The Pros and Cons of Single Motherhood

I love being a single mother. I love being single in general, but I like being on my own parenting. For the most part.

Things I love about being a single mother:

-I get to do what I want without anyone hassling me.

I read stories about women who’s husbands are against breastfeeding or against child-led weaning. Husbands who are strict disciplinarians, who insist upon spanking. Men who are dead-set, 100% against homeschooling, not to mention unschooling. Some take it as their mission to “toughen up” their sons by basically being mean to them. When you get married, you may not even think about your partner’s parenting style. And when you have kids, your ideas about everything change, especially as a mother.

I’m glad that I never had to fight with anyone (except myself, daily) to be the kind of mother that I wanted to be. I’m very thankful that I had my son before I got married, because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have married the kind of person that I would like to be married to now.

Even aside from that, I can decide to do “crazy” things like live in a van or move hundreds of miles away to get a cheap house. I can dig up most of my lawn for a garden. I can take off at a moment’s notice for anywhere that I can afford to go, and stay for months at a time if I have a mind to.

-I have a very tight relationship with my son.

I’m sure I would still have a close relationship with my son, but when it’s just the two of you, I think there is a little something extra.

-I enjoy being alone, so that works out well with being single.

-Doing it all (at least all that I do), makes me feel self-sufficient and independent. And I like feeling like that. 

I like that I am forced out of my comfort zone. I tackle plumbing and carpentry and yard work, all jobs that are typically delegated to “Dad.” Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind delegating them, but doing them makes me more confident in myself and my abilities. It’s also nice to have no one else to blame if something doesn’t get done. I always here women saying that they’ve been after their husband to tackle such-and-such a job forever, and he just won’t get to it. I know that I can do it myself, so I do.

The Cons

-Having to do it all yourself (yeah this was on the pro list too)

I’d really love sometimes to be able to say to someone, “the hose pipe is broken, can you fix that today so I don’t have to fill up the watering can in the kitchen to water the garden?”

I’d love to go running while my husband made dinner or read Caleb a story or played with legos with him.

It would be so nice to have a day out alone.

-The social status and loneliness

It’s going to be hard to explain this one. There isn’t much stigma about being a single mother these days, but still, you have a different social status. People don’t shun you or anything, but it’s more that you don’t fit in. Like some woman wouldn’t not be friends with you, because you were single, but you would be hard pressed to become a family friend. People don’t invite you to dinner like they would if you were a couple with a family. You get invited over for the kids to play or for lunch, but dinners are reserved for couples-respectable families.

Due to my parenting choices, I tend to find myself in groups of stay-at-home mothers. La Leche League, homeschooling groups, play groups, these things attract mothers that have time to breastfeed, homeschool, and take their kids places during the day. Now that Caleb is older, we do a lot of things with groups of other homeschoolers. Single parents DO homeschool, but I haven’t met any yet. Especially around here, homeschoolers tend to have stay-at-home mothers. Not only do they stay home, in these parts, they are also devout Catholics or Evangelicals.

So not only am I the odd man out by being single, I’m also the unwed mother (not necessarily a distinguished persona among religious conservatives, despite all their pro-life agenda-ing). Questions that take for granted my marital status… “So what does your husband do?” … “Where is your husband from?” … “What does your husband think of that?” … bring out the “I’m single” reply, and a momentary awkward silence while they categorize you in their mind (and remind themselves never to invite your family to dinner).

-Lack of…intimacy.

Of all varieties. Though I suppose this is more a problem with singleness in general, and doesn’t have much to do with being a single mother, though being a single mother makes it very difficult to date and become un-single.

-Lack of time

Since you are doing it all, there isn’t much time to do more.

 

I love being a mother. It’s the most wonderful thing in my life. I feel as though I am well-suited to being a single mother of a boy. And doing it alone has stretched me and challenged me like nothing else, but for all that, I’ve enjoyed it, and I will continue to enjoy it until I find just the right person to share it with.

Craft Show in Pittsburgh tomorrow for those of you in the area. We’ll be at the Rivers of Steel Pump House from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

 

Frustration Produces Creativity

When are you the most creative? When everything is going along splendidly with neither a care nor a worry in the world? Or when you have been frustrated in satisfying your wants and desires?

After I had Caleb, I was frustrated, because I didn’t want to give him over to a day care for 9+ hours a day. But I needed that office job right? I didn’t have a choice, right? Well, I made my own choice. I quit, and started delivering newspapers, then I became a live-in nanny, then a live-out nanny, then I started making wooden toys and selling them. My frustration with the way things were led me to create my own options.

