First an update on something that I promised I'd write about - our veganism.  This has been an ongoing process over about the past year and a half.  Early last summer, I had been thinking about doing more meatless meals as a way of saving money.  Right after I started thinking about it, I found out I was going to lose my job, and so it coincided perfectly with our need to spend less money.  Right around this time was my birthday, and my dad and Linda gave me the books Skinny Bitch and the cookbook second part, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch.  These books advocate a vegan lifestyle.  At the time it was so far from the way I was eating that I couldn't quite fathom giving up all animal products.  But I was disturbed by the things I read and did think about it. (In fact, I bet that book is still on my book list somewhere on this page.)  I also read Omnivore's Dilemma in that same time frame, which really got me thinking about our food and where it comes from.  We gradually began to eat less and less meat as I found more and more recipes to our liking.  We were buying some free-range/grass-fed poultry & eggs/beef from the farmer's market up until about last fall/winter, but then decided that it was just too expensive.  And we basically just gave up on meat.  It's healthier to have a plant-based diet anyway, so we were fine with it.  My decision to go completely vegan came early this summer when I just decided I couldn't deal with animal products anymore.  I watched some very disturbing videos and read a lot of disturbing information and couldn't go back.  I'm currently reading The China Study which has some amazing information in it.  Really, I'm just astonished that this isn't more widely known, given the significance of this very broad, in-depth, nutrition study.  Another good read is In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.  So the reasons are four-fold, and not necessarily in this order: 1) financial, 2) health, 3) animal compassion, and 4) environmental (didn't mention this one, but there's a huge impact from going vegan - you make more an impact than by switching from an SUV to a Prius).

Let me add to this that we are not completely strict about it.  If we're in some kind of situation where we can't control the food, and there aren't a lot of vegan options, then we'll let the kids eat whatever there is (unless it's something horrendously bad for you, like bacon, or horrendously disgusting, like sausage), and John sometimes will. (I can almost guarantee that you will never see another piece of meat cross my lips.)  Or when we were at Costco the other day, they had lots of cheese samples out...yeah, I ate those. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't, but man were they good.  There is no substitute for smoked gouda.  Anyway, it's not completely limiting, but it does make things more challenging. For example, one of our neighbors broke her wrist and I was thinking about taking dinner over to them, but what do I make?  No chance I'm making anything with meat, but I could do some kind of pasta bake.  Those usually have a ton of cheese in them, so I'd rather not...but I think most people take some time to warm up to the kind of food that we eat, so...I don't know what the answer is.

OK, moving on. Oh my goodness is our calendar ever filling up!  Anna's three sessions of soccer every week contribute, and then I think she's going to do the kid's choir at church which meets every Wednesday night.  She's also going to do Daisy Scouts as soon as I find out some information about it.  Molly's going to start gymnastics once a week, an art class once a week, and a playgroup once a week (can you tell I'm looking for things to fill our long days together?).  I'm also going to try to schedule fun things for Anna on Monday afternoons (when she gets out of school early).  Then there are impromptu get-togethers with friends, and of course, my mom!  I'm not about to let her be in the area for two years and not see her a lot, so I'm planning on getting together with her once a week with the kiddos (and yes Meim, it will happen!  Even if we have to discontinue one of Molly's classes, we will make it work!).  So anyway, I'm starting to see how easy it is to over-schedule yourself...not that I think I'm there yet, but I see how it could happen.

One more thing - cleaning!  Our place is not huge by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a three-level townhouse...it's much bigger than a 950 square foot condo.  I've set up a cleaning schedule for myself so that I really stay on top of things, because if I don't, it will get totally out of hand.  So OK, I follow the schedule...but oh my gosh, the time! It took me an hour to do the three bathrooms (yeah, one of those is going to be off-limits now - no chance I'm doing that every week if I don't have to).  Today I cleaned the hard floors; I didn't actually time myself, but I would bet that was at least an hour. Ay ay ay - this is going to be interesting!  Especially because this extra time is on top of all the other things I used to do and am still going to do - namely cooking healthy food!  That takes awhile (the way I do it, at least) and so it will be interesting. 

This leads to another topic - simplifying my life - which will have to wait for another day...