Holy ham sandwich batman!

My pants fit! No muffin top – mmmmm muffins – sorry, it’s mid-morning and I dream longingly of cake-like treats at this time of day.

Fitting into my pants is not be a big deal most days, but today it’s a pair of THOSE pants. You know the ones. These are my comfy, soft, cotton cord-like pants I couldn’t bear to toss into the “can’t-cover-the-junk-in-my-trunk-without-some-serious-back-panel-modifications” donation bin.

It’s true; they were literally busting apart at the pocket seams with my luscious tush cushion’s push back.

Today though, I’m wearing a belt and there is some breathing space where my big ol’ butt cheeks used to be pressed up against the fabric like a kindergartener’s face against a bus window.

Because I’ve decided against using a scale to measure my progress, clothing victories such as this are key. It also lets me know the healthy eating, which involves actually being hungry before I eat, and moderate day-to-day exercise, like walking instead of driving, is having some effect.

I want this to be a lifestyle change and not one that is chained to going to the gym or working out at home because I don’t often have time for that between work, the children and the zoo at the barn.

My reward, aside from being healthier, will be fitting into my favourite pair of jeans. I bought them several years ago – try eight – because I loved them on sight. They didn’t quite fit without some love-chub spilling over them then either.

Aside from the anticipated victory dance of fitting into those jeans, the added bonus of my boss’s face when he sees them will be the custard filling in my cupcake of delight.

Nothing says “wardrobe malfunction” to BC like his hippie photographer strolling, barefoot, into the newsroom in super 70s bellbottom flares with a plethora of strings hanging from the outer seams rocking some equally offensive (to him) peasant shirt.

Yup. The look of utter horror on his face is my goal and I plan on hitting it late summer/early autumn.

That’ll teach him for laying out the pumpkin pecan slabs of sugar in front of me a few months ago. I wonder how long it takes to get some good dreads going if you have straight hair?

photo@chathamdailynews.ca

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Women are delusional.

The above is a phrase I’ve heard trip over the lips of The Mister too many times to count over the years. My usual response is to roll my eyes and mutter “yes my love,” or heatedly discuss the point at him. I’m not so delusional as to believe the argument I present does more than slide past his glazed eyes before falling on deaf ears.

Today is different.

Today I agree.

(Did you feel that? I’m sure he’s just fallen to the ground in shock.)

The Mister, with some degree of dismay, asked me once if I believed my own propaganda.

My what? I said confused, before the penny dropped. Oh, the blog.

The blog in question expounded upon being happy in your own skin as I recall.

He wanted to know if I was taking any of the advice I was dishing out so liberally.

That sat me back on my heels a bit. Was I?

Not really.

On the surface I was, but deep down where it counts I was too busy putting on the big show to really believe it.

That’s when it happened, when I became a believer of the delusional woman theory.

I am delusional.

Everything I do is driven by some sort of mental process.

Can I justify eating 15 Dufflet tarts or cupcakes from Dekokos in a month? Hell ya!

Just do the math, if I only have one every other day and walk twice as much, bingo, calories are lost!

I never said I was good at math people, but I can convince myself of anything if I try hard enough.

The same goes for portions.

When The Mister, a strapping man who loves his food, was home over Christmas he cooked up a house-husband storm. I came home every evening to a mouth-watering plate heaped with an array of healthy and decadent delights. And I mean heaped!

The children’s eyes nearly burst from their heads thinking they needed to eat everything on this massive plate, the seams of my jeans strained at the thought. The Mister looked puzzled at his family who barely tucked into the feast he’d laid out.

Portions are a mental game with the children, I explained. A big plate with same portions that you put on a small plate looks easier to handle to them. Plus, if you start them with small spoonfuls of each dish it’s less overwhelming. They can always have seconds.

I work the opposite way. Taking recommended portions (http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-portion-size-plate) of each food group and putting it on a small plate so I feel like I’m diving into far more food than I actually am.

