Doing the Mom Thing Right

You guys. I almost named this blog Old Mom and then I was like NO. Just no.

Where do I even start with this school year? My 3 kids have started at 2 new schools. In the space of a week, we went from the recently disdained Summer Freedom to new schools with mommy driving everyone, everyday. We started Bible study, volleyball for Elsa, city league volleyball for me, soccer and basketball for Josh, also I thought maybe I would repaint the interior of my house. Also I run a business from home. Also I am crazy.

Side note, but I am getting a solid C- in the first month of school. We've lost library books, we've lost permission slips, mommy can't volunteer in class because of forgotten applications, I keep showing up to pick up Elsa from volleyball practice at 4:30 and then realize it ends at 5. On Wednesday I forgot my BABY GIRL had early release at 1:30 and I showed up to school at 2 and found her waiting for me in the office. Forget Mom of the Year at this point. I just hope they don't stop allowing Amelia to get milk at lunch because I still haven't given the school any money.

 We decided to put my baby into Kindergarten even though she qualified by age by exactly 1 day. She's the youngest possible kindergartener, and she's in full day school.  I did not properly prepare myself for this transition, and my brain keeps telling me that it's hard because I needed exactly ONE ENTIRE YEAR of preschool to note all the sweet lasts. Last year of the pumpkin patch field trip, last year of bringing snack to share, last year home with mommy. But then, preschool ended.  And the idea of my not exactly genius, but somewhat bright little girl going to back to baby school seemed really silly. She is the boss of that class and she told them so. It's over for us having a cubby with a change of clothes in case of an accident. She knows all the preschool things, and lots of other stuff too, like how to get adults to talk to her and how everyone thinks it's cute when she brags about herself. Heaven help us.

So, without the proper goodbye to her babyhood, this September arrived and with it, the long awaited day. All three kids in school. All day long. I don't want to sound like a bad mom or anything, but I've been anticipating this since 2003, when I had a baby pretty young and was sitting on the couch nursing 94 hours a day and crying for my lost life of freedom. I just don't think most people fully understand how different kids make your life until you have one sweetly squalling in your arms and the responsibility falls like a heavy blanket, but does not include sleep. The buck stops with you. Never before have you been fully responsible for a person, a human being!

So anyway, I've made all kinds of promises to myself in the difficult moments of parenting over the last 13 years. Things like "I will enjoy myself! Go out to lunch with girlfriends! Actually attend Bible study!" But most of all "I WILL NOT BE SAD."  And here's the thing... I am. A little bit. It's not overwhelming, and I've been enjoying the school hours ok, it's just that I have come to a new realization about this freedom. First of all, it's a bit of a facade, because I have all the responsibilities of 3 kids in school and running a household and a business and sports schedules and meal prep.

But also. I am SO BUSY during the morning rush, the afternoon pickups, practices, and petitions, that it really highlights that in the middle of it, I am alone.

It just hit me that all of this parenting and child raising and effort and busy life is for the purpose of launching these crazies out into the world and making me more and more alone. And I hate being alone! Can't we arrange something where we gradually introduce roommates as the children move out? You know, fun people who don't hate my cooking and do their own laundry? It could be a bit of an upgrade if I play it right.

So in summary: I probably should make some effort toward personal growth through this season of transition. I am good with kids being in school. SO GOOD. I allow moments of sentimentality occasionally and then I move swiftly back into the moment. The right now, the TODAY that is happening. I am feeling my creative juices (the ones that result in playing pranks on my father in law) starting to flow again. It's ok if you are impressed with how totally Zen I am, because I am going to find myself and the things and people I enjoy during these precious daytime hours. I will go to spin class and I will coach my clients, and I will redecorate. (Honey??)

And these kids will grow and I will enjoy it. And my house will sometimes be quiet and I will enjoy it. And I will hire a cleaning lady because shouldn't the house be cleaner if only I am here all day?

And then the house will be clean and I will enjoy it. And I will drive to the beach if it's going to be sunny and I will enjoy it. And I will have time to be there for my friends and make new ones too and I will enjoy it. And I will read all the books. And I will write. And I will send actual letters to people I love and I will enjoy it. And I will.

