They've stolen my blissful ignorance!!!

I have NEVER been a healthy eater, yet I ALWAYS say that I want to be. One day, I'll get there and hopefully before I have a heart-attack from eating cheeseburgers way too often.

However, there is a place where I draw the line. It's frozen cheeseburgers, which I don't like to begin with and despise when they come from one of my favorite fast food joints. 

If I was to sit down and think about it, it's obvious that most fast-food joint burgers themselves and other items come to the restaurant frozen already, delivered by large trucks. However, when I go to a restaurant - greasy fast food or otherwise - I like to at least think I am enjoying a nice hand prepped meal. It may sound silly to most, but I like that illusion and the blissful ignorance of going to a restaurant.

I know many people - journalists and health nuts mostly - who will read through all the restaurant inspections etc. and choose whether to go to a place or not, based on that. Well, I will tell you, I cook ALOT for my family and for others. I don't have cockroaches in my kitchen or open containers of raw meat stored above open containers of produce, but I am sure that mine, and many other home kitchens, would not pass the tests carried out by our system.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am glad that health code system is in place. I don't want to be eating somewhere that should clearly be shut down and be completely ignorant of it. But, in general I like the ignorance is bliss train of thought when it comes to my food. Sure, it's important to be informed that too many fatty cheeseburgers can kill me, but I don't really care to know how the cow was butchered etc. I like to pretend hamburger meat is just that: a burger. It's not a black and white cow that I might see as I am driving through small Missouri towns, it's just meat.

Now to many, especially those who grew up in the great outdoors, I just sound ignorant and ridiculous. I know that.

Now, how does this all tie in to this silly frozen meal concept? I don't want to know that the freezer burgers are similar to the ones in the restaurant. I'd like to be in blissful ignorance, thinking that each Steak N' Shake burger was made with love. :)

I know most people probably don't care about this as much as I do, and think I am being a silly little child. However, I don't care. This was the final straw that is probably going to make me want to NEVER eat Steak N' Shake again. I could ignore the extreme greasiness of the food and maybe how the floors are always greasy when I eat inside a Steak N' Shake, but now every time I go to the grocery store, I will be reminded of how one of the stops of my past had a big EPIC FAIL. If you knew how many times a working mom has to go to the grocery store, you would understand.

Will this blog come back to haunt me when I open up my own restaurant someday? Probably.

Moving is never easy

In a little over a week I will be leaving my current job, Editor of South County Mail to pursue a job with the Cedar County Republican . This means, not only changing jobs, but relocating. I really haven't relocated all that many times in my young life (cities and towns that is, not apartments, because I've lived in a lot of those.)

When I left my hometown in Rolla, Missouri, where I had lived my whole life, I was pursuing a Bachelor's Degree at Missouri State University in Springfield. Sure, I had traveled to places such as Hawaii, Scotland, England and various states in the U.S., but I had never lived anywhere else. Springfield, approximately 1 1/2 hours from Rolla, was not all that far from home, but the first time I had left to live anywhere else. My parents were older than most when I was born, so they were ready to settle down by then.

Since then, the only other place I have lived is Ozark. The city of Ozark is only about 20 minutes from Springfield, so it really wasn't much of an adventure and we did everything in Springfield then anyways.

After college, I freelanced a little while and then took my current job. Even though I stayed in Springfield, I really felt like I lived in many places. I truly felt like I was a part of Rogersville, Fordland and sometimes on rare occasions, Marshfield and Seymour. So now, as I live Springfield, I not only leave my home of 7 years behind, but I leave two other towns that feel like home.

I am very excited to move to Stockton, Missouri for many reasons. 1) The job will be great. 2) I'll be close to the lake. 3) We will be closer to my husband's family, that only lives about 20 minutes away.

However, it's hard to do. It seems strange to back up my belongings and move somewhere for a job, because technically, I've never done it before.

I am excited to embrace my new life, but I will be leaving an old one behind. It's sad, but happy all at the same time. I guess relocating is just part of growing up and I guess now it's time for me to make my own path.

It just feels odd to drive to a place and know it might be the last time you do so, right?

Here's my column I wrote for the paper.