Later when I needed to find a place to live, I was frustrated, because I didn’t have the money to rent anything near where I lived at the time. I could have gotten a second job (in addition to the one I already had and the toy making business that I had just started), and maybe that would have pushed me over the income hump to afford a place-as long as I didn’t want to eat too much or sleep much or play with my son much.

My frustration led me to remember a book that I had read about a woman who-rather than put her daughter in day care-decided to live in her car and travel the country. This led me to research van-living (I tried sleeping in my car once, and it was NOT a comfortable experience), and I found a whole community of people that have turned their backs on traditional living arrangements. I bought a van and headed south.

My frustration with the limitations of van-living, sent me on a search (via craigslist) to find the cheapest place near the east coast to buy or rent a house or apartment. Craigslist pointed me in the direction of the West Virginia panhandle, and via the internet, I found a 3 bedroom house for just $4,000!

Frustration creates the friction needed to start the fire of creativity. Children are the same way. Parenting gurus are fond of telling us that children need limits and frustrations to grow, but frustrations come from many different sources. There are the frustrations that come from real life, and then there are the frustrations imposed of kids by parents, schools, and society.

If I get frustrated with my lack of money, I will get creative finding ways to make more. But if someone in authority keeps taking my money every time I get it, I’m liable to just give up.   There are frustrations that produce growth, and there are frustrations that sap the will.

Life is frustrating enough, there is no need for us to go imposing irritations upon our children. But formula, frustration leads to creativity, reminds us that we shouldn’t go around micromanaging our children’s lives so nothing will bother them.

Parents in general, but in particular homeschooling parents (ones that do forced lessons), are fond using this principle to further their own ends. They want children that play musical instruments, so they force their children to take music lessons in order to “better” them. After all, if they are frustrated, they are just learning how to deal with life, right?

Wrong. As an adult, if I wanted to learn how to play the violin, I would learn as much or as little as I wanted. If I felt like quitting, I might talk it over with someone I respected. They might then encourage me not to give up and remind me of my progress and how I enjoy playing. They might suggest taking a break from training hard and just play for fun for a while or learning a new type of music. And if I really liked playing, I would probably take one of their suggestions, but if I hated it, I wouldn’t.

A kid doesn’t have the option of considering his options in some families. He has to take piano lessons. He has to go to school. He has to go to camp in the summer. In cases like these, frustration doesn’t lead him to find something else to do or a way to rekindle his love of the piano or learning. Frustration leads to creativity, but their creativity is channelled towards avoiding the imposed task.

Remember being a kid? You could find 20 different reasons why you couldn’t practice the piano right now. You spent more time thinking about excuses for not having your homework done than it would have actually taken to do it. Wouldn’t you rather they spend their energy doing things they actually want to do, to accomplish their own goals?

I agree that we shouldn’t go out of our way to make life easy for our kids, but I also believe that we shouldn’t go out of our way to make life frustrating for them as well. If someone is thwarting your free will, you will try to find ways around them, but you will also take out your frustration on the person that is doing this to you–as so many teenagers do to their parents.

The Spring Sale is HERE

I run a big sale every spring. In fact, it’s one of the only sales I run all year. If you want to get 30% off of all your Christmas presents for your kiddos this year, stop by my shop soon. The sale won’t last long (really just until I have enough to cover my outstanding bills!), so you better snap it up while you can.

Use the coupon code MAY13 to get 30% off of everything with a minimum order of $10. 

I’m also in my shop this week making new toys, so check back often to see what’s new.

Make Your Own Folding Shelves for Craft Show Displays

I sold my wares at a craft show a couple weeks ago. Well, it was the La Leche League Conference of Western PA really. I love doing LLL shows, because all the attendees are in my target market. And I love La Leche League.

I had my son when I was 22. NONE of my other friends had kids at that point, and it created a rift between us. I was too shy to find out about LLL and go to meetings when I first had Caleb. But when he was about 8-9 months he went through a biting phase, and I called a LLL leader to ask for advice. Her advice wasn’t anything that I hadn’t tried before, but she did invite me to come to a meeting.

And so I did. At once, I felt at home. Granted I was shy and quiet, but being around other mothers that all wanted to treat their children with kindness and give them the best start was wonderful. I was feeling like the odd man out at home since I was still nursing and sharing a bed with my son, and it was great to go somewhere that I would be celebrated and not condemned for following my instincts.

I met some wonderful friends through the groups too. Some I’ve lost touch with since moving away, but some that will be friends for life (at least I hope!). I didn’t really need help with breastfeeding-my son was great from the start (lol, getting him to UNlatch was the problem), but talking to other mothers with the same priorities was invaluable. And I could share my experiences to help other women.

But back to the show. I wanted to create a 3 dimensional space on my table. Toys are on shelves at stores, and that is the way we are used to looking at them, so I needed a shelf. I wanted a folding shelf, but the cost was prohibitive. But after searching the internet for weeks (on and off), I found my answer.

