Burnt to a Crisp

If you're checking in to find out what the kids are up to, please, don't ask me. I have no idea, because I haven't seen them in a month. Not literally, of course, but I'm feeling like I may have finally reached my limit for how much I can manage at once. I generally like to think that in the 'keeping multiple balls in the air' category I'm above average, but I have met my match. To April, I say uncle.

Things started out ok, back in mid-to-late March. I have my normal work schedule (25 hours a week, Wednesday-Saturday, 6pm-12am and 5pm-12am on Fridays). I have the kids the rest of the time. Andy's been working a lot lately, usually at least one weekend day and several late nights, so we need occasional babysitters to cover the gaps, but at baseline, it's manageable. I've adjusted to getting less sleep, and though it's not ideal, it largely works. On top of that, the small business I've been trying to start with a colleage is actually taking off a bit, and we've generated ourselves a small but growing client base. Which is good, but layered on top of my normal schedule (so trying to meet with clients the three nights I don't work and on weekends) was making me feel like I had a bit too much on my plate, maybe. Right before we were supposed to leave for Phoenix we knew that the month was looking busy, but it still seemed manageable.

Then, right before we left for our trip, I got a call from my former boss. It's a long story, but let's just skip to the punchline, where she asked me to come back to my old job for a month. And how somehow, by the end of the conversation (a crack in the time/space continum? Momentary complete lapse in sanity? alien mind control?) I agreed to do so.

So, we return from Arizona, and the very next day, all hell breaks loose. Andy had a bunch of special projects and some staffing issues at work, plus he'd been away for a week. He essentially would need to live at work until late May. And I realized that I had signed myself up to work 32 hours a week at my former job, plus my regular 25 hours at my regular job, plus I had to keep all the commitments I had already made for our independent venture. Oh yeah. And the kids. Can't forget the kids.

I know. I'm with you. Nuts. Bonkers. Bat guano insane.

I generally am one that thrives off too much to do, and truth be told when I'm given too much free time I tend to put myself in predicaments just such as this one - it's somewhat of an inborn personality flaw. But this time I've really gone and walked a bit too close to the cliff. After three weeks of working a full and 2 part time jobs, plus doing the lions share of dressing, feeding, organizing, packing and transporting the progeny (who are remarkably flexible and having a great month at their old family daycare plus spending quality time with favorite babysitters, thank goodness) I've just about had enough. They say you can do anything for a short amount of time, but I think maybe "they" were thinking more like 5 minutes. One more week of this insanity and we can return to the regular, only marginally insane version of my life. And it can't come a second too soon, because for the first time I really understand what it means to feel "burnt out". I'm not sure I have more than another week in me.

The bright side, if there is one, is that I do get the whole day completely off tomorrow. The plan was that we were going to all go to CT where Andy's parents and my sister live for Easter. However, I had to work 9 to 5 today at my old job (daycare inconvieniently closed on Monday and full on Wednesday) and then 6 to 12 tonight. Much as I wish you could, you can't drive to New Haven in an hour, so we would have had to leave Sunday morning. But since I am still working next week, and need to be at work Monday, we would have had to turn right around and come back tomorrow night, and since tomorrow is the first day in the entire month of April that I didn't have one thing for any job scheduled....I just couldn't handle the thought of driving to New Haven and back in one day. So instead, the boys took a roadtrip to Grandma and Grandpa's, and I stayed home. And how will I spend Easter Sunday?

Cleaning. I trust you can use your powers of deduction to figure out what our house looks like right now.

Happy Easter, if you celebrate. I did buy the boys matching spring green plaid shirts, and assuming Andy gets some good pictures I'll post them when they return from their trip.

Lie to your children. It's good for them.

I plagarized the title of my blog post which is funny in this case because it's one of the criticisms (among many) that was leveled at Jessica Seinfeld when she published her book Deceptively Delicious. And in general I would have to say that I agree the book is kind of dumb. First of all, it's not really teaching your kids to eat healthfully if you're putting spinach puree in brownies. You're still feeding your kid brownies, which you really shouldn't do very often if you want them to be healthy. Plus, putting 1/2 cup of spinach puree in an entire pan of brownies really isn't boosting the nutritional profile all that much. On the other hand, hey - if you were going to be serving a dessert anyway, at a birthday party or whatever, why NOT put some vegetables into your baked goods? I guess. But, making purees (and baking, for that matter) are not really things I have the time and/or energy for, so the cookbook never interested me much.

