We’re going gluten free vegan! Well, sort of.

So my family has been egg free for awhile.  For over a year now at least.  It hasn’t been that hard at home, but when we’re out at restaurants, it’s a challenge.  We’re not egg free by choice, it’s out of necessity for a family member.  And now we’re retaking the next step and trying gluten free. Again, not by choice but necessity.

My little guy has had irregular bowel movements pretty much his whole life.  It hasn’t been a huge issue, doesn’t seem to cause him much pain etc, but if I want any chance of getting him potty trained.  Something has to change. Without going into too much detail, his #2 isn’t solid like a normal toddlers.  If anyone that doesn’t know his situation changes him, they might think he was sick.  😦  He doesn’t seem to be bothered, but I am.

We’re not going to jump in with both feet on both things.  We’re going to do the gluten free for at least a week if we see a difference in Josh.  The vegan thing might be most of the time, but we still do love our meat.  It’s just going vegan is the easiest option to avoid eggs along with eating healthy.

We’ve found a lot of recipe’s on vegweb.com and have made a few of them already with great success.  Earlier this week I made a dish called Tomato, Basil and Pine Nut Penne that was really good.  Stay tuned on here for that recipe and review later.

If anyone has any tips or recipe’s they would like to offer, please do!  It’ll be a challenge but I think we’re ready.

I think more visits to PCC and Whole Foods are in our very near future.

My so called Facebook life

I added a new friend today on Facebook.  She’s a fellow coop preschool parent and since I have worked with her in the classroom for the past two school years, I’ve gotten to know her pretty well.  Looking through her pictures, which are all awesome btw, I began to look back and think about what people see on my own Facebook page.

It’s not interesting.  At all.  I realize I post far more in a “secret” group that I belong to, a mommies group that I started and a book club group far more often than my own page.  And when I do post something on my own profile, it’s a kid pic or a running watch update.  It’s no wonder that when I post what I think is an awesome status or super super cute picture (of kids or not), I tend to feel a bit disappointed in the number of “likes” that I get.

Recently Facebook started giving everyone their own video’s of their Facebook lives.  Watching some of those I would see that their most “liked” photos and status had at least 4 times the number that mine did.  Granted, one of those friends is a professional horse trainer so she has way more many friends then I do, but still.  One can’t help but feel a little sorry for themselves when seeing something like that.

I’m really going to try this year to spend less time on social sites, besides my nike+, weight watchers and meet-up pages.  Hopefully this will help with me stop the feelings that come when things don’t happen exactly the way I expect them to.  Roll with the punches right?

Leaving with a picture that to-date, has probably one of my highest Like counts.

Back to routine

This week is/has been rough.  We had visitors last week.  One of the set of grandparents made the trek over here from WI for a week of play and visits to both the zoo and the toy store.  It was a great visit, but thanks to all of that, I am done with the zoo, costumes and have a new set of toys to try and organize/not step on.  

This is our typical Monday routine.  Wednesday is pretty similar, except that I get to drop off Josh in the morning instead of staying there.

Monday:  9:15 – drop off Brooke at a friends house to be watched while I work at the preschool with Josh.

11:30 – finish working at school and race back to friends house to pick up Brooke.

11:45-12:30 – lunch

12:30 – drive back to preschool to drop Brooke off for her turn.

1:00 – 3:30 – ME TIME!  Well, as me time as it can get with a 2 yr old in the house.

3:30-4:15 – changes, but usually playtime at the preschool playground.

4:30 – 6ish – try to both keep kids satisfied and cook dinner.

Now that I’ve finished (almost successfully) a minimalist challenge where you were to rid your home of a total of 496 items by the end of October, we have some more room in our garage.  I plan to do an overhaul of that space as well as the closet that is located in the kids playroom.  And as soon as I get my Amazon delivery of both ink and paper;  how did I manage to run out of both at the same time?   I will be printing and laminating more labels in an effort to make both more usable spaces.  So it’s during this time that I will be researching some new dinner ideas, playing with Josh, writing blog posts or organizing/cleaning my house.  

Yesterday was Sunday, and while I didn’t try out a new recipe, it was still one that I would like to share.  There are some improvements to be made.  So check back in tomorrow for that.  Hint: It involves chicken