It was simple. Looked easy enough to build. And most importantly, it didn’t take much wood. I can’t see wasting loads of wood building a shelf, when I could use that same wood to build toys. This shelf is clearly tapered in the front, but I found another example that was a bit cruder, and convinced me that it would be easy.

I only had a table at this show, and I wanted to start small anyway to see how well they worked, so I shrunk the design down to fit on a table top. I cut boards the size that I thought they ought to be, and started assembling.

After I got the first one made, I saw that I would have to shrink my shelving boards down to about 1×8 boards instead of the 1×10′s that I had been planning on, because since the shelves are on at an angle I needed to make the boards they rested on longer than the actual 1×10. Of course I knew that before, but I still didn’t make them enough longer than 9.5 inches.

How I Made It

First I decided how tall I wanted it, and guessed (wrongly it turned out) about how wide to make the crossbars. I thought 1×2′s would be a good size for the boards. I cut the boards with my miter saw. Well, first I ripped the boards from 1×4′s that I had, which is why they are not quite the same width (I wanted to give my fingers some extra space on one side of the table saw), then I cut them to size on my miter saw.

Then I glued them together, well I tried, but I didn’t really have enough clamps to do it properly, since the joint I was glue was tenuous, and I was impatient to get it made anyway. So I started putting in the screws before the glue was dry, and the second one, I didn’t bother to glue at all. But gluing would be helpful to do first.

I used my kitchen floor to do this on for a flat (relatively) level surface. By propping one side on the other side, my drill was at just the right height to drill the holes. I predrilled and countersunk, and then screwed in my screws.

To make sure the crossbars matched up on both sides, I laid them out on top of each other, and clamped them together.

After both sides were done, I put the hinges on the sides. I just used the hinges I already had, that I use for my kitchens, but if I were buying them, I probably would have gotten them larger than these. But it worked just fine.

After they were together, I sanded all the endges smooth and round, cuz that’s just what I do. And somehow one end didn’t quite match up, so I trimmed that. I thought about staining them walnut, but the show was the next day, and I didn’t want them to still be wet, or to be stinkin’ up my display area. So I left them natural.

The next thing to figure out was what to use for shelves. I didn’t have but one 1×8 board in the basement, and I didn’t relish going out to buy boards at full price (I usually buy them on sale) just for shelves. I wandered around the house and the basement saying to myself, “I’ve got to have SOMETHING that will work. I must!” And then I glanced over at the half empty box of laminate floor pieces leftover from doing my downstairs bathroom. They were just the right width, just the right length, and I felt like a genius.

Of course I forgot to take any pictures when I was actually at the show, so here’s one I took on my kitchen table with a few token toys. At the show I set them up on both ends of a six (8?) foot table and then put more toys on the table between them. I had the Little Kitchen and the Wooden Dollhouse on boxes in front of the table.

You could make these any size. I have a mind to make some full sized ones for outdoor shows where I have more space. For that I’d definitely add a few more hinges and maybe larger hinges. You can also use 2 together like they did in the pottery pictures and run longer boards between them both. This set up gives you more stability too.

Well, I told myself I had to make a tutorial for these shelves, because I couldn’t find one anywhere, and it would have been helpful.

I might actually sell these, so if you are not inclined to make your own, just drop me a line, and I’ll see what I can do about getting you some.

I have another idea for shelves too, so keep an eye out for my next tutorial.

Saving Money on Real Food besides Produce

Produce is loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals. It is most strongly correlated with lower cancer and heart disease rates. It protects you from colds and sickness. It’s easily digested and full of soft, soluble fiber. But it’s not the only thing I eat.

I also eat beans, whole grains, whole wheat flour products, nuts, seeds, maple syrup and honey, dried fruit, soy or nut milks, peanut butter, jelly, olive oil, sunflower oil. How do you save money on this stuff? Produce goes on sale, but maple syrup does not.

Buying delicious, high quality food is a high priority for me, but how do I afford it?

So here’s how I save money on the rest of my bill.

1. Don’t buy processed food.

You knew I was going to say this, right? Boxes of cereal-even the “healthy” brands, are processed and baked to the point where they have very little nutrients left. And the expense! You can eat half a box of cereal, and barely feel full. Trade that cereal for oatmeal or brown rice and you get full with less and boost the nutritional value.

Caleb gets $5 to spend on food for himself at the store, and he usually buys processed food. Tortellinis are his favorite, which are $4 a box (whole wheat Bertollis), but sometimes he buys some type of cereal. You can use coupons to save on cereals, but buying oatmeal or rice is still going to be more healthful, and cheaper.

