A Week of Healthy Eats for CHEAP!

When I talk to people about eating healthy, I often get complaints about cost and time.  I get it.  I used to think that eating healthy was expensive and took forever also.  I just finished my grocery shopping for the week though and I spent less than $100.  Did I mention that I will be working 6 of the next 8 evenings (12pm to 8pm) and my husband doesn't cook if he's alone with all three kids?  Today I'm going to share with you how I do it.

As a note, all of my meats are grass-fed, free-range, antibiotic free, hormone free meats from Aldi's.  All of my canned ingredients are organic and are from Aldi's or Wal-Mart.  To save time, try prepping all your veggies over the weekend.  Clean, cut, chop, slice, etc.  You can also go ahead and combine some of your spices in zip lock bags so you don't have to measure out all your ingredients during the week.

Friday (today) - Taco Salad - We'll build ours with Organic Blue Corn chips from Sam's, grass-fed ground beef browned with taco seasoning and with a can of rinsed organic black beans, organic mixed salad greens, salsa, and a homemade guacamole.

Guacamole recipe - Combine 3 avocados peeled, pitted, and mashed with 2 diced roma tomatoes, juice of 1 lime, 1 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp of minced garlic, and 3T fresh cilantro.  You can add some diced red onion if you like more of a bite to your guacamole.

Saturday - Turkey Chile - heat 1.5 tsp coconut oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Place 1lb ground turkey in the pot and brown.  Stir in 1 chopped onion and cook until tender.  Add 2 cups water.  Mix in 28oz can crushed tomatoes, 16oz can drained and rinsed kidney beans, and 1T minced garlic.  Season with 2T chili powder, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp sea salt, and 1/2 tsp ground black pepper.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low.  Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Top with sliced avocados.  I'll make this one in the morning and let it cool.  Then refrigerate.  Jonathan will just have to warm it up for dinner.

Sunday - crockpot chicken, sweet potatoes, and green beans.  I'll chop the sweet potatoes and a little onion and place in the bottom of the crockpot and season with a little sea salt.  I'll top with about a pound of chicken breasts that I'll drizzle with olive oil and season with poultry seasoning.  I'll cook on low for about 6 hours.  We'll warm up a can of green beans to eat on the side.

Monday - breakfast - Jonathan and I will have some scrambled eggs with pinto beans (drained, rinsed, and warmed up) and salsa maybe with a few slices of avocado.  The girls will have scrambled eggs with toast.

Tuesday - quinoa enchilada casserole - Julia said she would like to try this, so we'll give it a go.  This is a new one for me, but looks pretty tasty.  http://damndelicious.net/2014/07/07/quinoa-enchilada-casserole/.  You'd have to leave the cheese off to make this detox friendly, but we aren't detoxing in February, so we'll probably go ahead and use the cheese.  I'll make this in the morning and Jonathan will just have to throw it in the oven long enough to warm it up and melt the cheeses when he gets home from work.

Wednesday - Moroccan Shepherds Pie - I've made this one once before and it is so good.  http://ourfourforks.com/moroccan-shepherds-pie-sweet-potato/.  I'll assemble this in the morning and have my babysitter (a.k.a. Mom) throw it in the oven about an hour before dinner time.

Thursday - Fat Flush Soup - I hate the name of this, but my family likes the taste.  http://annlouise.com/2011/10/04/my-famous-fat-flush-soup-recipe/.  I'll prepare it in the morning and Jonathan will just warm it up when he gets home from work.

Friday - this will be a left-over day.  Most of these meals will make enough for some sort of left-overs with the exception of the breakfast.  In addition to eating these left overs on Friday, we will also eat some of them during the week for lunch.

What's your favorite healthy week night meal?

Comfort in the Darkness - Wrap Up

Spiritual Warfare
Medication-induced
Genetic Predisposition
Postpartum
DEPRESSION

It hurts those that know it intimately as well as the people that love them.

Signs:
Change in appetite
Change in sleep pattern
Loss of interest in things that used to be enjoyable
Withdrawing from people
Thoughts of hopelessness
Thoughts that it would be better if you were dead

If you know someone with any of the above signs of depression, please talk to them.  It can be very difficult to recognize that you are depressed when you are in it.  And often, there is no motivation to deal with it.

I never sought psychological or psychiatric help for my depression, but I was far closer to ending my life than you ever want yourself or your loved one to be.  I also suffered for longer than is necessary.  Studies show that there is a significantly faster recovery time when counseling and medication are combined.

