Nice to see my little brother

My little brother, Ed, is in town on business this week and this evening the kids and I got to spend a little bit of time with him. It was so nice to see him! I think he was surprised to actually see "in person" how much weight I have lost (about 35 pounds now) and how much healthier I look. He came back to the house with me and we went through my pantry so I could show him all of the foods I have on hand every day compared to what I had when I was eating a SAD diet.

One common misperception is that eating raw is hard. It is not. Granted, some things can be complicated to prepare, but only because they are different than what we are accustomed to preparing. However, I would never have made mom's home made lasagna on a school night when I ate a SAD diet; likewise, I don't make a difficult raw dish on a busy school night either. The biggest and hardest change that one has to make on a raw food diet is to change their mind about what they are putting in their body. The rest is easy! What could be easier than fruits and veggies? I find that green smoothies are one of the easiest things in the world to make -- throw it all in the Vita Mix and presto, 15 seconds later I have dinner. Last night I spent 15 minutes I would have spent waiting for water to boil julienning zucchini and dicing tomatoes. I literally had dinner on the table in 15 minutes -- that was almost unheard of on a SAD diet!

Anyway, my brother looked really good and it was nice to be around someone in my family. Sometimes I feel so far away from them all and I truly miss them. It was fun to sit around the kitchen table and have the kids want to tell him everything they are learning in school, show him all of their pets (we have 2 birds, 3 hermit crabs, 2 frogs, and 2 dogs so that takes a while), and want him to play with all of their toys. The kitchen table can truly be a magical place!

They were eager to tell Uncle Ed everything about their lives while we were at the table. Since I home school and I am a "type A" personality I sometimes wonder how much the kids are really digesting what they learn. I worry about whether or not I am getting through to them, or if they really get what we are studying. It was wonderful to hear them so excited about the things they have been working on in school. They were reciting latin words and derivatives, commenting on the geography of the Middle East, and asking him if he wanted to try one of their Raw Revolution Bars. It made me feel really good about teaching them and about being home with them. I am so glad we were able to spend some time together. It was good for my soul!

Shout out to Liz!

I have to start today's blog with a shout out to my good friend Liz and her daughter. They started a raw diet late last week and I received an email from her today saying that she was doing very well and was amazed how good she felt. She also said she was not hungry at all. I am so excited for her! Liz is one of those people that is just comforting to be around. I feel at home with her and she has inspired me in so many ways -- I am glad that I have inspired her, too!

Today was a crazy busy day for us at home! We were running all over and spent a good bit of the time at the library. I wanted to spend as much time on school as we could before we had to pick Phillip up from school so Jake, Emma and I all had a raw food bar that I just found at Whole Foods. Jake and Emma were unsure, but loved the Raw Revolution chocolate chip cookie dough bars. I had one that was chocolate hazelnut flavored -- it was very good, I am sure that I would have eaten that even when I wasn't eating raw foods. Wayne likes the Lärabar, but I have yet to try one of those. These bars taste so good and are a great way to snack while we are busy and not able to prepare a meal. I will be buying more. As an aside, I just figured out how to put those two little dots above the a in Lärabar -- you hold the alt key and type the letter u (for umlaut) and then type the letter you want under the umlaut. I am very proud of myself for figuring this out, if you can't tell.

Anyway, we chose our next novel while we were at the library -- we will be reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I am excited about it because I remember loving it; I hope Jake and Emma will like it, too. We were able to check out 2 identical copies at the library so we can read it together. We also talked about Kohlberg's stages of Moral Development. It was interesting to hear children's views on these stages and their experiences with them while dealing with adults. I am definitely guilty of spending my fair share of time in Stage 1 thinking. We made it a goal to try and advance our thinking in school and at home. Thanks to Rafe Esquith for suggesting Kohlberg in his book, Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire. It was a very fruitful discussion.