On Finding Your People and Saying Goodbye

Ok, so there's a lot of talk out there about us girls finding our tribe, how important your girlfriends are as we get older, and sticking with the people that love us as we are.

Here's what I'm navigating right now: what if I found my people, I have a tribe, and one of them is moving away?

Seriously, I'm getting a little PTSD from when things are supposedly running smoothly in life. The other foot is about to drop. Even though change is such a natural part of life, it just doesn't jive with  me. It wasn't my idea and therefore my selfish heart wants to reject and put air quotes around these "new ideas."

So here's my perspective. I've never been the leaver, I've only been left. I have had a succession of wonderful friends move away and it just never gets easier. Here's what I wish I could say. And by say I mean I wish I could sky write this. I wish I could spray paint this on their driveway. I wish I could glue this message in Scrabble tiles to the hood of their car.

1. Please don't go.

2. I know I have to be a grown up and I have to watch you drive away and adjust to a new normal without your face or your influence, but it is NEVER the same. I will never wake up and say, I used to have Emily, but now I have my new friend Amy so I don't miss Em any more. I will always miss her. Friends are not replaceable. Sure I will continue to make friends, but nobody ever fills the hole you left.

3. It is a big goodbye. We can visit and we will have girls' weekends and send Christmas cards and stuff, but there's something to be said for running into each other at the gym, and scheduling last minute coffee dates, and borrowing each other's clothes. And making faces at each other in church.

4. We as adults have the resources and ability to stay in contact, but our children, who love each other as much as we do, do not. They will inevitably grow apart and this really messes with my visions of the future.

5. Please don't go. I will visit you if you leave, but please don't go.

The bottom line is that I am up close and personal with the inevitable heartbreak that comes along with loving people. I am trying, most of the time, to be an adult about it but the STRUGGLE IS REAL on this one. I just don't wanna. I am working on becoming a grown up person that can hold friends in my heart and love them from afar if needed. It's so hard and surprising and sad and most days feels like a gut punch. I walk around feeling this awful vague "something is wrong" feeling and then I remember and it hits me all over again. I hate it.

The absolute worst thing about being a fast processor is that my wheels are just spinning through all the arguments, all the possible outcomes, wondering how long it is before the friendship wanes, censoring all of the things I want to say, especially in regard to the future. I can't turn it off. I'm just sad and I can't shake it.

Call me crazy but I thought there was an Earthquake Warning today...

May the Good Lord have mercy on me for all the ridiculous things I said and did this morning. And may He have mercy on you too, for all the laughing you are about to do. At my expense.

It started out as such a nice morning. I slept in, and my oldest daughter, who is starting to understand The Way Things Ought to Be, brought me breakfast in bed, bless her. I'll leave her half my kingdom.
Anyway, I was sitting in bed, reading my Facebook newsfeed when a few of my "FB friends," who are no longer friends of mine, posted an article from Eugene Daily News, a reasonably real sounding site about how the Juan de Fuca plate in the Pacific ocean off the Oregon coast had sunk 4 feet in the early morning hours of TODAY. It cited a buoy number 46404 with the National Buoy Data Service that had been recording and relaying this information. For those of you who have followed the potential Big One in Oregon, you know that slippage of tectonic plates along the Cascadia Subduction Zone will be a very bad thing for the Northwest.

Hear me now friends, I had not yet had any coffee. I heard these words and phrases: Oregon Earthquake Warning, Tectonic Plates Moving, Earthquake Imminent, Tsunami Imminent.

I panicked a little bit, and then told myself to be reasonable. What could I do to prepare? Nothing has happened yet. With the Lord as my witness, I truly thought that since I hadn't washed my hair in a few days, a very pressing matter should we experience a 9.0 earthquake here in Western Oregon would be the cleanliness of my hair. I hopped in the shower and wondered if the quake might hit before I got my shampoo rinsed. Would I lose water immediately? Wait, was that a little tremor? Is it starting? No. False alarm. I finished my shower, plugged in my cell phone, found my husband's crank radio and decided that the people I love needed to hear about this. Maybe my husband should head home. He didn't answer his phone. My next move may haunt me for a while. I carefully composed a text to him.

