You know that feeling when...

You know that feeling when your underpants start curling under because the pounch on your belly is making them roll over and when you sit down, said pounch sits on your lap a little?  Yeah.  That's where I'm at at the beginning of this year.

2020.  Looks like since 2013 I've been rambling on about cooking.  Cooking more, cooking more healthily for myself and my family and generally trying to get my act together regarding Planning Meals.  Although, I didn't label it as the very trendy term, Planning Meals, back then.  Back then, with very small children, it was, Just Getting Something On The Table Meals!  I think the pendulum has shifted to far and we learned too well what we love to eat.  My husband is a very good cook and I recommend, very good recipes that are not portioned out correctly.  We also like our dessert at the end of every meal.  Which is a problem. 

But, we live and we learn and the lovely thing about it is that we are changing, evolving human being and we can set new goals.  I have accomplished much these past 7 years, when you boil down to it, we've learned how to cook (check), institute more veggies and fruits in our meals (check) and have branched out into being more active (kind-of check).

I'd also like to mention that in my head, I've always been around the 159 pound mark.  And that's been okay.  155 would be ideal (see below #2 for more info).  But isn't it funny, I've recently gotten up to 178-184 and even though that was my pre-pregnancy weight with Leopold (my 9-yr-old), and I was upset, because I said I'd never get up to 180 again without being pregnant...I wasn't overly upset.  And I feel like I should be.

I think I am or was in a fog.  These past couple of years have been tough.  Putting parents in assisted living, having a couple of miscarriages, thinking I was going to have a heart attack because my blood pressure was so high and then being told that I just need a massage and a walk and possibly a day off!!...I just wanted to mention it, because I really want to fit in my jeans again and I don't want to buy a size 14 pants!  And I want to be able to hike with 4th and 5th graders up a mountain and not be left behind (not that I was left behind...they waited for me the good kids that they are).  I also don't want to get diabetes or high blood pressure or have a stroke or a brain aneurysm if I can at all help it.  I'm not good at taking pills and I don't want that a part of my lifestyle.  Maybe, dear reader, you've been here too and it resonates.  I just wanted to put it out there~

So.  What are my 2020 goals?  Good god.
1.  only shop at consignment stores.  Buy used clothes because 3rd world countries don't want them anymore?...  Only shop at Anthropologie or Boden when it's a treat and I can't find what I'm looking for.
I mean, really...just read this: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/no-one-wants-your-used-clothes-anymore?utm_source=pocket-newtab

2.  Just in case you don't know, I turned 40 last year, and the metabolism slow down for women, is REAL!  Have started Noom.  Want to lose, good lord, 20 pounds!  That would get me to my Normal Weight, according to many health charts from mayo clinic and etc..  I'm about 175 pounds, 5' 9" and   I need to be about 155.  Thank god for friends who offer to strength train me for free! I really must get up to 10,000 steps a day, maybe join a dance class with husband, join "classpass", go on walks and hikes more often (go to Red Rocks and climb those devilish stairs!), bike with the kids & husband, walk/ride bike to school, and so on and so forth!...
2. b. shop at vitamin cottage more...eat organic...be intentional (aren't I good at using buzz words!?) about where to shop, how to get there and what I am putting in my body.
2. c.  I feel like I spoke a lot about exercise in #2, but, I also need to lose weight by, ugh...counting my calories.  And Noom, even though it's only been a week, has really opened my eyes with what I've been eating.  Pleasant surprise for those of you who like Grape Nuts cereal, which I love warmed up with a bit of milk and sugar...Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal Almond is very similar and I am very happy with it sprinkled on top of yogurt and a small drizzle of honey.  Just in case any of you were wondering.  I do feel a little hippy-ish now!  I'm excited to learn more about what is on the shelves of grocery stores and what is "healthy" for our bodies.
2. c. sidenote: I made Hunan Chicken from the app last night, and when I say I made it, I mean Andreas, my husband made it.  I found and Planned the recipe and got the ingredients...and I would not recommend it.  Even though the 9-year-old boy did eat it...eh, it just wasn't my jam.

