What We're Eating 11/14-11/20

It's been almost 5 months since I last posted! Sometimes it feels like forever ago and sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday. I've been fighting a pretty touch-and-go battle with my depression for the past few months and really haven't had much energy to devote to writing. Things are looking better, so we'll see about getting back to regular posts. I'm also trying to get back into menu planning to get some sort of order back into our lives.

I've probably planned menus for the past 3 or 4 weeks and it's so nice not thinking "What are we going to have for dinner?" all day.

Tonight's meal was absolutely amazing, but I have to say I was a little scared of it. First, because it involved me cooking fish on the stove top instead of Chris grilling it. Second, because the side was a quinoa salad and Chris isn't always a fan. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about eating it myself because the black beans are straight out of the can, but we both approved. I did make a few adjustments (mainly leaving out jalapenos and some of the herbs) and I will definitely make it again.

So here goes!

Monday

L: Grilled Cheese, Grapes, Red Pepper Strips (for me)

D: Chili Rubbed Tilapia & Quinoa, Corn & Black Bean Salad

Tuesday

L: PB&J, Grapes, Chips

D: Chicken & Cheese Rice Bake (family favorite), Salad

Wednesday

L: Leftover Rice Bake

D: Potato-Spinach-Sausage Casserole

Thursday

L: Leftover Casserole

D: Omelets, Toast, Fruit

Friday

L: Soup, Cheese & Crackers

D: Shrimp Lo Mein

Saturday

L: Whatever leftovers are still in the fridge

D: Homemade Pizza

Sunday

L: Leftover Pizza

D: Cranberry Stuffed Pork Chops (family favorite), Roasted Cauliflower

For more menu planning ideas, visit I'm an Organizing Junkie.

What We're Eating 6/20-6/26

It's not Monday, but this is the first moment this week that I've had a chance to sit down at the computer to write! We had some great meals last week, but we did miss out on the dinner I had planned for Friday night. I haven't rescheduled it yet, but really want to try the Macaroon Crusted Tilapia, so it will appear again sometime soon!

We've been enjoying as many meals as possible out on our deck. The weather has been beautiful lately! I've been trying to plan lots of grilling recipes to take full advantage of the weather and I've been looking for recipes that allow me to use the herbs from my garden. We haven't used anything from our veggie garden yet although the spinach, Romaine and kale are looking pretty good!

Tonight's dinner is a crock pot meal we've had before and loved. I have to be at a real estate class from 6-9 tonight (so I can renew my license) so I wanted to make a meal that would be warm at the different times we'll be eating tonight. I'm not looking forward to eating my dinner around 4:30, but at least I'll get one that I enjoy!

Monday
L: Leftover Grilled Pizza (boys); Turkey Sandwiches, Fruit Salad, Cucumber Slices
D: Hawaiian Beef Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries

Tuesday
L: Picnic lunch after hiking - PB&J, Fruit, Cheese Sticks
D: Gnocchi with Summer Vegetables

Wednesday
L: Leftover Gnocchi
D: Shredded Beef Tacos

Thursday
L: Leftover Tacos
D: Honey Lime Chicken, Coconut Rice, Orange & Mint Snap Peas

Friday
L: Baked Potatoes
D: Scallop, Orange & Cucumber Kabobs, Brown Rice, Sesame Broccoli

Saturday
L: Snacky Lunch
D: Pork Chops with Parmesan Sauce, Parmesan Couscous, Kale Chips

Sunday
L: Free For All
D: Spice-Rubbed Chicken Breasts with Roasted Carrots, Minted Couscous

For menu-planning inspiration, visit I'm an Organizing Junkie.

What We're Eating 6/13-6/19

I am so not in the mood to make dinner tonight. We had a great play date this morning with a former co-worker and her little girl who is 2 weeks older than Isaac, but this afternoon, I should have taken a nap when Isaac did. I'm wiped! My first instinct was to call Chris and tell him I wanted to go out to dinner.

But, I actually planned our meals out this week and I spend a bunch of money grocery shopping yesterday so that I could make those meals. We're trying some new stuff and I'm excited to do that. For the most part, our meals are healthy. Ordering out would have fed into this afternoon's blah mood so I'm making an attempt to fight that even though I would much rather curl up on the couch and cry because I'm so tired!

I've got caramelized onion mashed potatoes staying warm on the stove (I wish I were a better food photographer because those onions were gorgeous!), washed broccolini (new food for us!) and waiting to be sauteed and rubbed pork chops sitting on the counter waiting for Chris to grill. Yum, yum!

