Home tour: The school room

Well, so I'm sick again. Or still. Either way, it's generally unpleasant and not how I would like to spend my time. 

So in lieu of something that would take effort, I'll show you some of my house! I already took these pictures, so it was about as low effort as is possible. 

This is my favorite room of the house. It's my "school room," which used to mean MY school because I was in college. But now I'm not, so it's our homeschooling room. As far as that's concerned, it's about as pleasant as possible, and I'm glad to have a reason to spend more time in here. It's quiet, and it has doors that can be completely closed which is a nice perk. It's intended to be a formal living room, but formal living is for the birds, isn't it? 

Additionally, this room and the adjoining dining room are the only rooms I painted when we moved in. This room was originally ballet pink, and the dining room was a mauve. Hideous. Who in the world would want pink formal rooms? 

I also really enjoy seeing other people's homes. Maybe I'm nosey? Maybe I'll have to take more pictures and when I don't have better blog content slap another room up here. Or not. We'll see! 

This moment

This moment. 

(My dad and Kadin playing chess via Skype. Do note that they're making the same expression while concentrating. Fun fact. My son and my father are not biologically related.)

'This moment' idea adopted from SouleMama.

Dear, sweet Ansel

I see a lot of bloggers doing focused posts on their children's birthdays. I think this is super charming and dear and a generally great idea. But.... I missed Ansel's birthday. He turned 6 in December. But yesterday he had his 6 year check-up, so we'll consider that good enough and go with it. He clocked in at 47 inches and 58 pounds! He's already starting to outgrow his size seven clothing.

Ansel is a ball of joy and passionate emotion. When he's happy, he's not just happy, he's over the moon. When he's sad or angry, it is no small thing. The whole world is ending and there will never be another day of sunshine.

He loves art, music(he always asks me to change to music if I put on NPR), running outside and playing with sticks, Star Wars, the color green, chocolate, bananas, and anything his older brother wants or likes.

Ansel is very affectionate. Just last night he fell asleep laying on top of me. I don't know if it's just his inherent personality or if it's from the many years of breastfeeding, cosleeping, and babywearing, but he loves to hug, kiss, hold hands, and generally lay or sit smashed up against his adult of choice. He tests my patience on a daily basis, but makes up for it in sweet gestures. Just last night he grabbed my face, kissed me and said, "You're the most beautiful woman in the world and I'm sorry for every mean thing I've said to you." You can't make this stuff up! I don't know where he gets it! 

(The photos were not taken by me. I wish I had that much talent! They were taken by Melody Yazdani Photography.)

Nature Walk

Our first official day of homeschool went fairly well, all things considered. It's going to take some time to work out those darn kinks.

We had a mini field trip of sorts in the afternoon. The husband didn't have work so we all wanted out of the house for a little while. We visited a local nature trail to get some fresh air. There was a lot of walking involved and even some running by the boys, so.... PE maybe? We'll figure it out.

Kadin being Kadin wanted to read the information. No prompting necessary! This one was about snakes we might encounter. We didn't, fortunately.

Kadin, husband, and dog ran on ahead, leaving Ansel and I behind. Oh well, photo opportunity!

I also managed to convince Kadin to let me take a picture. This is just about the time we realized there was very likely a skunk nearby. So we high-tailed it right out of there!

And here's that ugly little dog running straight at me. He's nothing, if not enthusiastic! His name is McFly, by the way. He's also currently curled up right next to me on the couch. This, after he managed to dig an oatmeal cookie I had in my purse. Hrmph. Not cool, McFly, not cool.

Also check out Friday's Nature Table over at The Magic Onions. 

Blerg

So I got the plague. Ok, ok, not the plague. But I did get strep throat. And that did put me down for the count. Huzzah! I spent the better part of four days curled up in a ball on the couch. A couple of nights I didn't even attempt sleeping in a bed and just stayed cemented to that couch. Thank goodness for a comfortable couch, I suppose.

So here I am on the other side. I'm not feeling as sick, though the effects of antibiotics are not all stellar. But I can actually swallow without difficulty so I think it's a significant step in the right direction. For those couple of days, we were in survival mode. My husband still had to work and the kids were still home with me all the time because school is out. So it was a lot of makeshift, grab what you can and be grateful, kind of dining. Oh, and perhaps some Subway as well, I won't lie. (I also won't lie and deny loving Subway.)

