Pencil Thin

We took our children to the library tonight. They absolutely love going there. Every time our older son visits the library he comes home convinced he has found a new hobby or pursuit. He loves non-fiction books and always seems to end up with half a dozen books on various topics. This week he brought home books on robotics and last time is was model airplanes. The only problem with this is that he is convinced that each and every topic he reads about is something he needs to take up as a hobby. At one point he was convince that he would take up professional yo-yoing and tried to track down a Tom Kuhn yo-yo. Not long after that he decided that being a magician was more his speed and started practicing card tricks. He is always interested in something and everything all at once.

I am keenly interested in growing as much food as I can for my family. Right now I have a garden in the back yard that is about 20 feet by 20 feet. In addition to this I have replace some of the landscaping around the house with edible fruiting plants. We also have a couple of large strawberry beds, grape vine, blueberry bushes, and a young peach tree. This summer I am going to be plant Jerusalem artichokes, multiplier onions, and several new blueberry bushes. Tonight I picked up a book at the library about creating an edible front yard. I have yet to look it over but I am sure it will give me tons of new ideas.

Tonight we are taking the children to the library. This is a real treat for them because they love to read. I find the library to be an interesting place to observe people. There is always an eclectic mix of people at the library. The last time I was there someone came up to me and asked if I knew where to buy cigars in town. Apparently this person was from out of town and hoped I might have insight on this topic. Sadly, I did not but it was a pleasant conversation nonetheless. When I was a kid the library was the place to hang out after school. I don’t really see that today but times are obviously different. We live in a very small town but it isn’t small enough for teenagers to want to hang out at the library. Then again we didn’t have cell phones and the internet when I was a teenager. Today, you just never know who you will meet or run into at our small town library.

Just for kicks I decided to try on a pair of jeans I have not worn in two years today. I suspected that I have lost weight but since starting to eat a Paleo diet but have no idea how much. The jeans slipped right on without a bit of trouble. This gives me some idea of where the scale might stand today. I decided after the first month of eating Paleo that I would no longer be a slave to the scale. I have not stepped on the scale since November. My belief is that eating right and exercising daily are more important than what the scale says. When the scale doesn’t move I feel defeated and I am more prone to binge. By not weighing myself I just keep moving forward and let my clothes be the telltale sign of whether I have lost weight. Right now all indications are telling me positive things about what the scale would say.

It occurred to me this weekend that my husband and I could be considered middle aged. In reality neither of us feels like we are at the half-way point in our lives. Nothing has occurred to make me feel older or like I might be facing a midlife crisis at any point in the future. My husband hasn’t started riding a motorcycle and isn’t asking for advice on which motorcycle gps to buy. The reason I started thinking about our ages was all because of a magazine article I read that discussed people in their 40′s and referred to them as middle aged. Honestly, I might feel different if my children were older but it is hard to feel middle aged with a five year old in the house. They say you are only as old as you feel and I feel about 29 right now. That could change when my older son become a teenage at the end of the year.

This morning was the first day of school for our children after their winter break. It was rather funny getting them up this morning. Typically they are up really early and there is no need to wake them. Today it was as if they had stayed up half the night and went to bed exhausted. The clock hit 9:00 am and they were both still sound asleep. I kind of envy their ability to sleep so deeply. It would take a foam mattress and black out shades for me to sleep as well as they do. I almost think that subconsciously they did not want to start school again and used sleeping to avoid it. We ended up keeping our school day pretty simple in an effort to ease back into our home schooling routine.

This is the time of year when my mailbox starts to fill with seed magazines. I absolutely love spending time reading about all the options available on the market for me to grow. Many of the catalogs are so artistically created that they are worthy of a coffee table collection. My list of seeds to order for the upcoming gardening season is almost complete. Today I placed an order for four new blueberry bushes that I have been wanting. My husband gave the go ahead to order them and that was all it took. The time between now and May can’t come quickly enough for me because I already have the gardening “itch”.

My children were absolutely spoiled rotten again this holiday season. Each year I swear that I am not going to go crazy buying them stuff and I didn’t. Somehow the other important people in there lives seem to make up for my effort to keep things controlled and buy for them with abandon. My in-laws came to our house this Christmas and I swear they bought everything imaginable for our children. All the kids need to do is hint to their grandparents that they would like something and they buy it for them. Honestly, they could ask for Luminox navy seal watches and there is no doubt in my mind they would get them. I love that they love our children so much and want to fulfill their every wish but wish they were a little less lavish with their gift giving. I secretly believe it is good for children to want for some things because this eventually gives you the drive to earn things for yourself.

My family is comprised of a bunch of good people who would do anything for one another. We are not particularly verbal about our feelings for one another but we are always there for each other. The one thing that drives me crazy about my family is that they have no respect for illness and how disease is transmitted. It never fails but that one of them gets sick and still shows up at my door. Over Christmas my father was very sick with the flu. We ended up celebrating Christmas at my house instead of my parents. My Mom didn’t tell me she had been feeling ill along with my Dad and came to celebrate. Needless to say the kids and I have been violently sick with the flu for the last 4 days. My younger brother wanted to stay with us during his trip home despite me urging him to stay with our older brother because we are all so sick. He declined to follow my guidance and insisted he wouldn’t catch our illness. I just don’t understand them sometimes. It is like they refuse to admit that cold and flu are spread via germs in the air and on surfaces….

When my family exchanges Christmas gifts we always ask for very specific things. Typically we agree on a spending limit and then make a list of items within that price range we would like. For example my brother put welding gloves, welding rods, and tools on his list. This makes it very easy to buy for him. This year is the first year that his new bride has been part of our gift exchange. She was quite confused by our method of drawing names and exchanging lists and put very vague things on her list. Unfortunately, I drew her name and am stumped as to what to buy her. Her list contained beauty products and books. I don’t really know her well and have no idea what beauty products would interest her or what genre of books she would like.