Tomorrow, I'll get a crock pot going before we head to the zoo so dinner will be ready for Chris when he gets home from work. The rest of us will be fine dining at McDonald's! ;)



Monday
L: Feta Shrimp SkilletD: Double Sesame Chicken Stir Fry

Tuesday
L: English Muffin Pizzas
D: Smoky Pan-Grilled Pork Chops with Caramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes and Lemon Broccolini

Wednesday - Trip to the Roger Williams Park Zoo
L: PB&J, Chips, Fruit
D: All American Chili (crock pot), Corn Bread

Thursday - Chris' 31st Birthday, so his choice of meals!
L: Grilled Cheese, Fruit
D: Rib Eyes, Homemade French Fries, Salad, Boston Cream Pie

Friday
L: Lunch at Pickity Place
D: Macaroon Crusted Tilapia with Quinoa Salad with Grapes & Almonds, Kale Chips

Saturday
L: Lemony Penne & Broccoli
D: Hot Dogs/Burgers, Grilled Corn on the Cob, Fruit Salad

Sunday - Father's Day, Chris' choice of meals
L: Brunch - Pancakes, Bacon, Fruit Salad
D: Homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu Pizza

For more menu-planning ideas, visit I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Passion

I'm worked up tonight, but in a good way. I have a ball of energy in my belly, and for once, it's not a ball of anxiety. I need to write so that I can actually get some sleep!

As it was raining on Saturday, we had to make a last minute change to our plans to hike Rhododendron State Forest with my sister. Instead, we took a trip down to Mass to visit The Butterfly Place. We let Charlie choose where to have lunch and, of course, ended up at McDonald's. Then, since we were right there, we decided to head to the mall to do a little walking/window shopping. When we walked into Target and I discovered that they had rearranged the store so that the books are now right next to the entrance, Chris and Andrea were on their own with the boys for a bit. I was happy browsing until I saw Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project and had to have it. This book has been been written up in several of my magazines and it was actually on my list of books to request from the library. Now, it's mine!

In The Happiness Project, Rubin chronicles her decision to dedicate a year of her life to what she calls her "Happiness Project." She had come to the conclusion that she wasn't unhappy, but she wasn't as happy as she felt she could be with her life. She felt like she was taking her life for granted and decided it was time to change that. She selected 12 areas of her life that she wanted to improve and dedicated one month to each area (i.e. January - energy, February - marriage, March - work).

I'm now on Chapter 3 (work) and I feel like the author is speaking to me! This book is so what I need to be reading right now. I feel like her personality is similar to mine (she's a list-maker and writes about her need to collect "gold stars") and her thoughts and fears are those that run through my head all the time (Is it selfish to spend so much time and energy on one's own happiness? - Rubin decided that it's not because by making herself happy, it was easier for her to make others happy as well.)

Rubin writes that she had recently made a career shift from law to writing so choosing a profession was not the center of her project. However, because happiness is so directly connected to work, choosing the right career might be the focus of someone's else project.

Now, I, too, have recently made a huge career change, and as much as I love being a mother and relish the fact that I am able to stay home with my children, I know that being a mother is not my sole purpose in life. It is not my passion. Growing up, I wasn't a little girl that played "house." I played "teacher" or "doctor" or "lawyer" and my husband stayed home with the kids. I had huge dreams for myself in which I was the main or sole breadwinner of the family. I know I shocked some friends as well as myself when I made the decision to stay at home with my children.

What I'm feeling about my life right now is very hard to articulate. I don't want to belittle motherhood. It's got to be the hardest and most rewarding position I've had. By no means do I want to give this job up. But at the same time, I'm not growing in this position. There is no room for promotion, there are no "gold stars." There is no reward for "Best Mom." And most days, I would reward myself "Worst Mom"! What I need is something to supplement motherhood. I need to discover what my passion in life is.

Passion has been a recurring theme in my life lately. I first started thinking about it while watching Oprah's finale. She said, "We are all called. Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. Every time we have seen a person on this stage who is a success in their life, they spoke of the job, and they spoke of the juice that they receive from doing what they knew they were meant to be doing." Oprah

So I suppose that for now my passion in life is to discover what exactly my passion is. I know something is missing. I'm bored, I'm depressed, I'm not as happy in my life as I want to be. I feel like I don't appreciate my family, my house, my opportunities, my life the way I should.

