Happy New Year

First things first.... Happy New Year!!!

But as I head into the New Year I am SO grateful that the Lord has been working with me the last couple weeks and preparing my heart for this New Year. By working through my issues with food and exercise and generally stripping away any pretenses leaving nothing but truth, this year I have a different perspective on the New Year than any other year to date. Like everyone else I am So temped to want to say I'm starting a new diet, making this change or that.
WHAT? No new diet for you? No PLAN? I mean everyone HAS to have a plan going into the New Year right?! I do but it's not the plan you think. Late last night the Lord stripped away any plan I thought I was going to have. He stripped it down to one single solitary plan. He did this by showing me this verse. I didn't go to bed until 1 AM and yet still I opened my Bible. I was SO tired but the Lord wouldn't let it go. He had greater work to do than letting me sleep. This is what he showed me. And when He did I couldn't believe it. I got tears. He is perfect. And his plans to prosper me are perfect. And His Word is perfect.

[20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— [21] “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” [22] (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? [23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
[3:1] If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. [3] For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 2:20-3:3 ESV)

Any rule I could come up with, any diet, any resolution, would be of NO value in stopping the indulgence of my flesh! The ONLY answer is to set my mind on the Lord, on the things above, NOT on the things on the earth. In one fail swoop the Lord destroyed my towers of Babel that thought that I could be like God, doing it on my own.

There is only one resolution to be made this year, and every year from this point on. To set my eyes on the Lord. And all the things that I would love to make resolutions about will fall in place. With the Lord ALL things are possible.

ONE RESOLUTION to rule them all.

On a side note, I have a side blog that chronicles my weight loss, and journey to better health here if you're interested:
http://pursuitoftappiness.blogspot.com/

Real Food Challenge Week 1: Day 2

Ahh now onto the good stuff! Stocking the pantry with yummy nourishing goodies! I won't paste the entire looonnggg informative email from Day 2. Go JOIN and you can get them everyday. Honestly I recommend you join even if you can't or don't want to commit right now to doing the entire challenge. Learning some simple steps, trying some new things, and generally just moving towards better health is a good thing.

Pick up some wholesome foods to help round out your pantry, replacing the processed foods you tossed (or were supposed to toss) yesterday. Remember, you needn't purchase every item on this list - this challenge isn't about spending every penny you earn on groceries; rather, pick a few items and there to round out your pantry. Choose organic, local ingredients where possible.

As I glance at this list. I am overwhelmed with how the Lord has truly blessed us in the area of food.

• Natural Sweeteners* such as honey, blackstrap molasses, whole unrefined cane sugar (e.g. Rapadura / Sucanat), sorghum syrup, maple syrup.- have these :) We have probably 2 1/2 gallons of raw honey left, some maple syrup (and soon to be more since Mom has decided she likes the fake stuff better and is giving me hers. What?!), we have a gallon of blackstrap molasses, and a gallon at least of local Amish sorghum. Remember that we have been stocking up on these things slowly over time. Start small and go from there.
  
• Wholesome fats such as unrefined olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, tallow, butter, ghee- Have these. I have a gallon or so tin of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a jug of red palm oil, and loads of butter. I'm going to look into grass fed butter. We use LOTS of butter. I don't know that I can afford healthier butter for now. We'll see. For now we get plain ole Costco butter. And lots of it. I'm out of coconut oil but usually have some.
  
• Whole meal flours such as grain flour, sprouted grain flour, coconut and blanched nut flours - We have hundreds of lbs of whole grains and grind our own. Frankie has tricticale and kamut on her list. Hmm... off to check prices on those to start saving! New fun stuff is a good thing.
• Unrefined Sea Salt such as real salt and celtic sea salt- We needed more of this. I've fallen in the trap of using the refined sea salt we have for salting meat in cooking. So I talked Mom into giving me her gorgeous gray Celtic Sea Salt. I want more. More. More.
  
• Meat (preferably grass-fed or pasture-raised) such as beef, lamb, chicken, pork, bison, elk etc.- Meat. Glorious meat! We have lots of meat. I wish we had more grass-fed beef than we do. But we have enough to eat in once a week for a few more months. We also have some wild deer sausage. I have lots of turkeys. Yes they're not free-ranged but they were cheap and they will be enjoyed here. We're going to talk about some meat goats and chickens this year. There will be posts about it. Oh and we only can afford grass-fed beef buying it in bulk. We bought 100 and something lbs of it this last time. I hope we can save up and buy 400 lbs or so at least next time. If you look at the prices at Whole Foods and faint, start searching for a local source. It's the only way to go.
  