Often in our fast-paced schedule we don’t stop to savour food, we just scarf it back and head for plate two before the first edition has landed on the doorstep of our gullet.

By the time he headed back on the road The Mister was feeding not only his family, but the dinner time delusion we feed into.

I’ve also enlisted the help of the Lose It app for the iPhone. It helps me keep track of what I eat while giving me a vague idea of the calories I ingest and breaks down the fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates and protein.

Sure I have goals punched into it but I’m not dedicated to it. I’m also not letting it run my life. If I go over, I go over.

That being said, in my delusional way, I make sure whatever is sending me over is worth it. Like a Dufflet tart or cup cake with a cup of my favourite tea in Dekokos.

Where I know I can indulge my love of good friends and decadent treats…just less often.

photo@chathamdailynews.ca

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Stars struggle to light the crisp pre-dawn sky.

The barn door opens with a creak and I’m greeted by the low good-morning whicker of Big Daddy and Athena.
Dishevelled black forelock askew, Big Daddy blinks against the light from his stall, Athena, still elegantly white and composed, watches me haul in large plastic containers full of warm mash from hers.

This is my peace and contentment. Two stalls, a hayloft and the moreish aroma of horse and nature.

After a long day, a frustrating morning with the kids or with just the need to connect with myself, I come here.
The simplicity of routine – feeding the horses, mucking stalls, stacking hay and spending time with my chocolate-eyed steeds, takes the stress from my soul and clears my head.

Everyone should have a space ­– physically or mentally – where they can recharge.
It might be a warm aromatic bath in a dimly lit bathroom, the growl of machinery in a garage, speeding over the frozen or muddy terrain with the wind stinging your skin – whatever provides that sense of oneness in yourself and lets your troubles fall away.
Healthy living isn’t just about what you feed your body.
Your mental diet is just as important.
It’s the way we perceive ourselves, where we are in our life and where we think we should be.
These things have a way of buoying us up or dragging us down, if we aren’t careful.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, she hurtled helter-skelter full-speed ahead into positive thought.
I’m sure she had her moments of doubt, anger and frustration, but only moments.
She didn’t allow people to come at her with words of pity or condolence. Why did she need that?
Her mantra was simple – I will overcome this challenge.
And she did, for much longer than any medical statistic said she would.
When the experts gave her six months, she gave them the finger, and with a glint in her eye she pulled off a Pierre Trudeau-esque pirouette and said, “Watch me!”
It was more than two years later and into her third relapse that she accepted the battle had been fought, the war was over.
Still, the cancer didn’t kill her.
It might have taken her body, but my mom was herself to the very end, fighting for every breath with charm and wit.
A truly remarkable woman and a person I often look to for wisdom, even now, when all I can do is look back on how she handled the hurdles of life dropped down in front of her.

That is how I find myself in the barn, sitting on a bale of hay, chanting as the early morning light sends colourful tendrils out across the sky, as though waking up the world with a gentle touch.

Because, in the midst of self-doubt, a highly critical inner voice and general feeling I might be doing less with my life than I could, I find peace.
A lightness where optimism can flourish, where words of encouragement squash the negative voices that can undermine our intentions.
Eating healthy may lighten the physical load my body carries, but taking a moment for positive self-reflection and encouragement, is the only way to lift the emotional burdens we strap to our backs.
Releasing regrets and purposefully recognizing personal accomplishments goes a long way in lightening our soul.

A body might be for a lifetime, but your soul, I hear, is forever.

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I started a snowflake-fluffy blog entry yesterday, full of mirth and merriment in relation to the upcoming smorgasbord of decadent December desserts.

The deliciously delightful dish was interrupted by a fatal accide collision between a cyclist and truck.

The third pedestrian versus vehicle crash I’ve attended since Nov. 25; the second fatal.

I’ll be honest – I’m furious and frustrated.

I don’t pretend that my job doesn’t include covering emotionally challenging events, whether it’s a memorial service or a fatal collision, house fire or what have you.

