meal planning and OCD

i have ocd. there i said it. on a public forum. someday, i might have some obscure prospective employer who may look at this and frown.  but in the meantime--i don't care. i need to let it off my chest.  it's 2014 and sometimes i would like to think that people can get past mental illness and then i think about some of my coworkers looking at me like I'm a total nut. so is life.

so, yeah i don't tap things multiple times or count in certain numbers until things feel right, but I do some pretty irrational things.. some pretty irrational things that i am trying to get a good firm grip on, but sometimes, this little bubble in my brain prevents things from going the way that i want planned. and that causes me to stratch and pick at my skin and hair--and man does it feel good. It is like my heroin and I have track marks all over my scalp. little blisters of picky-goodness--over scratched at times of deep stress. 

like meal planning. oh dear god. meal planning and making a two week grocery budget has turned into one of my deepest points of fixation. I count the numbers, i make rough drafts. i pour over every cranny of this grocery list to make sure it's perfect. To make sure zane and rae are fed. And to make sure they are fed well.  it's agonizing. i try to keep it on a budget--but eating well ain't cheap, even if you are comparing weekly grocery ads for the best find. 

some things do make it easier for me.. Like greenbeandelivery.  so instead of my agonizing over spending 3.50 on organic strawberries they can roll it in to this nice little bundle of 42.00 and I can be okay with that. It's enough fruit and veg to keep us supplied for about ten days and Zane loves going through the bins.  i think he thinks it is like some weird treasure chest of organic produce.

milk is always a stressor on grocery planning since i buy from hartzler farms. we drink low-pasteurized, non-homogenized whole milk and it doesn't last long.  so, i have to plan for at least 2 trips to a different giant eagle for a milk run, bring back at least 4-5 milk bottles and buy some more. the milk is indeed better for you, i believe, but the idea of running out of milk post my giant grocery runs leads my to do some deep scalp grooming.

and it is insane.  i know it is insane..  we live, kinda well. monetarily speaking.  no, we don't have everything we have ever wanted, but zane had a bike until it got stolen, trin and i collect vinyl, and rae has enough little people to create a mutant army.  but i panic.  i panic at the length of the grocery list, and worry that, "maybe i don't have enough of those organic waffles from krogers for rae."  never has the idea of not having a zucchini in the fridge because you forgot to buy been so terrifying.. that is, until you spent an evening in my obsessive compulsive brain.

it's like i find a sense of calm in numbers--but if the numbers do not add up just correctly.. well, it is just a major shit storm, a shit storm of me on my iphone, typing in numbers of paychecks and grocery items just to figure out what i missed, or what is going on, and then i will find my ankles, usually exposed, and feel the coarse dry skin built up on them, and i dig, and i pick, and i flake away that nasty skin i should have exfoliated last time i took and epsom salt bath.  and then i don't worry.  i can take a deep breath and make sense of the numbers, but then i look down and i'm bleeding, or i'm raw from my nails digging deep into my flesh.

and then it's back to square one and i have to figure out how much coconut oil we need for two weeks.  and then my fingers start moving. so is life.

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on another note.  i love my kids, and zane is rocking his awesome neutral milk hotel shirt from the show.