It said, "There is an earthquake warning off the Oregon coast today. The Juan de Fuca tectonic plate (along the Cascadia Subduction Zone) dropped over 4 feet in a matter of hours this morning between 2:30-6:00 am. There is a buoy that measures the water column and sends info to shore and the change is dramatic. A change of inches would be news and entire square miles of the ocean floor dropped four feet in about four hours. I am freaking out."

There. Just the facts. Because I love him and we need to protect our children together. But then I had the thought...what about the other people I love? I should probably relay this important life-saving information to my mom. And my dad. Well, probably my brothers for sure.  And my neighbor, because she's awesome and we'll be in this survival business together once everything starts. So, ok fine. I sent it to a couple people. A few. BECAUSE I LOVE THEM.

Now that my hair was clean, my family was warned, it was time for preparation. I put a little product in my hair (because who knew when I might be able to blow dry it again?) and started making a mental list. I also googled Oregon Earthquake Warning and found, well, not a whole lot. I will with shame admit to you that I considered that I might be on the early warning side of this disaster and that the major news outlets would follow my lead soon.

Just as I was thinking of how I might prepare for this tragic day, I began to receive texts in response to my level headed warnings to those I love. The messages said things like "How many people have you sent this to?" "What link are you reading?" and my favorite "How come I haven't seen anything about this on the news?" And just like that, the tide turned. Not because of tectonic plates either.

Because I am thorough and responsible (CLEARLY) I looked up the National Buoy Data Center, which is a real thing, and referenced buoy number 46404 from the article. It's a real buoy, a few miles off of Astoria, Oregon (a real town.) The readings were normal from today.

So, new public service announcement: nothing big happening with the Cascadia Subduction Zone today. But I might have proven to be a tiny bit gullible, a smidge crazy, with just a touch of alarmist. I'm sorry! I thought it was real. My mind went to the Bad Place and it was only slowly retrieved.

Carry on Oregonians. We can live in this glorious place for another day.

Taking Careful Care of your Extrovert

Over the last couple of years, I have seen a lot of articles about understanding introverts, and as more and more people self-identify and scream to be understood, introverts have become something of a superior, protected class in modern society. A personality hipster, they ironically have permission to demand to be known, while keeping you at a safe distance because they just CAN'T EVEN.

From the extrovert with a capital E: how do I get to know you? How do I know? How do I? How do? How?

Just let me love yoooooooooooooou.

So, without further ado, for those of you frustrated or fascinated by the extroverts in your lives, I present my own guide to the care of your own extrovert.

1.  Human contact is a need for us.  It's not as intense as food or water; it's more like the need for sleep.  We won't necessarily die outright if we don't get it on a regular basis, but we'll be unfocused, unhappy, and emotionally unstable.  If I go too long without human contact, without touch or conversation or genuine interaction, I get mopey.  I may wait around the corner of a dark alley and jump you for a hug. Do you want to have coffee? Breakfast? Lifelong friendship?

Omelet bar anyone?

Other possibilities are the development of social anxiety because we are dependent on being welcome in a social group. Years ago another extrovert friend suggested going to the mall when it started to get bad, and that works somewhat because it's a lot of low-stakes interactions in a short time.  It's like eating fast food when you really want a home-grilled steak, but it keeps the worst of it at bay.

An extrovert with social anxiety is just a broken person. And nobody wants that to happen.

2.  There are fewer of us than you think there are.  Most people are neither clearly extroverted nor introverted, though society works pretty hard to make everyone feel like they're at one extreme or the other.  There's a huge middle range of "I like people pretty well in medium-sized doses," but because the world is hell-bent on quantifying and classifying everyone to make sure they feel as unwelcome as possible, most of those folks in the middle get shoved to one side or the other instead of being allowed to just go on enjoying occasional moderately-sized parties and spending occasional afternoons reading alone in the library.  Just like getting overwhelmed by the holiday shopping crowds doesn't necessarily make you a true introvert, enjoying a large party once in a while doesn't make you a true extrovert. Think Goldilocks. Juuuuuust right.

3.  We need alone time, just much less of it than other people. Just kidding! Hahahaha! I don't think life is very fun alone. Quiet, yes. But alone? Nooooooooooooooo. Can we just sip coffee and read good books in the same room? Please? Do you like British Literature? Because I am thinking I will make a pot of french press Peet's coffee while I read Far from the Madding Crowd, and you can read Pride and Prejudice and every once in a while we will interrupt each other and read the best passages aloud. Because someone needs to know.