Until we started having our produce delivered, that is. And as anyone who has ever joined a winter csa knows, there is pretty much no limit to the amount of beets and kale those people will try and fob off on you. We have gotten to a point where we're trying to put away 2 lbs of beets a week - and hey, I like beets. But that is a LOT of beets. The kale I find much easier to dispatch, but I was getting to the point where I was actually consider trying to use the beets to dye fabric with.

I know. Pull myself back from the edge. But don't worry. Like I said yesterday, I can't find time to shower so I'm not dyeing anything with anything.

But I still have all these beets. And my friend had the cookbook, which is how I ended up making a quadruple batch of these pink pancakes and the kids LOVE them. I use hodgson's mills 100% whole wheat pancake mix and they come out really well. They also freeze really well, so I put 2-3 in a baggie and put them in the freezer and then just reheat them in the toaster for breakfast.

The best part is that I now have an excuse to avoid eating any more beets. They're for the kids!

The great debates

I guess it's been a little while, sorry about that. I haven't had that much to blog about lately, or rather, I've had so much to blog about that I've had trouble finding things small and manageable enough to encapsulate in a post. But, in the spirit of not letting the blog get too far away from me I'll udate today just to get a post on the board in March.

First, I'm putting a new blog in the "blogs I like" section of my blog. I wanted to call attention to it because it's just been started by a friend and neighbor of mine. She and I met a little over 2 years ago through our knitting club, and bonded over the fact that neither of us had a very good idea of what we actually wanted to be when we "grew up" despite the fact that we both had full time jobs and pretty clearly defined careers. I'm really happy to say that she's found a passion in photography and I hope that she is able to parlay it into, if not a career, at least a wonderful and satisfying hobby. She's currently doing a project where she's going to take a photo every single day and post it. I am extremely impressed by this, because I can barely shower every single day. So, kudos to Cara and please check out her blog. I personally think she's extremely taleted!

As for me, as many of you know I've been spending the past couple years working toward a self directed career as well. I'm happy to report that, although I'm not ready to pull back the curtain on it yet, I think I'm only about 6 months away from being truly and exclusively self employed. I take my licensing examination on March 24th at 8am, and provided I pass it, the last puzzle peice will be in place and I will be independently licensed by the state of MA. It has been a pretty arduous journey to meet the clinical requirements while also having and keeping track of 2 kids, but I finally finished at the end of February. Now I just need to pass the exam. If I do pass, all systems will be go. I have a colleague, an office space, an idea...stay tuned on that front.

Finally, Andy and I have been agonizing (and agonizing is really quite an understatement) about our house situation lately. Should we stay in Boston (which we love, is best for our careers, is convienient and comfortable) or should we move to an area that has better public schools? we go back and forth on pretty much a daily basis now that Owen is 3 (next week? I can. not. believe it.) and pre-k is more of a reality with each passing month. We want to stay, but my parents really think we should move. Half my friends around here with kids are committed to staying and making school options in Boston work, and the other half are busy going to open houses every weekend. What we really want to do is put a second floor on this house and never leave, but that seems to be an option that no one thinks is a good idea. Ugh. and so the debate rages.....

Owen's birthday party is this weekend, the big 3. I'll try and remember to take lots of pictures to put on the blog.

I don't know about you, but.....

I'm tired of opening up my blog page and seeing a picture of a toilet. So while I wait for inspiration to strike for my next post, please enjoy these photos of Elias on his recent 1st birthday.





PS: I've only been to the grocery store once since December 15th! I bought one carton of yogurt, one package of deli turkey and 2 loaves of gluten free bread. success!

What will they think of next?

I can't get over the cleverness of this thing. After seeing it at two friend's houses recently, I just HAD to have one. This is simply an ingenious product:





A toilet seat with a potty seat BUILT IN. I love it. I love it most because it means we can now dispense with the disgusting potty seat that must be moved on and off the potty multiple times a day and best of all, Owen can now make the potty kid friendly all by himself without bellowing for me to retrieve the seat. Simply genius, I say.

Speaking of geniuses, Owen may or may not be one. Here's some evidence in the "not" column. Owen's new favorite game is called "trash pile". It consists of...well...



gathering up as many of his toys as he can and creating a heap with them. I have to say, the appeal escapes me. Also, slightly discouraged that we go to all the time and trouble to find toys that we think will be both entertaining and educational and the favored game involves making them into a....trash pile. Let's not dwell too much on that, shall we?

finally, how cute is this photo:


I hope you all are enjoying the snow as much as we are this winter.

