Your Eyes Are Bigger Than Your Belly

When I was just a wee tot, or as I like to say, Knee High To A Grasshopper, one of my favorite people in all the world was my Pop-Pop, or as you may call yours, my Grandfather. My Pop-Pop used to tell the best stories, the best jokes, and had all the best (and most creative) sayings.

One of his favorite sayings, and subsequently one of my favorite sayings, was "Your Eyes Are Bigger Than Your Belly", which meant you took more food than you could eat. The saying was meant to be half-hearted and somewhat funny but make no mistake, Pop-Pop did not take lightly to wasting food.

As we got older, him a little faster than me, I called him Pop instead of the earlier Pop-Pop. I guess as he got older he just lost some of his pop. He did not however, lose his sense of humor, and Pop lived to the ripe old age of 92.

The reason for that little anecdote was so I could establish my thought process for the story that follows.

The other night for dinner I made one of the family favorites, Pasta with meatballs. Just to change it up a bit I also made Italian sausage. As I was cooking the sausage and the meatballs I couldn't help but notice that I had cooked 1 1/2 pounds of sausage and made 2 pounds of meatballs. A lot you say? Well yes it is but there ARE seven of us eating.

After sitting at the table I soon realized that even though there were seven of us eating, I had made a huge miscalculation on my sausage and meatballs. It would take the seven of us at least three sittings to eat them all. It is very difficult sometimes to know exactly how much my 4 growing children are going to eat, and this time it appeared that I was waaaay off.

As I was sitting there staring at the very large pot of sauce, sausage and meatballs, Pops voice popped into my head, "It looks like your eyes were bigger than your belly, boy!".

Yes, I made too much food for dinner, but after the snacks and the subsequent lunches were done so were the meatballs and sausages. It was worth it though. I welcome each and every event that reminds me of Pop-Pop and the stories and the silly sayings. Just think of it as a sort of mental photograph in my childhood scrap book.