4.  By the time an extrovert with any sort of self-awareness reaches adulthood, she understands that 'Social Butterfly' is not a lifestyle for everyone, and that other people do not feel the same way about human contact.  As noted above, people seem to assume that the world is divided into only introverts and extroverts, and what springs from that is an expectation that people who talk to people are all extroverts bent on making everyone else conform to their behavior.  NOT TRUE. We just like you.

5.  Contrary to popular belief, it's not an extrovert-friendly world, and it's becoming less so.  When I am among people, I make eye contact, smile, maybe chat if there's an opportunity (like being stuck in a long grocery store line).  As an extrovert, that's a small boost of energy, a little positive moment in the day.  Now, though, more often than not people don't meet one another's eyes, they don't smile or shake hands, they keep earphones in their ears at all times, avoiding human contact.  Sometimes I look around, and I'm in a wasteland of empty stares and deaf ears.  Even surrounded by people, I can't make any sort of contact or connection, and that's the worst kind of being Alone.

So, let's all seek first to understand, then to be understood. And let's not fall back on our 9 question personality quiz we took on Facebook to determine who we are. Just because you are the most like Disney princess Ariel, your soul is the color blue, your spirit animal is a raccoon, the number of children you should have is 4, your favorite season is autumn, your quiz says you're an introvert and you were voted most likely to be a crazy cat lady in high school, it is still worth it to share yourself with actual human beings. Relationships are all we can truly possess in this world.

Surviving the Big One...

Hi there!

I'm taking a (very) short break from my impending earthquake prepping/paranoia to discuss how very inconvenient this is. You know, not just the paranoia, but also the 30% chance that sometime in the next 50 years, we will all die in the biggest natural disaster North America has ever seen. (Why meeeeeeeee?)

If you have somehow managed to live in blissful ignorance up until now, stop it immediately and read all about it here: in the New Yorker. 

I find this information to be scary, fascinating, disturbing, and unhelpful. Also annoying. Because what is that guy at the New Yorker going to do when this all goes down? Sit back in his cubicle and be all like, I KNEW it.

Here is what would be helpful to me: Warning! Big earthquake coming. If you follow these 10 steps to prepare, you will probably make it. If you follow these 20 steps and purchase these survival items, you will be on the front lines of helping your region recover from the Big One. If you learn to sew pioneer dresses, cook over a fire, basic first aid, and stockpile 5 years worth of food, you will earn the Girl Scout earthquake badge. Better get started now! You will be elected the next mayor of Portland and when they rebuild the parks, you will have one named after you for sure! 

With that kind of a helpful, friendly heads up, I could shop for the items, warn and help my friends, and start campaigning. But NO. 

Instead, I get this: The biggest earthquake since the Northwest was populated is imminent. If you're unfortunate enough to find yourself on the coast, in the inundation zone, you will die. If you are at home, your home will likely be shaken off of its foundation and be uninhabitable. If you find yourself on the wrong side of a river from your family, you may not be able to get to them. If you find yourself in need of medical care, you can just FORGET ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW. If, and it is a very big IF you survive, it is almost certain that you will lose everything.

But on the bright side, if you take this too seriously and plan to move or pay to bolt your house to its foundation, your neighbors and friends will probably make fun of you. Do we have any good choices here??

A few of the thoughts swirling around in my head...

• Today we are 315 years into a 243 year major earthquake cycle. The scientists say there is a 30% chance of the Big One taking place in the next 50 years. As each year passes, do the chances go up? I am bad at math. But if someone could work out for me approximately when we go over a 50% likelihood, that would be great because I will then move to Maui. Can the tsunami get me there?
• Is earthquake insurance a thing? Like if it happens, we survive, and my house is basically totaled, will Safeco pay for my house to be rebuilt? Side note: do I still want to live here if I am waiting months to years for electricity, running water, sewer, and even longer for hospitals to be rebuilt?
• How do I communicate with the world once this occurs (again IF I survive. I feel like we need to establish that basic assumption.) I am thinking maybe like a flag waving system like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry had in Anne of Green Gables?