Snow Day!

As you may know we got about foot of snow in the city. I had to share these pictures of frolicking in the snow.

New Year's Resolution

I admit it: I love self improvement campaigns (and self help books, although I've learned the hard way that most people don't love them as much as I do. While I would love a self help book as a gift, I've learned that most people....don't. Message recieved.). Anyway, as a logical extension, I LOVE new year's resolutions. This year, my resolution is to stop shopping for food. There are several reasons I really want to do this:

1) I hate shopping for food (or anything else) with kids in tow. I have 2 kids under 3 and no daycare. Need I say more?

2) I would rather have our family eat no meat than industrially produced meat; and although in the early years of Jenny and Andy Andy was willing to go along with my no-meat stance I've pretty much lost that battle now. So if meat we will have, then I don't want to buy it in a grocery store, unless the grocery store can guarantee the meat has no hormones and was raised humanely. Even if it can, see #1. '

3) I'm a pretty ineffective shopper, even without the kids. I only make a list 1/4 of the time, of the times I do go to the trouble, I without fail leave it at home on the counter. I usually wander around the store aimlessly and return with a random assortment of foods (mostly in the salty snack and frozen dessert categories) and nothing for dinner. I also always buy condiments that I'm sure we're out of, which is why we have approximately 8 backup ketchups in the basement.

I'm happy to say that a week into the new year and I think I'm 3/4 of the way to my goal. This is how I did it:

1) I'm continuing our weekly delivery from Boston Organics. We've been doing this since September and so far, I've been incredibly impressed with the service. We get a weekly box for $29 that is 2/3 vegetables and 1/3 fruit. Every 4th week I get a $39box for a little extra, and that mix seems to be exactly the right amount of produce for our size family. I love that the boxes are customizeable and that (unlike a csa) if you can't take your box one week (because you're away or whatever) you can just suspend your delivery at no charge. Also, I frequently make changes and deletions to my preference list and/or change my box size and they always get it right, customer service has been excellent. I haven't had to purchase produce at a store in 4 months.

2) we just re-enrolled in the Stillman's Farm Meat CSA. We were members of this CSA two years ago, and were really happy with it until we got three months in a row when the meat share was all or mostly pork. We had split a "full share" (20 lbs) with a friend, and as he noted when it was time to renew "I like the idea, but my freezer is starting to look like the US Congress." So despite the fact that we loved getting our meat directly from the farm, and being sure that it was all pastured, free range and hormone and antibiotic free, we didn't renew. But, I've confirmed with several people I know who are currently participating in the CSA that they've fixed this problem, so we're back with bells on. We again got a full share and are splitting it again with the same friend, so hopefully we won't be disappointed. I found last time that 10 pounds of meat a month is a little less than most families of 4 might consume, but because it's more expensive (the price per pound is about $7.75) than meat you buy at the grocery store, the overall meat budget is probably the same. I would much rather exchange quantity for quality, and Andy has fun making the meat stretch creatively.

3) I recently set us up with delivery from Thatcher Farm in Milton. In adittion to hormone and antibiotic free milk (but not certified organic) they also deliver all other dairy (cheese, yogurt, cream, etc.) as well as organic eggs, bread and other bakery products, juice and a few other items.

So, we've got produce, dairy, meat, and bakery covered. That leaves staples like grains, cereal, snack foods, canned goods, and laundry/cleaning items.

I have a peapod account, and I've used it. But overall, I'm kind of unimpressed with them. First of all, since there are so many categories of things I don't need to buy from them, my orders are small and don't hit the $100 mark where the delivery fee goes down. $10 per order for delivery is too much. I could order less frequently with greater quantity, but I've yet to get myself organized enough to plan what I need in these categories a month in advance (although, it's theoretically possible). Even so, they don't carry a lot of the things I like to buy when I physically go to the store, and they don't have a good selection of gluten free items, and they tend to only have one brand option of things. for instance there's a certain kind of saltine I like to buy for the kids that don't have soy in them, and although I can get them in the regular store I can only get standard saltines through peapod. So, I'm trying to figure out if I can use amazon prime (which has free shipping) to replace peapod. We'll see. I haven't actually tried it yet. Peapod is also OK for laundry/cleaning/housewares but again, they don't carry as wide a selection as I'd like and their eco-friendly products are limited. I'm hoping amazon is better.

Here's to 2010! I'm hoping to have to enter a grocery store less than once a month. So far, I haven't gone once since December 15th, but it's only January 7th so we'll see. What's your resolution?