Primal Blueprint Meal Plan

Tonight's dinner was the start of the Primal Blueprint Meal Plan that I purchased with that $39 dollar deal. I sent it over to my husband to see what he thought and he said the meals looked like good options. I made Moroccan Chicken with Cauliflower Rice (he and the kids had basmati rice). I had 4 extra chicken thighs so I just tossed 'em in and I'm glad I did! The chicken is delicious. I loved the whole thing, I literally drank the last bits of soup out of my bowl. Will. make. again.

My skin is HORRIFIC. I'm thinking about taking pictures so that I have a before set. I am hoping that this meal plan (which does include some dairy and sugar in the chocolate) will work as well as the Whole30 did for my complexion. A Whole30 is too strict for my husband, even just for 30 days, but if he enjoys these options then it's a win in my book.

The meal plans come in every Tuesday so that you have time to go to the store, and the meal plan goes Sunday to Saturday. The trouble is that my Washington's Green Grocer delivery comes in Thursdays and I do my grocery shopping on Wednesdays so it is taking a little juggling, looking at the first meal plan to see what I need for the rest of THIS week and next week's meal plan to make sure I get the stuff for the beginning of NEXT week. Thankfully they've got each of the ingredients on the grocery list labeled with the numbers that correspond to the meals. That way I can go through the grocery list and know that I need to purchase the ingredients for 16-28 of this week and 1-15 of next week. Then I have to figure out the best deal for each item and plan to purchase items from my farmer (which I have to plan a week in advance). That's due on Thursdays. But this week I have it figured out and I just have to make sure I'm paying attention on Tuesday next week. ;)

It's Monday!

I have not been so "good" at sticking to my plan. I put it in quotes because nobody is perfect and I am trying hard to be rid of the perfectionism that plagues so many of us. I've still managed to get some great nutrition into my body however I have allowed some not-very-nutritious foods in. That is the difficult part to eating differently than your family. :) Sometimes the decisions are conscious, other times it is so easy to mindlessly reach for whatever is in the bag right next to me. Thankfully I have been on Facebook more than usual lately (and this is about the only time you'll see me say THAT!) because there's a deal in the paleosphere. For $39 you can get a ton of e-books as well as some meal plans! I picked the Acne meal plan from Nell but it's full of olive oil and flax meal and flax seed oil. After reading Skintervention I like using a variety of oils and more than chicken and fish so I don't know if I'm going to end up using it. However, Mark's Daily Apple has a meal plan for $9.99/month that you get one month for $0.01. I got my first week in my email and all the recipes look great. There is TONS of variety - eggs, chicken, bison, beef, lamb and you can use any "oil" you wish which allows me to have variety there as well. My skin has broken out. I expected this especially as my period came around in the middle of my detox period. Thankfully straight tea tree essential oil is doing the trick on spot treatments. It's not overnight but I can definitely tell a difference after using it at night and checking back in the morning. It Starts With Food. We have a wedding to go to on Saturday and I'd like for my skin to be as clear as possible so I have a goal in mind. Since your skin replenishes quickly I should see results fairly soon. Dinner last night was a grill bonanza. We had steak with Northwoods seasoning (for me), burgers/hotdogs (for them, but there are two patties minus cheese for me for leftovers), asparagus, artichokes (with homemade mayonnaise), grilled potato wedges (I had a few :)) and homemade guacamole. Breakfast this morning was two scrambled eggs in coconut oil, sauteed grape tomatoes in olive oil with garlic powder, onion powder and Fines Herbes seasoning, and leftover guacamole. I also had a cup of coffee with coconut milk and took my Royal Blend CLO/Butter Oil. I did sneak a couple of the chocolate mini donuts everyone else ate for breakfast (I need to be accountable) but my husband, for the first time, took the bag away from me. I was so thankful for that. :) On the homeschooling front we are still deschooling. I have all of the windows open (it's supposed to be 75 degrees here today!) and it's still 79 degrees inside. April 8th is too soon for the air conditioner! ;) We will be going outside in a little bit to work in the garden. I have another garden bed to fill and mulch to spread and peas to plant. Science and experiential learning for the win! In the afternoon we'll be heading into the kitchen together to cook. We're making Sweet Potato Banana Donuts, ground beef and ground venison jerky, and kale chips. I also need to marinate my chicken for the grill tonight which requires cutting it into pieces. I need to figure out veggies. I am thinking about brussels sprouts. :) Since I'm back to talking about food, I think I have decided to follow the Mark Sisson Primal Blueprint Meal Plan. My husband might even like some of the items listed. Wish me luck!

