Trail of (Blood, Sweat) Tears

Mandi and baby Rinks

Ashley and Buddy Lee

At Home Tennessee writer Mandi Gaskin discovers that all you need in life is laughter, family and a good map.

Text Mandi Gaskin | PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy Mandi Gaskin

As I write to you at this very moment, I am unable to bend my legs or walk without looking like I have been on a horse for 12 straight hours. Why, you ask? Allow me start from the beginning.
Like many of our fellow Americans, we have been cutting back during this recession and getting back to the basics. After all, isn’t that what life is all about— the simple things? And so on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, my husband Ashley and I decided to get creative and go old-school by having a family picnic in the park (just call us “The Cleavers”). We packed up baby Rinks and Buddy Lee the dog and headed off for a day of family bliss. We had a wonderful lunch of crustless pimento cheese sandwiches courtesy of yours truly (a.k.a. June Cleaver) while conversing about how pleasant it was to stretch out under the summer sun. In fact, we were so proud of ourselves for being thrifty that we thought, “Why not stretch out our family fun and go on a stroll on one of the nearby trails?” So once again we packed up Rinks in the stroller and Buddy Lee on the leash and off to the woods we went. You might even say we had a pep in our step; enjoying the scenery and smelling the fresh scent of pine, while appreciating the simple things in life that money can’t buy. Sure, there were hills that were at least 45 degree angles, but I welcomed the challenge since I am still trying to lose the last 15 pounds from pregnancy (or maybe from my excessive love of chocolate chip cookies). We were having great conversation along the way, so good in fact that we looked at the time and realized we had been walking for an hour and were on our third mile.
And as Paul Harvey puts it, here is the rest of the story:

2:15 p.m., Mile 4: I casually start to wonder when this trail is going to end and begin looking around for any signs of an exit. I don’t see one, but I decide not to panic because we are still appreciating the beautiful scenery on our blissful family outing.

2:33 p.m., Mile 5: We look at each other nervously as there is clearly no immediate end in sight, but neither of us wants to admit it, so we mumble something about needing some exercise and laugh uncomfortably. I look ahead to see the next hill coming up, which is starting to resemble Mt. Kilimanjaro.

2:48 p.m., Mile 6: My legs are in the third realm of hell, so I start pleading to God that if he would miraculously send a cab then I will never swear again. (He didn’t, so the hell with that.) The once beautiful scenery now looks uncannily like the forest in Hansel and Gretel, minus the breadcrumbs, which I would have willingly paid $1,000 dollars for at that very moment.

3:05 p.m., Mile 7: Ashley starts getting Walker’s Delirium, as I have now named it, and begins ranting on about how the trees are really alive and naming off flowers that look like trumpets. I know this should cause me to worry, but my big toe is starting to go numb and I am pretty sure it’s bleeding through my sock which of course conjures my inner hypochondriac telling me that surely it will have to be amputated.

3:23 p.m., Mile 8: At this point Rinks has practically spent a full day of daycare in his stroller as he has already played, napped, eaten lunch, had a snack and then fallen back asleep. Again.

3:41 p.m., Mile 9: Ashley starts negotiating who would be the first to be sacrificed for food so the rest of us could survive. Buddy Lee wins by unanimous vote (our apologies to PETA).

4:04pm, Mile 10: Like a veil unfolding from the heavens, we see civilization sprawling out before us and we practically start hugging and crying. But since we can’t really move at that point, we just give each other knowing smiles. Because we know that when nature calls again, we will be heading straight for the nearest Chili’s.

Mandi is a writer and a mom. She is married to Ashley, who for reasons she cannot understand, never uses a map. You can follow her on her blog or check back for her monthly columns in At Home Tennessee.

For this article and more, check out the August issue of At Home Tennessee on stands now!!

You Are What You Eat

Since our July issue was all about going green, we asked our writer Mandi to try to go green (or greener). Here is what she came up with!!





You Are What You Eat
At Home Tennessee writer Mandi Gaskin takes on the challenge of saving the Earth by asking the question “What’s for Dinner?” Text Mandi Gaskin, PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy of Bmofoto.net

I am a good girl. I recycle, I change out my light bulbs to energy-saving fluorescents, I even carpool with annoying people (you know who you are) in order to cut down on pollution. So when the editors of At Home Tennessee asked me to single-handedly save the Earth (ok, I may be exaggerating a little) I thought I had it in the biodegradable bag.
But after one trip to the grocery store on my normal shopping routine I knew I was in trouble. Taking on this new eco challenge forced me to take a closer look at the impact my food was having on the Earth, and it wasn’t pretty. Seeing the mounds of meat, fruits and vegetables available all year long at any given grocery store used to conjure thoughts like, “God Bless America: Land of the Free, Home of Convenience” but were now causing a slight wave of guilt and overindulgence. Were strawberries really meant to be eaten in December? Should we be eating chicken at every single meal? And are my bell peppers supposed to be the size of my firstborn child? I knew my conscience was trying to tell me something, so on the way home I did what any normal American would do—I attempted to snuff my inner voice with hormone-ridden chicken strips. And when those crispy fried animal parts didn’t subside my nagging guilt, I knew it was time to make a change.
I know what you’re thinking; you think I am about to tell you that I gave up all meat and dairy, moved to a commune and am now growing my very own tomatoes. But you are severely underestimating my innate laziness. You see, I want to save the earth, but I don’t necessarily want to work to do this. So I found myself in a whole new challenging predicament. How can I save the planet and still have time to watch the Real Housewives? So the next day, while Teresa and Danielle are tearing out each other’s weave, I go online and ask Google how I can be a better consumer in the world which I am trying to save. And the answers actually surprised me. Sure, there were the extremist websites that preached giving up your skillet for a diet made up of raw food (no thanks) or fencing your backyard to make room for Wilbur (call me a coward, but I prefer not to look my dinner in the eye before turning him into, well, dinner). But there were also very reasonable options to leaving a smaller footprint on the environment when it comes to dining, and it can basically be summed up in two words: farmers’ market. In supporting local farmers through these venues we are not only able to cut down on the global effects of shipping bulk products; we can also bring back humane treatment of the animals we eat and restore the balance in the food chain that has been lost in the mass consumerism that makes up this great country. I liked the idea that I could buy all my favorite foods minus the guilt, but I was still hesitant about the cost and more importantly, my time. So on Monday, we loaded up some empty coolers and made our way down to the local Farmers’ Market in Nashville where I found a scene that was absolutely delightful. There were droves of people from all walks of life shopping with their families, talking to the vendors and picking out fresh-from-the-farm cuisine. Sure, it wasn’t the air-conditioned, fluorescent world of my previous grocery trips. It was hot, and there were flies in abundance, but I was able to shake the hands and speak to the folks who had taken the time to carefully grow the vegetables or humanely slaughter the meat on their farms that I was responsible for feeding to my family. Not to mention all without heavily impacting the earth with pesticides or transportation emissions or breaking the budget. And best of all? I made it home just in time for the Real Housewives.
Find a local farmers’ market near you at localharvest.org, certifiedhumane.org or eatwellguide.org.

When Mandi is not writing she is busy being a mom to the cutest little boy on the planet and perfecting her skill as a Professional Nag to her husband, Ashley. You can follow her on her blog, freedingo.blogspot.com and be sure to check back monthly for her columns in At Home Tennessee.