So now that it's officially the new year and I can stay in an upright position for extended periods of time, I can be productive again! I have Big Plans for myself this year. I have some rough ideas for blogging. I have some dietary changes to make and some 'splaining to do to all ya'll nice people. I have some ambitions for our family, and hopefully some of those things will be ironed out in the next few days so I have yet another thing to stress about. I need to make a new chore chart that is actually workable for our house(since moving, I have never been able to iron it out to be reasonable but actually keep the house clean). And even more than that, I need to stick to the chore chart.

Ok, well, there's so much to do that I could totally overwhelm myself just sitting here. But the husband is out watching a movie and the kids are in bed so I have a few things I need to mark off my to-do list. One thing I already completed tonight was setting up the boys' reading lights by their beds. Their bed frames are super thick, so the clamp wouldn't stick which was frustrating. So I trawled Home Depot until I found a bracket type of thing to screw into the bed frame and clamp the light to. It works, and the boys are happy to have reading lights. Now they don't have to suffer through the indignity of getting out of bed to turn off their overhead light.

The athletic gene

I lack whatever that thing is that makes you good at, or like participating in, sports. Whatever it is, I don't have it. I was in gymnastics, dance, and softball as a kid. Oh! And horseback riding and swimming lessons, but never swim team.

Gymnastics was a joke. I think I lasted maybe a month's worth of lessons. I was(and still am) terribly afraid of heights and taking physical risks. So yeah. that rules gymnastics out pretty quickly.

Softball lasted, I think, four years. I think softball lost me when they switched from those cute short-shorts to the capri style(I'm sure this is not what actual softball uniforms are called, but this shows where my priorities were). I was sort of ok with softball for the first three years. I drew a lot of pictures in the dirt when I played second base. I caught exactly three balls when they made me catcher(Why? I have NO idea). And I was a huge fan of the free soda after games(Suicides anyone?).

Horseback riding was yet another joke. That fear of heights and physical risk? Oh yea. That reared it's head again. I think the straw that broke the horse's back was when the horse stepped on my foot. That.... hurt. I had already spent most of the lesson's crying, so.... That was a bust. I loved the idea of horseback riding. But actually doing it? Not so great. My parents weren't thrilled with that one. The boots and helmet had been expensive and now.... yea. Wasted. Sorry!

Swim lessons went ok. The water didn't scare me. I had a brief resistance to diving, but I was able to get over that one. I was also fortunate that no pool I ever frequented had a high dive, cause that would have been a total no-go. I came out of it knowing how to swim just fine. I can dive... kind of. I know the various strokes, but who in their spare time does the butterfly anyway?

Dance was the only one that had any kind of longevity. I started at 3, if I remember right. Stopped for a year at 5, then was back in at 6 or so, until we moved to Texas when I was 11. This is another one of many situations in my life where I really liked something, I was doing everything "right," but I just didn't have the right whatever to be really good. My body wasn't right, my this and that wasn't right, whatever. But it was a fun activity, and that was the end of it. I didn't pick it up again after we moved.

Oh. And there were two pathetic try-out incidents in middle school..... track and cheerleading. Both went, well, badly. I can't run to save my life and my ability to contort my body in air might be even worse.

I firmly believe that the value of sports is not in being good at them, but in enjoyment and the physical activity of it. I am the least competitive person ever. I hate competition, and so I'm not super excited about winning at sports. It's nice, but eh. You will never find me watching a sporting event by choice. I positively could not care less.

Which brings us to my children. I think Kadin inherited my non-athletic gene. And I'm sad, because my husband has the athletic gene, and he has it bad. Dear, dear, Kadin. He is so like me in so many ways.

But we started him in soccer when he was 5, I think. And he's never been a natural, but he tries(most of the time) and he enjoys it(generally). So we've carried on with it. I also really like soccer, as far as sports go. I kind of hate sports that require fifteen types of equipment and a special space to play at all and so on and so forth. Soccer's just you and a ball, and I think that's pretty great. And there's running. Running is great exercise. Back and forth, back and forth....

So Kadin's now 9, in the 4th grade. And this year, miracle of miracles, the kids are finally playing something that resembles an organized sport. There's finally technique, and defined positions, and real coaching, and an official ref, and it's amazing! Monday was the first game of the season, and Kadin definitely contributed, and his team won! Off to a great start! Their next game is tomorrow, and we're gonna hope for good things.

Do your kids play sports? Do they love it or hate it?

How about you? Did YOU play sports? Were you terrible like me?