As a Physician Assistant that recently left a busy primary care practice, I can tell you that depression is far more common than we like to think.  If you aren't personally affected by it, I can guarantee that you know someone that is.

Father God, You asked me to share my story and I have done so.  Now I pray that You use it to touch those that need it.  I pray that You show those in crisis that there is light in the darkness.  That if they ask, You will save them just like You save me over and over and over again.

Comfort in the Darkness - Part 5

Life was good again.  I got a job at my church.  I started volunteering with the youth group.  I started dating the man that would become my husband in November of 2005.  We were married in August of 2006.  In October of 2007, we received shocking news.  I was pregnant with twins.


Just a few short weeks later, a simple urinary tract infection caused me to dilate and I was forced into bed rest until the babies were 36 weeks along.  God was faithful and provided for us through donated meals and good health.  At my 37 week ultrasound, I watched my babies move from the ideal vertex-vertex position to the oblique position.  The natural birth I planned was being scrapped for a c-section.  I imagined my OB smirking in satisfaction, as she had been pushing for a c-section since she found out there were twins.

The morning of March 3, 2008 the cesarean section went without complication.  My babies were whisked away with my husband trailing behind to get weighed and cleaned.  The two obstetricians chatted about their vacation plans as they put my body back together.  I was wheeled to a recovery room where a lactation consultant had to manipulate my still numb arms to help me hold these wrinkly little creatures so they could nurse.

I was so afraid of losing my babies to a complication, that I hadn't bonded with them while pregnant.  Rather than the immediate love a new mom feels for her new children, I felt as though I had undergone a major surgical procedure and then someone had just handed me these two screaming babies and told me to take good care of them.  They didn't feel like mine.  I still couldn't even grasp that there were two of them.

The next year was dark.  I thought I would be returning to work, but the reality was that we couldn't afford daycare for two babies on my meager income.  None of this happened the way I planned it out.  I didn't know how to talk to these babies.  I didn't know how to love these babies.  They cried and I cried.  I told God in the middle of the night when I was up with the babies that He had made a mistake.  He wasn't supposed to give me more than I could handle and I couldn't handle two babies.

I was increasingly bitter and hostile.  I didn't think about suicide.  I knew these two babies needed me.  I mostly just dwelling on how much I resented the fact that I didn't get to enjoy my babies because there was always another one there screaming at me and I felt robbed of the natural birth experience that I had dreamed about.

My husband was a trooper.  Every night he came home, even though I gave him plenty of reason to not want to.  Every day he told me he loved me and gave me a kiss.  As that first year drew to a close, I was finally able to draw a little closer to my girls.  I gave God the silent treatment when I wasn't yelling at Him.  I knew I couldn't keep going on like this.  My husband would eventually break and it wasn't fair to my kids.

One day when I was taking the girls for a walk - we did that a lot because they didn't cry when we were walking - I finally humbled myself before the Lord.

I love these girls, God, and would never want to lose them.  I know there is a reason you gave them both to me at the same time.  But, I don't like it and I have been very angry that you chose me to do this.  I'm sorry for the way I've behaved.  I'm sorry for not trusting you.  Most of all I'm sorry for the way I've treated everyone who loves me most - You, my children, my husband, my parents.

Once again, a weight was lifted.  Once again, I was freed.  Once again, it wasn't until the very end that I was able to put a name to what I had been going through.  This was yet a different Depression.  Postpartum Depression.

Comfort in the Darkness - Part 4

Things went pretty well for about 3 years.  I was connected to a great group of Christians.  I was pushing myself to learn and grow.  In that third year, God called me to a longer short-term trip.  I said yes to leading high school and college students in short-term trips to Philadelphia where they prayed for and volunteered with various people groups and organizations in the city.  It was an incredible experience with amazing people.  And even though I was surrounded by amazing people every day, I felt very alone.  I prayed daily, asking God to give me the words to lead the nightly debrief sessions.  Silence.  I couldn't understand what was happening.  This didn't seem like the Depression that I was so accustomed to.  And yet there were elements of it that were so similar.

At the end of the trip, my closest friend flew to Philadelphia and we drove back together.  We had been inseparable before I left, but were completely unable to get along on the way back.  When we finally made it home, I sat in my apartment with shards of broken friendship and loneliness lying at my feet.  There was a twisted comfort in the familiarity of the feelings I was having.  But, when I started to imagine myself walking into a lake to drown, I became certain of what this was.  I looked back in my blog to see when this had begun.  It had been going on for months and coincided with the start of a birth control pill.  I immediately discontinued the medication and begged God once again to pull me back up from the depths of the darkness.  Once again, He was faithful.  Once again, I was free from Depression.