It is funny how you get used to thinking of your spouse as the picture of health and it seems impossible for that to change. This week my husband has some routine blood work come back abnormal and his doctor wants him to come in for a visit. My husband is a man who eats well, exercises, and makes good health choices. This makes him having abnormal blood work a bit worrisome. The nurse at his doctor’s office was vague as to what labs were abnormal and why his doctor wants to see him. My husband has been feeling run down but has been attributing this to his stressful job. My hope is that whatever the issue is that it will be minor and treatable.

Typically by the time December is almost over we have had a significant amount of snowfall in our area. For some reason the winter season thus far has been surprisingly mild. I know there is a great deal of winter to come but I like what we have had so far. I am not worrying about motorhome insurance for our camper which is nice. Usually we have so much snow that I worry about the weight of it on our camper as it sits out in the elements. We have debated about storing our camper somewhere inside but last year several buildings around here collapsed from the snow. It seems like you are taking a chance storing a camper outside or inside in our area. Hopefully, our winter remains mild and I don’t have to worry this season as I have in the past.

I have not been eating grains for about two months and have been feeling absolutely awesome. This afternoon I went about my normal holiday baking because my children count on it every year. While baking I decided to taste taste a great deal of what I was making. I REALLY wish that I had not because my body clearly does not appreciate the influx of sugar and wheat. My head is throbbing and I feel sick to my stomach. I have not had such a strong reaction to something in quite a while. I feel that this is pretty strong evidence that in my case giving up grains is a very good choice. My headache is on par with migraines I have had in the past and it came seemingly out of nowhere aside from eating grain.

The other night my husband confided to me that he is bored and really needs to find a hobby. The truth is that he simply hasn’t had time to invest in himself and he really needs to. We discussed a couple of ideas he had about things he might like to pursue. One thing that surprised me was an interest in learning to play guitar. I have never heard him mention playing guitar before. It interested me to know that he had been researching the topic and has his eye on something from the Gibson Les Paul Studio. I am fully supportive of him pursuing a hobby and think that learning to play guitar would be great. I have always found people who play guitar intriguing for some reason. Maybe if my husband were to take up playing it would encourage our older son to try playing again. He took lessons for a while but became frustrated and quit. I would love to see them learn to play together.

We have our Christmas tree up and our house is decorated. This is a historic moment because we typically wait until much later. Our presents are also all purchased and wrapped. There is only one thing that remains on our list to buy and that is a gift for my father-in-law. In the twenty years I have been married to my husband we have always struggled to find a gift for his father. His father has everything imaginable and wants for nothing. Normal people will make lists of things they need like pc to tv cables, kitchen gadgets, or clothing but not my father-in-law. When you ask what he wants he says “nothing”. It is so frustrating because if we don’t work to find him a gift it implies to him that we don’t care. We really do care but we simply have no idea what he would appreciate. At least we still have 20 days to try to come up with something.

My eating style requires me to partake of great amounts of protein. There are times when I find this very hard because I have never been a huge meat eater. This week I discovered that I could eat lots of my homemade jerky and fulfill some of this protein requirement. This has made things somewhat easier. I am also going to start incorporating protein shakes into my diet. I have tried not to do this because I believe it is better to eat than drink your food but I have to switch things up a bit. I need to up my protein intake and can’t stomach more eggs than I am already eating in addition to the meat that I eat. I know that hardcore paleo people don’t consider protein powder part of the lifestyle but I feel it needs to be livable. For me protein powder is livable.

This will be the first Christmas in a long time that my husband and I have indulged ourselves in gift giving to each other. Typically we don’t buy each other gifts and focus on the children. This year we are spending money on each other as well as the children. We will be focusing on useful gifts that we need like a new utility knife for my husband and a pull-up bar. He is going to be giving me an e-reader and slippers. We are getting some other things that have worn out in our house replaced as part of our holiday gift giving to each other. We will be the new owner’s of a high-efficiency washing machine in the coming weeks. These gifts are exciting to us because it has been a long time since we made any major purchases. I am just glad that we were able to do so without using credit cards or a line of credit. We have saved for the washer for a while and it feels good to buy it outright.

We have officially been eating Primal/Paleo foods for a month. I have to say that leaving grains, dairy, and sugar behind has been surprisingly easy. After the first week I really started to feel great. I do get a bit bored with meat, meat, and more meat at times. Tonight I made gluten/grain/dairy/sugar free pancakes simply because I didn’t want meat and vegetables again. The pancakes were made with almond and coconut flour and were amazing. My husband even liked them and he is pretty discriminating about his pancakes. I decided to stop weighing myself and focus on eating clean and exercising. If I loose weight that is great but it is more important to me to just follow the Paleo lifestyle than be obsessed with my weight loss.

This year I am thinking that everyone in my life will be getting practical Christmas gifts. What I mean is something that is truly useful. For example I am going to give a couple of people gift certificates for oil changes. Another person will receive a gift certificate for something similar to cary cleaning services. I think the economy is such that we need to be supporting local businesses more and stimulating our economy in practical everyday ways. By giving people things that they use every day we can accomplish this. It might not be exciting but it is useful and ends up saving the recipient time and money in the long run.

Today we will spend time in the great outdoors raking leaves. The tree in our backyard seems to take forever to drop its leaves and it is finally starting to loose them. Our children look forward to leaf raking with great enthusiasm and today we will finally get to indulge them in this pass time. The reality is that our children love jumping in leaves and raking them is only a means to an end. I don’t really care because raking has to be done and if we can turn it into a fun family activity that is even better. Luckily, the weather is perfect today and we have an exceptionally warm day ahead of us.