salt from the bottom shelf. She said, “Why mom? We have tons of salt in our food storage.” The lady in the aisles looked at me to hear my response.

“When we use it, we have to buy more, so we’ll always have it in the pantry,” I said. I’m afraid I’m rubbing off the next generation.

20 pantry items I can’t do without . . .

1. oatmeal
2. pasta
3. cocoa powder
4. sugar - white, brown, powdered
5. olive oil, canola oil, Crisco butter-flavored shortening
6. lentils and dried beans
7. rice
8. diced tomatoes and tomato sauce
9. canned fruit - pineapple chunks, mandarin oranges, applesauce
10. peanut butter
11. powdered milk for baking
12. Frosted Shredded Wheat
13. yeast and other leavening
14. flour and wheat
15. salt
16. crackers - saltines, Wheat Thins, graham crackers
17. condiments - salsa, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise
18. cleaners - vinegar, dish soap, bleach
19. paper products - napkins, paper towels, toilet paper
20. aluminum foil, plastic wrap, trash bags

When I interviewed my songwriter friend, she expressed that she lives her creative life in phases—she creates and then she absorbs.

I’ve never allowed myself that. Or known how to do it. My creative drive pushed me to produce.

Now, though, her words have worked on me. Absorbing is still creating; it is just another part of the process. And an essential one.

My phases are still fast-moving and turn around over days, not months or years like hers, but at least now I can sense the need to shift. I produce for a few days and then I renew for a few.

My children have a couple days off school, and we’re absorbing together. Or I am absorbing from them while they create. KH painted a beautiful apple with watercolors. EH finished the last chapter of her book. NH played architect with Dad.

When we’re talking creative communities, I can’t think of a better one that the one that immediately surrounds me.

What phase are you in?

The places, events and people of my life emerge from my subconscious as the settings, plots and characters of my dreams.  In my sleep I pluck from a lifetime of who, what and where like I am trick-or-treating at doors across the world. Then, my mixed assortment of real people, places and scenarios appear in eerie fictional stories, out of time and situational context, as the ghosts of my sleepy-time entertainment.

The ghosts of houses past loom as stages for the dramas behind my closed eyes, with the childhood home of my elementary school years as the most frequent backdrop.

In the latest, I peered out that familiar living room window on Fisher Lane to see a bridge explode and fling debris through our ceiling. (Never mind that that particular bridge crosses the Missouri River 20 miles in the other direction). Fortunately, the home of my teenage years with a centuries-old cemetery—or graveyard as we called it—in the back yard has slipped from my nightmare writer’s notice.

The ghosts of decisions past add anxiety to my sleep when I discover that I am reliving old deliberations with new twists and outcomes. As a notorious second guesser, whether I am awake or asleep, I am more suited to the role of third party observer of a friend or family member who is weighing his or her options.  That is why I particularly enjoyed a recent dream when my friend invited me along on her house hunt, where we easily chose a cleverly-updated ranch with new tile and a curved bar in the kitchen. In reality, she moved over six months ago.

The ghosts of people past reacquaint themselves with me in the oddest places and times in my dreams.  I’ve had fictitious mass reunions with people I have known in a food court of a shopping mall and while waiting in line for a restroom. Our conversations create comic relief during a night of fitful sleep.

The closely related ghosts of relationships past are far more frightening than funny. I get a little panicky in the morning when I remember my dream included someone from my life five, ten or twenty years ago. Why is my subconscious pulling HIM into my dreams at this time? Is is a crush I never outgrew? Does it mean something more?

If you’ve ever read Dicken’s Christmas Carol, it is hard not to wonder why each ghost appears. Most nights, though, my candy stash of characters and scenes doesn’t add any more meaning to my life than a handful of Milk Duds. But think of the possibilities I can pull out of my bag during the day when I write.

Author’s Note: Since I am not a huge Halloween fan, the theme of “Ghosts” for Scribbit’s October Write Away Contest nearly scared me away, but it was fun to dress up my writer self in a little different costume for this entry.

The forecast is for frost warnings in low lying areas. The bee on my zucchini will disappear. My allergies would love the change, but my garden harvest would not.

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