• If I take the warnings seriously and I TRY to prepare, am I setting myself up to be the laughing stock of my friends? OR, should I anticipate which items will be the most scarce on the obvious post-earthquake black market? I'm thinking stockpiling spam, condoms and triple antibiotic ointment might make me pretty popular with the neighbors, come the apocalypse. (Or, wait. Will we need to repopulate the earth? Maybe not condoms.)

I think the obvious thing here is that we're all going to die. 

If you're still reading, what I mean is that even if we survive the big earthquake it doesn't mean that we won at life and now we're never gonna die. Everyone goes sometime. What if we all lived most of our days like they were pretty darn precious and the people around us were worth loving well? What would that look like? Just something to think about.

But you better believe that I'm stocking up on matches and children's Motrin.  Just in case.

Foster kitties, genius parenting and emotional breakdowns

Have a you ever had a brilliant idea before? You know, like a few years ago just before Easter, I saw a little boy selling bunnies for $10. And I thought to myself, I could have some fun with this.

 So I gave him $10, but told him I would return his bunny on Tuesday after Easter because we couldn't keep one. My kids LOVED it, and I patted myself on the back for being a genius parent. And then that moment was gone.

Sometimes when one has experienced a brief moment of brilliance, like the aforementioned story, this can build a false confidence in one's eye for good ideas.  Good ideas do not necessarily beget more good ideas.  This leads me to our current situation, which is of the feline variety.

It all started very simply. We have been considering getting a cat. My friend Donia posted on Facebook that they have discovered that their sweet kitty turned out to be a loose woman and just like that, we have a kitten on the way. I have a few months to get used to the idea and prepare, so I naturally found myself browsing Craigslist for any smoking deals on cat paraphernalia. What I found instead, was my next great idea: a local shelter is looking for people who would like to foster half grown kittens to help them socialize so they can be adopted before they are full grown, after which their chances of finding a permanent home diminish significantly. Here are some of the things I thought after reading this:

• A two week trial period with a cat, perfect!
• My kids can get used to having a cat around and learn to care for it.
• This kitty needs love and affection, of which we have lots! We can help it.
• There is a sweet orphan kitty out there yearning for us to pet it. She needs us.

I called the shelter, made an appointment, and on Valentine's Day we loaded up the kids for the exciting trip to a meeting at Petco to pick up our foster kitten.  Cindy from the shelter had such a big heart to help the kitties (and us!) that she brought us TWO cats instead of one, and they were brother and sister! How precious. The poor sweet creatures had no names, so my kids named the girl Nosey and the boy Val (short for Valentine.) I'm not going to lie, driving home with our happy kids and two adorable kitties in a carrier in the car, Shane and I gave each other knowing looks across the car, communicating things like "we are the best parents ever" and "we care so much for these down-on-their-luck baby kitties and they might become such a part of our family that we cry when we have to give them back."  Then we got home.

We decided to create a comfortable kitty apartment in our laundry room with a big litter box and baskets with soft blankets for beds. We introduced the cats...and opened the travel carrier door. There was hissing. There was scratching. There was an immediate escape plan that involved the cats lodging themselves behind my dryer. When we peered behind the washing machine, the felines let us know that sticking our hands back there to attempt retrieval was a very bad idea. Someone had to do it, and that someone was Shane, who sustained injuries as a repayment for his kindness. It all came crashing down. We had volunteered to care for FERAL CATS. For two weeks. And this was only day 1.

Day two our expectations changed a bit. We had all pictured cuddling a sweet kitty and now we were reduced to hoping that we could feed the cats without getting hurt. My big kids were disappointed, while Amelia (age 3) remained remarkably upbeat about our new pet situation. In fact she checked on them frequently and felt no need to close the door afterward.

