Did I Say Detox?

Was it the post-holiday sugar rush? Because really, the last thing I want to do right now is not eat.


So yesterday went wonderfully...the smoothies, the tea, the soup (recipe to follow) and the 1-1/2 slices of pizza that were left uneaten on the counter after dinner. What?? How did that sneak in there??


Remember, I'm no Gandhi.


So today, I was off to another great start until I had a few crackers ONLY BECAUSE I felt compelled to finish the last of the crab dip before it went bad. It was my sacrifice in the name of a clean refrigerator.


Anyway, on to the issue at hand, which is cleaning that stuff OUT of my body.


Here is the vegetable potage I've been working on. It's really a soup made up of anything you have. There are no rules, and there's a lot of room for individual taste (or lack thereof).


Here's what you do:


Take a big pot and fill it 2/3 - 3/4 of the way with water. Bring it to a boil.


Throw in whole organic vegetables. Unless, of course, you arrive at your town's co-op ten minutes after they've locked up for the night, thus confirming to the little voice in your head that a cleansing fast is a really lousy idea anyway, and marched yourself over to the Econofoods where chemicals in your vegetables equals good enough.


I used red potatoes, brocolli, leeks, garlic, and carrots. Don't peel the potatoes or chop things up (unless they don't fit in the pot) or anything fancy like that. We want all of the vitamins and fiber to stay put.


You don't even need to clear away the mac'n'cheese pot from the kids' lunch feast. See how easy this is?




Let these things simmer for a couple of hours, until the liquid has reduced.


Then, let it cool a bit and blend or food-process it in small batches until it's smooth. Put the new smooth soup back in the pot and add some seasonings if you don't like gruel. I put a bunch of cayenne pepper in mine, which adds no flavor but lots of heat.


That's it. Health in a bowl. Sorry, no magical pink color changes to this one.

That would be gross, don't you think?

And Now the Fun Begins

I don't know about you, but my holidays were filled with a lot of this:

washed down with this:

So I've decided it's time to detox and get my poor body back to normal.

For the next two days I'll be doing a liquid-detox-fast-sort-of-thing, and will share the joys and the recipes here with you. Aren't you happy to be one of my two readers?

I will only be consuming four things each day: Green Smoothies, Vegetable Potage, tea, and water. I'm not restrictive as to how much of these things I eat. I'm no Gandhi, people. I just want to flush all of the sugar and other junk out of my body.

First up, the Green Smoothies. These things are part of our weekly lives. The kids LOVE them, and we try to make them as often as we can because they're packed with green veggies and fruits and they taste great. Really. Would I lie to you?

Here's what you do:

Pull out your trusty old blender and fill it with about 2 cups of water.

Add a good fistful or two of fresh spinach leaves. Lots of them.


Then add a good fistful of kale. Kale is a vegetable that is loaded with great vitamins, but is so tough and waxy that it's not very enjoyable in its raw state. You, however, will never even know it's in this smoothie once we get done with it.


This is what it looks like:








Blend the water and the greens until they're smooth. Don't worry, we're not done.






Now we add the stuff that makes it yummy: two apples and one or two bananas, and a bag of frozen blackberries or raspberries. Peel the bananas and slice the apples (leave the skins on) and throw them into the blender. But save the berries for later.


During this step, I add a secret ingredient I like to call "flax oil" because it's real name is "flax oil." Pour a little in the blender...maybe 2 tablespoons.



Here's what we've got:

And, with a little help from our friend electricity, here's what we get when we push the buttons:

Now, I can hear you all out there saying, "WHAT? Your kids drink something that is green and lumpy and contains no sugar??" And I say, "yes" because here, my friends, is where the magic happens:

Add the frozen berries. I don't care how many you use, just use them. 1 cup? 1/2 cup? The more the better.

Once you do this, something magical transpires. The whole smoothie turns a beautiful pinky purple color, and the crowds go wild!

Et voila...a smoothie made of nothing but water, fruit, veggies and a little flax oil for good measure. Health in a glass!

I know, I know, your mouths are watering and you're making big plans to go out and buy all of these healthy, wonderful ingredients. But should you still be looking at that picture of blended greens and doubting my claims that this tastes great, I have this story for you.

Ben, who is the world's foremost sweet tooth, who cannot imagine why cookies, candy and ice cream are not a complete meal, came upstairs just now and asked me to make him one of these smoothies. I told him that I was busy on the computer, but that there was a whole plate of Christmas goodies sitting on the table and he could have some of those.