Bad news will always be there to balance out the good.

Lately it feels like chaos and grief is the only dish being served up at my newsroom buffet.

I try to find the nugget of beauty in the saddest event but yesterday I just couldn’t.

How do you filter the image of a young girl lying on the road as paramedics attend to her or the bent cane lying askew against the glittery asphalt surface?

Or staring down the hill at a mangled bicycle, the crushed hood of a pick-up truck and a crumpled yellow tarp.

You don’t, not really.

My heart races – it pounds in my ears drowning out my surroundings, yet heightening my senses simultaneously.

Despite my boots, I can feel the slickness of the grass underfoot, the give of soil under my weight as I Billy-goat down the incline to the sidewalk.

Lifting my camera, heavy and solid in my hands, is not enough to stop the slight tremor as I line up the shot. It shields me, briefly, from the horrific reality I am documenting. Moments engraved on my subconscious.

Click, click, click.

Then I’m scrambling up the hill, images in hand.

I don’t need to look, I don’t want to. I know what’s there.

The gawkers lining the grassy knoll crane their necks to see what I desperately wish to avoid.

Yet we journalist will be judged as vultures, preying on the misfortune of others, in an attempt to raise public awareness.

Forced to attend these incidents because it’s our job, not because we are curious.

I leave the scene feeling weighted down at the senseless waste of it all. Unable to fathom how two fatalities occurred on the same road, mere kilometres and days between them.

I consciously observe the patterns of drivers and pedestrians and cyclists around me that afternoon.

I pass a woman standing on the yellow line on Wellington Street, glaring at passing motorists because no one is stopping to let her pass – she’s 20 feet from a lighted intersection.

A cyclist travelling beside me on Third Street arrives at King Street and pulls a hard left across the walkway in front of a stopped car to proceed – one assumes – as a wheeled pedestrian on to the sidewalk, swooping and weaving between those walking. Sure, King Street had the right of way, but he was on Third Street; we had the red light.

By the end of the day, my heart is heavy because I fear until people start paying more attention to what they are doing when driving, cycling, inline skating or walking, this month could produce more devastating moments for me to capture.

More moments for first responders, police officers and victim services personnel who help the victims, console the families and try to make sense of what happened.

Moments that irrevocably change the lives of those involved – whether the victims or otherwise – change their families, alter how they perceive this time of year forever.

More moments that will come back with vivid Technicolor – an unwanted gift – when I see a child turn too quickly to run back across the road to give a classmate a forgotten item after school.

Because even if the way is clear, I know that the mind of a motorist might not be.

And I don’t want to have that image in my head again; I’ve seen it too many times already.

There are few accidents in this world, just poor decisions.

Perhaps our gift to society this month and the months to come could be attention.

Give your full attention to what you are doing – whether it’s spending time with your family and friends, driving in your car, walking across the road or appreciating that you are, in this moment, alive and able to make a difference.

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Watch what you say, the devil is listening. – The Black Keys.

The line from their song has been running through my head a lot lately.
A week ago I said something to my lovely and very patient Mister.

Suffice to say my flippant tone and words could have been our undoing if we both didn’t possess an important virtue – we’re talkers.

I’m not patient though, so waiting for him to be prepared to talk was a challenge I prefer not to face again.

But while I waited for him to give me the nod to broach the subject, I did a little self-talking about how often as a parent I say, “It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it,” to my children.

How I explain to them what I mean and then give them a verbal example saying the same sentence in three very different tones of voice.
http://www.wikihow.com/Develop-a-Friendly-Tone-of-Voice

And how quickly I ignore that lesson.

In my line of work, communication skills are pretty important. After a quick search on Google, the general consensus is that 93% of all communication is non-verbal cues. It breaks down into 55% body movement, such as facial expressions, 38% vocal, rhythm, pitch and volume and 7% verbal – that’d be the actual words, folks.

Seven per cent.

