Finally, a Bit More Energy

Today was the first morning I've had a bit of energy, it felt great. I cleaned the toilets and the sinks (finally), washed the sheets and the towels, took the kids to the local health food store, and sorted through the last of the mason jars. All before lunch!

Have I told you about my mason jar stockpile? I got hooked on garage sales primarily because of my first great deal, these mason jars. I got (I kid you not) more than a dozen big boxes of assorted jars for $10. Hundreds of jars. When I usually have to buy a box of a dozen jars for $6, it was an awesome deal. Anyway, we carried these jars around for three moves, all the way down to Calgary. Trevor finally said "enough's enough", so I sorted through them. First of all, I weeded out the big jars (holding 4+ cups) because I don't have a pot big enough to process them anyway. There were more than seventy. Good grief. Then I sorted through the smaller jars, keeping 4 dozen 500mL jars, 1 dozen 375mL jars, and 1 dozen 250mL jars. I still had over 4 dozen assorted smaller jars to give away. As usual, there were several people on Freecycle who wanted them, so the big jars are gone and the small ones are getting picked up tomorrow. This is rather an extreme area for simplifying and winnowing down belongings, most areas haven't been nearly this bad, but it's good to get it done.

The menu plan is going over very well. I thought I'd post a list of my dinner meals, the recipes are all a hit with Trev and I, and the kids like most of them.

Week 1: Spaghetti and meatballs with salad; Cianfotta (Mediterranean vegetable stew) over brown rice; spiced chicken wraps with salad/veggies; Kichiri (Indian lentil curry) with homemade chapati; steaks, baked potatoes and veggies; cockaleekie (chicken and leek) soup, salad and homemade scones; homemade pizza and raw veggies.

Week 2: Pasta with pesto sauce and salad; chili over brown rice; burgers, oven fries and raw veggies; chicken curry over brown rice with salad/veggies; lentil veggie soup with salad and homemade scones; chicken Provencal; grilled fish, baked potatoes and veggies.

A lot of the recipes have easy variations to make it not seem so repetitive. We'll have to see what everyone thinks when we've run through the cycle two or three times.

A New Take on Eating

It has been a while! We got back from Saskatoon, and two days later Trev headed up to Fort Mac for four days, so everything's just going by so quickly. I've been pouring my energy into organizing our newest attempt at getting the junk out of what we eat, and now that I've got that pretty much under control, I can tell you about it.

It started when I picked up a copy of "The Eat Clean Diet for Family & Kids" by Tosca Reno; Mom had recommended the author, as she had previously bought the "Eat Clean Cookbook". I had been looking for a way to get us on track to eating in a healthier fashion, and what I read made sense. Here's what we've done:

• Cleaned out anything in the fridge and cupboards that has ingredients we can't identify or pronounce. Pretty much all chemicals, additives, preservatives and the like.
• Banned refined flours and sugars. Period. No artificial sweeteners either.
• Committed to not eating out at all until mid-December. It's way too easy to indulge in restaurants, and if we're going to really get into the habit of eating healthy foods, we need to do it regularly for at least a month.
• Done up meal plans for each week that have a breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, and supper for every single day. All meals (and if possible, snacks too) will be a combination of a healthy protein (lean meat, egg whites, hummus, nut butter, etc) and a complex carb (whole grains and/or fruits & veggies). I've borrowed the cookbook from my Mom and the recipes I have tried so far have been great.
• Drink water most of the time, with the occasional glass of decaf coffee or herbal tea. I'm trying for at least a litre and a half of water a day...Trev probably drinks more than that.

That's about it - the list doesn't seem long, but it's meant pretty big changes for us! So far so good, though. Trev and the kids have liked just about every recipe I've tried, and there haven't been any strident complaints about anything. A little bit of whining that they're not getting the fries they used to at Costco and so on, but nothing major. I guess we've always been careful to have the kids eat in a healthy way, we just haven't been as careful ourselves, so it's harder on the grown-ups. We'll see how we feel in a month's time.

That's really about it, other than I'm making progress in getting the excess possessions out of our house and into the hands of the Freecycle community. So far the vacuum, Adara's old bed, two twin box springs, a picture, three mirrors, our old microwave and a set of dishes have departed. There's lots more to go, but most of the rest requires sorting through boxes and discussion, so we haven't gotten to it yet. Hurrah for simplifying...both in what we eat and in what we own.