Comfort in the Darkness - Part 3

It was the summer between my two senior years that I went to Colorado for Kaleo.  This was essentially missionary training.  We were taught and expected to share the Word of God with complete strangers in a tourist area.  This was way outside of my introverted comfort zone, but I said yes and Depression got scared.  It was probably about half way through my time that I realized what the roar was.  I had been through this before.  The last time I heard this roar, it was almost the end of me.  This time I knew what it was and I knew that I had a powerful weapon that could destroy the oppressive darkness.  I dropped to my knees and I prayed.

God the last time I tried to fight this by myself it nearly killed me.  I know I can't fight this on my own again and I don't have to.  God take this depression from me and replace it with peace!

A weight was lifted from me.  I literally felt lighter.  I stood and I knew that God had answered my prayer.  There is nothing like knowing that God loves you so much that He will fight your demons.  He didn't have to.  He doesn't need me.  But, there He was.  One short prayer full of desperation and faith and that nagging voice, that constant companion was gone.

Comfort in the Darkness - Part 2

We moved to Ohio just before I started 7th grade.  We joined a great church where I had a solid group of friends, felt included, and was able to really shine.  People encouraged me in everything I did and I started to see that Christianity was not just for Sunday mornings and holidays.  I went to Young Life camp and accepted Christ as my savior.  I had heard the story of the crucifixion countless times before, but this time it was more than just some historical event.  It was personal.  I was on fire and wanted everyone else to know what I finally knew.

Now that I look back, I can see that the next year was Spiritual warfare.  Depression was being edged out by a relationship with God and he didn't like it.  I continued to try to be active in my church, but those whispered words were back as a constant roar.  I couldn't smile, I couldn't sing, I couldn't think about the future, I couldn't read, I couldn't even get through class without crying.  It was suffocating.

"You are a burden to your family and the people you call your friends.  They are so nice to you, but you know you don't deserve them.  They will be better off without you.  Look at yourself.  You cry all the time.  Nobody wants to be around you."

I started to think about how I could relieve everyone of the burden I thought I was.  I knew that the Bible said that suicide was a one-way ticket to eternal separation.  I decided that I would rather sacrifice my eternal life than continue to hurt those around me.  I didn't want it to be bloody because I didn't want anyone to have to clean up a mess.  I thought that maybe I could take pills, but I knew my mom would find me before I died.  That would lead to a hospital visit and who knows how many doctor visits.  I couldn't think of a way to effectively kill myself that wouldn't cause more problems for the people around me.  And that is the only reason I didn't commit suicide my 9th grade year.

My depression had become so obvious that my friends talked to our health teacher.  She called my parents and they tried to talk to me.  I denied it and they dropped it.  I didn't know how to explain to anyone what was happening to me.  I felt that the only option left was to fake happiness.  When we got the news that we were moving once again, I was genuinely happy.  Another fresh start.  I desperately needed it.


Like every other time, I hoped that Depression would not follow me.  Like every other time, he did follow.  My parents found a church they liked.  I tried to get plugged in with the youth group.  I felt like an outcast.  I wasn't able to plug in the way I had before.  And so, with me being a believer, but my fire just barely flickering, Depression did not feel the need to roar anymore and went back to the gentle whisper that slowly and quietly robbed me of my self-confidence.  We existed like this for many years.

Comfort in the Darkness - Part 1

One Sunday, a few weeks ago, I was sitting in church listening to a sermon that I, regrettably, don't recall.  I was suddenly overcome with the need to share the story of how depression has wound it's black tentacles through the story of my life.  As I walked out of the service, I felt the discontent of knowing that I had not been obedient.  I tried to reassure myself that this was just some weird trick my mind was playing on me and that the tugging at my being would dissipate with time.  Of course it didn't.  I knew it wouldn't.  So the next few posts will be devoted to sharing my story.  My prayer is that God will use this to show someone that light can be found in the darkness that depression casts.

I met Depression as a young child in my insecurity and fears.  He was there like a shadow.  A constant companion who whispered so gently in my ear.

"Those other kids don't really like you.  They only play with you because they are too nice to tell you to leave them alone."

"Stop trying so hard.  You are never going to get it right."

"Those other girls are so much prettier than you are.  No one will ever love you."

"Why do you talk so much?  Nobody cares what you have to say."

 "You aren't really as smart as people think you are.  You will never succeed at anything."

"Your brother.  He's the creative one.  Not you." 