• Fresh vegetables and fruit (preferably organic in season and local)- Eh we don't have loads of these. We have been sure to always have a big bag of organic carrots from Costco cause those are cheap cheap. We do have some of our own organic canned pears from last Fall. I'll have to be sure and start using those as a local yummy fruit source. I love looking at my jars of food so much I forget to actually USE them. Stupid right? But Spring is coming. We are planting the first seeds tomorrow for Spring. In a handful of months we will be brimming with insanely delicious organic produce. Praise God for gardens.
  
• Full fat dairy (preferably raw) such as whole milk, butter, cream, cheese- Don't worry about us. We have more than enough raw yummy milk goodies. There are some things I am beyond thankful for. Raw milk is one. We will be going in with some other families to get a case of cheese making kits for half price so we will be making our first hard cheeses soon. Maybe I'll do some buttermilk, cream cheese, ricotta posts here soon.
  
• Naturally fermented foods and beverages such as kombucha, yogurt, kefir- we do all these already. But I have let them slip some. I have some of the biggest, thickest kombucha mothers you've ever seen due to neglect. Okay. Off to brew the tea to reboot right now!
  

So. This was the easiest part of the challenge I think. For others it will be one of the hardest. Over the next few days we will continue to go through our pantry and get rid of processed foods from Day 1's challenge. I thought at first glance yesterday that I had done it but being honest and looking really at things, we have more than I thought. So more will be going tomorrow when I clean out the fridge and pantry.

28-day Real Food Challenge

I'm starting the 28-day Real Food Challenge over at NourishedKitchen. We do fairly well here but we've let some things slip so we're going to do this (uh Clay, we're doing this just so you know). Click this lovely picture to go straight to the challenge:
The first day of the challenge may very well be my hardest. It's to clean out the pantry. I thought when I read at first that we were going to cut all processed foods out of our pantry it was going to be a breeze. But as I read more, oy, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.

The list of things that are supposed to go:

