It's easy to talk about things and even to DO the things you like to yammer about when all is going well, yes? When I'm dishing up great meals every night and working out a minimum of three hrs a week and making great choices I can come here and blather to my heart's content but I tend to let the dust build when things aren't going so great.
Nothing Earth shattering over here, I'm just a bit under the weather and contending with impending woman stuff (hence considering installing a salt block to just go ahead and lick off of opposed to the salt heavy food I've been ingesting and some mild depressive feelings)and so things are not perfect in Perfect Food Land. How long are they usually anyway? Maybe a week if I'm lucky-that is called life. Today I wanted badly to get a fast food burger meal-I left work at the hospital early because I felt so bad physically and kept thinking of that but was good enough to myself to realize I just wanted to feel better and greasy salt laden food would not accomplish that end, just a different kind of END (as in the kind preceded by REAR).
We're still eating fruits and veggies and whole grains and lean meats and lite dairy as always-I just don't feel all Prancy Princess about it because I feel crappy.
That's my point. Hah, took me long enough.

The Vegetable Vendetta is going well, or maybe I should call it the Valient Veggies to be more positive. We've been branching out as a family, me in the fact that I am making SURE that it happens everynight instead of plugging away for a bit and then falling back on baked french fries or something when the weekend hits. I admit tonight the Menfolk had cajun takeout (crawfish etouffe and popcorn shrimp) but instead of fries the little one had a fruit cup. I opted out of takeout and ate food we already had here instead of continuing to participate in the lunacy that is spending over a hundred dollars at the store and then purchasing crapfood that VERY NIGHT. My dinner for the record was super tasty: Simply Potatoes southwest hashbrowns, one egglands best brown egg fried with a touch of Pam nonstick spray, Dancing Iguana guacamole and Daisy lite sour cream. Delicious. After awhile I wanted something else and in lieu of a traditional dessert kinda deal I had 1/6 of a pumpkin flax kashi crunch bar and a glass of nonfat Horizon organic milk.
No this is not turning into a tedious detail of food equivalent to a fourth grade "My Summer Vacation" report. I love food and will probably talk about it more...and now ends me explaining myself on my own blog.
Last night I had John Reid (our son) help me beat the eggs for scrambled style eggies and he didn't hesitate one bit when it was time to eat and asked for seconds! Eggs have been one of the only foods he's mistrusted so that was a major score for ol' Mamacita. Next time I go to the store I think I'll try and take him along and have him pick out things-perhaps I'll make a special produce only trip for that purpose so his attention span doesn't fizzle out.

I turned down cajun food I generally love b/c I knew it would make me feel bad (high sodium mainly being the culprit) and I am being smarter with our food budget. I'm including fruits and vegetables in every dinner and snack. I'm trying to focus more on involving my little love in the food--->table process and my Husband is even trying all the new things I dish out.
Oh yeah, I purchased small containers of apricot barley salad and greek vegetable salad from the deli and had a few bites of each at lunch-what a treat! I must find out how to make that barley salad especially. This kept me from feeling deprived after Husband was hankering for fast food at lunch time and I rejected the idea (for myself). For what it's worth he also abstained but I don't think he wanted to, he just had surgery on his shoulder and he's laid up right now and completely inactive. For some reason he is also wanting to have the worst eating habits after months of improvement in that area. Maybe self comfort? Whatever, I am not the food police, I just hate to see him backtrack. Considering that's what I've done for going on a year (until now)I sure won't be pointing fingers.
My eyes hurt, I got up super early to be part of a big research study. That sounds cooler than it was but I WILL get to say I was part of it when the results come in someday.
'night.

