Just trying to keep up

As the holidays begin and the office parties, preschool parties, group gatherings, social events of all kinds really, come and go. I realize that anyone trying to maintain any semblance of normal is likely at home alone. Right now I am wishing for just two hours of home alone. I need sleep. I'll sleep on Sunday.

For Christmas day, everyone will be here for the big meal and I'm trying to pack it full of veg to offset all of the other stuff. I now know that I over plan things like this and that that is likely why I don't volunteer for much of this kind of event hosting. So, three days and counting and we are now officially two or three days into the holidays and we have just gotten the tree up and the menu planned. Now for the shopping and the mad dash through the house cleaning up and hopefully a nap.

I'll get back to lifestyle "change" when the holidays are over but I am still trying to make sure that we all keep moving and make the best diet choices that we can. Good Luck to everyone else too.

The Christmas party

Well it is that time of year again that dictates a certain social requisite to attend the Office Christmas Party. I believe that every place my husband has worked has had one of these parties and this year He has just started working there so neither of us will know anyone there.

I think that I am starting to get a little overwhelmed. Lifestyle changes in mind. We are just going to have to do the best that we can and hope that the guilty conscience won't stress us out to much. Maybe more exercise will be the answer.

On that note, getting the kids to be more active was only as hard as getting me to let them call the game. wrestling, chase, playing in the snow (when the wind hasn't been an issue) and even squats and crunches. Today's activity took all morning but the basic concept was my son getting himself dressed. He was everywhere and it took over an hour but he did it all on his own. My youngest likes to dance but only if there is audience participation. She does it all the time if I just bounce with her.

So in closing I guess the focus for the lifestyle change is really on me. What I am going to focus on for the next few days will be my mental state. Live and let live but try and stay the course.

Small Steps

An Indoor Winter Salad Garden

I was just trying to figure out if it was possible to grow salad planters in the winter and I came across this link:

http://www.squidoo.com/salad-garden

This website gives me a little hope to cut the grocery shopping down and I might actually get my Eggplant. Yay!!

Busy

I think that one of my biggest obstacles to changing the current lifestyle that I lead is going to be the planning. I thought that it was going to cost to much or that the food would taste less than desirable but that isn't true. I thought that the exercise would be difficult to work in (though we aren't where we should be) but it isn't. The difficult aspect of this lifestyle change is the planning that has to go into travel.

We have to go at least half and hour one way to get Veg from the store. We can get it here to some degree but it isn't a very good selection. We have to go to the same city to get the car gizmos looked at and my husband works in this city so sometimes the kids and I have to go to his work. It isn't really realistic to just stay confined to the farm either. Like I said before in an earlier post, we will have to venture out for some reason or another anyway and we will encounter the world. But what have we done when encountering the world? We caved in.

Last night the time constraint in what was happening between where we were and where we needed to be and the children hungry and I hadn't left enough time to make anything (based on what we had on hand at home) led to eating at a Fast Food Joint. I still have a head ache and I really don't feel well. Mostly though I feel stupid. I know better and yet.... there it is. Lack of planning and bad decision making.

I'm chalking this up to a lesson learned and a reminder. From this point forward I am always going to take food with us no matter if I think that we are going to be back home in time or not. I just can't predict everything.

P.S. I know that I have been told to travel with food before mostly because of the kids but now I won't scoff at it.

Back to Square Foot Gardening

Oh my goodness. I started talking about the square foot garden format that I want to use this year and ended up talking about chickens. Wow!!!

We have a little space in the backyard that I have marked out a plot for a raised square foot garden. I am still going to use the city block sized garden in the back back yard for potatoes corn and squash. Just the things like lettuce and tomatoes that require less direct sun and more water (I am tired of hauling that much water that far) will be planted there.

If I can grow things that aren't available in the grocery stores out here I will be really happy. I miss Eggplant and sprouts. I've been told that I can grow some varieties of veg in the house in the winter. I might give that a go too. The only plant life in this house right now is a very sick Amaryllis and an even sicker Geranium left over from this summer on the deck.

We're plowed out now so going to the store this afternoon in the City may be possible.