2. Buy Quality

Buying junk food hurts you two ways: first you pay for the food and then you pay with your health. I’d rather spend 6 times as much to buy real maple syrup with it’s calcium and iron, than use Aunt Jemimah syrup with it’s high fructose corn syrup and preservatives.

You can get white rice cheaper than brown rice, but you are getting less minerals and vitamins with the white rice, so it’s not really a better deal. The same goes for white flour, it’s cheaper, but it’s also nutritionally bankrupt. Save money in the short run, but you’ll pay for it later. The same goes for white sugar-it would be cheaper to sweeten my granola with processed sugar than raw honey, but the honey has vitamins, minerals, pollen, and antioxidants.

3. Buy in Bulk 

The bulk bins at your health food store or grocery store are a good place to start, but online has even better deals sometimes. I can buy organic dates from Nuts.com for $6.99 a pound if I buy a 15 pound case of them.

4. Buy direct

I buy maple syrup direct from the farm via Etsy. I also buy in bulk, 1 gallon at a time. It comes in 2 half gallon jugs-one goes in the fridge, the other on the shelf. I go through about 2 gallons a year. Good honey is also cheaper from the beekeeper, and the more you buy, the better the deal. You can also get this through Etsy. For a while I even had an arrangement to trade toys for honey (which was awesome!).

5. Buy store brand flour.

King Arthur may have better flour, but it’s not that much better. I make yeast bread every week and muffins regularly, and I’ve never had a problem with Kroger flour. There are roughly 18.7 cups of flour in a 5 lb bag. That’s 15 cents a cup for white whole wheat (the most expensive) and about 10 cents for regular whole wheat. I can make a loaf of plain bread for under 50 cents and a loaf of raisin bread for about  a dollar (I put a lot of raisins in it).

6. When it’s on sale, stock up.

I never buy olive oil when it’s not on sale. I like the good stuff, so I wait until it goes on sale to buy a bottle-which usually lasts us several months. Walnuts regularly go on sale at Shop n Save for $5 a pound, so I wait until then to buy walnuts.

I only buy certain vegetarian junk foods when they are on sale- like vegan sour cream (which I’ve actually given up in favor of guacamole), vegan butter, Gardenburgers. I don’t stock up on that stuff, because then I will eat too much of it. I use the high price as a deterrent to enhance my health.

 7. Buy store brand canned beans and use dried beans.

You’ll save 30 cents a can or more over buying Bush’s canned beans. Of course buying dried beans are even cheaper. The only canned beans I buy now are black beans, because I can never get them to be the right texture cooking them myself. And I always eat them alone, not in a chili or another dish. If I am going to make black bean soup or chili, I use dried black beans. I always cook my dried beans in the crock pot too.

8. Bake and cook from scratch. 

This goes hand in hand with not buying processed foods, but it bears repeating. Make your own bread, muffins, pitas, cakes, cookies, and pies. Not only will they be cheaper, but you can make them as healthy as you want. Pies are easily sweetened with maple syrup, honey, or xylitol (xylitol is lousy in baked goods, but fine for pies). Leave out the sugar in muffins. Cut down or eliminate the oil. Reduce or eliminate salt in your homemade soups and chilis.

Canned soup saves you time up front, but then you don’t have all the delicious leftovers for another night-you have to go out and buy more cans.

You can make vegetable stock from the parts of vegetables you would throw away, rather than buying it at $3 a box.

9. Make your own nut butters in the food processor, and nut milks in the blender.

It’s very easy and much cheaper (though not as much for peanut butter), especially if you are interested in raw nut butters and milks. The milk you make might not be as nice as the store bought stuff, so you might want to stick with store brand for cereal or granola and homemade for baking and cooking.

10. Eat sunflower seeds instead of nuts.

I can get a 5 pound bag of sunflower seeds from Nuts.com for $6.25. I get healthy fats for a fraction of the price of almonds or walnuts. Seriously $1.25 per pound, compared to $5-$10 per pound. Seeds in general are cheaper than nuts and higher in nutrients and lower in fat (generally).

11. Gather your own nuts.

Find out where there are nut trees-typically black walnuts around here-and collect them. This is the easy part, cracking them and picking the nuts out is the hard part, and not for the faint of heart.

12. Wait for spices to go on sale, or check out the bulk bins at Whole Foods.

Also utilize the store brand spices or even the dollar store, especially for cinnamon and other very common spices.

13. Limit treats.

We only use maple syrup on Saturday for pancakes. I only eat a small amount of nuts or dates at a time. I only use olive oil to dip bread into. I water-sautee my vegetables, which is cheaper and healthier. I almost never make desserts and other junk food, which add calories without adding nutrients.