I moved every three years or less.  I always tried to leave him behind, but there he was.  In every new state.  At every new school.


There were hours, days, weeks that he would retreat into the recesses of my mind.  The more I occupied my mind with reading, the longer he stayed at bay.  So I read.  Voraciously.  I was a member of the Baby Sitters Club and spent time in the Secret Garden.  My best friends were Jo March, Sara Crewe, and Anne Shirley.  I had adventures with a mouse named Stuart Little and I cheered for a pig named Wilbur.  I explored the land of Narnia with Susan and the frontier with Laura Ingalls.

You can't escape in literature all the time though and in the night, when the house was quite and I wanted sleep, he would creep back to the forefront of my mind.  He replayed every detail of the day, reminding me of all the times I said or did the wrong thing.  He discounted anything that resembled joy.  He told me that tomorrow would be no better.  And, no matter how much I imagined exactly how the next day would go - what I would wear, what I would say, what I would do - it happened again the next night.  It went on for an hour or more most nights, before my thoughts, his accusations, finally subsided and I was free to sleep.

Chicken Burrito Bowl

With a busy toddler running around and me working a lot of evenings, the crock pot has become a must have at our house to make healthy dinners happen with significantly less frustration.  My husband's favorite crock pot meal is the chicken burrito bowl.  Bonus - the kids all like it too!  This is one of the easiest meals to make.

Ingredients:
1.5# boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 cans black beans - drained and rinsed
1 can corn - drained and rinsed
1 jar salsa of your choice
1 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 Tbsp cumin powder
1/2 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1/4 cup water/chicken broth/veggie broth
brown rice or quinoa


Optional Toppings:  cheese, sour cream, guacamole, fresh cilantro

Directions:

1.  Place chicken in bottom of crock pot.  Add remainder of ingredients, except rice/quinoa and stir.  Make sure chicken remains covered.  Cook on low for 8 hours.  After chicken mixture is cooked, shred chicken with two forks and then mix all ingredients well.

2.  Cook brown rice or quinoa according to package directions.

3. Put rice in each bowl and top with chicken mixture and desired toppings.



That's all there is to it.  Even my twins can make this one so long as they have help measuring.

Makes great leftovers too!

New Year, New You!

Find out why you should start your new year with a 30 day clean eating challenge.  Learn which foods are nourishing and which foods are holding you back. I want to give you the tools to succeed in living a healthier life!  There are two events coming up soon.  See the information below for details.  If these times don't work out for you, please let me know so we can arrange another time for you.

Topic: 30 Days to Healthy Living
Time: Dec 17, 2015 2:00 PM (GMT-6:00) Central Time (US and Canada)

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/922801385

Or join by phone:

+1 415 762 9988 (US Toll) or +1 646 568 7788 (US Toll)
Meeting ID: 922 801 385
International numbers available:

 https://zoom.us/zoomconference?m=8vlRUlFrkErShgQ32W0Ru7NB2ieUiEdp

I can breathe again.

Well, when I last left off, I had just graduated from PA school and I was looking for a job.  I was also living with my parents while we built a house.  THREE years have passed (good grief) and there have been so many answered prayers.

We are loving our new house.  We have just enough bedrooms and a big wide open living space for hosting friends and family.  Jonathan loves his four car garage and we all love our neighbors.  We designed it with the idea of living in it forever and I think we just might...Unless, of course, God has something else planned for our future.

When I graduated from PA school, I took a job in primary care that required a commute to a nearby town.  I loved my patients and walking beside them in life cheering them on and crying with them during the tough times.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do all my work during normal work hours and my family was suffering for it.  One of my twins was getting a lot of notes home from school and my other twin was developing quite the attitude.  I was always stressed out and I took it out on my family.  The birth of another baby girl in December of 2015 was the tipping point.  I stopped just praying about a change in our situation and started looking around to see what I could do to get my kids out of daycare.

I never saw myself in urgent care, but this is exactly where I am now.  I was always afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the pace and that something would come in that I couldn't handle.  But, the hours (part-time) and the ability to take all three of my kids out of daycare was exactly what I had been praying for.  Despite the fact that there are no guaranteed hours, no benefits, and I was scared of this field, I took a huge leap of faith and God has blessed us abundantly for it.  The same day I turned in my letter of resignation, Jonathan got a promotion to a closer office.

This change has made my life feel so much more balanced.  My twins are doing better, I'm not stressed out all the time, my marriage has improved, and I get to watch my baby learn and grow.  I don't get to be quite so invested in my patients now, but I do get to be more invested in my friends and family.  And the job isn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be.  I'm getting much more comfortable with things like sutures and IV fluids.  I'm becoming a much more well-rounded PA.