That’s what the Mister and I subsist on while he’s on the road. The latest stretch is clocking two-and-a-half months of not seeing his mug.
He’s promised to leave a mug in the kitchen next time he goes – he thinks he’s pretty funny.

Aside from the few times we are able to Skype, we rely heavily on the spoken or typed word.
We do pretty well not to argue, but there are days when my internal image of him is faded, making me more susceptible to misunderstandings.

I’m visually driven. Watching people, whether they are talking to me or I’m scoping out their life from afar, is how I get photographs or quotes from them.

When I started to read about how body language, and the interpretation of it, influences our perception of others, it made a lot of sense.
http://www.businessballs.com/body-language.htm

Those days of radio silence between the Mister and me gave me time to dissect how I communicate.

I’m sarcastic, quick to quip and tease, but sometimes I’d love to eat the words that tumbling from my lips with thoughtless abandon.

Five days worth of listening to myself speak – I mean actively listening – forced me to hear how I may be perceived, heard or read, as it were, by others.
I admit, some of it sucked.

But for a body conscious person like myself it was really helpful.

I know areas that I need to work on in order to get my message across and be more aware of how my body language influences the reception my actual words get.

Fortunately the Mister is an easygoing man who knows how to read me, often better than I am capable of reading him or myself, and he’s not quite finished the novel that is our lives together.

photo@chathamdailynews.ca

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Last week was a 21 mini-chocolate bar salute to epic failure.

All right, maybe not epic.

Possibly not even a failure.

Definitely a 21 mini-chocolate bar salute though.

Of which I only ate five, accompanied by a small slice of pumpkin-pecan crumble and three decadent peanut butter fudge drop cookies.

Days when I’m clobbered over the head with a list of to-do items, I wonder how I can fit it into my week, let alone 24 hours.

My job contains a myriad of small jobs that must get done or it throws a spanner in the cogs of the news machine.

Last Monday, a standalone photo was the spanner in my day.

First time in my career I ever came up empty.

It felt like my creative eye had gone blind; I’d tapped out my photographic spirit.

Not the best way to kick off the week.

By Friday, looking at the mounds of laundry, dishes, dust bunnies and grime taunting me from every corner, I thought the weight of responsibility would swamp my “life” raft.

I sat down and listed the things I do in a day. I was exhausted just looking at it.

Forget work – which can challenge my already strained lack-of-organizational skills – the expectations of my life tug my apron strings for attention, begging for a moment or two of my undivided attention every minute of my day.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve encountered a moment of undivided attention since the children were born.

Honestly, looking at that list I felt as though I was contemplating climbing Mount Everest, in winter, carrying an elephant, blind folded in my flip-flops.

Daunting? Perhaps.

Then it struck me – WHAM! No not the group, the feeling you get when a solution hits you with a swift upper cut, then slaps you for missing the obvious.

It depends on how cleverly you distribute the weight of your backpack with your pachyderm.

I’m a master organizer – not of my day or house, but of backpacks and vehicles.

Packing the car is relaxing for me.

Like assembling a massive circular puzzle of the same shade of blue, I feel a deep sense of triumph when I finally pour the kids in the car with the dog and we get on our way, everything I need within my reach.

I need to pack my life just like I pack the car.

Starting today.

Right now, at home, I’m cooking a wonderful full chicken dinner with potatoes and carrots.

I’ll steam the broccoli when I get home. It’s the first time I’ve used my slow cooker to . . . cook. It’s the most amazing concept, having a machine do my job while I’m out doing my . . . uhm . . . job.

In the office I’m finishing off my blog and about dig into two, possibly three, stories that are in their rough stages while I tune out the chitter-chatter of our jovial newsroom with some Black Keys and Bob Marley.

I have a hard time focusing on a chore at home as well so I’ve enlisted the help of those who are organization masters to keep me on task with this helpful list: http://housekeeping.about.com/od/getorganized/a/organizeplan.htm

Fantastic, I’ll print this out and post it in the room I’m in as a reminder. I’m too disorganized – and thrifty – to laminate it, but a large Ziploc bag and some tape will accomplish the same thing.