He turned around and stomped away, right past the goodies, and told me he would wait until I was done on the computer.

Now THAT is proof.

I Never Did Pass Out

We had quite an adventure last night.

As Ben was getting into his loft bed, his foot slipped and he fell backwards and hit his head on the radiator.

Now friends, I have always been able to pull it together in their times of need. I can always count on myself to put my squeamishness aside and get my babies the help they need.

But not this time. No sir.

Seeing that amount of blood coming out of my sweet little Ben's head, and hearing the word "radiator" froze me on the spot.

Eric saved the day, grabbing a towel to stop the bleeding, telling me to get him a sweatshirt, and making the obvious decision to go to the hospital. I couldn't have done these things at that moment...I'd lost my marbles.

Eric assured Ben that no, he wasn't going to die. He got us all in the car and even thought to grab an ice pack to add to the blood-soaked towel. He told me to drive (because I clearly couldn't even figure that out on my own) and calmed Ben down with stories the whole way there.

I don't know what happened to my mind. It was completely blank, and I think it was overwhelmed with panic. There was a little voice that kept saying, "heads bleed a lot...this isn't as bad as it looks..."

And it wasn't. It was a clean, straight cut that was put back together with three staples. (And can I just say that seeing someone stapling my little Ben's head together ranks right up there with the top three things I hope never to see again?)

He woke up today SO excited to tell his friends about his adventure and his injury, so he is completely fine.

I, on the other hand, am busy fashioning a permanent helmet for him.

A Long Christmas Story With Many Pictures

We didn't send out a Christmas card/picture this year because Eric and I were recruited by Santa to do his dirty work.

This assignment included a complete re-do of our basement so that it could be made into a gameroom for two little boys who were going to receive some big gameroom elements for Christmas.

We toiled night after night through most of December, painting, rebuilding tables, going through boxes that hadn't been gone through since we'd moved, hanging things up, taking things down. All while conducting our other life activities like evening meetings, work, church stuff, basketball, etc. We saw 1:00 a.m. more times than we'd have liked.

You see, Santa had purchased an air hockey/pool table to go in this basement, and had cleverly hidden it in the neighbor's garage.

On the night before Christmas Eve, we trudged through the snow many, many times to retrieve the many, many pieces of the game table.

And, wouldn't you know it, as we heaved the 4,000-pound table top down the stairs, something magical happened.

It got stuck. Wouldn't budge. We strained and we swore, and it would not move.

So we did what any Santa's helpers would do. We broke out the crowbar and hammer, and we knocked a hole in the ceiling and we removed a step. And we cried. And we swore a lot more. Because, you see, in these old houses things are not made to be taken apart. They are made to stay together, like welded iron, for years and years and years. So "taking apart" equals the destroying of important pieces of a home that will probably never be duplicated because, well, they just don't make wood like they used to.

Fortunately, by 1:00 a.m., the table slid down the remaining stairs, past the mangled ceiling, and into its place in the new basement gameroom.

By 1:00 a.m. the next night, we had it all assembled.

And on Christmas morning, after reading the hidden note from Santa, the boys ran downstairs (pausing only momentarily where there are no longer certain steps) and were delighted to find Santa's gift.

It was at this moment that E and I realized what lengths we'd gone to in an effort to preserve the myth of Santa in this house, and to give complete credit for all of the work to someone who doesn't even exist. We felt a little duped. We wondered if the elves feel this way, too.

He's a mythical hero who has exerted a lot of control over our time and our checkbook. He's a tricky guy, that Santa.

We also spent a weekend visiting our Wisconsin grandparents, who have a lot more snow than we do.

As if that wasn't the makings of enough fun, they received a Wii and some new DS games from their grandparents. The joy was palpable. We had a fabulous meal with Grandpa Pat and Carol, helped Grandpa Joe with some snow removal, and cozied up in the new sweaters that Grandma Anna knit for us.

On Christmas day, the Minnesota and Canada contingent of relatives came over to our house and initiated the Wii and the air hockey table. Aunts, Uncles, Grandmas, Parents and Kids all gamed the day away, while pausing intermittently for huge meals and sugary snacks.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Well, we didn't have time this year to do a Christmas photo, which is really disappointing because it is always so much fun to get everyone dressed and then make them smile and not fight and not look away and not pick their noses.

