New inspiration

I had thought about starting one of these before, but I was never quite sure if I would be able to keep on subject...  I found some new inspiration and I guess a little bit of a better way to organize my thoughts with a book that my husband got for me for Christmas.  '1001 things to love about military life' has a wealth of ideas in it.  Last night I was reading through another section of it and I found there were things I had forgotten about that I suddenly remembered.  One of them was MRE or Meals Ready to Eat.  During my Army time, I'm pretty sure I ate my weight in these things and given that they have about 3,000 calories a piece in them - it doesn't take long for that weight to add up.  It's funny though how over time you pick and choose the MREs that you want to eat not just because of what the main course is, but because you start figuring out which one has M&M's in it versus Charms candy or which one has jalepeno cheese versus salsa or peanut butter. 

I remember when I was first introduced to this new form of food.  I was about three weeks into basic training and I had a bad ear infection in one ear and the start of one in the other to the point where I looked like I was pretty well intoxicated when I was walking.  By the time I got back from the hospital chow was over, so the drill sergeant gave me an MRE.  It was a chicken breast MRE....  I don't remember much else about the MRE besides that it had M&M's in it.  Now I wasn't much of a drinker and I didn't smoke - so going without those things hadn't affected me too much by this point, but I love my sweets.  We weren't allowed to have sweets as part of the 'breaking in' process in basic, so when I saw these M&M's I knew the drill sergeant (DS) would take them from me especially since the rest of my platoon was starting to file in the room.  The DS shot me a look and gave me the 'go ahead but you better not make it obvious or share any of them' look and so I sat quietly in the back corner and ate them one at a time while trying not to crinkle the wrapping they came in.  Although the rest of the meal wasn't the greatest, having that one little sneak (approved by the DS of course) made it the best thing since sliced bread.