Consumerism, take me away.

A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for the nutrition program offered at my gym. I've been pretty good about following it--mainly because the plan has me eating 5 times a day so I'm never hungry. Of course, hunger was never the biggest of my problems. Stress was my downfall. I am a huge comfort food ingester. Anytime something stressed me out--kids, husband, dog, grass growing too fast--I'd locate the nearest delectable goody and inhale it faster than you can say "Impulse Control Fail".

Now that I'm paying an arm and a leg to have a nutritionist tell me what to eat all day, I don't want to ruin those efforts in one fell swoop because my Tivo cut off Project Runway before Heidi said her auf wiedersehen. So, I have replaced this rush to gorge with a new, perhaps equally unhealthy, diversion: shopping.

Since making the substitution, I've relieved some of my tension by visiting Amazon, Etsy, Anthropologie, Sephora, Nordstrom, Old Navy and a few other random storefronts that we need not mention at the moment. I've worked out my own little algorithm for stress balance: as the calories consumed decreases, the dollars spent must increase.

Today, the floor people were here yet again to install the bamboo on the stairs. Strange people in and out of my house. Strange, loud people. Strange, loud people who like to sing odd Spanish songs in very off key voices. Amaya was terrified of the air compresseratorwhatchamacallit and thus screamed every single time it went off. Stress. STRESS. STRESS.

So what did I do? Went shopping of course. We went to the happiest of all places on earth--Target. Oh how I love Target. I mean who doesn't love a store where you can buy this


this


this


and this

all in one transaction. Shopping utopia it is. After an hour of roaming through the glittering aisles, my calm core had returned. It quickly evaporated when I returned home and had to become reacquainted with noise until 8:40 that evening, but we're not going to dwell on that. Nope, we're just going to keep looking at the pretty pictures of the stuff we bought. Chocolate free stress management--I might learn to love it.