I may follow this helpful 11-step list to actually de-clutter the house one room at a time.

Utilizing my baggy magic, I can designate time frames for each job and work to a deadline – the only thing that generally keeps me on task. I enjoy the pressure.

http://lifeorganizers.com/Clutter/The-Organized-Home/11-Easy-Steps-to-Declutter.html

In fact Life Organizer is a great site for clearing up space and time in nearly ever facet of your life. Including your online life.

It’s one click away in any direction to get hints and tips on how to make cleaning fun (Are you serious? FUN? Doubtful, but I’ll give it a go.), getting the entire family involved in pulling their household weight, and even a whole section on wedding organization.

I definitely need all the help I can get on that.

It even addresses my issues at work.

http://lifeorganizers.com/Time-Management/The-Organized-Office-Schedule/Increase-Your-Daily-Productivity.html

Some of these things seem like common sense but sometimes we forget how much of an impact certain workplace situations make on our productivity.

I love our newsroom but the witty banter is like shiny things to my crow-like aural senses, especially at the end of a 10-day week.

So with Led Zeppelin focussing my ears in one direction it leaves the rest of me to get down to business and blog my fingers off.

With four days off looming, I plan on giving some of these suggestions a run for their money and organize the house and my time.

At least start up the slope of my personal Mount Everest. Think of the rewards – literally.

Remember to give yourself a goal and when you reach it, give your self something to mark it.

I hear there’s a shiny new dishwasher that works leaner, meaner and greener, than my hands do elbow deep in the suds, on the peak of Everest.

My day started off with a less than stellar breakfast of pizza cracker sticks, two granola bars and a pear, which is still sitting in front of me.

The kids had pancakes and milk. In their lunches is a sandwich – BORING – cheese and apple slices, crackers and a banana.

My lunch is, as of yet, unknown.

However, after reading my blog before it goes live my boss has been really enthusiastic. In fact the other day I noted BC actually eating a snack of carrots and drinking a yop.

And then THIS happens.

Instant drool.

Not only does he make the extra effort to walk this plate of utter decadence to my desk, he peels back the cover and says the magic word.

Pumpkin.

He grins, he chuckles, he taunts. And what do I do?

What do I do faced with this crumbly, melted, high-caloric plate of mouth-watering temptation?

I shoot a photo of it, cover it and walk away.

Now will the rest of you buggers in the newsroom please eat it before I lose all control.

PLEASE!

I started a whole Halloween candy rant last week but got caught up in a busy workweek and it slid into a time wormhole of epic proportions never to be seen again (i.e. it lost its timeliness).

Instead you get a trip inside my worst enemy. Worse than Halloween candy or an all you can eat Häagen-Dazs ice cream buffet with all the fixings.

It’s me.

I’m a body hater.

In my head, even when I had 16-per-cent body fat, I could only see the bits I hated about my body.

I was 135 pounds of mostly muscle and I felt as though I’d made no real progress.

Despite having toned inches off my arms, legs, neck and waist, I was horrified to look down at my belly.

To me it was a flabby lump of elephant skin, really saggy old wrinkly elephant skin.

I was only 36 then!

How wicked and evil the voices in my head can be especially combined with my critical eye and a desire to be as fit and toned as I was in my early 20s.

(I was equally hard on myself then, but hindsight isn’t only 20-20, it’s also envious.)

Which is how I came to be staring hard at myself in the mirror and daring myself to highlight the positive.

There are days that I do a great job at it; yup, mini muffin top instead of Costco-sized crumble falling out of my pants? Awesome! Is that only a minor extra chin I see? Well done!

Last week positive attributes were drowned out by a PMS-(please make it stop)-fuelled diatribe on all the ways I failed myself.

Halloween candy late at night – check.

Lack of any real exercise – check.

Eating take-out instead of packing lunch – check.

Late nights working and lack of sleep = EPIC FAIL in both my attitude and the few pounds I’m sure I regained.

