Shake and Bake

It's not surprising to me that I ended up working in advertising because I've kind of always had a thing for television commercials. I remember them for years and years ... like the Cadbury bunny making a sound like a chicken, the "I'm a Pepper" jingle, the "Can you hear me now?" question from Verizon, the "Where's the beef?" shouting old lady for Wendy's ... and trust me, I could go on and on. Some of my all-time favorite commercials, however, will always be the ones for Shake and Bake from Kraft Foods. For those of you who don't know, Shake and Bake is a seasoning mix that you place in a bag with chicken or some other type of meat. You then shake said bag to coat the meat with the mix, remove the meat from the bag and bake for a half-hour or so until done and crispy. Not such a fantastic product, in my opinion, but their commercials were genius ... always ending with a little kid with a huge Southern accent saying, "And I helped!"

Those of you who have read this blog for a long while may remember that last summer and early fall I experienced a period of time when I had some significant blood sugar issues. My blood sugar would plummet no matter what I ate or what I did or what I didn't eat or what I didn't do. It was a very frustrating several months for me, for the doctors, for my family and friends. Thankfully, I've leveled out a great deal and rarely have any blood sugar problems ... during the daylight hours anyway. Nights ... well, nights are a different story.

Maybe it's partly connected to medication, partly due to growing older, partly due to plunging blood sugar, partly due to the pain in my shoulder, but quite often I awaken in the night shaking from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I've learned to just roll over and grab some food from my dresser and shove it into my mouth and hope that it works quickly and brings my blood sugar up enough to stop the shaking. Over the last few months, a new little twist has been added to the nighttime shakes ... once I stop shaking, I get so hot that it feels like my skin is on fire. I shake and then I bake. Yep, I've become the old television commercial for Shake and Bake.

Last night was especially tough with two rounds of shaking and baking that seemed to last half the night. As I was cranking down the air conditioner, all I could think about was the old commercial ... especially the ending line from the little kid ... "And I helped." Crawling back into bed after round two, I realized that after each of my shake and bake episodes, I always say out loud, "Thank you God, for helping me through another one."

The truth is that sometimes I dread going to bed at night ... I dread the shake and bake nights that come without warning or reason. But today ... today I've been thinking ... tonight I'm not going to fear the shake and bake that may come ... tonight I'm going to listen for God's whisper that follows ... "And I helped, Terrie ... and I helped."