That, at least, was my excuse. And it is a partly valid one, at that, but I have also allowed myself to be lazy. I hadn't been eating very well and was more than occasionally forgetting to take my vitamins and so the little bean was leaching what few bits of energy I had stored up and there wasn't enough more to go around. The last weeks have been great, I have been feeling more energised and on top of things (I should also note I started taking Floradix before we left and though I had none while on vacation, before we left I was definitely feeling the difference. Yay iron!) I attribute this change to, among other things, eating good food at home. Having to put the time into planning meals and then the effort of cooking them gave me more time to really think about what was going into my body. This is in direct opposition to our last week of fast-foods and take out.
I know we could have found good, healthy foods, but really, with a two-year old and a pregnant woman - speed trumps quality nearly every time. In an unfamiliar locale we were naturally drawn to the things we "knew" primarily fast food and family chains. On our last day we threw vegetarianism to the wind and ordered a chicken club for lunch, with chicken tenders for boo (neither meal was finished) and then for dinner all three of us had "dog food tacos" at Taco Bell. It was like hitting rock-bottom, laughing at the absurdity of it all the way down.
On the drive home I made up my mind to return to home cooking with a real gusto. Full of doubts and excuses I have not fully applied myself to this endeavour in the past, this time will be different, not to save money (good, but not motivation enough), not to eat healthier (we can find hoards of healthy take out within ten blocks) but because we're a family and families eat home-cooked meals together nearly every night. Because cooking is fun and therapeutic for me, because cooking means cleaning up afterwards, because my food is better than most of what we get when we eat out, because this way Sebastian, Andrew and I will get a chance to connect nightly and fall into a real routine. Because in a few short months our lives will be turned upside down again and a routine firmly in place will be easier to fall back into once the dust settles.
Because money is tight, it still makes the most sense to go shopping one or two times a week, to facilitate this I have made a meal plan that relies heavily on fresh veggies early in the week and storable veggies later in the week. We should get through only needing to buy salad fixings mid-week.
Our meal plan* (totally yoinked from mrs. hogaboom):
*also on the calendar at the bottom of the page (though I have to go through and make bits public before you can see it).
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