3.  Use electric car more often.  saving the environment, man this is an uphill battle.  What did those parents in the 70's think?!  We're right back where we started.  Damn 80's, optimistic 90's and 2000's, but this 2020.  What are our world leaders thinking right now?  What are our citizens of the world doing, not voting when they can to influence our future and our children's future?

4.  Is that enough?  3 resolutions?!  Esp. such heavy ones?   I shall add here, want to be involved in local government.  I want to be involved in local school government.  I want a small stake that might have a chance at making a different and beneficial future for our children.

5.  Figure out aging parents syndrome!  the Sandwich Generation.  I don't like that term.  It feels burdensome.  And it is a heavy weight to carry, taking care of your aging parents, but isn't it also our responsibility?  We don't want some dystopian society where the old folks, who are no longer useful, get sent off to an island, never to be heard from again.  Time to embrace this new dynamic.

6.  Money!  How to best invest our money.  This is a big one.  This will be looked into more at a later date.

I think that's all for today.  Must get on with it...organizing our kids' auction, helping with the book fair, figuring out what their dinner tonight is, cleaning the house, laundry, going to book club (!)...it's a long day.  Thanks for listening.

Lisa~

I hate cooking, but love home cooked food

Trying to set the mood with pretty kitchen ware. 

Notice coffee and chocolate chip cookie in picture below ...these are my vices and reasons to cook; to stop consuming cookies as dinner, not to mention cooking home cooked meals for Andreas, Leopold and Flora. 

First attempt at cooking a white bean and chicken chili. Doesn't look bad, haven't tried it yet.  Eek. 

Roast beef...closure

Here are a couple of pics of the delicious pot roast. Andreas, husband 'o mine, loved it so much, he asked if we'll be having every month. That, I told him, is very ambitious.
Looking at the pictures again though, maybe I will be making it sooner than I thought.

Pot Roast Part II

Stop procrastinating and make the damn pot roast already!!  You are already 35 minutes off your schedule!

Late supper already.  Remind me to update you about the fun and time-consuming aspects of building a house are.  Quite apart from having a two-year-old and a five-month-old, building a house is very energy sapping.  Imagine those who don't have young kids and are trying to build a house...well, actually they probably have jobs then that will consume their energy.  It's tough.  And I'm still not making my roast, SO!

Will update later.  Maybe even with a picture.

Now 39 minutes off....

Pot Roast

Okay, we're gonna do this.  We're gonna make a pot roast tomorrow for dinner.  I have a "Classic Pot Roast Meal Starter" from Robert Rothschild Farm brand.  I'm gonna buy a four-pound chuck roast, some onions and carrots and I'm gonna roast the heck out of it for 4 hours at 275 degrees.  

Some of you may know, most of you will not know, that I am a failure at cooking certain dishes.  Macaroni and cheese has eluded me since the first time I tried to make it as a babysitter back in 1992.  I just threw everything together and the powder cheese didn't exactly melt with the macaroni, or I think you're supposed to take out the macaroni and then add the butter and milk and then the powdery cheese, hmgh, ...I don't know.  It just didn't turn out and I think I made the kids eat cereal that night.    

Or take the spaghetti incident back in my college days.  I was trying to be sweet to my roomates and make them dinner, but gosh, what did I do, mixed the sauce with the noodles and then just mashed in some ground hamburger beef and it was simply a non-tasty disaster.  

Now, pot roast, my ever elusive nemesis, I will conquer you.  I have made some pretty tasty mac's n cheeses and spaghetti's since then, so now it is the pot roast's turn.    