Following along the same lines as yesterday's post, let me share our menu today and some random ideas that came to me while cooking dinner.
When I picked up my son today from preschool/daycare he announced with a huge grin, "I want donuts! I want to see Daddy!" Apparetly the two d's go together and so we've already had a talk (Husband and I) about no more donuts on the way to school. Does that seem harsh? I don't think so, considering he wailed about the donuts almost the entire trip home and apparently they had crossed the line from treat to almost expected item. Not cool. I've been talking to him about "sometimes foods" which I think is a great concept. I know a lot of people got up in arms over cookie monster quitting the cookie binges and saying cookies are sometimes foods but I think it's a good lesson to learn and it's not as if they've been proclaimed BAD FOODS or something ridiculous. The fact of the matter is today's children are largely inactive and treats of every shape and size are available. I'm pretty sure the norm of yester year was not 24 hr access with no holds barred. When I was growing up (not that long ago) we just did not have the financial resources to eat junk (chips, soda, desserts, etc). My mom had rules if we did get to have these things, 1 soda a day if that, only eat chips with a sandwich, etc. Back to my original point...
So donuts are not ruled out for eternity, they are just not an on the way to school option. This morning Husband came in to our bathroom where I was getting ready to head to the hospital and said he needed to get to work early and our Son was just not cooperating this morning to have time for a sit down breakfast and he'd just have to go through the drive-thru donuts place he guessed. I quickly flipped through my mental catalog of what food we have and suggested a dark choc and cherry Kashi cereal bar instead. Not my ultimate choice but a damned sight better than donuts.
Our snack today was hummus with carrot strips, grapes, and red. fat string cheese. He yummed it all up, in fact it only took us two days between the two of us to finish off the hummus and half of the bag of carrot strips. Yesterday he dipped them in 2% cottage cheese. This leads me to something that occurred while cooking dinner. Kids like interesting shapes or colors a lot of the time, at least mine does. Carrot sticks were okaaaay but the strips with ridges like a potato chip are a hit. The dark purple almost black grapes were requested specifically.
Something else: he likes to dip things. I can almost always get him to eat something if it has a dip, something he inherited from his mama more than likely.
Dinner tonight: roasted squash, spaghetti and meat sauce made with whole wheat linguini, 99% lean ground turkey and 93% lean turkey sausage links.
To make the squash: I just chopped two yellow squash into round sections, heated the oven to 425 degrees and drizzled olive oil ad worchestire sauce over the squash while the oven heated. A few shakes of coarse ground sea salt and that's all it took-20 minutes and you have gorgeous carmelized on the bottom squash that I've had to fight myself to not devour before we sit down to dinner.
I'm focusing on at least one veggie at dinner for each night and fruit if we want a dessert. Progression, baby steps, and all of that.
Dinner time!

Yowza! I didn't mean to disappear for so long, starting my clinical rotation this semester at our county hospital knocked my socks off and not in a good way. Today was the start of my second official week on rotation and it's going alright. I feel like I'm not as smooth and effortless as I would like to be but I think that has a lot to do with the dietitan following with me and making me feel nervous. Not her fault, I just trip over myself with her for some reason. Onward.
Thinking about how to encourage and grow good eating habits in our children-I am renewing my efforts to feed my family better, stress and fatigue got the better of me lately and I realized what was happening and am taking steps to correct it before it becomes ingrained. Our son loves healthy nutritious foods as long as he is not offered foods of minimal nutritional worth too often. He always goes back to eating good things so I believe he genuinely likes fruits and veggies, milk, yogurt, hummus, cottage cheese, pita chips, plain cheerios etc. Today when we arrived home he asked for strawberries and cereal but settle for an apple, carrot strips and cottage cheese to dip instead.
What I have found that works for us:
1)I do not offer him a different meal than what I've prepared for us.
2)I model good eating habits myself without pressuring him and he usually can hardly wait to do what I am doing and to eat what I am eating.
3)I do not enforce the "clean your plate" mantra of yesteryear, I believe that wrecks inborn healthy eating patterns, making an intuitive process based on external cues instead.
4)I try to never rush him and am working with him on slowing down a bit to really taste what he's eating.
5)I let him help pick out what we are having a good bit of the time and I let him help me bring groceries in, stir things, etc.
6)I plan to have him help me pick out produce at the store, etc. soon. I believe having children (or other adults for that matter) involved in the process of preparing the food, procuring it, etc. encourages better choices. My ultimate ideal would be to have our own garden that we could all work on together and then enjoy beautiful tastiness born from our own labor.

What works for us may not work for others, just some thoughts on the matter. Working in an acute care setting forces your eyes wide open whether you like it or not. Invest in your families-time, love, wisdom.

People, I am trying to rally but I feel so drained. The first day back on practica rotation at the county hospital (read:free)was horrible and I have two more days and my heart is in my shoes.
I don't feel up to reading or writing or 'rithmitic.