My Failures at Clean Eating

It is an understatement, I’m sure, to assume the Proverbs 31 woman didn’t feed her kids processed foods.  They probably didn’t eat many hotdogs, chef boyardee, or frozen chicken nuggets.  I made a great attempt at clean eating in our family.  I failed miserably!

I am in charge of ALL menu planning, grocery shopping, and meal preparation.  The only exception is Sunday lunch.  We usually go out to a restaurant after church.

This means I choose what my family eats.  I get very little input from my husband, except that he prefers healthy meals.  He means lots of fruits and vegetables, but it isn’t a real meal unless there is meat, too.

I decided back in the spring that our family would make a conscious effort to stop eating processed foods.  Many of our vegetables are garden grown or from the farmers’ market during the spring and summer anyway.  Much of our meat we processed ourselves as well.  I haven’t quite figured out milk yet, but we have been working hard on our changes.  Until Superhero Son and I got Strep Throat!

Once we were diagnosed, we made a beeline for Kroger.  After dropping off the prescriptions, we made our way to the mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and the ice cream.  Through my feverish state, I didn’t know how to fix clean food that we could swallow without howling in pain!  I even tried Ramen noodles, but it was too salty and got dumped anyway!

Lessons learned:  If I am going to commit to clean eating, I have to learn all of the tricks for emergency situations.  I really didn’t like the mashed potatoes or the mac and cheese.  It tasted so much worse than the foods we had gotten used to eating.  The ice cream, however, was amazing!

If any of you have advice on clean eating, please help me out!

Blessings!

Around the Colvin Cottage: The Mile-Long Week!

I could probably break this week into five different posts!  We crammed so much into one week!

Our house officially went on the market.  The realtor photographed it and listed it.  I was very proud of how clean my house appeared for the pictures Tuesday.  Then life happened! It is NOT clean at the moment!

School was a mixed bag of emotions.  Monday was the big behavior reward for the kids.  We finished the book Wonder.  (Read my review here!).  The kids loved the book!  We ended the week with fifth grade graduation on Friday, the last day of school for students.

It is always bittersweet for me to say goodbye to a group of kids.  I always tear up when I hug a few of them for the last time.  My least favorite thing about teaching fifth grade is that I won’t see most of them again.  They leave and go to  new school next year.

This year, the goodbyes were worse than most years.  This time I had to say goodbye to several teachers that have held important roles in my life over the past few years.  I don’t necessarily need to say goodbye to them because I am sure I will see them again!  It just makes me sad that I won’t see them daily anymore!  I also know I am in for big changes.  One of those leaving is our principal; another one leaving is a teammate.

As for the book, it is so, so, so close to being finished!!! Look at how thick the manuscript is!!!!  After seeing the size, I think my husband finally understood why I spent so much time working on it.  Hopefully, it will make its way to the publisher this week!

Mega-thick book!

With a week this crazy, something bad is bound to happen, right?  Thursday morning I woke up not feeling well.  I felt worse and worse as the day went on.  By the end of the work day, my fever was through the roof, and I was calling my husband to beg him to come home from work early and help me with the kids.

The next morning, Superhero Son had the same symptoms.  We have now both tested positive for Strep Throat.  Let me tell you there are some cranky people living in this house right now! Regardless, I managed to make it through the work week!

This is our countertop right now with medicine for two people with strep and a dog with Lyme Disease.  The dog is another post entirely!

The pharmacy that is my kitchen!

Despite the round of illness, our week was not a wash.  We even had enough medicine in us to manage some fun on Saturday when the sun peeked out.

Superhero Son playing in the yard with bowls of water. He said he was making a cake!

I hope your week was full of happiness!

Blessings!