Tears in My Throw Pillow

August 26th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (19 Comments)

Thank you all for your warm, sweet comments on my post this morning. I was feeling pretty groovy about it after I posted it but as the day wore on I started feeling less and less groovy and more and more stupid.

Have you ever gone to a party and had too much to drink and then danced around like you thought you were God’s gift to dancing, only to wake up the next morning with a banging headache wondering what on earth you were thinking and where did these weird ass blisters on my feet come from?

Friday Snack Attack

August 14th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (13 Comments)

Per our usual Friday routine, the girls went with Aunt Ellen today. I ran errands after dropping them off and was positively starving by the time I got home.

My latest trick – A LA Natalia Rose – is to snack on carrots while I prepare lunch/dinner if I’m really hungry. This keeps me from overeating when I finally do sit down to eat and it keeps me chewing my arm off or chewing anyone’s head off because I’m hungry and grumpy. Lucky for everyone, I was home alone and the only one who got his head chewed off was the carrot.

Let’s Pretend

August 8th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (11 Comments)

After the race this morning we headed out on our next adventure. Open water swimming.

Open Water Swim

Um no, not me. I sat on the blanket and ate lunch. Zak and Shawn swam a mile around some buoys out on this lake, to help Shawn prepare for his triathlon next month. I do the running part, Zak does the swimming part. How handy are we as friends??

Lunch Spread

Ava pretended she was a deep sea diver.

She's Ready

I pretended I haven’t eaten this sandwich 100x already this week while also pretending Maxine wasn’t sitting in my lap lest a grain of sand get in between her toes.

The Classroom

August 7th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (21 Comments)

Today the girls went with Ellen, giving Zak and I chance to remember what the other one’s voice sounded like without the typical screeching and classic interrupting. We talked about going out to eat, a movie, shopping… the afternoon was our child free oyster.

My bucket of watermelon held me over for a while, but without warning I realized how empty my stomach felt and I was going to go from hungry to starving in about .256 seconds if we didn’t get to a restaurant STAT.

To buy myself some time, I made a little banana mullet snack.

Fridaze

July 31st, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (12 Comments)

The kids were with Aunt Ellen today, so the only pics I took were of food. I think I’ll spice this post up with some oldies but goodies.

Pears.

Good Morning Pears

Ava, age two, with a pair of pretzels boobs.

Pretzel Boobs

A bowl of shriveled stuff.

shriveled stuff

Maxine, shriveled.

Big Sister Kiss

A banana spinach smoothie, with a little too much spinach. Even for me.

Too Much Spinach

Ava and too much green finger paint. Even for me.

Ugh.

After my morning meals wore off, I made my everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salad.

Everything but the kitchen sink

Your Personal Homeschooling Lesson

July 30th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (13 Comments)

I got up this morning to do a little downward dog in the family room, only to discover a little outward skunk wandering around on the deck.

Holy Skunk

Take note that this picture was taken BEHIND the safety of a glass door.

I flew up the stairs to snag Ava out of bed. Wake my sleeping 5 year old on purpose? Am I insane? I knew she’d love it though and I didn’t want her to miss it. She’d have been up shortly anyway. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Fossil Walk

July 25th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (7 Comments)

Today’s homeschooling adventure was just that – quite the adventure!

heading_to_creek

We met up with a bunch of homeschooling families today for a Fossil Walk.

Fossil Dig Activity Sheet

We took a 10 minute hike through this creek bed to make our way to the dig site.

More Creek Walking

Creek Walk

Quite the Adventure

Holy bedrock.

Dig Site

This was the first fossil we found, which explains why I took a picture of it. We “think” this was a part of a trilobite – an extinct marine creature that is only a mere 380 million years old. Finding pieces of a trilobite is common, finding a trilobite perfectly in tact is rare and would score you major archeology nerd points. No one hit the fossil jackpot today, but we had fun trying.

Food, Inc.

July 14th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (5 Comments)

It must be a blue moon, because tonight, Zak I went out to see a movie.

food_inc

I’ve been curious about Food, Inc. since I saw the film advertised on the lids of Stonyfield Farms yogurt containers for the past few months. Watching the trailer convinced me that we’d make an effort to go see this movie while it was still in the theaters.

Tonight the girls went with Zak’s mom while I left to go meet Zak in the city after work and patronize the only theater in our area showing this film; The Little, a small theater popular for showing indie and documentary films.

Changes

July 12th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (7 Comments)

I was hungry sort of early today for lunch. This felt like more a snack than lunch. I made fast guac (avocado and salsa!) with some carrot legs to chomp on.

avocado_bread carrot_legs

A few hours later Maxine and I were headed out to visit a friend. I was hungry and knew I had to eat before we left. In days gone by it would have been pretty typical to grab a handful of Kashi crackers and some hummus as a quick, healthy, out the door snack. I’m not knocking this as a healthy snack option, this is of course better than something from the fast food drive thru. I’ve just come to discover, especially this past week and the disappearance food cravings… any processed foods, organic or not, seem to be what sends me into a downward spiral with craving sugar and more processed carbs.

Lazy Laundry Sunday

July 12th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (5 Comments)

Call us crazy, but we don’t have cable television. When we moved into our house four years ago we decided we would just use old fashioned rabbit ears and skip cable to save some money. Let me be clear that this was not my idea, but I went with it.

Turns out it was one of the best things we ever did. We watch way less TV because of it, and the girls watch movies from the library or shows on PBS. I like that they aren’t subjected to the advertising on TV. With the new converter boxes the digital signal comes in crystal clear and we have a few more channels to boot.