Good morning! How is your summer going so far? We've already had a lot of fun – I'm making time to do free summer activities with the kids because if I don't it will just be over, but I can't seem to keep on top of things around here. Yeah, as if that's anything new, whine whine. (Hey, at least I'm not whining about technical issues this week!) There's one thing I think about a lot, though, and this is a bit cheesy, but maybe you'll relate: I think of that song, “These are the days you'll remember...”, and I know that this is it, right now. I'm so blessed and need to appreciate these moments of life and not drone on too much about my never-ending to-do lists. Sometimes I can pull that off and other times I just get ornery (ask Kent). I'd love to know how you deal with this. Please don't tell me to enjoy the kids while they're young, they grow up too fast, blah blah blah. I know that. That's why I have the never-ending guilt trip. I've probably asked you this before, but I'd appreciate some concrete suggestions for organizing my day, and thank you!
Here's what's up today:
- Get this: I actually did a menu plan for the week, can you believe it?!
- Remember that if you’d like all the latest scoop on my upcoming Rookie class please sign up for my Kitchen Kop newsletter and in a few days I’m going to go in and resend my most recent one to all those who signed up after it went out a couple weeks ago. I answer some questions there and tell you more about when it will open up. (When I do that I’ll also check and see if 50 more people have signed up, and if so I’ll pick another Real Food Ingredient Guide winner!) In case you're wondering how my class will be different from what may seem like a lot of Real Food classes being offered lately, mine will be geared toward two groups of people: “Rookies” who are fairly new to all this Real Food stuff and feeling overwhelmed with the steep learning curve; and those with Rookies in their lives who they want to either give this class to as a gift or just learn how to teach them in a way that won't make them want to run away screaming. We'll go back to the very basics, which will all be very natural for me and easy to remember what to teach, because it really wasn't that long ago that I was buying a lot of boxes and bags and eating fast food like crazy! I'm amazed now at how misinformed I was then about all sorts of things.
- Here's an excerpt from the newsletter: “Keep in mind that my class won't be so much a cooking class, although I will show you how easily I make a few of my favorite recipes. It will be more on the lighter side, leaning toward not overwhelming those in the beginning and middle stages of their real food journeys. I'll welcome you into my kitchen and my neighborhood, you'll go with me to my favorite farms and our local grocery store (undercover), and you'll even hear from a few close friends of mine and see their kitchens, too. I'll talk to you face to face and I'll be real. More real than you'll probably want sometimes! (Like in my pajamas in some classes…yikes. Maybe I shouldn't say that or no one will sign up…) I'm excited to help you in your Real Food journey and want to make it fun and entertaining, too.”
- Forgive me for asking you something totally unrelated to health or real food, but I told my friend Kristen that one of you just might be able to help her… Her husband got a new job in Durham, NC, and they’re stumped as to which school district would be a good choice for their 4 boys. They’ve learned that in one district the elementary schools might be good, but the high school stinks. In another district it's the opposite. They can’t afford private schools. If anyone from that area could comment with some advice, we’d HUG YOU…well, a virtual hug anyway!
As someone who is a wine rookie, I loved this article, “How to go to a wine store.” It’s been interesting to experience the change in my tastes and realizing that a wine I couldn’t stand a year ago is one I’m starting to love nowadays. Keep in mind, I’m still solidly in the “too sweet” category as far as Kent is concerned, but I’m getting there! As a matter of fact, I can hardly drink wine coolers anymore because they have a too sweet/fake sweetness to them now, and I for sure can’t drink those really nasty ones with the fake bright red color, it just screams “chemicals”! My next statement will show you just how much of a wine person I am not: does anyone else wish you could taste-test wines at the store? How am I supposed to know if I’ll like it or not until I try it?! Sometimes I can tell by smelling it, but how classy do you think that looks, to have my nose in someone else’s wine? Kent is used to me, though, so he’ll let me stick my nose right in there. At least Reds (one of my favorite restaurants) will give me a little sample to try. The other day I had this delicious drink: “Reds’ Patio Cooler- A slightly effervescent white wine blend on ice with a squeeze of lime. Light and refreshing.” It was so good, like a Riesling with a citrus twist and I loooooove citrus. Oooh, here’s another good one about wines: 8 Organic Wine Secrets. Have you seen this post from my archives where a big discussion got going on wine: “Do you drink red wine everyday?” At that post I share an email exchange between Kent & I one day, and it was one of those that I didn’t expect to get so many comments on but things exploded there.
Unfortunately, this post didn’t generate solid answers on which BBQ grill surface is best. If you know anything we don't, please comment!- Did you see this post from Sarah? Beware of Millet. I know there are many of you who are avoiding gluten, so I thought it would be good to spotlight this.