It’s not easy to stop that voice once it gets on a roll.

As I stared down my belly, daring it to make a positive comment I heard a familiar voice in my head, one of my oldest friends – J – saying, “I’ve made friends with my belly.”

When she told me that last summer, my internal jaw couldn’t have dropped any further in horror.

FRIENDS? What the hell?! It seemed so counter-intuitive to me. In milliseconds my horror began to turn to respect and envy. She had found a way back to loving her body, as it is, after two kids and a lifetime lived.

Wow.

J maintains a healthy lifestyle, but doesn’t chastise her slips into decadence. She laughs at her indulgences and gives herself permission to enjoy every bit, or as the case may be, bite of it.

She has made the conscience decision to be comfortable in her skin.

She supports my quest for a healthier lifestyle and encourages me online to keep up the good work when I’m feeling beat by the voices inside.

Then there is Sara P. (SP). she gives me a boatload of inspiration and support.

SP woke up from her size stupor about two-months ago and took her health into her own hands.

We all buy into the size stupor, trying to squeeze into the size “x” pants that fit last autumn and ignore the too-tight thighs or the sweat-inducing workout to get the button through the hole.

SP started tae-bo at home, three times a week – two if she’s swamped – for an hour.

She’s dropped several pant sizes already.

The other morning she called me, her pride and joy radiated through the phone when she told me she was wearing a skirt she’d never been able to fit but had loved so much she kept “just in case.”

Her dedication to herself and her health is paying off dividends she didn’t anticipate. Her husband, Big Daddy P, has taken notice and has become more active as well.

Nothing says “I need to get in shape” like cuddling up to half the woman you did two months ago.

It’s like a second, sexier, honeymoon.

These women are not oblivious to their weight or their body conscience.

They embrace their bodies as they are, celebrate them and honour them at any size.

They are health motivated for themselves, not by an idea or image society feels obligated to aim for, regardless of actual body shape, in order to be appreciated.

Some day I hope to embody the beauty and grace they embrace and learn to love my body no matter what the size or shape.

photo@chathamdailynews.ca

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Love handles, spare tire, sack of potatoes, the mother lode and muffin top.

It doesn’t matter what you call the hunka-chunka bit of burning love wrapped around where your waist used to be, it’s the bane of my progress.

Man or woman, nobody likes to zip up their pants and see a little – or a lot – of themselves spill out over the top like an industrial-sized popcorn maker.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Here is the bad news – there is no quick fix, and from what I understand you can’t even target fat loss; the body decides for itself.

Which explains why I lose a cup size before I lose an inch off my tush-cushion.

However, when it comes to staying in shape, I look to the military, mostly for the uniforms and the eye candy, but in this instance my research was legitimate.

That’s how I found Stew. He’s got a some very realistic and easy-to-do-at-home exercise and diet suggestions. www.military.com/military-fitness/weight-loss/lose-love-handles

I’ve looked at a few of the other pages regarding fitness, nutrition and weight loss, and most of the suggestions can be used and modified even if you aren’t training.

Best find on this website, to me, is an article by Morgan Lord on how to eat to beat stress, www.military.com/military-fitness/nutrition/eat-to-beat-stress

In case you missed my tirade against the Foodie Fairies and stress eating, here’s the link, http://blogs.canoe.ca/mojo/general/eat-me/

Lord has some great and healthy snacking tips that fill you up and chill you out stress wise.

The military site offers a number of links throughout the articles to other websites for advice on how to effectively incorporate a healthier lifestyle into a hectic schedule.

As a point of pride for myself, today I pulled on a pair of freshly laundered pants and did up the button. Instead of having a Costco-sized muffin top spilling over, I realized that it’s more of a mini-muffin top. Result!

Maybe it’s not the 24 pounds I wanted to lose by Christmas, in fact I have no idea how much I’ve lost or if it’s just being redistributed. What I do know is my pants fit better than they have in the last year and for a change my belt is actually helping to keep them up instead of just being an accessory.

