March 25, 2013

With Passover starting tonight, this coming week presents interesting challenges. What to make for meals? What should our educational focus be? Will this be the year that kitniyot is also avoided?

 I can pretty much answer that last one: no. While I gravitate towards the Ashkenazi practices in most ways, avoiding legumes, corn, rice, peas, and the like during the week of Passover is just more than I can really see us accomplishing. We're already a mildly picky bunch... don't take away our corn and peas!

 I figure this is a pretty good week to start the 100 Days of Mini-Pledges from 100 Days of Real Food, though. After all, if we can't have noodles, bread, crackers, biscuits, bagels, tortillas, or cereal, what else can we do but eat more fruits and veggies? Right? We will never be this regular again. Roughage, ho!

 Honestly, I'm looking forward to the Week 2 challenge - real drinks. Coffee, tea, water, and milk. Juice once a week, wine once a day. (yes!) I HAVE to have this glass of Moscato, kid. It's like you taking your gummy vitamins. I don't make these rules, I just abide by 'em. Ok, I know she actually advises red wine but... you know. Sometimes it just doesn't go with the meal.

 I'm not sure I can cut out sugar as a sweetener but I do miss making my own creamer with maple syrup so I'll just suck it up and follow the rules. Hot tea with honey sounds fantastic right now. I can see where this is going. I will do like I did with the de-cluttering project (which is still ongoing. I'm just not good at updating!) and end up mashing all kinds of week-specific challenges together into one week and then I'll get confused and stop.

March 6, 2013

More often than I would really care to admit, I feel an overwhelming sense of falling behind. This year, I've been attempting to take better control of finances (um. Yikes.), cleaning (ack!), and just over-all time management (ha!). And just for emphasis: HA!

What do you do when you're trying to follow the 'never leave a room empty handed' guideline and your children seem to be following the same rule,  but in a bit of a reverse mode? Look, I've just got these two hands! And between my 2 kids, they've got what seem to be 8. You can imagine the effect that has on one's morale. 

I currently have 2-3 trash bags full of items to either take to Goodwill or put in a yard sale. I'm leaning toward a one-day yard sale and then whatever doesn't go, Goodwill can have. I just need it gone. There's this habit of hanging on to a thing in case it becomes useful again - dumb. Or hanging on to items in case someone else needs them - uh, what? If someone needs them, they will find it AT GOODWILL. Right? Yeesh, self. 

I'm trying to build a little garden area in the back yard but I'm just not sure how well it will go. About 60% of my seedlings that I repotted once they were 2-3 inches tall have been decimated by... something. I'm guessing birds or rabbits. Either way, I am not pleased. I understand that the lettuce had little to know chance out there but my zinnias and marigolds? Really guys??

One of my nephews has started coming over a couple of times a week for school/play time. He's somewhere between Lily and Izzy in familiarity with letters/numbers, which I think is actually kinda good. I'm hoping that working with him on being more confident in recognizing letters/numbers will help Lily be more interested in actively learning. As it is, all of her education has been passive so far. Not that I expect any different with a 3 year old, I'm just excited to get her on the path to active learning. Izzy loves this new arrangement... I think it thrills her to have a classmate to share in the fun.