These are the ways I save money on the rest of my food budget. You’ll have to look elsewhere for meat and dairy suggestions, because I don’t buy those. Although I occasionally buy cheese or whipping cream for special recipes when they are on sale. Anymore suggestions would be appreciated, because I’m always looking for ways to cut back.

10 Ways to Save Money on Produce

I generally eat a smoothie for breakfast with bananas, some other kind of fruit, and spinach or kale. I have a salad for lunch at least 5 days a week. For dinner, most of my plate (or bowl) is full of vegetables. I also have eaten nothing but produce for months at a time while eating all raw food. I’m also sort of poor.

There are lots of people that make WAY more money than me, that claim that they can’t afford the type of food that I eat. So the first thing to do is practice thrift in other areas. I buy almost everything at goodwill or other used outlets. I live in modest housing that I can afford. I don’t carry credit card debt. I hang my clothes to dry, instead of spending $20-$40 extra each month to dry my clothes in the dryer. And so on.

If you make more money, you probably don’t have to economize as much as I do (if at all) to eat real food if you practice these thrifty buying habits.

1. Stock up on produce that’s on sale. 

This is a no-brainer, right? But I’m serious. STOCK UP. If pineapples are on sale 10 for $10, buy 20 (or 30). Then cut them up and freeze them. A small pineapple yields about a pound of fruit, a large one about a pound and a half. The small ones are the ones that usually go for a dollar on these type of sales. That’s 1 dollar per pound. If you buy the pineapple already cut and frozen, you’ll spend at least $3 per pound.

After a while you get to know which things have big sales. Pineapple goes a few times a year here, and I make sure I hit it. Blackberries tend to go on sale 10 for $10 several times a year. Those are even easier, because you don’t even have to cut them up.

2. Go to the Farmer’s Market and STOCK UP

Farmer’s markets aren’t going to save you a lot of money–most of the time. But in the glut of the season, peppers will be 50 cents each (and they freeze so well, with so little effort). Corn is generally dirt cheap as well. Winter squash will give you huge savings on grocery store prices. Tomatoes are usually pretty cheap in August (not to mention 100 times tastier than store tomatoes). Our farmer’s markets aren’t great for fruit, but I regularly bought apples for applesauce last year at a huge discount since they were the spotty, ugly ones. Talk to your vendors, tell them what you want. They want your money, so it’s a win-win situation.

3. Buy heads or bunches of greens.

That stuff in the plastic containers and bags will cost you 50% to 100% more than the same lettuce fully grown and sold without the bagging. The same thing goes double for organic spinach ($6-7 per pound in a box, $2.19 per pound in a bunch). Hardy Greens like kale are almost as cheap organically as conventionally, sometimes they are cheaper!

4. Find produce only stores

In NJ, there is this amazing store called Produce Junction, which only sells produce (and plants and flowers). You can buy things for half of what you’d pay at a grocery store, and then save even more if you can buy by the case. Cities may be your best bet for produce markets like that, but ask around, when I was living in Pennsylvania, I found a family-owned produce market not 5 minutes from the house.

5. Shop a couple different stores, and don’t forget Walmart.

If you don’t shop at Walmart, skip this part, but Walmart will price match any stores sales. There is this chain in my area that has a banana sale once a week on Tuesdays, but it’s a half an hour from me, in the wrong direction. So I go to Walmart every Tuesday, and price match 27 cents a pound bananas. Also check your circulars for good deals at grocery stores you don’t normally go to. Kroger has far and away the best deals and the best quality on almost everything around here, but I might stop at Shop ‘n Save if they are practically giving away peaches or have walnuts on sale for $5 a pound. (They also are more likely to have ripe bananas if I’m out of them.)

6. Always check for “clearance” produce.

Kroger puts sale stickers on stuff that is close to the sell-by date. They are usually marked down half off. They also have a stand where they have random produce bagged up for a dollar. I guess this is un-stickered apples and stuff, because the quality is usually pretty good. So I always make sure to check it for things that I want.

7. Frozen fruit and vegetables, in particular, can be a good deal.

I prefer fresh produce, but sometimes I buy bags of soup vegetables or corn or spinach (but only for lasagna). Frozen fruit is usually more expensive than buying fresh on sale and freezing it, but sometimes I run out, and go for the frozen. The bigger the bag, the better the deal when it comes to frozen fruit.

8. Don’t waste ANYTHING.

If you aren’t going to eat your produce, don’t buy it! Make a plan for your meals, and then eat what you planned. My brother said that most of their compost last year was spoiled lettuce and vegetables that they didn’t eat. I waste almost nothing.

If you buy spring mix and strawberries, you need to eat them before the romaine lettuce and apples. If you buy cut-up fruit or vegetables (because they were marked way down), you need to use them almost immediately.