Early Risers

I am a morning person.  I can't help it.  Even on days when I have no reason to get up and no children in my house I am up by 7:00am.  I am not, however, ready to socialize right when I get up and certainly not before 6:00am.  It's like a magical time for me at which point I become capable of communicating.  Talk to me before that and I might bite your head off.  God blessed me with two early risers.  Julia is like her momma.  She might get up early, but she's not really ready to start her day yet.  She just wants to snuggle.  Amelia, my little social butterfly, knows no time at which she is not happily chatting away.  Now my girls go to bed at 8:00pm every night.  So 6:00am is an appropriate wake up time for them at this age (4).  Unfortunately, my little darlings had a hard time figuring this out.  They wanted to get up at 5:00 or 5:30am no matter what time we put them to bed.  We tried using a baby gate to keep them in their room until 6:00, but they just knocked it over and then it scared them and they started bawling.  Then we found my very favorite product ever.

The Teach Me Time Talking Alarm Clock and Nightlight.  This clock is amazing!  You can set it to turn yellow at bedtime then green when it's time to wake up.  It didn't take long for the girls to catch on to this.  In addition, this clock has several other cool features.  You can make it read just digital or just analog or both.  You can push a button and it will tell you what time it is.  There are games in which it will ask you what time the clock says and then you push a button and it tells you the answer.  It even has an alarm for when the kids get bigger and getting up early isn't so much fun anymore.  This clock retails for about $40.  We got ours online from Barnes and Noble, but there are several other online sources as well.

A Season of Change

I can't believe I haven't posted since August.  Obviously a lot has happened since then.

I finally achieved my master's degree in Physician Assistant Studies.  Now I'm studying for my national certification exam and looking for a job.

Julia has been loving her class this year.  She has show-and-tell every Friday in which she brings something that begins with a selected letter of the alphabet.  They are counting down 100 days of school and on day 100 they will have a pajama party.  They have already had an 80's dance party.  Her teacher was really impressed with her when she gave an impromptu performance of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song.  I'm teaching my girls all the best things from the 80's and 90's.

Amelia's class seems to be in a constant state of transition.  They have had three lead teachers and at least two afternoon teachers since August.  All that change has been hard on the kiddos.  Fortunately, her newest lead teacher is excellent.  She has years of experience and is no-nonsense.  Just what a class full of little girls needs to quelch some of the drama.  Her Christmas party was tons of fun with decorating sugar cones like Christmas trees, tossing bean bags through a wreath, and balancing Hershey Kisses on spoons across the room and then placing them in a stocking.

We sold our first house and are now living with my parents while we build our dream house.  We signed the build contract two months ago and already had all of our interior and exterior selections made.  So far they have managed to uproot the two trees in the backyard, but one of the stumps is still lying there.  I was hoping the framing would be complete by the time the cold weather hit, but it seems that there are a lot of houses in progress with our building company.  We were hoping to be in the new house by March, but it looks like it will be more like April or May.  Praise the Lord my parents have built before and are reasonably understanding about the whole situation.

This is our lot before the trees came down

First Day of Pre-K

The girls had their first day of Pre-K on Monday.  They were really excited to get back to school and see all their friends and they couldn't wait to explore their new classes.  The girls go to a really small school, so there was nothing intimidating about this transition for them.  They were already very familiar with their new teachers and they have most of the same classmates still.  Julia is an Allstar.  Her class pet is a snake named George Washington and her teacher is a soccer junky.  It's a good fit for Julia because she's so creative and active.  Amelia is a Terrific Tiger.  Her teacher is on maternity leave, so time will tell what her class will really be like.  She is enjoying her substitute for now though.

Keeping the Peace

Like any set of siblings, my girls have their moments where they play nicely together followed immediately by screams and tears.  Praise the good Lord for one bit of wisdom that I found somewhere on the mighty internet many moons ago that has drastically decreased the amount of bickering in our home.  On a calendar on the refrigerator (where all of our sanity saving documents can be found) we have the letters "A" and "J" alternating on every day of every month.  Each of our girls take turns being the Leader of the Day.  Big title that comes with lots of perks.  The leader of the day in our house gets to choose all things first, unless of course they are over-ruled by Mom and Dad.  This includes, but is not limited to dish color, seat at the table, car seat, movie, TV show, etc.  It also means that she gets to do things first, such as say her prayers first before bed.  Sometimes being the leader means that you have to be the brave one.  At our first dentist appointment we had no eager volunteers.  So the leader of the day was elected (by yours truly) to go first.  I think the beauty of this technique is that nobody really gets terribly sad (whines or pitches a fit) when it's not their day because they know that tomorrow they get the coveted title and all that goes with it.