So instead I pulled out one of my favorite Christmas pictures from years gone by (four? five?). It was a beautiful October day, and we were at the arboretum taking pictures. Many pictures, as you can tell if you look closely at our tired-of-smiling faces. Eric isn't even pretending anymore.

Anyway, it's fun to see how cute those little boys were and remember what a beautiful day it was. This was taken with my old SLR, way before we had digital capabilities in our family. So the scanned image is not as rich in color or sharp in detail as the original, but you get the idea.

The series of photos from that day also include some of the boys throwing leaves up into the air, and being overcome with giggles and joy at that small act. Remember when they did that? Now this complete joy comes around less frequently. So it's good to revisit it once in a while.

Merry (belated) Christmas to you!

They'll Never Put Me In Charge Again

Dear Grandparents,

I tried, I really, really did. But I'm guessing that after this one, you're going to wonder why you trust me with the all-important task of documenting of the lives of the young ones.

It all started out well. We arrived at Theo's band concert really early because that's the way Theo likes to do things. We sat ourselves in the third row, with unobstructed views. Until the seats filled in with the tallest people in town.

With my spare time, I was able to document this fancy hairdo that sat down right in front of us. I needed to document it because I haven't seen something so bleached and permed and curled and hair-sprayed for a good 20 years. This perplexing mixture of chemicals blocked my entire view of the orchestra. But that's okay...Theo's in the band, which was located to the left of this wall o' blonde.

This is where you, dear Grandparents, will decide to move in with us and take charge once and for all of recording the events in your progenys' lives. Not only did I seat us in the third row, which was WAY too far away, but I also magnetically attracted tall people to sit in front of us and move their heads back and forth, blocking my recording attempts. I also magically chose seats that placed the band director squarely between me and the band star, blocking all but the occasionaly glimpse of his left ear.

(Note: I couldn't load this video, but just picture a band director's back, Theo's left ear, and a lady's head moving back and forth to cover most of it up.)

And now for the real reason you'll want to revoke my parenting license. As I was happily recording song #2, the camera shut down, blinking, "memory card full" just as Theo was standing up to do his SOLO.

His memorized, beautifully performed solo.

Yeah.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the camera had been filled up with photos of one of Ben's school projects. Taken from every angle. 35 angles, to be exact. And then some pictures of the floor and of Sam's paw and of the wall and of the window. The work of a particular nine year-old.

So, from now on I vow to elbow my way to the front row of every fifth grade band concert, stand up in the middle of performances to see over tall people, ask the band director to please step aside, and check the memory of the camera card beforehand. I'll take my job very seriously.

I have a feeling Theo's going to have me banned from all school functions.

Zoiks!

Hey...What's That on the Court?

Faster than my fastest shutter speed!

Able to fend off red-shirted guys with a single arm!

It's a boy!

It's a basketball star!

It's SuperTheo!!

Dog Philosophy

The hardest part about being Sam is that the dog park, the loved and longed-for dog park, is only a block away from the vet's office.

When we get in the car he's always SURE that we're going to the dog park. He starts shaking and whining with anticipation. He just KNOWS that a good time is coming.

But lately, we've been having to drive right past the park and continue on to the vet. His head turns in disbelief and he strains to watch the dog park entrance pass him by.

Dogs just don't get this western medicine thing. Seems to them that a good tennis-ball-chasing, ground-sniffing, mud-rolling time is all it takes to make a guy feel better. Why all the poking and weighing and pills and tests?

Maybe they're on to something...

Ta da!

Today was a big day at our house.

Do you notice anything missing from this photo?

That's right...$1,500 worth of metal orthodonture. Gone.

Candy shops, consider yourselves warned.

Who Allowed December to Start?

Well, now that my thirty days are over, I hardly know what to write about!

We had an excellent Thanksgiving, hosted by my sister. Great food, no turkey, fun games, good company.

Ben, my mom and I are all sick with different things, which we are hoping we didn't pass along to Eric's mom, who is scheduled to have surgery on her shoulder this week.

Now we're back to school and work and craziness. I have been hiding out, hoping to discourage the flocks of fans who have surrounded our house since my article in Saturday's paper.

Okay, not really. But I have gotten three calls from people who thanked me for writing it, and an email from a client saying he read it and thinks that the community benefitted from it. That's as close to a fan base as I'll ever get. Wahoo!

December promises to be a very busy month for us, with work and kids' activities and Christmas happenings. As if that's not enough, we're considering remodeling the kitchen in December, too.

Oy vey!

Happy December to you.