Life in the dirt is all about choices.  Some are easier to make than others,  some SHOULD be easier to make than others, and others you HAVE to make.  For those of you who may be confused let me share with you some examples:

Choice I HAVE to make:  I would love to be making my living blogging about every recipe I have ever made followed by a day filled with chatting and increasing my virality on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest all day long.  However, I HAVE to work my full time job or there will be no money for groceries to make all the delicious food I create.  

Choice that is EASY to make:  Sending my children to bed as close to 8 o'clock every night as I can, so I can have a relief from the arguing.  Of course they don't argue all of the time, just 75% of the time (its a joke people, laugh!).  Actually, I send them to bed at a decent hour every night so that they can get a good nights rest and be ready to learn, grow and play the next day the best that they can.  And naturally argue a bit, they are siblings after all and ALL sibling argue from time to time.  

Choice that is EASY to make: Covering my tomato, eggplant and pepper plants when there is a frost/freeze warning, but not my cucumber plants.  I don't think I need to explain why this choice is easy.  And I know some of you can feel my disdain for cold temperatures and winter as you read that first sentence but the inevitable in Michigan is coming.  

Choice I HAVE to make: Cleaning, need I say more? Yes, I was born without the gene that loves to clean.  However, I do like things organized yet my 100 year old house, with its lack of storage space and small awkward sized rooms fights me on this daily!  The lack of organization actually sends me into a panic every time someone stops over because the clutter is everywhere.  So I have to make myself constantly reorganize, re-purpose, rearrange, etc. to try and calm the anxiety and dysfunction that lives with being in a disorganized space.  

Choice that SHOULD be easy to make: What to wear to work.  I am sure that I am not in the minority when it comes to this dilemma.  I also don't think I need to go into all the factors that play out in my head when deciding on what to wear, we all think about weather, comfort, fashion, etc.  

And now for the choice that inspired this post in the first place (insert drum roll)!!

Choice that SHOULD be easier to make:  Choosing which beer to have with the ribs I am making for dinner tonight!  I decided to go to the store quickly before starting work today as I wanted to make ribs and they needed to get into the oven first thing this morning (I slow cook them all day).  This decision should have been quite easy because, as many of my friends know, I have a love affair with Summer Shandy.  The arrival of Summer Shandy to the store is like Christmas for me because that means summer, my favorite time of year, is near!  However, once fall begins I am once again left without it, until now!  Leinenkugel's just announced their Lemon Berry Shandy for fall, naturally this made me very excited so I planned on this new beer with dinner tonight.  However, when I turned the corner of the beverage aisle something caught my eye in the form of an orange slice sporting a wheat mohawk and sunglasses.  Yes, Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat was staring me down and immediately I was torn between which beer to purchase.  There I stood at the end of the beverage aisle giving myself a case of whiplash over beer at 8:30 on a Monday morning thinking, "deciding on a beer should not be this hard"!  And then the stares from other shoppers began, many of them (okay, the 6 other people in the store near me) were of an older generation than myself, so I am sure they wondered about my sanity and sobriety as they rounded the corner from the HBC aisle with their new supply of Metamucil and Aquanet only to encounter the scene described above.   

Before you start thinking that I may have a drinking problem, let me get to the point.  Just like indecision over beer, what to where to work, or whatever choices you need to make in your life, we all have choices to make and some are easier than others and some are more life changing and serious than others.  Example, I choose to live a pretty healthy lifestyle, some days are harder than others to commit/maintain, but I do the best that I can for myself and my family.  Life is not easy and neither are our decisions each day, but if we can make them with the best of intentions and what we think is the best for ourselves and our families then we have to just commit and move forward!  And like the other shoppers who encountered me this morning, it is not necessary for us to worry about what others think of our decisions.  Because you see, they are just that OURS!  And until you have been in a persons shoes and lived their life you don't get to make rash judgments about their choices.  Now, I would be a hypocrite if I said I did not judge anyone, I have done it in blog posts right on this very website, but I try my hardest to make them more informed comments rather than judgments.  

So, go forth and make the best choices you can this week!  Live your life with a purpose and set your intention be to a healthier, happier you!

Rachel 


PS.  I chose the Pumpkin Wheat