We’re coming to the end of the year. This month will be full of Christmas shopping, baking and celebrating. I don’t have any big goals. I mostly want to spend time with my family and enjoy the holiday. Here are the goals I’ve made.
FOOD
1. Rebecca’s Recipes – Let Rebecca help plan meals and baking projects and come up with new recipes. She’s been coming up with recipes for Christmas for a couple months now. Will we remember them? Four-year-olds have a lot of ideas.
2. Baking – I definitely will be doing some baking this month (but hopefully not eating too much of it :P). Maybe more Oreos (new flavors). Definitely Christmas cookies. We’ve made one batch already, but since Abram begs to bake daily we will probably have to make more. Maybe Rebecca will help me pick out the rest. Any suggestions/requests for homemade versions of favorite goodies? Is there anything you always make for Christmas?
3. Rotate Food – I have been doing well the last couple weeks with rotating food and getting more variety in my diet. I really think this is one of the key factors I’ve been missing for so long. It’s something I don’t remember ever hearing about when doing GAPS, when doing an IBS diet, when looking into just about any “diet.” Even simply reading Nourishing Traditions. Maybe it was mentioned, but I’ve never heard it emphasized. All I hear about is eat “this” or don’t eat “that.” But nothing about making sure you don’t eat “this” every single day (usually it’s the opposite…be sure you eat 2 Tbsp. coconut oil and 4 egg yolks and 3 Tbsp. butter and 1/2 cup fermented vegetables and…every day). I know from past experience that it takes more than a couple weeks to come to a conclusion about whether or not something works. But so far I am having good success. And I hope it continues. I will do an update in the coming months.
If you are interested in more information about a true rotational diet check out 20 Something Allergies. At the moment I am not doing a full rotational diet where you have to wait 4 days before eating something again. But I am trying to really get variety and not eat the same things in a row. For example, if I eat yogurt for breakfast on Monday I won’t have it again for a few days. Maybe the next day I’ll eat eggs and vegetables for breakfast. And the next I’ll eat broth/soup with different vegetables. I think this will be good for myself and also for my family. I can get in a rut with my kids’ breakfasts, snacks and lunches. I have to remember to give them more variety too.
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| whole wheat sugar cookies with homemade frosting…still working on replacing those colorful decorations… |
PERSONAL
1. Writing – Continue to write for Grand Rapids Natural Living and Real Food and Health magazine. Time to brainstorm ideas for March and April! I’m not ready to think spring 😛
2. Purpose – I’ve been praying about this a lot in the last 6 months. I’m planning to do a separate update post soon. And there will be some blog changes coming…in the new year.
3. Sewing/hobbies – I will finish the aprons before Christmas 😛 I would love to make some Christmas presents as well but I doubt that will happen. Maybe in January I need to start working on next year’s presents.
4. Clean/organize – I need to finish cleaning out my closet and replacing a few things. I also need to finish organizing Abram’s drawers and closet.
5. Christmas – gift shopping/wrapping, cards/letter, decoration, baking, party planning (pretty much everything).
What’s on your agenda this month? Are you scrambling to get Christmas activities under way or did you plan well and have most of it done already?
Glad to hear the rotational diet is working. I’ve always heard that its good to eat a variety of things so you aren’t skipping any vitamins/minerals/nutrients. But you’re right in that it isn’t usually a big emphasis, just subtle mentions. It’s how we’ve always eaten, but mostly b/c I cannot eat the same things over and over b/c I get sick of them. And it reminds me of our meals growing up… My mom is picky, so she would make the same things all the time… Though they were still rotating foods, but she never tried new things. She still hesitates, though I did get her to try beets, celeriac and rutabaga recently and she actually liked the celeriac and rutabaga.
I have so much to do for Christmas still. Going on vacation this time of year was awesome and crazy at the same time. It was great to go at a slow time for less crowds, and great to get away from the cold weather up here… But I also lost a week of Christmas prep time. 🙂 I am hoping to bust out lots of stuff this weekend. I think Carson and I will make some Christmas cookies today (not sure what kind yet, though… Either peanut butter or cut-out sugar cookies probably). And I need to make some progress on the gifts I am making, also. Hoping to have time for some sewing today and tomorrow, too.
Good luck with all of your to-dos! I don’t know how you fit it all in. You’re a busy lady 🙂
I still want to try celeriac, but I haven’t found it at Meijer. I did try kohlrabi, though. Very good!