- I was talking to someone I love today (can’t say who, but I’m 99% sure she doesn’t read my blog a lot anyway) and was so sad afterward because I found out that she’s on blood pressure meds, statins for cholesterol, pain pills (for a recent injury), Benadryl because the pain pills make her itch, and a diet pill that her doc said was OK because it’s “all natural”…? And those are just the ones she told me about, there may be more. She carries her extra weight mostly around her mid-section, so I could pretty much take a guess that soon the list will include oral diabetic meds, with insulin soon to follow… Not that that couldn’t happen to any of us, myself included, but with some the prediction is easier to make than others. She's only in her young 50's! (Scroll down at this post on healthy fats to find a specific section on the whole farce that statins/cholesterol meds are.) The really sad thing about this is that what I've just described is now “normal”. On the positive side, she is fairly open-minded and I asked her (as a start) to please do her own research on the statins and she said she would…shoot up a prayer for her if you don’t mind.
- Kent found this short article that had me belly laughing: a family fight over butter vs. margarine. Now THAT’S a good reason to take someone down! 🙂
- Be sure to subscribe (with the buttons above) because soon I'll tell you what we finally bought the other day, I love it!
As someone who is a wine rookie, I loved this article, “
Unfortunately, this post didn’t generate solid answers on Have a great week!
KitchenKop says
Wow, I just read a great post that talks about the very question I had today as far as ordering my day: https://www.conversiondiary.com/2010/06/6-things-i-learned-from-living-on.html. My comment and big question for Jen is comment #14 (I think).
Liz, getting up early would be a good option if I could get my butt to bed earlier, it’s good that you’ve gotten into that habit……
WordVixen says
Praise God that my husband is finally off of statins! He’s on far too much medication (blood pressure- and since he won’t listen to me, he really does need those) still, but getting him off the statins was the biggest deal. But- it took him being sick of taking so many pills and having to pay a small fortune for them before he finally asked me if it was safe to go off of them. I did do some quick googling and asking my mom (currently an LPN, but she spent 19 1/2 years proofreading medical journals) just to make sure that it wasn’t one of those drugs that causes huge problems if you don’t wean yourself off slowly, but absolutely got him off them.
As for the butter/margarine argument? We avoid bloodshed by giving him a tub of margarine and me keeping my tub/sticks of butter. Thank goodness I do most of the cooking! (oh, and he loves the coconut oil!)
WordVixen says
I should also mention that my husband’s cholesterol was well in the “normal” range. It was prescribed… get this… to prevent the high cholesterol. Yeesh.
KitchenKop says
Do you mean the nasty margarine was prescribed for the cholesterol? (So sick and wrong!)
WordVixen says
Oh no! As far as I know, his doctor hasn’t made any recommendations as far as diet except for avoiding salt. But my husband and his side of the family still live in the “margarine is good, fat is bad, drink skim milk” era. I think his parents are beginning to come around, though. At least in theory. His father emailed him an article about saturated fat being good for memory, and he’s also on an anti-petroleum product kick as far as personal care items are concerned. He even listened intently when I began talking about why I’ve been removing soy from our diet. Unfortunately, his brother is a chemical engineer, and since he thinks this is all a bunch of hooey, it’s hard to get anywhere. *sigh*
Now that I’ve digressed again… 🙂
I think that I was lucky in that a Christian nutritionist couple visited our church when I was very young and talked about fats being healthy. My parents still used skim milk, but they did switch to real butter- or as close as store bought gets. I’m only now getting the whole picture, but at least I had a small base to start with.
Liz F. says
Hey Kel… regarding enjoying these summer days with the kids. I don’t have this all figured out, that’s for sure. But for me, two things are key. The first is that I have to give myself “permission” to relax my standards, let myself off the hook on things around the house, and take time to play sometimes. The other thing is I get more done when I get up early vs. staying up late. By nature, I’m a night owl. I adapt very easily to staying up late and sleeping in. But that’s not an option for me at this season in my life. What I’m finding lately is that getting up earlier than I might like to is allowing me to feel more on top of things. The other day I got up at 5:20 a.m. By 6:45 a.m. I had baked a coffee cake for my book club, made a fruit salad, walked the dog, gotten breakfast for Grace, cleaned up the kitchen, folded a load of laundry, started another load of laundry in the washer, read my Bible, read my email, made my bed, laid out my clothes and was headed to the shower. Oh, and I had a cup of coffee too! Even though I don’t describe myself as a morning person, I’m actually quite productive in the morning, especially if I have a list that I made the night before. Just a thought….
By the way, you have my permission to drop in anytime of the day and find out how the real world really lives — once you see my house during the course of a day you’ll realize how well you have it together at your end of the block! 😉
HUGS!!