Square foot gardening

I have been trying to grow a successful veg garden since we moved out to the farm. Previously I was a flower gardener and I think that I was good at it. I don't know if it is that gardening vegetables is that much harder than flowers or if it is just that the soil here is different than what I grew up with.

I have begun planning my garden for this coming year so that I can best plan our Chicken Moat. I discovered this idea of keeping chickens around the garden on the internet quite by accident. I think that this is a great idea. This coming year we want to have about 40-50 laying hens and about 50 meat birds that we can raise as free range as we can manage. Trial and error seems to be our way of adaptation.

Hopefully by this time next year when/if we experience another snow deposit like last nights, we will be able to enjoy (worry free) our own organically grown produce and meat and not have to worry about heading off to the store for veg.

This is all apart of our lifestyle change. Not to grow everything ourselves necessarily but to procure healthy food so that our bodies can be healthy. Until then, let the planning continue and the imagination free. I also hope that I don't take on more than I can chew.

posting

I suppose that it needs to be mentioned that the posts for this blog are made "on the fly". There will be grammar and spelling errors because I just don't have the time to go over them again before posting them. If I did, they wouldn't likely get posted.

Snack

I have to say it. At the best of times I don't give my son Chocolate. He doesn't react well to it. It isn't that he is allergic to it but I almost feel like I should tell people that he is. Snack at pre-school was chocolate chip cookies and apple juice. I'm thankful that he got a snack and that today I didn't have to arrange it but I just wish it wasn't cookies and juice.

Part of the issue here is that while my children are at home I have the control to balance the diet. He's going to have to go to school in the not to distant future and I won't have a say in the matter then. I won't even know if he'll eat what he has been given for lunch. Like I said earlier, I'm going to have to get more creative. Ramp up the exercise. Any Ideas?

Stretching

Well, the stretching went well. My son likes to try to tickle my hands while I do the stretches. Not quite what I had in mind but it's a start right. Just need to work on making breakfast healthier and palatable to this youngster and the morning will be half sorted out. Hopefully!

Age of Enlightenment

I'm actually having a difficult time composing this post today. My mind is swimming in things that I already knew but haven't used in a very long time. I haven't applied these things to my day to day regime and I find it absurd that I am finding it difficult to do what I need to do to change my lifestyle.

This isn't a difficult concept. We all know the rules. Eat well, exercise and don't stress out. Not rocket science. But hearing what I need to do makes me upset that I can't do it. I know that I shouldn't stress about it but....

I remember when I could run (a long long distance in a go) and I remember when I could bend. These are just memories now and I'm only thirty five. My 90 year old grandmother is healthier than I am.

SMALL SMALL steps.

Tomorrow and I do mean Tomorrow first thing, this house is going to initiate a new schedule. Like we have one now. Stretching, breakfast, cleaning up, chores, maybe yoga or Tai Chi and then lunch. We'll start with just the morning and see how that goes.

The age of Enlightenment happened in the 18th Century and left us with the understanding that opening ones eyes to reason was all that was needed to become Modern. Hopefully Tomorrow is the start to the age of Enlightenment in this household.

SMALL STEPS

Life as we know it

previously I used this blog spot to chronicle my adaptation to living in the country and applying my city training to life in the middle of... well, the country. If you have read what was posted here in the past you would know that ecology and organics was a focus for me but also my young family and the community that I live in. I could be humorous in my description of my husband and the community that we live in and poke jokes at the use of the two block drive to work but then I would be forgetting that I had done that and in doing so omitted to understand lest apply that my lifestyle needed to be corrected too.

In August I suffered another back injury. This was my second lower back malfunction in three years. I am only 35 years old and I discovered that my back health was likely that of a ninety year old woman. One cannot function on zero movement and total pain anywhere. Now through in a new born and a three year old and daily farm chores and you have the mix for a woman in extreme distress.

This blog spot is now dedicated to chronicle my previous goals of applying eco-friendly and organic practices on our farm and the lifestyle change that I am now undergoing and imposing on my family.

My hope is that others can choose to read this and learn from my mistakes so that they don't have to make them as well.