Month: October 2018

sickness & smoothies

It’s been a hectic few months. In August, our sink fell through out counter top and we quickly learned that it was not going to be simple fix, but rather that we needed to replace our entire kitchen – and floors – and walls. Fast forward to yesterday… we finally have a kitchen again! Unfortunately, with the weather changes, the chaos, and the weekend’s hotel stay (we had to be out of the house when they refinished the floors), everyone in the house got sick.

so.much.fun.

I ended up having to cancel my afternoon classes today and spent much of my day loading up on DayQuil and creating meals loaded with produce to get everyone back on the mend.

Tonight’s dinner was simple: Chicken & rice soup with turnips, carrots, and spinach. The winner of the nutrition, though was this smoothie:

Beet, Cherry & Squash Smoothie:

1C frozen butternut squash
1C frozen peaches
1C frozen dark cherries
1C orange juice
1.5C water
2T beet powder

I blended these all in the Vitamix and served a healthy dose of antioxidants to my family.

We plan to follow up dinner & smoothies with a healthy dose of Zarbees (for the kids) and NyQuil for us.

Cheers!

balancing in sweatpants

Sometimes I’m jealous of full-time working moms and other times, I’m completely envious of those who get to stay home with their littles 100% of the time. As a parent who works part-time, I’m supposed to be grateful that I have the ‘best of both worlds’ and, believe me, I typically am. Today is not one of those days: Three of my five classes had papers due yesterday evening/this morning, and thus I have a responsibility to my job to get work done. I started grading papers yesterday at the expense of family time and conversations with my husband; today, I continued to grade papers despite my toddler asking if I could play with him. It is a day like today where I feel like prioritizing my work is inappropriate and unfair to my child; it is a day where my shortcomings as a mom are brought straight to the forefront of my mind.

Before naps, I read for 45 minutes with my three year old, which definitely was the break I needed in my day.  Since, I’ve spent a good part of today reading essays through tears. Finally, at 3:50, I took a deep breath and tried to practice what I preach: Kindness (to myself).

It’s really easy to end up in a spiral as a parent, especially when we feel like we are falling short in such important areas of life. Hopefully, I can better manage the next round of paper-grading.

…when the kitchen is missing

It’s been over two months since we learned our kitchen was caving in, but there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel: Painting takes place this week and the floors are to be finished next weekend. In eight days, we will be back in our living space with furniture, decor, and a fully functioning kitchen!

How do you survive a two-month kitchen reno with three kids, you ask?

It’s not easy and it required A LOT of restaurant meals, as a solid six weeks passed where our floors were being replaced and the entire kitchen space was no longer. Our three year old is an expert at ordering from a menu at our favorite local eateries.

It’s really difficult to take the kids out to eat nightly and it’s not much easier (on the wallet) to order delivery with such regularity. I don’t think that we did the best we could to eat as healthy as possible but we did ensure we all had a good amount of produce each night with dinner.

Last Friday was our first night to make a home-cooked meal and we settled on something easy (tortellini and squash sauce) followed by weekend treats and back to our usual GF pastas and bean tacos. I am really excited to get the kitchen back next Sunday and am planning a little detox from all of the consumed junk over the course of the past two months with a Whole 30-esque week or two of eating.