Exercise by deception

I'm very fond of tricking children into exercising. I'm even more fond of putting small children on the treadmill and forcing them to run until their little legs give out, but the children only let me do that to them once. So.... I have to get creative. I also admit, I felt a little bit guilty when I realized that I stocked up on water balloons after the summer sale two years ago. And.... I had yet to ever use any of them. So there's no time like the present, right!

So this afternoon, I filled up 250 water balloons. I probably popped about 20 of them in the process, but that's just the way it goes. So we now have 210 water broken water balloons scattered in our backyard. Who needs gardening when you can add "a splash of color" with latex balloons!

Success! (of more than one kind)

I finished Fast Food Nation! I didn't finish it last night, but I did finish it during lunch today. So, I was close to my goal at least. The husband wanted to turn in early last night, so I didn't get much reading time after the boys went to bed(none, I don't think). Ah, well. It's all good. And the book is DONE! It was really very informational. I can't say I learned a ton I didn't already know. It more or less elaborated on concepts I'm already aware of. It's sort of like watching Super Size Me. You already know fast food is bad for you, but the details and the explosion of information renew your zeal about it. If I'm being honest, I would have to admit that reading the book, at times, made me crave fast food. Yes, yes, terrible I know. And no, I did not indulge. And I do not plan to. Oy vey. I think I need to watch Super Size Me again.

And now I'm launching into reading something else altogether. I'm still plodding my way through The Omnivore's Dilemma. But I am also working on improving my overall way of thinking by reading something motivational, in this first case, This I Believe. I will readily and openly admit to being a huge NPR geek. I listen to it often. And now that I've finally figured out how to stream it on my computer such that I can play it on our multi-room stereo system in the house, I am golden! I used to primarily listen to it in the car, and to podcasts now and again(a special favorite is This American Life). This I Believe is something that NPR airs from time to time, and I have always very much enjoyed it. So a book seems perfect!

As for my other success, it was the meal plan for last week. I made my meal plan on Tuesday evening. I printed all my recipes, my grocery list, and the meal plan itself(which is posted on the refrigerator for the week). I went shopping on Wednesday and remembered everything I needed. And every single day I managed to prepare the meal that I had set out to make. So at no point in this last week did we resort to take-out or any other unnecessary anything. Yay! And even one night of the week that I ended up going out with a friend, I prepared dinner for the guys before leaving. As I sit here, the chili is in the crock pot. It's done, but is cooling off a bit before we eat.

Just for fun, here's last week's meal plan:

Wednesday - Garden Gumbo, Rolls

Thursday - Casbah Curried Chicken, Couscous

Friday - Mom's Meatball Stroganoff, Egg noodles, Corn

Saturday - Indian Spiced Chicken, Rice, Israeli Salad

Sunday - Mexican Chicken Stew, Corn muffins

Monday - Fettucini with Bolognese Sauce, Salad

Tuesday - Chili, Tortilla chips

I am also happy to say that we had no food waste! Well, I can't claim that everyone ate absolutely everything that was on their plate. BUT. On work days, the husband took leftovers from the night before for his lunch. In some cases, Ansel and I ate leftovers at home for lunch as well. And if there was still excess, I froze the leftovers as individual portions to use at a later date. So now we have six or seven individual meals frozen. Awesome. That'll help in a pinch. And it means I didn't throw money in the trash.

OK, now I need to get down to business planning this next week. I'm also taking on homemade laundry detergent. It's not exactly "crunchy," but it will be inexpensive. So that's something!

And because posts are better with pictures, here's a picture of the boys from three years ago! Wow! Time flies.

Meal plans for saving! (money AND my sanity)

Dinner is a drain. There, I said it. I get really tired of making dinner. It happens every gosh darn day! Sometimes I wish we could take a day off from dinner. But alas, the kids and the husband won't hear of it!

I used to be a non-planner when it came to meals. I would buy staple ingredients every week and freeze whatever meats were on sale that week, buy shelf stable items as I could afford to stock up, and buy way too many vegetables that would end up going bad before I used them.

It was wasteful, but at that point we were eating all conventionally grown items, so we could 'afford' the waste. Now that I've placed a priority on natural and organic items, the price tag is higher. In order to make up the difference, we had to eliminate waste.

And that's where meal planning comes in. Each week, I plan out the next week's dinners. Lunches are easy.... Leftovers go with the husband to work, Ansel and I eat leftovers if we have them or we eat something easy like sandwiches, and Kadin takes a sandwich to school each day. Breakfast is basic staple items.... oatmeal, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc. So those are just a regular part of my shopping.

