Our Day In Food

Recently I've been asked quite a few times, by friends, family, and a random reader or two, how our change in diet has been going. So I thought it would be nice, to switch gears from Friday's rather embarrassing semi public emotional outburst, and document a day in the life of our plates.

We've been a low fat raw vegan family since late April. It hasn't been easy. The transition was anything but, and at times we didn't think we'd be able to do it. But here we are, all in better health than ever, feasting upon the delicious food that nature intended for us to eat- even on the days when all we can think about is a Burgerville Tilamook Cheeseburger, even though we haven't had one in 6 years.

During the daytime we eat mostly fruit, with a leafy green vegetable or carrot thrown in the mix, and at night we delight in our savory dishes. Some days we'll go all day without eating anything other than fruits and greens, and other nights, just to spice things up, we go all out and make a gourmet cuisine like raw vegan sushi. Of course, on nights like those, I make sure that Christopher is home to help watch the kids while I blend up buckets of fake fish pate and roll it between the stacks of sprouts and seaweed, because- as you can imagine, it takes a lot of food to fill this family up.

So anyways. Now onto our day in [unedited and probably blurry] food photographs...



The kids started off the day with simple fruit plates. Bananas, mangoes, and pears.

Charlie thought it would be fun to poke apart his banana with his tinkerbell fork, before picking it up and eating it dog-chewing-a-bone style. He didn't finish his mango, or his pears, but instead had a meltdown about not wanting to (because the mango wasn't very juicy, and who knows what his problem was with the pears), so he chose to go hungry for the next 2 hours.



Eleanore, for texture reasons, cannot stand smoothies. The very thought of drinking a smoothie, is enough to send this girl into a frenzy. So she always looks forward to her morning fruit plate. But of course, like her brother, (because what kind of siblings would they be if they didn't copy each other in all of the worst ways) she refused her mangoes and pears as well, and went hungry until snack time.



Christopher had 2 large jars full of some kind of pretty yellow smoothie. He doesn't build his breakfast so much for taste, as much as he does "what all can I shove into the blender and pour down my throat"? He has made a few really good ones though, so I have to give him credit for those.



Evelyn is never too impressed with breakfast time. If there aren't boobs involved, she really just couldn't care less. Eleanore and Kitty though- well they always put on a theatrical show.



I drank a quart of fresh squeezed orange juice. Its my favorite breakfast- about 8 oranges worth. A lot of mornings I jump on the smoothie train with Christopher, sometimes we even share a blend, but- that stomach bug that I had last week caused a flare up of whatever my stomach ailment is, and today I wanted to try to focus on just eating mono meals (one food at a time) in hopes of healing.

Healing isn't happening, by the way, so tomorrow I'm taking a trip to banana island, where I'll eat nothing but ripe bananas for a couple of days, total gorilla style, in order to give my tummy a break. ...Yeah- I know what you're thinking. But trust me? I've gone there before.




Snack time: banana ice cream! All this is, is bananas chopped, frozen, and then blended. It takes all of 60 seconds to make, and its the most delicious natural soft serve you've ever had in your life. I eat it daily.



While mine was just straight up bananas, I used the leftover pears and mangoes in the next batch for Charlie and Christopher. Charlie doesn't care whats in banana ice cream- that boy will eat bowl after bowl after bowl (as proved by his recent healthy weight gain, which has bumped him up an entire clothing size).

I made Christopher a gallon or more, and he took it down to the playmat to eat it while spending some time with the girls.



Check out miss baby ma'am there, eye ballin' Daddy's bowl. Don't let her fool you into thinking she cares about solids. All she'd do is dump it out and then happily slap the mess into the ground, keeping it as far away from her mouth as possible.



Eleanore had a heaping bowl (even though it was nearly empty by the time I could get to my camera) of seedless red grapes. Her very favorite.