If you buy bananas, you are going to need to freeze some by the end of the week most likely (frozen bananas are a delicious snack). Mushrooms also freeze well. Soup is a good way to use up that rubbery celery and drying out carrots. Make your own vegetable stock with the outer layers of your onions and the inner stalks of your celery and potato peels (though I don’t peel potatoes) and those carrots that you threw in the freezer before you went on vacation.

9. Oh yeah, and have a garden!

Seriously, dig up your lawn, and plant as much as you can. I have a small lot, and I’m digging up more and more every year. My front yard is actually the most productive (with the BEST dirt). I’ll post a video of my garden sometime this week or next.

10. Buy in Bulk.

This was implied in a couple of other ones, but it’s worth mentioning on it’s own. Everywhere you go ask about bulk discounts, particularly at the farmer’s markets and produce places. Grocery stores and Walmart typically won’t help you out here, but farmer’s usually will. And produce only markets, typically offer food to suppliers, so they already have set wholesale prices.

Well those are 10 ways I’ve saved money on produce. The thing to buying produce is to get your variety throughout the year. Eat things when they are in season or when they are on sale, and eat your fill of them.

How do you save money on produce?

Blog Posts Coming Up:

-Save Money on Real Food besides produce

-Save Time Preparing Real Food

-Make Your Own Folding Shelves for Craft Shows-Cheap!

-A video tour of my garden

-Buy Nothing Summer

Super Quick Dinner Rolls

Last night I was hungry and tired from a hard run when we got home from the gym around 6pm. It was pasta night, and I already knew I wanted a big bowl overflowing with broccoli with some spaghetti on top, but I was also craving bread to go with it. We had french toast last week and we gobbled up the raisin bread loaf, so there wasn’t one piece of bread left in the house.

I wasn’t in the mood for making muffins or for going back out to the store. So I figured I’d just rush the whole bread making process.

I mixed up a batch of bread dough-

3 cups of warm water mixed with 1.5 tablespoons of active dry yeast and 1.5 (or less) tablespoons for kosher salt.

Then stir in 6.5 cups of flour (I use whole wheat, white whole wheat, and one cup of white flour)

Then I skipped the initial rise, and took part of the dough and formed it into balls a little bigger than golf balls. I put the balls into a bread pan just barely touching each other, and let them rise for 15 minutes while the oven was heating up to 450. I then brushed the tops with a little bit of butter, and baked them for 15-20 minutes.

The recipe that gave me this idea added 1/4 cup of sugar and oil and an egg to the bread dough, and baked for only 10 minutes. But I went with my artisan Bread in Five Minutes recipe, and it took longer than 10 minutes. But even so, I had freshly baked rolls with my broccoli and pasta in just over 30 minutes. I felt like I was in a restaurant, except my rolls were much healthier, and the vegetable portion was much larger!

I finished baking the rest of the dough into a small plain loaf and a large raisin bread loaf after 2 rises. The house smelled delicious all night.

Yesterday’s Rundown:

Breakfast-strawberry smoothie and pancakes with strawberries on top and maple syrup

Lunch-large salad of 5 oz. of baby romaine (red and green), strawberries, grapes, and raisins and a strawberry smoothie and for “dessert” I had a couple date-nut balls

Snack-some dates after running

Dinner-broccoli, spaghetti, and homemade dinner rolls

Work done-dollhouse, finished up a bunch of other stuff, made 2 bridges for billy goats sets

Workout-3 miles on the treadmill at the gym with a fast (for me) finish, then some walking and running and sprinting to finish out the hour

TV-none, but I really wanted a fix last night. Caleb and I were butting heads all night it felt like, and after he finally crashed, I wanted more than anything to get back up and check out in front of mindless entertainment. When I realized I didn’t want it badly enough to break my fast, I thought, “oo, I have a good book I could read too!” But it was already 11pm, and I knew if I got up I would regret it this morning. So I stayed abed.

Limit your Options

In Waldorf literature and blogs, the writers are critical of the popular parenting practice of offering children a myriad of choices about everything. They feel that children should be directing their energy toward growing and learning and playing, and not deciding what to eat and wear and do all the time. The rhythm of the day (routine) is supposed to carry them along without them having to think about every little thing.

Carrie, of The Parenting Passageway blog (my favorite Waldorf blog), is always going on about this. I agree with her, to a point. I also agree with the unschooling philosophy that treats children and their desires respectfully.

But this post isn’t about your kids. It’s about you. The same idea that works well for smoothing transitions and eliminating conflict throughout the day with your kids, can work wonders for you.

How many times per day are we stymied by what to eat, what to wear, what to do, when to go to bed, and so on? If you have to decide these things from scratch every day, at some point your resolve to make good choices will begin to break down.