* Vegetable Oils: Soybean, Cottonseed, Canola, Corn - this is easy. We don't have or use any of those anymore.
* Sugar: White Sugar, Brown Sugar, Turbinado, Agave Nectar (including "raw"), Sugar in the raw - I need to keep this for kombucha and water kefir. I will be talking to Clay about making a firm commitment about not using this for any other reason.
* Stevia: white stevia powder, stevia liquid - Ouch. Honestly I've known for a while that the stevia we've been using is hyper processed. But it's so good and it's been a crutch. I truly need to give it up. Part of me wants to just bury my head in the sand and pretend that this white powdered, non bitter stevia is better than Splenda. I want to pretend it's my low carb savior. It sure makes amazing low carb chocolate. Off to pull out our container of stevia leaves from our plants. This is one thing I will HAVE to grow more of next year I think. Okay. I just poured $10 worth of stevia down the drain. I feel sick to my stomach. But the time to try and stop being a health hypocrite needs to stop. Wow. So I am actually going to try and DO this thing! I think. Maybe.
* Margarine - no brainer. Couldn't pay me enough to eat margarine.
* Shortening (excluding palm shortening) - Same with this. Butter or lard for my pie crusts thank you.
* White flour: all-purpose flour, unbleached all-purpose flour, white rice flour, - Now this is where Clay and I will have to talk. It's easy to have a bucket of white flour. Sometimes I'm lazy and want to feed my sourdough starter without grinding flour. A LOT of times Clay wants cake and cookies. But I'm overweight. And tired. I need to stop this white flour, white sugar nonsense. In the last year where we started having desserts all the time instead of once a month or so we've had loads of sickness, lots of "my tummy hurts", headaches. Time to have a REAL talk to Clay about this. It's going to be a tough sell though to be honest.
* Cornstarch - I have some. But it's really out of selfishness. Adric's allergic to corn yet I keep some to use in random recipes. As I type it it leaves me a tad breathless that I've served my allergy child foods with cornstarch in it on purpose. Off to grab it and throw it away.
* Soy foods: soy sauce, soy flour, soy milk, soy lecithin, isoflavone-enriched foods and supplements - Okay this is a tad hard too. I'm so used to having it. BUT I have and believe in fermented miso. I have that and am interested in starting to learn to make it. Off to find my soy sauce. Ack. Once I went in the pantry I realized that A, I have more processed condiments in there than I realized. B, I realized that Clay won't be into getting rid of some of them like ketchup. And C, I just bought an entire big bottle of Bragg's. If I make sure I have miso, can I get rid of it without guilt? HELP again. It's painful to get rid of whole bottles of Bragg's. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about it. I'll tell you at the end of the post what I'm going to do about the Bragg's. It's from non-GMO soybeans? Doesn't that make it better? Ugh. But financially it's a lot to just get rid of. Thursday I will grab the unpasteurized Nama Shoyu they sell at our Whole Foods. Then we'll talk Bragg's.
* Dried Pastas and Noodles - don't have any and didn't order any in my last bulk food order.
* Iodized Salt - we don't use it.
* Refined Sea Salt - now we do have a big bag of this. We won't be getting rid of it because Clay wants to have it in case we need to salt large pieces of meat. I Think have found a source of bulk nice pink Redmond RealSalt for cheap. I'll have to research that. But I'll pick up some more gray yummy wet mineral rich salt at Whole Foods in the next day or so for actual use in the meantime.
* Meat & Dairy Replacements: TVP, veggie burgers, vegan cheeses, sour creams, rice and nut milks, vegan sausages - eh we don't use these.
* Processed cheeses - Clay's a big cheese guy. He won't want to live without it. This may be the one thing that won't officially be able to be changed. I'm not a miracle worker :)
* Skim and Low-fat Dairy: cheese, milk, yogurts etc. - we don't use. Hmm though we do buy processed cream cheese. But it's something we can live without and might need to learn to. Maybe start making some again.
* Boxed cereals, crackers and cookies - Another "talk to Clay" thing. He likes crackers. He has a huge box of them. BUT if I made sure that he had snacks everyday he wouldn't need them. Deviled eggs he loves. Muffins. Soaked flour muffins :) Fresh sourdough bread is his absolute favorite. So if I kept these things on hand he wouldn't crave the crackers. So will have to start planning on that so we can ditch his crackers. Maybe soaked flour crackers for that cheese he won't get rid of LOL.

Okay so I am still praying about the Bragg's. Part of me feels like Clay will be really upset if I throw it away. I'll post this week about how the conversations with Clay go about processed foods. He really doesn't feel like little bits are that big of a deal. Part of me feels that way too, but only when I want to not do what needs to be done. Ouch.

So run on over and join the Challenge. Even if you do just some of it, and make small changes they are changes. Any and all changes for the sake of your health are good and worthwhile.

Odds and Ends

A few minutes before bed to blahbitty blah blah.

A, have you been getting turkeys? Cheap turkeys? What? You haven't? It's pre-Thanksgiving time people. Right now at Walmarts all over the country there have been reports of 40 cents a lb turkeys. The turkeys have been around $5.50. Yeah 5 big bucks. Now there's a 2 turkey at a time limit. Over the last few days we've gotten 8. I sure wish I lived closer to town. I want 30 total. It's not looking good. But I've got my mom on the turkey hunt and she's going to be getting me 2 a day when they have them. Go Team Mom!

And in case you didn't know, turkeys are great. Yeah I wish I could afford nice free range turkeys (we raised our own this year, and unfortunately didn't take good enough care of our baby turkey poults this Spring) but at $40+ a turkey for free range, it's not in the budget. But 5 BUCKS?! Dude. And turkeys go so far. Far far far. See next paragraph. :)

So we cooked a turkey today. Actually it's me cleaning out all of last year's turkeys. We had a huge Thanksgiving turkey meal. Ahh the wonders of my mom coming and making homemade stuffing with sausage and mushrooms. Yum. But we ate loads of turkey. Then I stripped loads of turkey meat off. LOTS of it. And I put the carcass in the crock pot for soup. I easily have 2 full meals worth of shredded turkey meat. And more for soup. All those meals include a full dinner, lunch for Clay, and leftovers for us at home the next day. So that's how many meals? 8 meals in total? For $5 for the meat? Understand now why I want so many? 2 turkeys a month. Wouldn't want one every week cause we'd get sick of them, but every other week? Go budget, it's your birthday.....