For lunch we decided to do something with apples. We buy cases of organic galas from the commissary at cost (just like we do our bananas and navel oranges- only those ones aren't organic), so we had a good amount to use up. While I washed and ran the cutter over those- the rest of the family (and Kitty) played GI Joes.

The kids got to eat large bowls full, with a side of caramel (date) dipping sauce, and sprinkles (shredded coconut). Christopher and I ate ours plain, and by the dozen.

And of course my camera battery craps out during our afternoon snack of delicious "granola" (so there are no pictures), the very best snack ever, that the babies go absolutely crazy for. A mixture of raisins, dates, and coconut- all pulsed into a granola like consistency, and perfectly sweet and chewy in all of the right ways.



And then for dinner, because its Tuesday, we had tacos of course. Only, our tacos are probably a little bit different than yours, right?

Tomato, cilantro, basil, scallions, freshly chopped sweet corn, avocado (gotta get in our fat source), and romaine "taco shells".

And we ate, and we ate, and we ate.

Dinner was a struggle for Eleanore, who decided tomatoes weren't worth her time tonight, but the rest of us filled up and patted our happy bellies. We have to really pack it all in, in order to get enough calories. Charlie ate 3 bowls full (of just the filling)? Christopher ate a countless number of tacos., including half of mine (because like I said earlier, my stomach is no bueno). And Eleanore, who even though ended up having to go to bed early (which she really needed to anyways) for being disrespectful, made a pretty good effort in taking a couple of bites with those awful red chunky tangy things.

So that was our day in food. Thats what we ate today.

Tomorrow I'll be hanging out on banana island while the rest of the family chows down on celery and kale, banana/strawberry sundaes, blueberry pudding, and for dinner- steamed and herbed red potatoes.

Flashback Friday: Another End Of The Week Rant

I need a distraction, right now. Something to take my mind away from my own thoughts.

Its Thursday night while I write this. I just tucked the older two into bed, knowing that they were going to stay awake and play, disobeying every rule that I had given them before turning off their light and walking out the door. I came down to the couch, nursed the baby into her dreams, moved her from my lap to her bed, and even though the kids are indeed being rowdy, tossing around a Thomas toy and using blankets as fake parachutes- I just don't care to go yell at them right now.

Theres a stomach virus going around the house. Eleanore had it for a day, and then passed it along, like an unwanted gift, to me. I've had it for 2 days now, today being much better than yesterday, and I'm just ready for it to be over. I left the house today, going out to the store to take care of business, even though all I wanted to do was lay in bed all day, and when they didn't have what I wanted, I had to venture off base into town and go to a different store, just for something that ended up not being worth while anyways.

Christopher's uncle passed away. ...theres not much else I can say about it. Its hitting Christopher pretty hard in several ways- the thought of death, the thought of us leaving behind our kids, him not being able to be there for his family while they're hurting, the general idea of having lost of a family member- and so it in turn hits me pretty hard. I want to help Christopher feel better, he wants to help them feel better, we all hate that it happened, and so on and so forth. RIP Uncle Mike.

Its been in the high 90's every day. It was 113 a few days ago. One hundred and thirteen degrees. And now that I know for certain that heat and sunlight intensify my stroke like migraine symptoms, I really can't risk going outside. We had some friends come over last weekend, and our dang canopy snapped in half, so we all ended up sitting on blankets under the trampolene. Sure, it was fun in a summer camp pow wow kind of way, we didn't mind, but- I'm tired of being trapped inside. I feel like there are jail bars on my windows and padlocks on the outsides of the doors. Knowing that I shouldn't go outside, makes me want to do it that much more.

...I just went and yelled at the kids, twice, because they apparently don't think I'm serious? It had to be done.