I'm ready to make a change.

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

I can't sleep.

Insomnia is a new experience for me. I've never had an issue falling asleep before and it's not something I'm dealing with every night, but I'm not liking it. But really, who does?

I think part of it is that I'm not looking forward to the waking up and facing a day just like every other.

Another part is that we've done nothing this week.

I've sat on my butt way too much in this damn heat.

I'm bored.

And summer's just begun.

On a normal week, we have activities planned to occupy our time. This week, not so much. It was our first week without story time as a normal activity. We didn't schedule anything else and I didn't make much of an effort to. I didn't want to bring Isaac out among other kids; not only is he teething - molars on top and at least 2 other teeth coming on the bottom - but he's got a nasty cold with a drippy nose and raspy cough. He's been a clingy mess.

Clingy baby + hot weather = miserable mom! I know I'll get flack for it, but I'm not a huge fan of summer. Give me a crisp fall day any day and I'm happy as can be. Give me a hot summer day and cover me in sweat and I'm not too fun to be around. To add insult to injury, we've got a gorgeous blue pool that I see every time I look in the backyard, but I had to go and get a garden tool stuck in my leg and can't swim until it's healed. Seriously, who but me?

So, I'm bored. I'm bitchy. I'm lonely. I feel sorry for Chris.

I have a few ideas to overcome the boredom, but with the boredom has come a lack of motivation. I could just care less about fixing the problem right now.

I'm not liking my attitude too much tonight. *sigh*

In reality, I've been thinking about a few things. I just haven't done anything about them.

I really miss the gym and we have one right up the road. It's less than 5 minutes away. My hangup is that my workout time is limited to before Chris leaves for work at 6:45am or after we eat dinner and put the kids to bed around 7:00pm. I could obviously make it work, but it just seems like too much work right now. And, I'm not sure on the price. It's easy enough to call, but I haven't. Excuses, excuses.

I NEED to sign up for a real estate class ASAP to renew my license (expires in, oh, about 4 weeks). It's a 3-hour class, easy to fit in.... I've just procrastinated on signing up because it'd be nice to go with someone else. (Any takers? Wednesday nights in Nashua......)

Thinking about taking that class has made me think about signing up for a "real" class at NH Tech (or whatever it's called now). There are a few classes that will come in handy in the next 18 months.... accounting or something of that sort. It'd be nice to have homework again. I know, I know, who wants homework? But if it means time spent answering intellectual questions instead of "Why?" a bazillion times a day ("Can I play outside, Mimi?" "Sure." "Why?" - Seriously, HOW do you answer that?! WHY would you even ask it?!?!), I'd be in Heaven.

Interacting with people, especially people I don't know, has been what I've missed most now that I stay at home with the boys. Being a stay-at-home mom is a lonely job! I never thought I'd miss talking to some of the crazy people I had to talk to when answering phones!

I've known that I need something more in my days. I had hoped book club, the Board of Trustees and my girlfriends would fill that void, but apparently, I'm needing something more and it frustrates me and makes me feel guilty that I can't be satisfied with everything I already have. I feel like guilt has become one of the major themes of my life. Is this just part of being a mother? A woman?

I've ranted, it's now 1am and I'm still not too sleepy. At least I don't have everything rattling around in my head.... maybe it'll be easier once I put my head on the pillow.

Pushing Through

Sometimes the thing you want to do least is the thing that will help you the most.

I started spiraling down on Wednesday afternoon; I was tired and I was having a hard time putting words together to hold a conversation. It would have been a good time for me to write, but I wasn't on the computer much when writing is possible (i.e. when the kids are sleeping or otherwise occupied with Popsy) and it might have been hard to understand.

Even at therapy on Thursday, it was hard for me to express anything. By Friday, I was a complete grump. I just wanted to be alone and since Chris was home, I spent a good part of the afternoon with Stieg Larsson. Yesterday, I was feeling pretty much the same. I wasn't too keen on getting out of bed, but once I did, I made the bed right away so I wouldn't have the option of crawling back in. We had a few errands to do and I spent most of the trip lost in thought. Chris would ask a question and get the bare minimum of an answer in response. At a tent sale, we found a much-needed new sneakers for me, but trying on t-shirts did not improve my day. And I was dreading the birthday party we had RSVP'd to. I knew the boys would have fun and that it would be great company; I just wasn't too sure I would be able to pull myself together for it and didn't think I would be much of a companion.

