Feeling a Little Melancholy

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Mama Cormier

April 18th! This would have been Mom’s 81st birthday. Hard to believe that she’s been gone for 19 years. She taught me everything; how to cook, knit, sew, clean a house (how I hated that) but more importantly how to love and be patient with the ones you love. We had our differences over the years. The teen years were particularly hard but as a young woman and wife (pretty much happened at the same time) we became closer.

I remember in the awkward preteen years she always told me I was beautiful and I always responded by saying “you’re my mom, you have to say that!” She encouraged me when I tried to lose weight but she didn’t realize that it was never going to happen until I was ready to do so and that it had to be my idea. I know she only wanted the best for me. She herself struggled a little bit with weight, especially as she got older.

After the birth of our first daughter, I did lose a lot of weight and got down to 132 pounds. An all time low for me. Many of my family friends thought I was too thin but in hind sight I think it was a good thing because soon after I became pregnant with twins. That’s a story for another time.

Thanks Mom. I miss you. I know you’re watching over me.

In the 60’s with Mom and my sisters.

My sisters, me and our Mom.

When Food Became my Enemy

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Mama Cormier

How dramatic! I’ve always loved food. Both my parents were great cooks. I remember when they started a catering business from our kitchen. It was the first time I had shrimp. I was hooked. I loved watching them prepare food for the fancy parties they catered and of course I was allowed to sample. Yum! Good thing I was a pretty active little girl. I always played outside, walked to school and rode my bike around the neighbourhood. I was a little on the pudgy side but not what I would consider fat.

When I was nine I contracted hepatitis A and was bed ridden for months. I missed a lot of school and couldn’t play with my friends but the worst part was the fat reduced diet I was put on. That was shear hell for someone who loved whipped cream, ice cream, cake and the crispy skin from the chicken. For some reason the chicken skin really stood out for me. I don’t know how much weight I lost but from photos I could see a noticeable change.

That was the beginning of my yo-yo dieting life. It didn’t help that my mother was made to feel guilty and responsible for my weight status by our family doctor. At the age of 11 when I weighed 120 pounds I remember how our female doctor reamed me out and tried to shame me into losing weight. At the time I was close to 5 feet tall and still growing. I did lose 10 pounds but I couldn’t maintain it. The fact that I grew 5 more inches and entered puberty might have had something to do with it.

To be continued………..

One of my favourite meals, even today. Chicken with a little bit of

crispy skin and lots of vegetables. Hmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!

Food and Me – Part 2

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Mama Cormier

In my family food was very important. My dad always said that all one ever needed in life to be happy was “family and good food”. For me food symbolized Love. You ate all your food because it was prepared with love and to not eat it was wasteful and hurtful.

I remember a time when my middle sister did not want to eat her cheese sandwich. My parents were always worried about her weight and not because she was too heavy. Quite the opposite. They always thought she was too thin. They tried all kinds of approaches to get her to eat more. I vividly remember one evening when she wasn’t allowed to leave the dinner table until the sandwich was consumed. I’m not sure why I sat with her but I do remember trying to coax her to eat that sandwich. She absolutely refused. In the end I think she won out but the battle was far from over. My parents were so desperate that they sent her away to a farm for a week to fatten her up ( on the advice of our family doctor ). Nothing seemed to help. I think this constant battle convinced me that I needed to eat anything put in front of me in order to be the “good daughter”.

Don’t get me wrong, my middle sister was dearly loved by my parents and at times I was jealous of the constant attention they gave her. She was always the “cute one and the needy one”. I found other ways to get attention. Early on I was given lots of responsibility; one of the downsides of being the oldest child. I learned to cook when I was 8 years old and fondly remember my very first cookbook. It was the Carnation Milk Cookbook for Kids. I’m not sure if that was the exact title but I think I made every recipe in that book. It was my go to book. Years later my sister and I figured out that she was probably lactose intolerant and that’s why she wouldn’t eat that cheese sandwich. Nobody knew about those things back then. My poor sister had to suffer through all my milk laden recipes. Years later when my sister hit her teens she seemed to overcome her intolerance for milk products and started to enjoy cheeses and whipped cream. She however remained the “skinny sister” and even today my younger sister and I call her the “skinny one”.

I can’t believe I found a picture of my favourite cookbook as a child. I did get the title wrong, as you can see. WOW!

Courtesy of: http://www.vintagecookbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/kcb18x.jpg

Food and Me – Part 1

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Mama Cormier

Waste Not Want Not

As long as I can remember, food has played an important part of my life. My parents grew up during WWII when food was scarce and to waste food was unthinkable. Apparently at the age of one my mother was told that I was too thin. A plump baby was the sign of prosperity and good health. We were always expected to eat everything on our plates. Not wanting to disappoint my mom and dad I always cleaned my plate.

Only twice in my life can I remember not eating what was put in front of me. We owned a reference book on mushrooms and of course most of them were considered poisonous and inedible. The message from the book that stood out for me, even at the young age of 8, was that unless you were an expert on mushrooms you should NEVER pick wild mushrooms for consumption. Our house backed onto a huge abandoned field and one day my mother went back there and picked mushrooms and made a huge pot of mushroom soup. Normally I loved mushroom soup but I refused to eat it, convinced that it would be the death of me. Needless to say, it didn’t kill anybody but I wasn’t going to take that chance.

The second time I refused it eat a meal happened on our first visit back to Germany. My sisters and I (ages 11,9 and 5) stayed with our maternal grandmother while our parents spent a few days with my father’s brother and sister. Oma thought she would surprise us with a meal that my mother used to LOVE as a child. We were grossed out when she put bowls of hot sweet milk with elbow macaroni in front of us. None of us could eat it. Later that day the drained and slightly sweet macaroni appeared at dinner with a ground beef sauce. My grandmother wasted nothing. I’m sure she used the milk in something we ate while we were there. I remember how sad my Oma was when we wouldn’t eat her “special treat”. Talk about feeling QUILTY!!!!

Welcome to Carol’s World

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Mama Cormier

I’m about to enter a new phase in my life and I need to figure out which direction I want to go. The problem is I want to do it all. I’m a mother, wife, teacher, coach, artist, and librarian. I love teaching, crafting, reading, gardening, walking the dog, baking and painting. I want to travel more and explore the world with my husband. I also want to stay healthy and I’m trying to move more and eat better.

I hope to divide this blog into categories that address my interests and my journey into retirement. I’m still teaching and coaching and would also like to include some of the upcoming highlights of my experiences in education. This week, for example, I’m about to embark on a new program at school called Girls on the Run. I’m one of 4 coaches and we will be working with 32 girls, ages 8 to 11. At the end of 10 weeks of training, all of us will be walking/running a 5 km race. I know I can walk that far so my personal goal is to try and run for at least half of it. I’ve added a link for Girls on the Run if you want to know more about this organization.

Girls on the Run in the GTA

I know that this blog will evolve and change over the next few months and years as my journey into retirement evolves. I look forward to sharing my experiences and maybe even hearing from some of my fellow bloggers.