Monday, August 27, 2012

And so we begin ....

I've always craved happiness. (Well, who doesn't, right?) But, since having my daughters (I have a boisterous just-turned 3 year old and a "I'm not too far behind" 20 month old), the craving has become insatiable. I want to be wholesome happy myself and have that resonate with my husband and children.

As a full-time working mom, the balance of work and home can seem nonexistent. Work weeks rarely balance out to the 40-hour-of-work standard, and the "45-minute" commute is rarely that ... some days even exceeding two and creeping toward three hours. I've found our family falling into the same rut as so many others. Calls between me and my husband on the way home from work go something like, "Traffic is awful. Can you swing by XYZ and pick up something for dinner?" The only plus of that is our ability to eat dinner as a family, something we cherish and know will become more challenging as the girls grow.

But, we want more for them and more for us.

Never has it been so important for us to be healthy and happy. So, I proposed this experiment to my husband: let's work toward eating as much homemade, wholesome food as possible.  

And so we begin ...
Tomato, basil & mozzarella salad for lunch, August 25

We're still laying out the true ground rules for how this whole thing will work, and as we evolve and grow and morph into our homemade lifestyle, but we're simply starting with dinners. Yes, there will be slip-ups, and date nights and family dinner outs, but our primary goal is to have dinners, from scratch, every night. Once we've nailed that down, we'll work on lunches and breakfasts (though, weekend breakfast is a cinch, and one of my favorite things to give my family).

Now, as a working mom who has typically logged a 14-hour day by 6 p.m., this is a little overwhelming, but we're not talking Beef Bourguignon (mmmmmmmm ....) every night. Yes, we'll do classic dinners on weekends -- as well as weeknight prep. But, during the week, we're talking meals I can cook in around the same time as it would take for a pizza to be delivered to the house.

As we go through this lifestyle evolution, we hope to:
  • Give our children a real appreciation for time in the kitchen (letting them help out when they can)
  • See a visible savings in our pocketbook
  • (And, maybe even a visible shrinking of our waistlines!)

Today's homemade menu:
  • Breakfast: French toast (made with fresh bread from the farmer's market, though next time it will be homemade bread) and scrambled eggs
  • Dinner: Summer fest of hamburgers, corn, tomato/basil salad


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