Cereality is merely an illusion

After a rough night, Will woke up feeling worse today, poor guy :-(  And when I picked up my camera to start shooting my breakfast, it wasn't working!  After some fiddling I determined that it's the auto-focus that is misbehaving, and I managed to figure out how to work around it (without having to manually focus every picture myself!).  I blame the trip to the floor my poor camera took yesterday thanks to Charlotte.  It's upsetting though :-(

Breakfast, however, was not upsetting even though the pumpkin in my fridge that I was looking forward to adding to my oatmeal was funky-smelling and had to be tossed.  As luck would have it though, I had a spare sweet potato sitting around so I threw that in the pot with my oats instead.  It was just as yummy as I had hoped, although higher in calories and carbs.  Some apples and raisins completed my "vision".  

I had my first bowl of pumpkin apple raisin oatmeal at Cereality in Chicago, and that's what I was trying to replicate today (minus the delicious streusel topping and maple syrup drizzle the original bowl was covered with).  Cereality was one awesome place, but it would appear they are pretty much all closed down now :-(  Its absence is sorely felt whenever I visit Chicago these days, but I still remember it fondly when I recreate their bowls of deliciousness in my kitchen.

Plus a scrambled egg with dill + salt

Since I have opted to make Tuesdays my rest days exercise-wise, I had a free(ish) morning today.  I thought about what errands Charlotte and I could run while Emily was at preschool, and decided that instead of going somewhere to inevitably spend money I could just go home, make myself some coffee, pack some lunches and clean up a bit.  It was nice to be able to take my time putting my salad together instead of just haphazardly tossing things into the bowl during the 45 minutes we have at home for lunch between preschool and dance class.  Today it was pumpkin seeds, Irish farmhouse blue cheese, juice-sweetened dried cranberries and pretty much every veggie I could find that would taste good in salad form.

You can't really see anything but kale and cucumbers, but here is my salad

And strangely enough, although I was home all morning I didn't feel the urge to snack, and I didn't even have my traditional daily Babybel light (gasp!).  I actually enjoyed eating lots of veggies today...I guess it takes about a week of clean eating for me to actually start LIVING it.  

I've thought a lot about my food/emotion/organization link lately; how when I lose control of my eating I tend to lose control of everything else at the same time (my house falls apart, I stop blogging etc.).  I hate blogging when I'm not eating well...who wants to type (or read) "I ate like crap today and gained weight...I'll try again tomorrow" every day?  Forcing myself to blog every day is easier than straight-up forcing myself to stay in control of my eating though, however when I'm blogging every day I tend to eat better too.  When I eat better I feel better, and have a lot more motivation and energy to get things done.  So perhaps for now the most important piece of the puzzle is making sure I blog every day?   That may not be the best news for my 10 or so readers (I don't always have much to say, and even more rarely is what I have to say actually interesting), but its something I can usually do pretty easily that helps me a lot.

That's enough pontificating for today.  On to my afternoon smoothie, which was REALLY yummy.  

nonfat plain greek yogurt, skim milk, frozen strawberry/blueberry/blackberry/cherry mix, spinach, 1/2 banana, and some flax seeds

 This smoothie held my hunger off nicely until right before dinner time.  Luckily by then I had these roasted kale chips made so I snacked on them to tide me over.  I am still not nearly as proficient at making these as my dad is...I need to ask him his secret.

Kale + cooking spray and spike seasoning

 I had a pork loin from Common Market sitting in my fridge that needed to be used, plus a ton of couscous crowding up my pantry, so I Googled "Pork loin couscous" and happened to have all the ingredients for the second recipe that came up, save for the feta cheese which I didn't think was necessary anyway.  It was quite delicious!

It was enjoyed on the back porch of course, with my husband, an Emily wearing a Cinderella ballgown and a Charlotte who likes to stand in her playsink instead of sitting on a chair for dinner.

I completely forgot the onions I had laid under the pork loin during cooking until I went to wash the dishes after dinner!  They were still quite tasty cold though.

After dinner we hosted an impromptu preschool party.  We have a 6 year old girl living across the street to our left and a 5.5 year old boy living across the street to our right and we ended up with both of them over at our house this evening.  We added our own 4 year old, a 2 year old and a moon bounce and it was loud and fun and crazy.  There was only once instance of pairing off/ganging up, which I guess is unavoidable if you have more than 2 kids together.  I think every mother wants her house to be "the house" where her kids' friends like to gather, but that house is usually the one with the best (i.e. junk) food.  It's nice to know that for now the moon bounce makes up for my lack of acceptable snacks (I only offer the weird healthy stuff).  We might have to put in a pool to keep the kids here through their teenage years.*

My dessert was a small-plate tasting selection of grain-sweetened chocolate chips and pumpkin spice chickpeas, made from the recipe in Mama Pea's cookbook.

I have been feeling bad recently that I've been depending more and more on processed snacks for the girls so I plan to try out some more homemade things in the next couple weeks.  Charlotte loves chickpeas so these were a hit with her, but Emily spit hers out :-(  I'd love to be able to find some things both girls will reliably eat.  Even better if it's something kids who are  used to "normal" snacks will also eat.

Because I don't want to have to give up my already at-a-premium backyard space for a pool.

*My friend's mom actually did this when I was in elementary school and as a pre-teen I thought it sounded like a really crazy and super-controlling reason to put in a pool.  Now I totally understand.

**Since I post what I eat every day anyway, I decided to link up to Peas and Crayons' What I Ate Wednesday!  Hopefully I have enough greenage in my day to qualify :-)