My instincts yesterday were to retreat inside myself. I felt like I didn't have much of myself left to give to anyone. Surrounding yourself with people when you're wanting to be alone isn't easy to do. But, really, if I had done what I wanted to do, I'd still be in that lonely place. I don't like that lonely place, but it can be so hard to get out of it. It's a matter of forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do. The beginning of the party was a bit rough for me, but by the end, my mood had improved and I had a blast! Today, I'm still feeling good although I'd be even better if the sun would show itself a bit more.

We didn't have the healthiest breakfast this morning, but it sure was tasty! Fortunately, the rest of the day should be better health-wise. Chris has been fixing the brakes on his truck this morning and this afternoon we're planning on finally putting our bikes to use! My Mother's Day present was bike seats for the boys and a new bike for Chris so that we could take family bike rides. With the rain we've had for the last WEEK, we haven't used them yet and I have been so anxious to! Today's weather forecast was for clouds....I didn't see anything about rain so I have my fingers crossed. We're going to head over to the bike path and I'm hoping to hit up the farm stand on the way home. I've been craving something grilled for dinner. I'm torn between grilled shrimp and veggies and grilled pizza topped with some veggies (maybe some of the asparagus from the fridge?), but I think I'm leaning towards pizza.

It's now noon and I'm still in jammies! I'll leave you with this goof (stealing his brother's dinner last night) while I get dressed!

Losing Words

I'm just not into writing tonight. I can't seem to pull anything together, but I want to get in an update. I wrote some this morning and I added a little tonight, so I'm piecing both together. I'm having a really hard time processing thoughts and coming up with words. What I've written may not flow too well, so bear with me. I didn't have the best afternoon. I worked out tonight and I have therapy tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to, but losing words like I am tonight is usually something that happens right before a bad "spell," for lack of a better word, so we'll see how tomorrow goes.

7:05am: I swear that Isaac has an extra sense. He was sleeping peacefully. Charlie was "eating" breakfast and watching TV. I was cooking my oatmeal and cutting my grapefruit. At the EXACT moment my grapefruit and oatmeal were at the counter ready to be eaten, Isaac decided to let me know he was awake....

7:50am: Both boys have eaten, are dressed and their breakfast dishes are drying in the rack. Isaac's playing cars at the coffee table and occasionally calls my name so I can watch him as he climbs onto the coffee table. My little daredevil. Charlie and his friend Megan are chasing each other around the house. My oatmeal and grapefruit are still sitting on the counter. It's a good thing oatmeal holds its heat.

9:30pm: Apart from a late breakfast, it was a good morning. I was up at the same time as Chris and did a little stretching before hopping in the shower. Charlie had a blast playing with Megan although he was a little much at times. He doesn't seem to have a concept of personal space when he gets excited and I think she was getting as frustrated with him as I was. I would say she was ready to go home when Mom came to get her. They did have fun together and it was cute to see them cuddling under a blanket as they watched a movie together. :)

This afternoon, not so good. I was d.r.a.g.g.i.n.g. There was no opportunity to squeeze in a workout yesterday and I felt it today. Between story time, Isaac's doctor's appointment and picking Charlie up from his friend's house, I didn't eat lunch until 1:30. Isaac was not interested in taking a nap until 4 even though he had 4 shots and a dose of Tylenol to ease the pain from the tetanus shot! By the time he did go down, it was time to start thinking about dinner so that I could eat and run out the door to be at the library at 6:30 for a board meeting that lasted until 9. Good meeting, but I missed Glee. :(

To make up for yesterday's lack, I made sure to get in a good workout tonight. I also caught up on Glee while Charlie watched Curious George.

As for Isaac's doctor's appointment....Isaac, at 15 months, weighed in at 18 pounds even. He was 17 lbs 10 oz at 12 months. This means he did not even gain 1/2 pound in 3 months.

Luckily, Charlie was the same way in terms of weight (he didn't hit the charts until he turned 3) and the doctor isn't worried. He's on track or beyond where he should be developmentally so there's nothing to be concerned about. In terms of his seizures, we just need to let his doctor know when/if he has more. We know it's directly related to his breath-holding and the seizures are something that happens with breath-holding spells so isn't we don't feel there's a need to put him through a battery of tests. Down the road, we may change our minds and talk to a neurologist, but for now, we're going to attempt to get used to any seizures in the same way that we've gotten used to the breath-holding spells. Fun. :)