Good morning. Today is one of “those” days…Abram up before 6 am. He’s munching on cheese, showing me his latest dance moves right now 😛 We’ll see how long this lasts. A couple of off mornings for us since I way overslept two days in a row 😛 I guess I need some extra sleep.
Last week was a very busy week in the kitchen with lots of new treats and plenty of other stuff. We also had lots of errands, had Abram’s iron levels checked (hate to see little ones get a blood draw), got the kids’ pictures taken and spent plenty of time playing outside and swimming in the pool.
This week was going to be quite busy. Rebecca was supposed to start a dance class. But they called yesterday saying they had to move it to a different time…so we had to cancel. It doesn’t work in our schedule now. Bummer. We’ll have to find another dance class sometime. The week will still be plenty busy, but meal planning will be easier since I won’t need quite so many prep ahead meals. Today is church. Monday we have a playdate (an ice cream making playdate:) in the afternoon. Tuesday is farmer’s market. Saturday we have an extended family get-together. That’s all we have planned. We might go strawberry picking one afternoon. And we’ll see if the kids feel like going somewhere – zoo, playground, library, children’s museum, etc. Rebecca and I didn’t go mini golfing yesterday because she wanted to play in the pool instead. Maybe we’ll go this week sometime.
Looks like it’ll be another busy week in the kitchen. I always have more that I want to make than I have the time to make it. I have a couple cookie remakes I want to try. I also have one more recipe that was in my “to try” pile for years. It’s a chocolate ganache cake. I still have a little rhubarb to use up. I will need to make a fresh batch of yogurt and possibly pesto and mayo. I also have to bring a dish to pass on Saturday. I need to figure out what yet. We’ll be making ice cream with friends tomorrow. I might use the rest of our cream to make a new batches of ice cream toppings (chocolate, butterscotch, caramel). For meals I want to keep working on using some freezer foods. We will also have another Rebecca recipe…probably some kind of variation on chicken strips. She seems to be a big fan of foods that you can dip, especially anything you can dip in our homemade honey mustard.
I had a pretty up and down week last week. Too many cheats on bad stuff 😛 At least I’m learning what my body really can’t handle right now. I got to try a hoola hooping class. It was a blast! I’m considering buying a hoop (they are weighted…much different than kids’ hoops). It is a great way to workout/tone your body in a short amount of time without actually feeling like you’re working out. It’s so much fun. I also learned another important part of my mental issues with food. I have a hard time stopping eating if there is more food. If I eat ice cream I know there is more. When I finish what I served myself I know I can get seconds, thirds,…my body has a distorted sense of hungry and full. I just go on taste…it tastes good…I want more. Even with my meals, if I can get seconds of something I want it. When I’m cleaning up dinner I keep eating until it’s out of sight/put away. I end up eating way more than I need. On the other hand, if I make myself something that is a single serving (a sandwich for example), when I’m done I’m totally satisfied. I can’t go grab another bite or two or three. So I don’t even think about it. I don’t like that how much I eat has to be dictated by my thoughts at this point. But I don’t know what my true hunger and fullness are. My brain has a starve/binge mentality. It’s not healthy. But I’m not sure how to get rid of it. Maybe I need to eat more single serving type foods so that I can try to retrain my brain and not be in the habit of always getting additional helpings. I have another experiment that I want to try this week. I started it last week but didn’t have time to do it fully. I think it will also help with my mental issues about eating enough food. I’ll update next week. Hopefully this will be a better week overall for me.
Here’s what’s on the menu this week. It might change depending on our activities. And some sides might change depending on what we find at the market.
—–
S (prep lunch, church, prep smoothies)
B – yogurt, granola, banana
L – cp honey mustard chx w/ vegetables
D – cobb style rice bowls, strawberry milkshakes
M (prep dinner, playdate, make ice cream)
B – smoothie, banana bread
D – (prep ahead) – cp ribs, mashed potatoes, beans
T (skim cream, make graham crackers, cookie remake, FM, strawberry picking dance)
B – yogurt, peach bread
D – (prep ahead) – avocado salmon tuna salad sandwiches w/ bacon, strawberries
W (freeze strawberries, roast beets, make cake, make cream pops)
B – smoothie, banana bread
D – Rebecca’s recipe – “cheese chicken nuggets w/ honey mustard, lettuce dipped in honey mustard, peas, strawberry milkshakes”
Th (dance make yogurt, make mayo, make butterscotch, freeze strawberries)
B – smoothie, toast, bacon
D – (prep ahead) – fish sticks, potato wedges, broccoli / cucumber, avocado
F (boil eggs, make pesto, prep dinner, make fruit leather)
B – yogurt, granola, fruit
D – deviled eggs, salad, scones or bread pudding
S (clean, make strawberry rhubarb pie, make fruit salad, VH party)
B – TBD
L – picnic
D – grill TBD?
I feel like I’m having one of “those” days, too. 🙂 I just have no motivation this morning. Was the oversleeping sort of planned as part of your goal to get more sleep? Sounds like you needed it if it happened twice in a row. 🙂
Bummer about the dance class! What kind of dance was it?
I’ve thought about buying one of the hoops, too. I’ve tried one before at a friend’s house. Hope to take a class at some point… though its been something I’ve wanted to do for probably 3 or 4 years now and I still haven’t actually done one. 🙂
Have fun strawberry picking if you go! The “safe” strawberry fields by us and in Lansing have all said its a super short season this year since the conditions were just perfect for ripening and whatnot… and they will probably only be open for u-pick through Tuesday, maybe Wednesday this week. But the berries have seriously been awesome – even sweeter and better than other years. Thankfully I got a flat from one of the farms the other day, plus the 5 quarts I got at the farmers’ mkt on Wednesday night… but I still need to get more. I’ve got 4 gallons in the freezer, but we’ll be through those in no time once I can start making smoothies again (not allowed to have fruit in the mornings right now). Our CSA is having some delivered from a farm up north, so I think I’m going to order one or two flats of those… but the timing makes me nervous with the uncertainty of baby’s arrival. Hopefully it works out, though. Otherwise I guess I’ll be buying some frozen strawberries from the store this year.
The oversleeping was not planned 😛 I did need it, though. And I’ll need it again when Abram’s done teething.
It was just a summer dance class for little kids…a mix of dance/gymnastics I think. We’ll find another one.
The hooping was so fun. But you get bruised/sore the first time. Not fun 😛
I hope we can get a large amount of decent strawberries. We go through so many all year long. I’ve had to buy frozen strawberries the last couple months.