It’s hard to fight against the tide all day long, but there are lots of ways that you can use to narrow your options, and thus save your will for more important things than what to eat for breakfast.

I got tired of trying to decide what to eat for breakfast and lunch every day, so I decided that I would just eat the same thing every day. For breakfast I have a smoothie. I put different things in it every day, so I still have some variety. For lunch I have a salad with beans or a salad with fruit and leftover soup.

You can also limit your options by making penalties for yourself. I’ve been doing a no-sugar month with my cousin where we have to pay each other $5 for every sugary item we eat. That’s called putting your money where your mouth is. Limiting your options for food begins and ends at the grocery store. Don’t buy junk, and you can’t eat junk (at least at home).

I don’t have trouble deciding what to wear. I just grab something, but if you do, try simplifying your wardrobe. Have less clothing. Or try wearing the same thing every Monday, Tuesday, etc. plus or minus a sweater or tights or something to bend with the weather.

As far as deciding what to do, you can limit your TV watching by not having cable or a tv at all. Or you can use the same tactic of owing money every time you watch TV outside the time you have allowed.

You can motivate yourself to workout more by joining a running group. I recently started a group, and since I’m “hosting” it, I have to go twice a week even if no one else shows up. Make a commitment to a friend. Sign up for a race. Once you put money down for a race, you probably won’t want to waste the money by not training.

Building routines are a great way to limit your options. Every day when you wake up, you empty the dishwasher (drain board in my case) and start a load of laundry. Every night before bed you pick up the living room. Every morning you go down to the basement to work before your son wakes up. Every summer morning you walk out the door, breathe in the fresh air, and water your garden.

You don’t think about what to do—you just do it. This eliminates all the tiresome whining by your traitor mind about “ugh, what to do now, I think I’ll just go on my computer and read blogs until Caleb starts bugging me.” Or “I can’t decide what to eat, so I’ll just have chips and salsa.” I don’t think about what to have for lunch, I just start making my salad.

Daily Rundown

Breakfast-Smoothie with spinach and berries

Lunch-salad with black beans and guac (I swear I don’t have this every day. I haven’t had it in 3 days! It’s totally my favorite though.)

Snack-strawberries and dates (while Caleb was using his own money to have a McDonald’s milkshake-which I admit to have a weakness for, but I can’t have any sugar, so it was natural sugars for me.)

Dinner-I’m about to have a burrito bowl (all the stuff of a burrito, without the tortilla). I’m going to have a couple of tortilla chips with it, but no more than a serving. We have chili (with veggies in it), veggies (peppers, onions, mushrooms), raw brocccoli, raw shredded carrots, guacamole, salsa, and lettuce. I might make banana whip for dessert…not sure yet.

Workout-just played around in the gym with Caleb and shot baskets for 30-45 minutes. I had a hard run yesterday, so I decided to take a rest. I also lifted-legs.

Work done-finished up buses and planes and dremeled story animals, finished keys, worked on bulldozers-might finish those up tonight

tv-none…I did watch a nature video with Caleb on Wednesday, but we agreed that doesn’t count against my no-TV month, since it was for his benefit and not mine. I’m starting to feel antsy to watch something though for my own enjoyment (not that I don’t enjoy David Attenborough).

Listening to Eat and Run by Scott Jurek

I spend several hours a day alone in the basement with very noisy tools. Fortunately I also have lovely noise canceling ear muffs. MSA. That’s the brand. They are comfortable and sturdy. Home Depot has some decent ones, though not as good as mine, but the ones that Lowes sells suck.

Anyway, I recently (within the last several months) realized that I could stick my earbud headphones under my earmuffs and listen to things at a very reasonable volume. Sometimes I listen to music, but I love to listen to audiobooks.

I recently finished the biography of Scott Jurek. Jurek was made famous by Christopher McDougall’s book, Born to Run. He was already famous in certain circles for winning the Western States Endurance Run 7 times in a row. He also won the Spartathon a 152 mile race from Athens to Sparta 3 times in a row.

The book was not super well written (like Born to Run), although some of that may have been the choppy reading style of the narrator. Jurek was almost an enigma in Born to run, and hearing his story was engrossing. I’d compare it favorably to Dean Karnaze’s book: Ultramarathon Man.

He grew up without much money. His mother had MS. He had to chop and stack wood. He had to cook for his family and help take care of his younger siblings.

When he was about 12, his blood pressure was so high from the stress that the doctor prescribed him medication-which he refused to take. He visited a specialist that told him to relax and think of something he liked (the woods) before he took his blood pressure, and it worked. He was able to bring down his blood pressure on his own.

