It’s Saturday. And at the moment, I am home alone.
The kids are out, the husband is out, I am in.
With the house cleared out, I opted for a few of my favorite things.
I tested out my knee with a short run (3 pain free miles + 1 naggy mile) on a cool, breezy, temporarily sunny, autumn afternoon.
I listened to The Biggest Loser on Hulu while I stretched out my IT Band and did some unplanned push ups too. Bob Harper screaming “LAST! CHANCE! WORKOUT!” is curiously motivating.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
-Chinese Proverb
That’s great, but we’re not going to talk about fish today. We’re going to talk about cookies.
One of the best things that happens when you learn how to cook is learning out how to get along without a recipe.
If you make something a couple of times, soon you begin to understand what ingredients and steps are most important. Make something a bunch of times and soon you begin to see the variety of ways you might be able change it up. Make something a couple of dozen times and soon you start see cooking from a whole new perspective.
A week or two ago, the PR folks at Newman’s Own Organic asked me if we’d be interested in trying out the newest additions to their Family Recipe Cookie line.
And given I’m not the kind of girl who typically says “no” to cookies made with organic ingredients and real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup – not to mention cookies from a company who’s products I’ll happily toss into the shopping cart anyway – it was easy to say,
Why sure! Of course we’d love to try your latest cookies!
On the weekends, I’m apt to be a bit less motivated to cook and a bit more motivated to goof around.
Instead of attempting to go out to eat and playing the Kids in a Restaurant game (wheeeeee!) – sometimes it’s a lot easier (and arguably more enjoyable) to hit up the grocery store and let everyone pick out a bunch of their favorite foods.
Vegetables optional. Manners too.
So this weekend we did exactly that. We loaded our grocery loot into a basket and hauled it to the backyard. An impromptu picnic was in order as we watched dad finish up some yard work for our meal time entertainment.
An amusement park excursion was on the docket for today. And like most day trips, a packed lunch was the first order of business on the agenda.
It is at this juncture that I would like to present our midday meal + snacks for inspection:
Exhibit A: Carrot sticks
Exhibit B: Homegrown grape tomatoes and green pepper slices
Exhibit C: Standard kid packed-lunch fare = two sunbutter and jelly sandwiches on Ezekiel bread, cut into quarters
Exhibit D: Bare bean butt hummus (2 cans, 22 minutes! I’m improving!)
The girls and I hiked, biked and triked ourselves a couple of blocks to our local farmers market this afternoon.
We enjoyed the sites.
The sounds.
(Asparagus speaks to me.)
The signs.
The realization that tonight’s dinner plans were about to be revamped.
Brussels sprouts can wait until tomorrow.
Let’s say you were in the mood to give your kids something sweet and sticky for breakfast this holiday weekend. You don’t really care if your family is in on the Celebration of Sugar that everyone partakes in this time of year – but you do care about pesky preservatives and high fructose corn chemicals that come along with all that prepackaged fun.
OK, so how do you let your kids be part of the action without burdening your healthy living conscience?
Well, just make it yourself! That typically proves to be pretty easy, right?
Wrong.
It recenytly occur4red to me that I’m still not using my left pointer finger when I type.
My finger felon incision has completely healed, but is sttill a bit tenderr. I keep findigng that figner hanging out in the air when I ttype though, completely slacking off. Itt’s more than willing ot let all the other finrges do all of its ditry wor5k.
(You do remebmer how I take these pictures, right?)
If I ever want something to NOT happen, all I have to do is blog about it and that will most surely put an end to any big plans I had.
Don’t believe me? Allow me to demonstrate.
Yeah, that didn’t happen. (Maybe in the spring.)
We caved about a month later. (Still no cable though!)
The marathon that I spent all summer training for?
Yup, that’s right. I had to bail. A now resolved but still unexpected crisis unfortunately brought my marathon plans to a grinding halt. (Definitely bummed, but there’s always next year.)
Remember me??
It’s hard to believe that 48 hours ago we were opening presents
Playing with new Slinky’s on the stairs at Grandfather’s house
Eating too many Christmas treats and not nearly enough fruits or vegetables
Trying to take pictures of Christmas spiders
I said trying to take pictures of Christmas spiders
Chillaxing by a faux fire watching A Christmas Story at Great Granny’s house
All while there was serious work to do at home.
More Mama’s Weeds