This has definitely simplified my life. Because I know what I will be making for dinner, I find it easy to start dinner preparations earlier in the day, or overnight if necessary. There is no last minute panic about what to eat. I also don't wait too long to start, then realizing what I had decided on will take more time than I have available. I can also plan the more time consuming meals for the days of the week when I have more time to devote to them. It is really a load off my mind, AND, I find myself almost never wishing we could just order pizza or go out to eat.

I think I'll start posting my weekly meal plans, and then updating the blog most days about how things have turned out. Here's this week's plan:

Wednesday: Rotisserie chicken(the store-made kind, our natural foods grocery has them on sale), baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli.

Thursday: Pasta with bolognese sauce and salad.

Friday: Chicken mole, rice, and corn.

Saturday: Chicken rollers(a sale item at the store), ravioli(another store sale item), and salad.

Sunday: Burritos(this is a big batch make ahead item) and salad.

Monday: Red lentils, palak paneer, and rice.

Tuesday: Thai pasta salad.

I made bread last night, and will be keeping up with that this week. I also plan to make snickerdoodles for the boys and granola snacks for Ansel, as well as protein bars for the husband.

Off to the store we go! Let's hope I stay under budget again!

Whoops!

Life got kind of crazy for a while. We were preparing for employment changes and a big move, but things didn't fall into place like they were supposed to, so we're staying put a while. I kind of put homemade stuff on the back burner and have been primarily doing things that require very little prep. But, I'm gonna get back into the swing of things and start blogging again big time.

Earth Day!

So, it's Earth Day. Yay! And, because my life is all kinds of crazy right now and I've been putting off some projects and thus had little to blog about, I figure I can post a bit on what I do to be earth friendly.

So, let's see.

The biggies..... We use cloth diapers. We didn't with Kadin. Heck, I had no idea they even really existed anymore. But we have with Ansel since he was born. And seeing how he's almost 3 1/2 now, that's a LOT of diapers we haven't thrown away. I won't lie and say I love it at this point. It's tedious. But I remember Kadin's last months in diapers being tedious, too, and all I had to do with those was throw them away.

(I will also add that Ansel wore this same diaper today, as a matter of fact. The color's lost some of it's brightness, but the diaper is every bit as functional as it was in this picture, when Ansel was a little over a year old.)

We breastfeed. Feeding artificial human milk(also known as "formula") creates a TON of waste. If you can possibly breastfeed, I highly recommend it!

This is about 3 days post-partum, our first outing.

I use reusable menstrual pads. I'll spare you a picture on this one. Really, you don't want to see. But I promise you it's NOT gross. And an unexpected plus of it has been that they're WAY more comfortable than anything disposable ever was.

One of our cars is a hybrid, and we LOVE it! It's fun and cute and spacious enough and gets great gas mileage! The blue one on the right. The grey SUV is my parents'.

We buy organic products and local products when we can. This is less strain on the environment, especially the local products. Organic products also reduce the amount of impact each crop has on the land itself.

There are a lot of other smaller things we do here and there, and a lot of other things we'd like to do, but at this point don't because of financial constraints or the time involved or other things. We're working on it, though, and doing what we can.

A few thoughts on eating at Disneyworld

It's not as bad as one might think.

Yes, there's all the standard stuff.... burgers, fries, hot dogs, and so on. But almost every restaurant, even the quick service ones, have healthy options. I did have a cheeseburger and fries one night(as did the kids). But the rest of the time we had healthier things.... like a grilled chicken wrap and apples in place of fries. I only had soda once, the kids didn't at all.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find a lot of fruit stands throughout the parks. They also had whole wheat pretzels.

One way we made our own lives easier was to bring food with us. Two of the days(out of four) we packed our lunch and snacks ahead of time. We rented a locker at the park and stashed our cooler there and some of the 'extras.' We kept bottled water and healthy snacks(apples, healthy crackers, etc.) in the bottom of the stroller, so we could have them whenever we felt like. This also saved us a LOT of money! And without all that bottled water, I know we would have had a lot more soda!

There is also no question that food is expensive, but the quick service stuff(as opposed to the full service sit down dining, of which we did NOT partake) is not as earth shatteringly expensive as one might think. It's definitely still best to buy as little as possible while there, but if you do need to(or choose to) eat, it won't completely break the bank. I think the reason it all seems so expensive is if you're entirely reliant on the park food for three meals a day plus snacks for the duration of your stay. Yes! That WILL add up, but we stayed off the parks, and had a whole kitchen in the condo we rented. We ate breakfast there every day before leaving, and that helped a lot.