How do you keep meltdowns at a minimum in your house?  Do you have any tips for dealing with sibling rivalry?

Sometimes I think they may actually like each other!

Bye-Bye Bedtime Battles

We have a rather small three bedroom house in which the girls have always shared a bedroom.  In the beginning we had their cribs right next to each other and the headboard and footboard were solid.  So they couldn't see or bother each other.  As soon as they were able to stand up, bedtime became a challenge.  Suddenly, we were hearing giggles and screams coming from their room and we would walk in to find the girls facing one another jumping up and down in their cribs having a fantastic time.  At this point, we moved the cribs across the room from each other.  Now at least they weren't able to throw their bears and blankets at each other.  By 22 months they were climbing out of their beds, so we had to convert the cribs to toddler beds.  This is when bedtime really got wild.  Keeping the girls in their beds and quiet was a battle every single night.  My husband and I were doing all the right things.  We had a bedtime routine that we implemented at the same time (8:00pm) each night.  And yet each night the girls didn't actually fall asleep until more than an hour after we tucked them in.  We tried the "Super Nanny" technique.  We tried sitting in their bedroom.  We tried yelling.  We tried taking prized stuffed animals.  We tried spanking.  Each night my husband and I went to bed feeling like lousy parents.  We thought about separating them.  We thought about giving them away (not seriously).  I scoured the web for advice or at least parents that could sympathize.  I couldn't find anything helpful.

Finally, after our girls were three, we found a solution that seems to work for everyone in our family.  We have a whiteboard that lives on our refrigerator.  There are two columns, one for Amelia and one for Julia.  If the girls go to sleep nicely for us at night, they get a star in their column in the morning.  Once they get 14 stars, they get a prize.  Last time they wanted a new rubber ducky for the bathtub.  We took them to Wal-Mart and they got to select the rubber ducky of their choice.  Glorious!  I spent $1 per duck and got two weeks worth of easy bedtimes.  Money well spent.

These days we all sleep like babies, minus the middle of the night feedings and diaper changes.

How thick is your bubble?

I took a quiz yesterday.  It's supposed to tell you how insulated you are from main-stream American culture.  I scored a 61.  Apparently the higher the score the less insulated you are and the lower your score the more insulated you are.  It's a highly flawed quiz, but I appreciate the point of it.  My score is supposed to mean that I should fit into one of the following three groups:
1)  A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and movie going habits.                          

2)  A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and average television and movie going habits.

           

3)  A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents.

What do these classes literally translate to in terms of household income?  The following table is from Wikipedia's Social Class of America article.

Academic Class Models

		William Thompson & Joseph Hickey, 2005
		Class	Typical characteristics
		Upper class (1%)	Top-level executives, celebrities, heirs; income of $500,000+ common. Ivy league education common.
		Upper middle class[1] (15%)	Highly-educated (often with graduate degrees) professionals & managers with household incomes varying from the high 5-figure range to commonly above $100,000.
		Lower middle class (32%)	Semi-professionals and craftsmen with some work autonomy; household incomes commonly range from $35,000 to $75,000. Typically, some college education.
		Working class (32%)	Clerical, pink- and blue-collar workers with often low job security; common household incomes range from $16,000 to $30,000. High school education.
		Lower class (ca. 14% - 20%)	Those who occupy poorly-paid positions or rely on government transfers. Some high school education.

So what does my background actually look like?  My dad is an engineer and my mom was a preschool teacher, which put us in the upper-middle class.  Upon graduating from college in 2003, I joined the ranks of the working class where I stayed until I got married in 2006.  At that point, we were in the lower middle class.  Once I graduate and start working, we will once again be part of the upper-middle class.

What I find interesting about all this is that it would be very easy with my background for me to be a very insulated person, yet based on my score (which I would say is fairly accurate) I am very familiar with average American culture.  So how did I remain so grounded and how will I help my children remain grounded?

Some may attribute it to all the moving I've done in my life.  Others may say it's because my parent's raised me to believe that you have to work hard in life and handle your money responsibly.  While these two thing no doubt play a large role, I think the primary lesson I was taught in this life was the meaning of the world blessed.