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My average day:
6:30 a.m. Wake up. Stagger downstairs to let the cat and dog out. Feed said animals, plus the bunnies (yes, it is a bit of a zoo).
Glare at the dishes. Sigh heavily and wash them under protest.
Wake up the children, wake up the children, wake up the children . . . oh, the children are awake.
Head downstairs to prepare breakfast and lunches. I could do lunches the night before but I always hated soggy sandwiches in my lunch.
Walk back up the stairs – okay, stomp – wake the children from their groggy morning stupor. You know the one, standing in front of the mirror, toothbrush in hand with a vaguely confused look on their face when you ask what they are doing.
“I’m waiting for (insert sibling’s name here) to get off the toilet; I have to pee.” This is particularly funny when the alternate sibling is actually in the bedroom getting dressed.
With lunches made, breakfast eaten, I grab some sort of fruit and yogurt for work and head out the door.
Many hours later, I grab the kids from school, we head to the barn to muck the stall, feed the horse and tuck her in for the night as the kids eat some yogurt to hold them over before bolting home for supper, homework, a bath and a bedtime story.
9:30 p.m., time to throw a load of laundry in the wash, maybe fold some, heave it upstairs, grab a shower and read a book before calling my man to catch up on his day.
Or alternatively hunker down in front of the computer to discuss all things wedding with him (triggering enough stress to qualify for an elephant-size portion of ice cream.)
Either way, chances are I’m closing my eyes around 1 a.m.
The challenge – how do I work in healthy hot meals; a fast and filling breakfast the kids will eat; and lunches that don’t come home uneaten because they are BORING? There are not enough hours in the day.
Enter Squawkfox (www.squawkfox.com) where, and I quote, “Frugal living is sexy, delicious and fun.” Yeah, how could I not check that out?
I was drawn to One Organic Chicken, 22 healthy meals, $49 via a friend’s Facebook link one day. Hello mealtime heaven! Or at least some very useable ideas for a time challenged culinary klutz like me.
Not only does Squawkfox have some great recipes, but it also has tips on how to get fit, travel, shop and organize frugally. One-stop shopping!
Another favourite website of mine is allrecipes.com. Its menu section comes complete with low-carb, low-fat, low-sodium, kid-friendly, budget, fast-and-easy, and leftovers recipes.
You don’t have to be a foodie, have a kitchen full of fancy tools and 100 spices and sauces ready at your fingertips for the recipes either. However, for those more skilled in the kitchen than I, there are a number of more elaborate meals, they also offer a menu the kids can make as well.
As for breakfast, I’m all about recycle and reuse. Depending on what we had for dinner the night before a quick and easy dish of eggy surprise is only a frying pan away.
It also goes a long way in getting the moan monsters out of bed and down the stairs with nary a raised voice.
“Eggy surprise,” they exclaim, heads popping out from under flumpy duvets, hair askew, eyes wide with delight. “Awesome!”
Enter Mach 12 to get ready for school.
Eggy surprise is pretty simple. Take all your night-before veggies (if it’s something they really don’t like, blend it up until they can’t tell what it is physically), any meats chopped up into fine little pieces, heat in a fry pan and add eggs.
Here is the trick. Do not stir; just let the eggs morph with the meat and veggies mixture. Give it a moment or two then mix it into a sort of scrambled eggs consistency. Shred cheese and add just before you’re about to plate it.
Cheddar is good, but my kids love a little feta on top.
If it’s one of those days where you’re just happy to get out the door with socks, boots, coats and backpacks before school starts, throw yogurt, fresh fruit, maybe a touch of juice and a scoop of peanut butter or non-peanut alternative together. Blend that up and slam it into a glass, my kids LOVE it.
It gives them a serving of protein, fruit, dairy and a feeling that they got to have a milkshake for breakfast.
I like it as well.
Just remember to fill the blender with water and give it a quick spin before you head out the door, it sticks to the glass just as well as it sticks to your belly.

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