Deschooling

I am now convinced that the purpose of deschooling is not so much for the kid but also for the parent!! I have so much to do between reading through the Oak Meadow syllabus I purchased, sorting through notes and handouts from the conference, finishing up the garden, meal planning, paying bills, and cooking a ton of food. See, I broke one of the refrigerator door shelves. You know, the part that holds everything on the shelf? Where I felt I didn't have enough room to begin with I *REALLY* don't have enough room. Combine that with the massive amount of cooking I am doing to make room for the pig share that arrives in a couple of weeks, just, EEK! I just roasted 3 heads of broccoli, finished a batch of lamb stock (from the leg of lamb roast on Easter), made a batch of emergency breakfast protein (1 lb sausage, 1 bunch swiss chard, one onion, a splash of fish sauce and coconut aminos), got strawberry/banana fruit leather in the Excalibur as well as a bowl of popcorn for the kids snack this morning. I still need to boil artichokes for lunch, figure out what I'm doing with ~12 red bell peppers and the epic amount of cuties that I bought when everyone was into them and now they aren't anymore, as well as hope this wind dies down so I can grill these chicken thighs I pulled out of the freezer. Out of the next 4 days, we have activities that require at least one of us to leave the house every day. Every late afternoon/evening we have plans. It's going to be busy. So, with all of that, I am trying to not let myself feel guilty. For the first time we ALL played in the DIRT yesterday! We found earth worms! We started our tomato, bell pepper, cabbage and herb seeds indoors. We are making plans for the future. There's a toy train expo, a lego expo, and a reptile show in the next few months. My mom is moving 4 hours closer next week so I am hoping to be visiting more often. I am eager to get the relationship going between my kids and my mom/grandparents. Yet another great thing with homeschooling is allowing that flexibility. For those who don't know what deschooling is, it's a period of time many homeschoolers recommend in order to help your child unlearn the routines they had in structured school. Your home schooling philosophy and practice can be just as structured but it isn't going to be the same as someone with a class full of other children. My daughter keeps asking about our Morning Message and we don't really need one. She's starting to understand that we can plan our days a different way and have flexibility. She's starting to understand the need, at times, to wait until after her little brother's nap before we can do a specific activity. She also gets that she needs to help out around the house in order for us to have more time together. I know that more understanding will come with time. :)

My Garden

This is the third year we're starting a garden. The first year was.. chaos. I got too many things, my husband didn't want to go near that orb spider no matter how safe it was (she LOOKED scary), and I started to work on my fear of bugs. I am a city girl, or at least a suburban girl, and I never had a garden growing up. I remember being in awe of my friend Holland's backyard and the year her parents let us help harvest at their house. I was 7 years old. It wasn't until my daughter was 3 that I really saw what the plants looked like that grew the food I ate. It felt like I was a stranger in a strange land, taking my 3 year old to Great Country Farms for u-pick and having to follow everyone else's lead on where we were going and where to find the food. I have truly enjoyed the experience! Last year's garden.. I'm not sure what happened. My husband kept forgetting it was there (we live on the middle floor) and he had been named Harvester of the Garden since I had done all the work planting it. We hardly got anything out of it. There was a lot of work, a LOT of weeds, and then I found baby rabbits in one of the squares of my raised bed. I think part of the problem was that they were back against a fence which didn't allow me to harvest from both sides. I thought I had solved that problem from SFG by making them 8'x2' beds instead of 4'x4'. It also just did not *look* attractive. I understand the things Mel Bartholemew mentions in his book are great for function but I needed something pretty, I guess? This year I am moving the beds. We have a small backyard (ahh, townhouse living), and the front of my house faces east and the rear faces west though there is a row of townhomes in that direction. We still get a fair bit of sunlight - around 7 to 8 hours in the backyard. There's no shade back there either save for our small deck. Thus far I have emptied the beds, moved them, and started amending the tough clay soil around the perimeter of my yard. I have purchased 2/3's of Mel's Mix (I didn't have enough room in my car for the vermiculite) and it is in my garage waiting to go. I purchased enough to finish amending the perimeter along the fence. I also purchased some sedum to plant around my a/c unit. Around the fence will be my daughter's flowers - zinnias, sunflowers, and some other random seeds I've collected the last few years. I'm a little late in the game, but we'll be starting our seeds over the next couple of days. I am hoping to get out there after nap time today to mix up the dirt and plant the sedum and get the peas planted in the hopes that we might see a harvest from them. It might be too late, but it's worth a shot.