When I was in 5th and 6th grade, my best friend's mom worked for the Salvation Army in small town Georgia.  We used to go put together sacks of groceries for the people that came by.  We served food in our church one night a week for people in our suburban town in Ohio and built houses for the Habitat for Humanity.  I ran my first Race for the Cure when I was in 9th grade.  My dad and I went, just before I was in 10th grade, to a Navajo reservation in Arizona where we tore down the remnants of their church that had been burnt to the ground by arson so they could rebuild.  Later in high school and once I graduated college, I spent Saturdays building wheelchair ramps for people in the Tulsa area.  In college I gave blood at every blood drive, volunteered at the Methodist food pantry, and built a home for a family in Juarez, MX.  I went to Houston where I met homeless people that had run from gangs in other states.  In Philadelphia I made and delivered food to people with AIDs, worked at afterschool centers where kids had lost family members and neighbors to gang violence, and hung out with the homeless in the evenings.  Do you know what most of those people that I met told me when I asked them how they are?  BLESSED.  Blessed.  Blessed.  These people with bigger troubles than I have ever faced in all of my combined life tell me they are blessed.  These people know what blessed really is, but what they don't know is that they are also a blessing.  Spending time with people like theis is probably the biggest reason I am who I am today.

And with every opportunity I see, I try to encourage my children to be kind to everyone they meet.  I try to let them know how lucky they are to have all the food they want and a comfortable home to sleep in and a whole closet full of clean clothes to choose from each day.  I know people who are not so lucky.  I know people who live in fear that they will be the next victim in the next drive by shooting.  I know people who only eat when they are at school.  I know people that have to run from the past, lest it catch up with them and kill them for leaving.  I know people who don't know if they will see tomorrow or where they will sleep tonight.  I know people who own nothing but the clothes on their back.  If these people can look me in the eyes and tell me they are blessed, who am I and who are my children to complain about anything?  We are blessed every day of our lives, but especially so when we encounter these people.

How do you keep things in perspective for your kids?  What is it in life that helps you remember how blessed you are?

Teaching Kids to be Secure

My kids have reached the age at which kids start being a little mean to one another.  They are pickier about who they play with on the playground and call each other silly names.  While it would be beautiful if the whole world followed the golden rule and everyone only used kind words and counted everyone as their friend on the playground, we all know that isn't reality.  So this morning I had a little talk with the girls that I hope they will remember.  We talked about who they are.  I asked them to describe themselves.  At first I got words like "a person" and "a girl".  But, then we started getting into more descriptive adjectives, like kind and smart and creative.  Then we talked about how no matter what other people say about them, it will never change who they are on the inside.  So we have two choices when people say unkind things about us.  We can either let them hurt us, or we can remember who we are and chose to ignore those unkind things.  I'm sure this is a conversation that will be repeated on many occassions.  Well worth it if I can raise kids who work hard to live up to positive adjectives and are able to easily dismiss the unkind ones that others will callously throw in their direction.

How are you teaching your kids to be secure?

Organizing Hair Dodads

Well I didn't get everything done on my to-do list on my two-week break, but I did get some of it done. 

1.  Revising my Capstone paper ended up taking the vast majority of my time.
2.  I didn't even touch surgery books.
3.  I did manage to find time for a fiction book - The Romanav Prophecy.  It was well-written and interesting.  But the first half was pretty slow and the end was fairly predictable.
4.  I organized the bulk of my bathroom!  My messy drawers, cabinets, and linen closet have been driving me crazy for a long time and now that we are selling our house it was more than just a nagging annoyance, but a bit of an embarrassment.  So I cleaned up the floor of the linen closet, organized the make-up drawer that my children destroyed, and organized the space under my sink.  So much better.  Wish I had taken before and after pics, but most of these projects were done in small bits of time between writing my paper.
5.  We saw Brave!  As we were watching it, I thought that some of the parts might be a little scary for the girls as there are some very intense scenes.  However, when we left the theatre they said they loved it and wanted to go immediately the the Disney store to buy Merida's dress.  No nightmares yet.  I have to say that as a mother I loved the themes of this movie - duty to family and creating your own destiny.
6.  I did pamper myself a bit.
7.  We took the girls swimming, but I didn't manage to get to the pool by myself.

Once I got my bathroom organized, I turned my attention to the girls bathroom.  They had all their hair dodads in one overflowing drawer that was a disaster.  After looking online for lots of inspiration and really thinking about what would work best for us, I finally found the perfect solution.  I bought this fancy little number from Wal-Mart.com for a mere $11.97 (site-to-store shipping is FREE).