He started cross-country skiing in high school, and started running to to get in shape for that. And he never stopped running after that, though it would be a long time before he won a footrace.

It’s amazing to hear him tell about running 100+ mile races. And inspiring. The sheer bullheaded perseverance you have to have to force yourself through all that pain. And he didn’t just run them to finish. He ran to win.

The reason it’s called Eat and Run is because Jurek is a vegan, so he talks about his journey from being a hunting, fishing, McDonald’s eating teenager and young adult to becoming a health-conscious vegan.

During one period he even ate all raw. Though he gave that up after winning another Western States as too much effort getting food and getting enough food.

Being vegetarian-veganish myself, I enjoyed that aspect of the book. There are always naysayers out there telling you that you need to eat meat otherwise you’ll be weak, fat, unhealthy, etc. So it’s always nice hearing about stellar athletes that are vegan.

It was also neat to hear Jurek’s version of the Copper Canyon race featured in Born to Run. He doesn’t go into much detail about that, probably figuring that Christopher McDougall already covered it in enough detail for anyone. But he did talk about the race from his perspective, which was cool. He also told how he went back the next year and won the race (he lost to the best Tarahumara runner in the first race).

I definitely recommend the book, though I wasn’t a fan of the audio book reader. It also has recipes at the end of the book that sounded pretty tasty, so getting the paper book would be better in that way too.

Daily Rundown

Breakfast-green smoothie with bananas, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and some pomegranate juice

Provisions eaten while climbing our mountain-raisin bread J

Lunch-butternut squash soup from the freezer with more homemade raisin bread (whole wheat, no sugar)

Snack-2 small apples and 3 dates

Dinner-I plan on having 2 pieces of pizza (dominos) and then a quart of cherry tomatoes sliced with black beans and jalapenos—trying to cut back on the pizza

Trusting Yourself

Trusting yourself is just like trusting other people. You trust yourself or mistrust yourself for the same reasons you’d mistrust a mate. And like trusting a man or woman, some people have an easier time with it than others. Some women have an easier time trusting men, because they have avoided the bad ones either by good judgement, luck, or intuition. Or perhaps because they don’t learn from their mistakes.

Some people have no problem trusting themselves, because they have a long history of doing what they set out to do. They decide to take up an exercise program and so they do. They decide to implement a cleaning schedule for their home, and they do. Others of us decide to clean the bathroom thoroughly every Wednesday, and NEVER clean the bathroom thoroughly on Wednesday. Or maybe just once or twice.

We decide that we are going to get that car registration taken care of THIS DAY. And 2 weeks later, it’s still not done. We decide to hang the laundry outside when it warms up a little bit, and when dusk falls, the laundry basket is still sitting full of damp clothes in the foyer.

People like me have trouble trusting themselves. But we have no problem deciding things-making resolutions to do better. It’s really not a problem, because deep down, we know we’ll never do them anyway.

Part of the reason why the Flylady system of housekeeping works for people like me is that we slowly learn to trust ourselves. We start building habits that aren’t too hard, that don’t scare us off, that we actually DO. And so we learn to trust ourselves to do a little bit more.

But it’s only by following through on what you say that makes the magic happen. Letting yourself slip out of the habit is a killer. Your mind jumps on these lapses. “If I just sabotage her once or twice, she’ll give up on this irritating change of behavior.” Because your traitor mind resists change above all else. Your reasoning mind knows change is life, and so you must assert your independence.

If you say you are going to follow a raw diet, do it. You can change your mind later, but make it a conscious choice, not a choice from default, because you were too lazy to follow through on your word. If you say you are going to vacuum the living room every night, vacuum it. Let no excuse get in your way.

Tynan had a great post a few weeks ago where he said that he never quits on a habit until it’s no longer hard. If you decide that vacuuming is too time consuming to do every day, quit after you have started to do it automatically, when you make a conscious decision to stop.

Daily Rundown-

Breakfast- banana smoothie and celery (we were out of spinach-today is shopping day)

Post Workout Snack-4 clementines and 3 dates

Lunch-2 small heads of romaine, black beans, and guacamole and jalapenos of course

Dinner-Black bean soup and homemade bread with olive oil (I know, black beans twice in one day is a lot even for me, but Caleb was dying for some black bean soup. And he ate black beans for lunch too!)

Dessert-a small container of organic greek yogurt that was left from my mom visiting with fresh strawberries and a little scoop of granola on top

Workout-ran 5 miles on a trail while the babysitter was here, it was nice to be able to go somewhere on my run instead of running laps around the block or on the treadmill. I may try to get in a longish run every Tuesday

Work-finished bathtub animals and cut and sanded boats, cut airplane pieces

I also went grocery shopping and mowed the lawn. I use a combination of a weedwacker and push mower (non powered).