What's that sound? You running to Walmart? Pick me up one while you're there eh?

*note* some Walmarts have been selling out of turkeys. The manager told my mom to call ahead of time. Might be worth a call if you live 30-45 minutes away like we do.

*note 2* if I were a cool blogger I would have taken a picture of the turkey and crock pot and whatnot. Does it ever feel ODD to take pictures of things like cutting meat off a turkey carcass? Sometimes it feels way too weird. When you're ripping tendons and hacking away at the turkey it feels pretty full of myself to take pictures of that grossness and feel like people will care about them. **Then I type out my post and wish I had taken the weirdness, narcissistic pictures to make my blog post look cool.**

B, Forget my old Last Hoorah post. I've had many of them in the last week. I'll touch on that Monday. Or late tomorrow night. Blasted weight loss. I hate it. Why can't I look like a goddess at 200 lbs? Why? Or live in one of those countries where they love their women fat? Now that, THAT would be nice. To weigh 200 lbs and be thought of as the most attractive woman in the room. Okay I don't seek to have men look at me, in fact I try to dress modestly so they don't. And the heavier I am the harder it is to dress modestly and feminine. It's not easy to find feminine modest clothes at Goodwill. So maybe the other country business would be even worse? um...No. It wouldn't. Where ARE these magical places people talk about anyways? And anyone want to make me some nursing jumpers or find some XL blouses for me at Goodwill? Okay. THis is it. So this is the LAST Last Hoorah Day LOL! Time to lose this weight. It wasn't so bad really. Some homemade stevia chocolate before bed. But let's not forget that I ate a plate and a half of Thanksgiving dinner. Even it being 5 hours ago and it was still Last Hoorah worthy. If I lived in that magical Fatland would I eat Thanksgiving every week? Do you think women specifically TRY to get fat there and being skinny is considered the state in which women are to strive to not be? That would be weird right? "Ew look at how skinny she is. Blech. Honey I love your fat." Okay enough. Must go to sleep. Can you see my tiredness morphing into madness? Eh... ignore my ramblings. This is just the tiniest glimpse into the rambling nonsense that makes my sweet rational, reasonable husband roll his eyes at me :) I love him.

C, Why am I up this late? Oh yeah, babies who don't sleep. Or prefer staying up until 1am and then sleeping til 9. I've never had a baby sleep through the night before the age of 2! And here I have this baby that sleeps 8 hours at night. But seriously me not being able to go to sleep until 1-2am isn't a huge help. I really need to buckle down and get working on him going to bed earlier. The first key is... NO, I don't want to say it. I can't. Sigh. Getting him *cough Me cough* up earlier.

D, Thanks mom for coming over and making a pre-Thanksgiving meal with me.

E, and because I read something that said people hate blog posts without pictures... I leave you with this. Garrison...
And that headdress thing was brought back from Egypt, real Egypt by my mom. Why Garrison is wearing it and why he looks so grumpy in all the pictures I found of him wearing it, I don't know. But it just feels like this post. That's what I should be wearing right now as I typed it. And I leave with that look on my face.

Sleep. Must. Find. It.

My Last Hoorah

We all have done it. The last hoorah. You know what I’m talking about. The night before your new diet, and all bets are off. The night before the new diet. Pizza at 10 at night, followed by a couple cookies, the bottom of a strawberry milkshake (okay smoothie but still) a bowl of ice cream. And on and on. I mean tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life and all that jazz right?

Until tomorrow comes :)

Then you screw up and eat whatever. Yesterday’s long awaited tomorrow just became the new last hoorah because you’re starting OFFICIALLY this time, tomorrow. And you just had two, count em two, binge nights. Then two turns into three and instead of skinnier from this new diet, your new diet made you GAIN 10 lbs.

Help. I need to stop. Tomorrow’s the beginning of the best of the best food life. I hope. Well either way, tomorrow’s the beginning of no more last hoorahs. It may not be a perfect eating day but it won’t be a last hoorah day.

I hope.

Hey wait does that make today’s last hoorah the last hoorah of last hoorahs?

Help. I need help.