Nosey was found within minutes under Josh's bed, but Val was not. We knew with about 90% certainty that no exterior doors had been opened while they had been roaming free, so we set to searching. Note: when someone else's feral cat is loose in your house, you have to drop all other plans and find it. Now. But we just could not find it. We searched rooms and closets, over and under furniture and closed doors along the way to narrow down the field. But no Val turned up, so then we wondered if we had missed him somewhere and actually shut him into a closet (please God not mine.) Then we searched again, and again. We started saying things to each other like "you don't need to look in there, I just checked that area thoroughly!" But still no cat. I did not think that I could get to sleep that night without knowing where he was. Here is a list of things that I thought as I drifted off to sleep:

• What am I going to tell Cindy? I lost your cat on day 2?
• What if he's in my closet pooping in my shoes?
• Is he watching me right now?
• If we looked everywhere 16 times tonight, what is going to change tomorrow?
• What if I NEVER find the cat and never know what happened?
• Should I lie and tell Cindy that we decided we wanted to keep Val and love him richly for the rest of his natural born days? Would she buy it?
• IS that darn cat capable of attacking my children in their sleep?
• Why oh why oh why did I think this was a good idea?!

As I thought these thoughts, I heard a sound. The cats had not made any sound up to this point, but as she apparently pined for her brother, Nosey began to YOWL like I have never heard before. It sounded much less like a cat and more like sounds coming from the lobotomy table at a haunted house. Painful. Wretched. Loud.

The next day, day 3: I decided to find the humor in it all and called my dad. He shared with me a very helpful story: when he was a kid they had a cat that climbed up so high in a very tall tree that they couldn't get it down and it LIVED UP IN THAT TREE WITH NO FOOD FOR 6 WEEKS!!! They tried to help it but couldn't climb that high to retrieve it or get food up to the poor thing. Moral of the story: I could be wondering for months what had become of Val. Then, as I thought the sort of things that get people committed to mental institutions, I see that cursed cat sneaking across my living room! With no sense of why I should hang up, I gave my Dad the play by play as I guided the cat back up the stairs and into Amelia's room, the only one with the door open. I took my eyes off of him for about .6 seconds to hang up with Dad and then I go to get the cat. But he isn't there. I can't find him. AGAIN.

I left Amelia's door open and the laundry room door open so Val could eat and use the litter box but I still didn't lay eyes on him for a whole day.

Day 4. Help me Ronda, it is time for this to END. Shane discovered Val in the drawer of Amelia's crib, which we still have set up. Josh wants to keep it for his kids. Val's capture and return to our laundry room happened. After scratching, hissing and generally acting like he needed an exorcism, Val and his loving sister have been reunited and in gratitude they tracked Frisky's kitty paté all over my once sparkling laundry room. 

Aspirations to genius parenting have floated off with the wind and I am merely hoping to survive this very unfortunate incident.  You know how foster/adoptive parents sometimes say, "We adopted him hoping to help him and improve his life and instead, he has made ours so much richer than we ever could have imagined"? 

Yeah, this is nothing like that.

Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes

Welcome to your cheat sheet for having a Thanksgiving feast that you will not need to feel guilty about! Recipes, suggestions, and best of all, you'll be fueling your body to feel amazing, rather than bloated (sodium), sluggish (fat), and worst of all STILL HUNGRY (from all the sugar!)

This is how we teach our clients to eat for success. No one needs to wake up and run a marathon to recover from this Thanksgiving meal. Enjoy!

Lean:
• 6 oz. White Turkey (1 Lean Serving)

• Turkey with White Wine Sauce
One 12 Lb Turkey
6 Garlic cloves, crushed
1 c dry white wine
1 c water
1 t dried thyme
1 bay leaf
S&P
2 cups Turkey drippings, fat skimmed off
¼ c Fat-free half and half
1 T cornstarch
Preheat oven to 350F.
Wash and dry the turkey, then season generously with salt and pepper and place in a roasting
pan, breast side down.
Combine garlic, white wine, water, thyme and bay leaf. Pour over the turkey.
Cover with foil and cook 2 ½ hours.
Remove from the oven, flip the turkey over so the breast is now facing up, and place back in
the oven.
Baste every 15 to 30 minutes, until the turkey is done. When done, the thigh will reach an
internal temperature of 180F.
Remove from the oven and let rest for at least 15 minutes.
Remove the skin before carving.
Use 2 cups of the drippings to make a sauce:
Heat drippings in a pan.
Combine half and half with cornstarch in a small bowl, then pour into the drippings.
Season with salt and pepper if needed.
Bring to a light simmer to thicken, then serve over the turkey (use sparingly, as this is
probably the fattiest part of the meal!).
Green:
• Substitute for Yams