My father, who loves to tell me the prices of every available meat on sale at the supermarket that week, tells me time and again how to make a proper roast.Even goes so far as to tell me step by step details on how to roast the roast, which somehow I manage to forget or probably just tune out.  It's not that I don't want his advice.  His pot roasts, and my moms', are some of the best I have ever tasted.  Which is why I want to figure this out.  I've even made a roast in their presence, learning, seeing and believing that it's not difficult.

At their home it works.  At our home, not so much.  I let it cook too long, or I don't give it enough time or maybe I roast it on the wrong temperature.  Perhaps it's because I don't salt the meat before I brown it.  But this time, I think I've got a really good recipe and a really good chance of making it right.  

I'm going to start at 2:15 p.m. and put some olive oil in my dutch oven.  Then I'm going to let it get really hot.  OH WAIT!!  Oh No!  My husband just reminded me that the cleaners are coming tomorrow afternoon.  GREAT.  Hmmm, this puts a bit of a wrench in the works.  My plan must be delayed by a day.  

Stay tuned, lovers of roasts, I will come back and update you.    

Year of Something's

I have finally done it!  I have finally used a recipe from a cookbook that I have ordered from the library several times, over the last couple of years, and loved reading so much, who likes to read cookbooks anyway?!, that I ordered it from Amazon and it sat on my pretty cookbook stand for months before I actually bought ingredients for and physically made the recipe in the oven, woooh, I did it.  

"Roasted Beet and Potato Salad" from the book, are you ready?..."The Roasted Vegetable," by Andrea Chesman.  

Now, don't stop reading, I'm not going to turn this blog into a blog about going through this recipe book and making a recipe a day for a year and have some incredible epiphany at the end of it.  

No, no.  I have many topics I would like to discuss and generally get off my chest.  Other topics include, but are not limited to, exercise, crafting, children, husbands, girlfriends, family!, grammar (or lack thereof), politics (we might dip into that) and anything else that might pop into my head.

Well, it is a little bit of an epiphany, actually.  I mean, I'm not a cook, nor do I aspire to be one...at all.  I do like buying stuff from Williams-Sonoma, but then again, I do like just buying stuff in general.  Cookware, flatware, ballet flats, I love it all.  My husband and I have a nice routine going;  I find the recipe, buy the ingredients and have it all ready for him to cook it, and by golly, he then proceeds to cook the recipe.  Also, I should put it out there that I am from Minnesota and as such, I was raised on meat and potatoes.  So, this whole vegetable side of cooking and eating veggies is a bit foreign to me.  But, after having first a son and now a daughter, I feel it is my responsibility to MAKE them be healthy eaters!  

I know healthy eaters, even those who exercise regularly, will still get cancer or diabetes or die young or fall down the stairs in their home that they've lived in for like 70 years or so, but I've decided eating vegetables certainly can't hurt my kids or my husband...or me, for that matter, and veggies taste good, so this is my Year of the Vegetable Dish...or Year I Made Vegetables; Some I Had Never Heard of Before! year.  

Hey, my friend, who is a serial dater, always has a Year...the Year of the Asian, for instance, or Year of the Spaniard.  I know, very un-PC, but, a little funny, right?  Especially because he's gay and knows no boundaries when dating or talking about his dates.  If you have a lisp, you always get away with more.  Cheeky.

When I was training with my friend to run a marathon about ten years ago, it was the Year of 5ks, because that's what we would do every Saturday morning for one summer, thinking we were going to be gold for the Twin Cities Marathon that fall.  Lo and behold, it was not the Year of the Marathon, but, I, a drama kid in high school-not athletic by any definition of the word, was very proud of myself for being able to run...well, walk mostly, jog sometimes, 5ks during that summer.  And, for the record, could do it in about 20ish minutes.  Heavy on the "ish" bit.  

So, you see dear reader, my Year of Something is really not a trendy thing to write about.  I've had Years of Somethings for a long time now, and have been surrounded by them as well.  This is a sincere effort at just writing about my life.  Hopefully it will be a bit entertaining for you and cathartic for me.