Real Food Wednesday

I think this is my first Real Food Wednesday contribution though I've taken pictures before with the plan of doing it. We all know how that goes around here. I can't seem to find whether there's a theme for this week so I'm winging it. I also can't find the Mr. Linky for it so I'm still just moving forward. If you have never checked out a Real Food Wednesday, it's hosted alternating weeks at http://www.cheeseslave.com/ and http://kellythekitchenkop.com So run over and check out all their Real Food Wednesday posts. Their posts are packed with information and you will find insane amounts of great recipes and info on the blogs that participate each week.

This is an old standby recipe that I LOVE but haven't made in a while. I've already eaten these up from the pictures and am making more today. Yum. They're fantastic, a little different, high in protein and fat and great for pregnant ladies, children and everyone else.

*note I kind of suck at this so I kept forgetting to take pictures of me actually DOING anything lol. Next time I'll have Frankie be my photographer. He'll be thrilled.*

Halvah Balls
What you need:
Sesame Seeds. I prefer the brown ones with the hull still on.
Coconut oil, preferably virgin coconut oil but whatever you have.
Sweetener, whether it's raw honey or stevia or maple syrup. Whatever floats your boat.
Coffee grinder
optional: spirulina

Start by taking your sesame seeds.
In small batches, grind the sesame seeds in the coffee grinder until fine. IF you choose to add spirulina put small amounts in the coffee grinder AS you grind the seeds so it mixes in well and easily. I grind until I have a handful of cups worth. Maybe 4 cups worth a batch or so. As each batch is done in the grinder, pour into a large bowl.

Once done grinding, start throwing in some scoops of coconut oil. I like Wilderness Naturals myself.
Mix well until it seems most of the sesame seed meal is a tiny bit coated. You don't want it wet, just crumbly. Like making pie crust. Here's mine in all it's green glory.
Then you add your sweetener to taste. This batch I used local raw honey. We have a 5 gallon bucket of it. Yum. Don't go too crazy or it will be sticky. They should be sweet but not icky sweet.

Then it's time to roll into balls. Roll them, put onto a plate and freeze. The coconut oil firms up and they're easy to hold for little hands and easy for pregnant moms to eat too many of. YUM.
There you have it. High protein, high fat, spirulina filled, raw goodness.

In the Garden - April 22 2009

I've started three posts now and haven't finished any of them. So I figure I'll just do a little pictoral of the goings on in our garden right now.

Radishes! See them popping their little heads out? Might pull the biggest one and eat it today for fun. They're always a little spicy for the kids but I'll make them taste it anyways. The first fruit of the season for us.

And woohoo the potatoes are up and looking great! This is the first time we have grown potatoes and I'm glad we did because we're going to be growing A LOT of them next year. I need to do some research to figure out how many we need to grow to try and grow enough for the family for the whole year. Clay should have the open basement/root cellar ready by then to store them. But honestly I didn't have any idea what they were even going to look like when they came up. Every weed that popped up got a good going over before it was pulled :) Once they came up though, I knew them instantly. They're so big and healthy and strong and I am in love with my potato sprouts. I am. Really. They amaze me. I'll be both happy and sad to cover most of them up with dirt in a couple weeks.

Romaine lettuce, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Bok Choy progress. They're just so big and shiny and growing SO fast. The broccoli side shoots are getting little knobs on them making them just look so broccoli-y. :)

Onions. Happy happy onions. We got these sets from a friend that owns a garden center. They're just so happy they make me happy.

We also have some Amish bottle onion sets coming in the mail from someone on homesteadingtoday.com I'm excited. It's just thrilling to go rare heirlooms. They should look something like this when they're done.

They're supposed to be spicy and great keepers. I just better not screw them up and better figure out how to store some for next year!

Spinach. Sigh. I don't know what happened with the spinach but it's just been Sooo slow. Germinated slow. Grew slow and even now are just little seedlings. Though they have taken off like mad in the last week. From almost nothing to two true sets of leaves in a week! But they've been in the ground for forever and forever so who knows what's up with them.

Lettuce. Honestly they're one of my favorite garden items. Not only do fresh greens out of the garden taste unbelievable but little baby lettuces are just so gorgeous to me. They're the epitome of Spring. Bright green, bright, cute, and a promise of a lovely salad.

