Almost back to real life.

In less than a week we will be home! It's hard to believe we have been gone for a month already. A byproduct of being away for so long is a better appreciation of home. There are so many things we take for granted that I have never thought about before. The biggest one for me at the moment is the ability I have at home to buy good quality, fresh food at a reasonable price.

You know how we see on tv all the time about poor, obese Americans talking about how it's impossible to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and feed their families healthy food? And how the reason they are overweight is because it is so much cheaper to buy the junk food, packaged food and fast food instead of healthy, fresh food? IT IS TRUE!!!

Since we have been in Florida I have shopped at Publix, WalMart and Target superstores and a couple of smaller, local grocery stores. No matter how much I plan a grocery trip, it is impossible to do a week's worth of healthy meals on my budget. On the other hand, it is very easy to do a week's worth of pre-packaged, processed, frozen or all you can eat buffet meals.

Now, I have never believed it when I have seen people on tv bemoaning the fact that they can't feed their families healthy food. I have judged right along with the rest of you. I have always thought, "Give me a break! How hard can it be?" Now, I understand and I empathize with the people. We have spent a month eating poorly, because, to be honest, it was too much work to shop and feed us well. We are on vacation after all! For the first couple of weeks I did my best, but the boys were always hungry and it is soooooo hard to spend $6 on subpar apples! I had assumed that coming to Florida, we would be eating tons of oranges, avocados, and other local fruits and veggies. WRONG!!! Oranges (from Florida) are more expensive here than they are at home! The Florida avocados that I buy at home for $1.49 each are $1.89 here - does that even make sense??

One of the things that I have learned as I went through the process of changing our diets at home, was that when you eat the processed, packaged, bad food, you get addicted to it. There is a huge detrimental cycle to eating poorly. It must be incredibly depressing to be poor in the USA. The amount of money that is poured into the production of packaged food is incredible, it is pushed at lower income families as their only option, it promotes obesity and disease, people end up sick, they have no health insurance and it goes on and on and on... and it really alters how you think about things.

When Brendan dislocated his toe the other day and our travel insurance wouldn't cover it, I called the hospital to find out what the costs involved would be. I shocked myself when I said to my kid, "Sorry, but your toe isn't worth it." Who says stuff like that??? People without health insurance, that's who. If we had been at home, I would have taken him straight to the ER without giving it a thought. When it happened here, I took care of it myself (now in fairness, I have done my share of first aid training and had years of experience) because we couldn't afford to pay almost $3000 to have his toe x-rayed and put back in place.

We are all sold on the great American Dream. It's a load of crap. There is very little hope in the lives of most of the Americans I have met. These are working class people struggling to keep their families going. It has been so shocking to see all the cracks in the image that America tries to portray to the rest of the world.

I will be so happy to touch my feet back on Canadian ground next Saturday.