½ cup of spaghetti squash is one vegetable serving.
1/2 tablespoon of Smart Balance is a half fat serving
one Splenda packet is one condiment.
• Substitute for Cranberry Relish

1/2 cup sugar free cranberry Jell-O
1/2 Tbsp of whipped topping
Another option for the Jell-O salad-- is to add 3 1/2 pecan halves crushed and mixed into the
Jell-O before chilling it and only use 1/4 Tbsp of whipped topping on top. • Cranberry Jell-O “Sauce”
1 package sugar-free cranberry Jell-O
1 tub fat-free whipped topping
Make Jell-O according to the directions on the package for the firmer Jell-O.
Refrigerate 30 minute to one hour, remove from the fridge.
Fold in the whipped topping so there are still big red chunks inside the pink jell-O.
Return to the fridge and chill until set.
*In my family, this is served with the meal as a “salad,” but it can just as easily be served as
a healthy dessert.

• Creamed Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower
4 cloves garlic
1 can chicken broth
¼ c fat-free half and half
S&P
Chop cauliflower into big chunks.
Put cauliflower, garlic, chicken broth, salt and pepper into a pot and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook 30 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender.
Strain the cauliflower, reserving the liquid, and place into a blender.
Add ¼ c fat-free half and half, and blend slowly.
Add reserved cooking broth to achieve the desired texture.
Season with S&P if needed.
• Garlic Green Beans

 1 Lb green beans, stems removed
 6-10 cloves garlic, minced
 1 T extra virgin olive oil
 S&P
Heat a large non-stick pan to medium high heat.
Add the oil, wait 30 seconds to heat through, then add the garlic and green beans.
Add 2 T water, cover, and simmer 10 minutes.
Remove lid, bring heat back the medium high, and sauté until tender.
Top with lemon zest if desired.
• Roasted Vegetables

 1 T olive oil (or walnut oil)
 2 c Celery, finely chopped
8 oz. Mushrooms, finely chopped
 2 c bell peppers, finely chopped
 1 c zucchini, finely chopped
 1 c broccoli, finely chopped
 ½ head cabbage, cored and chopped
 ¼ c fresh parsley, chopped
 1 t dried sage  1 t dried thyme
 1 t chicken bouillon
 S&P
Heat a large pan to medium heat.
Add oil, wait about a minute to heat through, then add all the vegetables.
Cook for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until the vegetable are golden brown.
Alternatively, you can cook the cabbage in one batch, the zucchini and mushrooms in a
second batch, and the celery, bell peppers, and broccoli in another batch, then combine at the
end if you want each vegetable to maintain its texture. But that way is more time-intensive,
so you have to make a choice: fast and one texture, or slow and multiple textures.
When the veggies are cooked, add the salt and pepper, sage, thyme, bouillon and ½ c water,
cover and simmer 10 to 20 minutes.
Remove lid, raise heat to medium-high, add parsley and strips of basil and re-season if needed. Cook until the water is no longer in the bottom of the pan (time varies greatly depending on heat, humidity,
etc.).
• Kale Chips – substitution for salty snacks

Curly Kale
Cooking spray
Seasoned salt
Chop kale, rinse, and dry completely using a salad spinner.
Lay in one layer on a cooking sheet, sprinkle with salt, and spray the tops lightly with
cooking spray.
Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Be careful not to burn it, or it will get very bitter. Take out
of the oven when it gets just barely crispy to check for doneness.

A few tips for a successful day:

• avoid the appetizer table
• keep a bottle of water in your dominant hand to keep you drinking water instead of reaching for extra food.
• go for a walk in the morning
• while watching football, do a pushup for every point your team scores progressively. For example, when they score the first touchdown plus extra point do 7 pushups (or lunges). The second time, do 14 pushups. And so on.
• get your sleep. Do you really need to get up at 4 am to buy cheap socks? Lack of sleep makes you hungry and irritable and is the #1 indicator of obesity
• find a buddy that wants to make the day healthy and do it together.
• remember, people are more important than food. Focus your enjoyment on family, friends and activities other than eating.

From our family to yours,

Happy Thanksgiving

Shane & Jill Riddle Health Coaching