Um.. think I overseeded my mesclun patch?

Empty teepees. I learned something about peas this year. They don't like being too wet. They really need to be started EARLY. I screwed up both of those things and ended up with 3 tiny horrible pea seedlings. Well they're gone now and the ground is reworked and covered with compost for pole beans.
Clay if you're reading this... I NEED those extra teepees you promised to make me. It took the kids and I hours and hours to gather the right sticks and make these LOL!

Tomatoes. The first batch IN. I planted them all yesterday. I have maybe 5 more plants to buy but it wasn't in my budget. This was a horrible year for my attempt at growing tomato seedlings. I researched and bought loads of amazing heirloom tomato seeds. The problem? I planted them in Miracle Grow Organic soil from Walmart. Never again. Turns out I found a thread this year at homesteadingtoday that others had the exact same problem as I did - stunted seedlings turning dark purple and dying. I lost ALL my starts. Everything else I had was grown in other medium (peppers, eggplant, huckleberries) and they're all huge and green and healthy. Sigh. So I bought plants. And turns out there's not loads of heirloom starts available around here - that I've found anyways. So we've got Brandywines, Mortgage Lifters, three kinds of cherry tomatoes - Super Sweet 100, yellow cherry and Sweet Grape, Burpee Red I think, Goliath bush and... well whatever I buy next will be something early. Clay asked me if I got early tomatoes last night and I realized I didn't, so that's next.
Those are just a few of the tomatoes. I planted 18 plants in total.

It randomly got really cold last night though and I had to go outside first thing and check on them. Phew.

Now the question is... should I plant my peppers tomorrow? It's only a few days past the frost date and I know you're supposed to wait two weeks BUT we're going to have 7 straight days of 79-80 degree weather!! So that makes 1 solid 10 days past the last frost. Yeah I'm planting those bad boys. If it gets cold I'll just have to freak out and protect them. Hmm... egglants too? I think I'm talking myself into it. I'll show those next week when they're settled.

That to do today? Hmmm.. how cold is it going to get tonight? Off to check.

Menu for this week

Monday

B – 

· Kids – Toast (sick kiddos)

· Mom – 2/3 cup steel cut oats, 3 egg omelet with few leaves spinach, raw onions and raw tomatoes

S – 

· Kids –  play this by ear to see who’s sick. Probably sliced apple

· Mom - cottage cheese and baby carrots

L –

· Kids – Buttered rice

· Mom – 3 slices flax bread with turkey, cheese, raw onions, tomatoes

S -  

· Kids – hardboiled eggs if not sicky tummies

· Mom - half a grapefruit with a hardboiled egg half a grapefruit with a hardboiled egg

D – 

· Family - tacos

· Mom -  soft tacos

Tuesday

B – 

· Kids - Oatmeal

· Mom - – 2/3 cup steel cut oats, 3 egg omelet with few leaves spinach, raw onions and raw tomatoes

·

S – 

· Kids – half a grapefruit and hardboiled egg

· Mom – Deviled eggs with baby carrots on side

L –

· Kids – Small salad with beans, rice

· Mom - Chicken Salad over romaine lettuce

S -  

· Kids – little applesauce

· Mom – cottage cheese and applesauce

D – 

· Family – Lentil soup with bread

· Mom – lentil soup, small bowl with a side salad

Wednesday

B – 

· Kids - Oatmeal

· Mom - – 2/3 cup steel cut oats, 3 egg omelet with few leaves spinach, raw onions and raw tomatoes

S – 

· Kids – glass milk with molasses

· Mom – celery with peanut butter and measured out raisins

L –

· Kids – lentil burgers

· Mom – lentil burger lettuce wraps

S -  

· Kids - 

· Mom – flax crackers with a little mashed feta and slice spinach

D – 

· Family – Spaghetti (chicken breast for Clay, small salad for Clay, kids if enough)

· Mom – chicken breast cooked in sauce, broccoli, tiny bit pasta

Thursday

B – 

· Kids - Oatmeal

· Mom - – 2/3 cup steel cut oats, 3 egg omelet with few leaves spinach, raw onions and raw tomatoes

S – 

· Kids - 

· Mom – cheese and carrots from van

L –

· Kids - Sonic

· Mom – Bunless double cheeseburger

S -  

· Kids - 

· Mom -