So our household (being in total: 2 adults and 2 cats plus, I am sorry to say, a current herd of dust bunnies) is now a week and a half into this Pure Food Healthy Living plan.  On the whole, it is successful thus far.  I’m getting into a groove of multi-tasking my cooking time, so not only am I preparing the meal I’m about to eat, but I’m also cooking, chopping, or assembling something that will make the next day’s meals faster.  Most nights, I also make enough of what we’re going to eat to make lunches for both of us for the next day.

J is more reassured that I’ve not taken a wild turn towards serving anything disturbing like jellied octopus tentacles flambé (no offense to anyone who thinks that sounds delish) or overly fiber-intensive like twig and bark salad with a side of hay.  To keep from getting too overwhelmed, I’ve settled into a preliminary pattern of protein (usually chicken or fish or shrimp), plentiful veggies nicely seasoned and either steamed or sautéed, and some sort of grain, like brown rice, polenta, or quinoa.  It may take a while for me to figure out how to elevate the interest factor a little.  Chicken piccata would be great, but no dredging in white flour, and I decline at the moment to pay $12 for a small bag of almond flour instead.  Scrambled eggs are allowed and delicious, but I will admit that on a couple (3) rushed mornings, I’ve swallowed down a spoonful of (natural) peanut butter on the run and called it breakfast.

I’m quite pleased to be feeling healthier already (and, by the way, to have dropped 9 pounds in 8 days), and to spend less money on food since we’re not eating out or grabbing convenience food multiple many times a week.  I am not quite so pleased to face up to the difficulty I’m having in matching this success in other areas of my life.  For my focus to stay at full throttle at work, my family to be attended to, and my eating to be healthy and hearty, my house is not quite so shiny, my Read the Bible In A Year plan is a couple of weeks lagging, my Bible study homework is becoming more scribbles and less thought-out each week, and my days have evolved (devolved?) into a ridiculously predictable routine, down to knowing what time I’ll be brushing my teeth each morning and what time I’ll crash on the bed with my laptop at night. Oh yes, and did you hear I started a blog?

Part of the purpose of the blog is to work out some of the many, MANY questions in my head, and this one is one of the biggest… how do we balance it all, when all of it is good stuff?  I am not too thrilled at this point by what I think may be the answers:  less down time, more work on the weekends.  When it’s crunch time, I can go go go like the Energizer Bunny until I’m at the absolute breaking point, but that is not at all my natural state of being.  I’m a curl-up-with-a-book kinda girl who loves nap times and fuzzy blankets. But each day there is much to be done and miles to go before I sleep.

A lot of women have spent a lot of years stepping out from stereotypes to say, “I can have it all!”  Well, I can’t.  Not without a personal staff, and then I don’t have it all, because I’m paying them to have some of it.  So I suppose that admission is somewhat freeing.  The bare honest truth is that I’ve spent most of my life comparing myself to another woman.  She is thinner, with better style, she is successful, she breezes through situations with the right word, the right amount of laughter, and the right touch of empathy.  She’s not klutzy, she is sweet tempered, and she only ever thinks the best of anyone. She doesn’t know I look at her this way, because she doesn’t exist.  She’s the Me that I, in weaker moments, castigate myself for not being.  If I’d been Her from the beginning, I wouldn’t have to make such radical changes in my life.  If I was Her from the beginning, I would have already read the Bible through so many times I’d have it memorized. If I was Her… I maybe wouldn’t understand grace as well, because I wouldn’t need it so often. So I am not Her.  I am Me.  And while Me is being re(de)fined at present, I see that I must trust God that Matthew 11:28 is true.

If you’re tired too, I’ll trust it for you as well.  Meanwhile, I need to go give my husband the anniversary cards I bought yesterday, and have only written in today, when our anniversary was Monday.