Meg says
Statins, ugh. My doctor wanted to give these to me a year ago – no way am I going to take them. I was surprised at how readily she was going to write me a prescription. I told her “NO”, so she didn’t press it, thankfully.
KitchenKop says
Marilyn, how I long for a day like that! But I am getting better at living in the moment, even with a heavy to-do list…well, I should say that SOME days I’m better at it than others. Depends on where I’m at in the month, if you get my drift. 🙂
Jen, thank you for telling me that! But I’m pretty sure she said it does help the itching to lessen…if so I doubt I could get her to stop taking it… sigh…
Natalie, funny you say that, because we are making plans to do just that this fall! I love that about how together we can try 10 wines, how fun! I’m a little afraid, though, that I won’t like 9 of them…
I’ve got to tell you guys something. I talked to my sister today and she was telling me how she went off her cholesterol meds recently and got a paper from the pharmacy with all sorts of info about how important it is to reduce your cholesterol by avoiding saturated fats and trans fats – SHAME ON THEM for lumping those two together! Eat only low fat dairy, blah blah blah. She’s been doing great with high fat/low carb eating for a while now (and she FEELS so good!), so she laughed and said, “Yeah, I’m pretty much doing the opposite of everything they say in this.” 🙂 I LOVE to hear her say this stuff (oh how I’ve prayed!), but it SO ticks me off how wrong the docs and big pharm are to push “diets high in whole grains and fruits & vegetables”!
Jen says
Kelly – If you have a chance, you might at least mention to your friend that Benedryl doesn’t help with itching from pain meds. It’s NOT an allergic (histamine) reaction. It’s a neurological reaction. I get the same thing. I little itch here, then a little itch there. It’s annoying but there’s no sense in adding Benedryl to the mix. If she truely is having an allergic reaction with a rash or other histamine symptom then she shouldn’t be taking those pain meds. It could be dangerous.
Natalie says
Hi Kelly,
A great way to try different wines is to go on a wine-tasting tour on Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City and on the Leelanaue Peninsula. There are lots of wineries to stop at and do a taste-testing. And mind you all of these wines are Michigan wines so it is another way to BUY LOCAL (well Michigan anyway). It is lots of fun and you will learn a ton about wines! Some wineries charge a nominal $3-5 fee to purchase a small wine glass and then you get 5 tastings. Most will allow you to bring that glass back at another time and then the tasting is complimentary. Some wineries have totally free tasting. And to get the most of your tasting experience, you could choose five wines and Kent could choose five wines and then you both get to taste 10 wines. I did a wine-tasting tour over Memorial Day weekend with some friends and it was so much fun. I’m definitely a “wine-rookie” as you described yourself. The friend I was with has done wine tasting before at the wineries and is very much into pairing wines with the right foods as he is an excellent cook.
Marilyn Moll says
Lately, I have been trying to pray each day over God’s priorities for the day, and found that He has fewer “to-do” list items for today than I do. There is free time at the end of the day – not sure what to do with this and feel half guilty, but it makes for a much less stressful day.
Alanna says
This book has helped me tremendously in organizing my home while homeschooling 7 children. I need to re-read and incorporate breadmaking, gardening, and hen raising into my new schedule, though!
https://www.titus2.com/ecommerce/products/prod_listing.php/1100
God Bless!
KitchenKop says
Alanna,
Thank you! I read one a few years ago that might be similar called, “The Mothers Rule of Life”, but it was TOO structured a day for me and I knew I couldn’t stick to that. I know the answer is in some sort of daily schedule, but my problem is (and I’m sure this is not unique at all) things go sour SO often and SO fast with the constant interruptions and a million things that throw off the schedule, I hesitate to even try. Maybe the answer to that is in the book you recommended, I’ll have to check it out. 🙂
Kelly
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist says
A family fight over butter vs margarine? Love it! I can see that happening at our extended family reunions – in a fun kind of way! You know, slinging some soft, pastured butter around might be kind of fun, come to think of it. I know my kids would love it. Clean up would be a nightmare, though. Yikes.
Peggy says
Kelly, my reaction to the butter vs. margarine fight is that some young woman needs some healthy fat to balance her moods! Yikes!
I have no help for your friend in Durham other than to timidly suggest homeschooling!
Alex at A Moderate Life says
Hey Kel, yep, I too have a friend who I saw a few months ago and we went out to dinner, dropping him off at his hotel room afterwards he grabbed a gallon sized zip lock bag FILLED with prescription medications and said, oops i dont want to miss my chlesterol medications. I almost threw up! Thing is, until someone really is ready and wanting to change and seeking answers, they usually only get defensive and then you have no way of helping them. Best to lead by example, talk about your health and vitality and all natural lifestyle and see if they start asking questions. You can also just send information without any comments attached, which are usually seen as judgement.
Have a great week!