I'm feeling very under pressure lately. Like I'm being pulled in so many different directions, like some kind of sticky to the touch stretch armstrong octopus toy? There isn't enough of me to go around. And I always come back to this same dilemma, and question myself what I can cut back on, or eliminate entirely. Today I revisited the idea of ending blogging. But I really do love it, when I write the way that my fingers naturally write. Its when I try to force something out of nothing- post something that sure, I'd like to remember, but, it maybe just isn't something worth sitting down and typing about? So I went back to a year ago in my archives. Last summer. And I found my answer. I won't quit just yet, even though I feel like its inching up on me, like when an ocean wave comes out of nowhere and erases the name that you worked so hard to spell in the sand with a prize piece of driftwood, and one day- maybe I'll just stop? Maybe it won't be so important to me anymore, to document our lives the way that I do? But anyways, my temporary solution, was to bring my writing back to where it was. Do things that are worth writing about, and really feel them. Be there in the moment, and then when the moment is over, bring it from in living color, to black and white type. The thing is, those kinds of things, they don't happen every day. They only happen when you let them happen. And to let them happen, you have to step away from all of the things that are pulling your armstrong octopus legs in all of those directions, stop caring, and let all of the tension builders snap and fall backwards as you retract. ...So I won't be writing as much.

The noise stopped upstairs. They must have fallen asleep. And it only took 45 minutes, and two trips up the stairs for discipline (I turned off the train toy and made him lay on a pillow by himself, because clearly he wasn't playing nicely).

Never mind. I just heard talking.

And another thing- I really want to take more pictures. I want to make photography more than it currently is. Not just pictures of my kids, because I hate to admit that I'm sort of getting past that, but- just pictures. Pictures of things that I like, because I like them. I want to learn new things and experiment with inspiration. I want to grow as a photographer. ...but when do I have the time?

I want to start running again. The other night I was lacing up my shoes to mow the lawn, which I ended up skipping, and I had a jolting urge to just take off down the street. The air was cool enough, and my spirits were high- I just wanted to go. Its been a year and a half since I ran. First the baby was my excuse, and then my facial paralysis and headaches. So whats my excuse now? Time. A lack of a decent pair of running shoes (because really, who has an extra $60 laying around?). Fear. ...Its just another thing that I want to do for myself, that would take away from all of the other things that I want to, or should, be doing, and if I take an hour to do that now, then I'll just be up an hour later, making up for the things that I didn't get done when I was out doing that other thing.

I'm finding that I get jealous, pissy even, over the most ridiculous of things. Somebody wearing makeup- because Lord knows I don't have the time for blush and eyeliner. Somebody going on vacation- we've never been on a vacation. We never even had a honeymoon. We've never even had a night, or a few hours even, without the kids. Women with clothes that fit, people with places to be, I AM LOSING IT.

I need a vacation. I need my best friend. I need to laugh with my Dad over something stupid that we used to do when I was 15 and we spent summers out on his boat singing songs about wearing towel turbans on our heads and dodging boat attacking bees.

...I need to have the ocean wipe away my name that I worked so hard to write. So that I can write it again. And again. And again.

There. I got it all out. Most of it at least. I feel like my heart has slowed down a beat or two since I sat down and started typing, so I must have done something right. Even if it was all nonsense that you just skimmed through to get to the flashback at the end of the page. ...I probably would have done the same.

And now onto our feature presentation-



No detailed story tonight. This is one of my favorite pictures (2006), although I've never admitted that to myself until now, taken in one of the bathrooms at my parents farm house. And really, I just want to look at it for awhile.

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So heres what we do. Every week we dig through our memories- old cell phone pictures, polaroids from 1986, something that you pulled out of a dirty shoe box- and we flashback to it. We show it off, and we write about it. We take ourselves back to that place, with as little or as much detail as our hearts are willing to share. Scan it, upload it, copy and paste it from your livejournal (remember those?)- display your memories in whatever way works for you. And then grab out button way down at the bottom of the page there (or link back old fashioned text style), add it to your flashback, add your link to our flashback, and if you've got an extra minute- maybe browse around and read some of the flashbacks left by others. Its just for fun. And really- memories are too precious to be left in an old dirty shoe box.








This is a comment-free blog. (And tonight its probably better that way, yeesh, sorry)