So now that I've rambled.... It's expensive(sort of), but can be healthy pretty easily!

Snacking..... It never ends.....

My boys snack constantly. As soon as they finish one thing, they're on to the next. Ansel, who is 3, is actually the worst of the two of them. And his appetite for fruit is insatiable. For example, this morning he ate a pear, an apple, and two and a half bananas. And that was all before 11 am! It's no wonder I buy as much produce as I do.....

This is an example of a snack that Ansel ate one afternoon, and he did eat all of this, along with a cup of water(he likes a lot of ice in it). It's quite pretty, which I think I appreciate more than he does. But I do take some pride in being able to prepare simple, attractive foods for my family.

I like big buns!

I'm baaaack!!!! I feel like I've done more 'I'm back' blogs than I have anything else. I got derailed by hectic life events, a trip to Disneyworld, and a wicked stomach virus that attacked the smallest member of the household. The next couple of items are actually from before chaos ensued, but I never got a chance to blog about things. So I'll try and get a couple of quick entries up and then resume with things as they're actually happening.


Hamburger buns! This is another item from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The book raves about this recipe, and I was definitely skeptical. I'm not a huge fan of wheat buns. They seem to be distracting to me.... just too much going on. But, as a part of this all whole foods thing, I figured I'd give it a go.

They looked soooo good coming out of the oven! And they smelled amazing!

We grilled hamburgers outside, of course, which meant the boys got time to play outside. We have a dirt/rock pile off to the side of the house(no idea what it's from, it's just always been there) and they spent a good deal of time just digging.

I'm trying to get used to my new lens. This was fun for me to be able to stand on the patio and take pictures of the kids on the far side of the yard. Still needs work, but it was exciting!

And the husband doing his part. I do grill as well, but if he's available to do it, I am HAPPY to share the responsibility.

The buns got rave reviews! They used the same dough as the Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread I've been making as our basic bread. It was remarkably simple, and there was no specific skill or technique necessary to get a good result. The book also gives instructions to make hot dog buns, which is very similar to making the hamburger buns. I don't think I'll be buying buns again! The taste was flavorful, but not overpowering, much better than any storebought wheat buns I've had.

Taking advantage of the day

Our weather was surprisingly nice today. And because of my husband's irregular work schedule, he sleeps during the daytime. It always helps to get out of the house when both the kids are home so he can get a chance to sleep in a quiet house. So.... We packed a picnic lunch and headed to the only decent park I know of here!

I wanted to get just one decent picture of the two boys together today, but.... it didn't go so well. We'll have to try again another day.

Granola bars are on the agenda for tomorrow! For now, I'm off to bed!

Who we are and what we're doing

I'm Nicole, and I'm kick-starting my family's move towards completely whole foods, and mostly whole living. We've been trying to be mostly healthy for years now, but our commitment has waned at times. My husband and I each have our 'junk' vices, which are not the same, so it means we have double the amount of junk floating around! And when life got busy, we'd end up eating out or making crappy, easy to fix foods. Our older son also saw enough commercial tv to know that there's an endless wealth of kid foods with cartoon characters on the packages and fun commercials that exist to entice little ones. So I caved into that more often than I should have.

(Our family at a wedding the weekend after my husband started chemotherapy.)

And then, in the midst of an already difficult time, we got the devastating news that my husband(at only 42 years old) had cancer. This led to us moving from our home in Virginia to Georgia for employment and insurance reasons, and going into survival mode. We did our best to get through it all in one piece, and made some concessions along the way. We all got a loss less active, and we gave in to a lot of convenience items.

(My husband and kids mid-way through the chemotherapy process.)

And now we're on the other side! In the first week of December 2009 my husband was declared to be cancer free! There's still going to be a lot of monitoring, and I think we'll always be a little bit wary that something could be there, but now is the time for us to make strides to be a healthier family. I want more for us, especially for our children.

My husband has a leg up on me, as he's always been a physically active person. His weight often fluctuates, but he has an easy time of losing pounds once he puts his mind to do it. I, on the other hand, have struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. Having children has exacerbated the problem, and I find it embarrassing to even acknowledge the significance of the issue. But I'm hoping that this outlet will help me to feel better about accepting it. I have no reason to be embarrassed so long as I am actively working to resolve it.

I expect a bumpy journey. We all have our vices. But we're taking charge of it, starting..... well, starting this past Monday! (post of that to follow as soon as I can manage it!)