working...

The last two weeks have been crazy to say the least. Sharon, the office manager at All-Kleen, was on a two week vacation to Maine, so I had to work in the office every day... all day... I know you are thinking poor baby... she actually had to work for a living, but I do work for a living and I don't mind working in the office so much. I actually find it pretty mentally stimulating, but what I don't like is the constant shuffle of the kids (trying to keep them from having to be in the office with me and being bored all day and confined to a small space)- because we homeschool - and the food choices we make... because I don't have to be in the office every morning we eat a hot brunch rather than breakfast and most mornings are pretty leisurely. We hug and love each other up as we wake and then once we are over that, we move on to school work and food. Then lunch is always small and dinner is started and ready pretty early in the evening so we have time to time hang out together as a family at night too. Dinner tends to be the time when our energies come back to being home together. That is the most precious time of the day to me when we are all engaged in something whether it is watching a movie (or an old tv show since we don't have cable) or drawing or hanging out reading or building a fire or whatever we are doing... when I have to work all day if I'm not prepared we have to eat our breakfast out and our lunch if we get one, then dinner is often the quickest thing I can find to put together so that we can get to our family time at night and time to relax and just breathe... Because I cook most everything from scratch, I don't want to spend the time it takes after being away all day in the kitchen. I have really realized the impact our busy lives have on our food choices - and I don't just mean my busy life, but Americans in general. It's no wonder we are all over weight and over worked. We don't eat good because we don't have the energy to cook GOOD food so we eat a lot of boxed food, then because we are not eating whole foods and we are eating highly processed foods that all the GOOD stuff is cooked out of and then we have no energy for the next day and it becomes and endless cycle with our food choices getting worse and worse out of necessity. I am so thankful to have a life that allows me the time to eat well and enjoy food... We could still eat better than we do, but for the most part, we do ok and it is easy to be over board and I want the kids to grow up appreciating food and what it does for us. Last night we had salmon and corn cooked on the grill along with rice, broccoli, and raw carrots, and the awesome thing to me is that it ALL got eaten. The kids eat up their veggies and then for desert they had grapes and strawberries - of their own choice - we don't have any deserts in the house because I haven't made any this week, but they really didn't mind... they love fruit. They already are understanding the importance of what we take into our bodies and I am so glad they like foods that are good for them and though I would like for them to try more new foods, I can't say much, I'm really just beginning to branch out myself and eat up some new foods (my palate) has been pretty narrow most of my life.

Anyhow, we are still here... Halloween is in a few days and our costumes are pretty much together... Jason and I are still working on ours... and the kids carved pumpkins with Jason last night, so I'll have pictures of those tomorrow