Barretts, ponytail holders, and hairbrushes all organized by color.

Bows and headbands on the backside

Yes, two organizer things in one package!

This is the girls "nicer" jewelry

The back side houses sunglasses.

Look at all the room to grow!

I wish I could express to you how happy these things make me.  We can now get the toothpaste out of the drawer without everything else trying to jump out with it!

Six months and counting!

Finally a two week break after a 24-week L-O-N-G semester.  Just six months left until my big graduation day (December 7th)!  Things have been even more crazy since the last time I wrote in here.  We found a great neighborhood that is building and decided that we would like to build our forever house in the near future there.  Jonathan is still hoping for a boy someday (and currently has a little bit of baby fever), so we need room to grow our family some more.  So in the midst of my Internal Medicine rotation we cleaned up our house and put it on the market.  We have had a few showings and will have an open house this weekend.  Hoping to sell soon because keeping the house tidy in addition to everything else on our plates is going to set us all over the edge.

These next two weeks I have several things planned.  Unfortunately some of them still involve school.

1.  Revise my Capstone paper (kind of like a thesis)
2.  Pre-read for my Surgery rotation
3.  Read a Fiction book!
4.  Organize my bathroom
5.  Take the girls to see Brave (okay, I might be as excited as they are)
6.  Pamper myself with lotions and a DIY pedicure
7.  Take a swim in my mom's pool (with and without the girls)

I kicked off my vacation by taking the girls to their first dentist appointment.  They did wonderfully.  Julia is the leader today, so she went first.  She was a little scared, but our dental hygenist is awesome and calmed her down in no time.  After Amelia saw how much fun Julia had, she couldn't wait to take her turn.

In addition to daydreaming about our new house, Jonathan and I have been planning another trip to DisneyWorld.  We will be going right after I graduate and this time we are taking both sets of our parents.  The girls are now tall enough that they can ride some of the "big kid" rides like Soarin' and Star Tours.  The promise of these bigger rides has been really great for getting the kids to eat their "growing foods" (veggies) each night at dinner.  We will have a full kitchen in our hotel suite so we plan to save a little money by eating several of our meals in our hotel.  We did go ahead and make reservations for a few of our favorite restaurants (Chef Mickey's and Liberty Tree Tavern) and we are going to try 50's Prime Time Cafe for the first time.  My parents wanted to get reservations for Le Cellier, but despite calling as early as we could, there were no openings.  Apparently if you pay cash for your room, you can make earlier reservations, but DVC members don't get to do that.  Hopefully that's something that will change in the near future.

I look forward to catching up with some of your blogs over the next couple of weeks.  Hope you are all having a good summer.

Teacher Conferences

Friday was Parent-Teacher conference day.  Both teachers were really well-organized.  They performed evaluations on the girls that gave us a lot of useful information.  My first meeting was for Julia.  She is wiggly at story time and doesn't appear to be paying attention most of the time.  When her teacher calls on her to answer a question though, she nails it every time.  She is also one of the only kids that participates in group time.  Julia knows all her colors and shapes, can recognize some of her letters, drew an awesome self-portrait with a head, two arms, two legs, eyes, and a mouth, and was able to write her name (sort of)!  Difficulties are recognizing numbers, picking up when asked, and pronounciation of some of her letters.  Numbers are something we just haven't really worked on.  I admitted that with me being in school, picking up the house is just not something we are very consistent about at home.  Regarding her language, she is having difficulty pronouncing the "s", "sh", and "th" sounds.  She had a free evaluation by a speech therapist at her school.  Their assessment was simply that her conversational speech is difficult to understand."  I tried to call and talk with them about it, but had to leave a message and no one called back.  Meanwhile, I went to the Internet and stumbled upon a speech pathologist's website where I found the following table.



Based on this table, I think we are going to wait until she is four to see if we can see any improvement.  At that point, we'll reassess the need for therapy.

Amelia's conference went well also.  Apparently (while she is noticeably less wiggly than her sister at home) she is one of the more squirmy kids in the class also.  Amelia also knows all her colors and shapes, can recognize some of her letters, drew a self-portrait including a head, neck, belly, arms, legs, feet, eyes, mouth, and hair (I'd never seen either of them draw a person before!), and was able to write some of her name (sort of)!  Like her sister, Amelia was unable to recognize her numbers.

All-in-all, both girls are doing really well.  They are currently really interested in learning to recognize letters and learning the sounds they make and love acting out the Bible stories they learn at school and church and the movies they watch.  It's so fun to watch them play together in this way.