Happy Monday!

Again, feeling encouraged I decided to update the blogosphere with my progress for the day.

Let me just start with a shout out to working moms everywhere. I went back to work last Monday working lunches - just once a week because a dear coworker volunteered to watch my children for me. So this morning I rose (wayyyy to early because Princess slept terribly) tired, eyes blurried from my contacts that I sleep in and I stumbled to the kitchen to make Princess her bottle. Then I ran around for the next hour making the farmer's lunch, dressing my pre-schooler who would have rather been watching TV, feeding and dressing the baby, then preparing my own lunch, packing the diaper bag and ran out the door in a crazy whirlwind. The farmer all the while still resting peacefully in bed...

I just wanted to give props to working moms everywhere - single, married, divorced, whatever you are. You are amazing for doing that every morning. Don't get me wrong, stay-at-home-moms are amazing in their own way. But that was a lot of work. I am glad I only do it once a week! And I love my job so it's not a big deal but that is quite a show we put on in the morning...oh what will my life look like next year when school starts *gasp!* I feel blessed though to be able to see both sides of the fence here. I love spending time with my children and my days at home are challenging and tiring and emotional and stressful all the same. But days when I go to work are like getting a little break  - as soon as I jump over all the hurdles to get there! So way to go working moms! You rock.

...And then there's this whole clean eating challenge that I embarked on this morning, I packed my breakfast and ate it when I got to work because it was just not happening any other way. I ate two hard boiled eggs and an avocado with a little salt and pepper. The avocado was weird though because it had been in my fridge since last week -  I thought it might be a little over ripe - but it was like totally unripe in some parts and brown and over ripe in other parts...so that was just OK. I only ate about half of it. But the hard boiled eggs were delish.

That got me through until about 12:30 when I made a Caesar salad with the Romaine hearts I got at Woodmans dressed with Parkside's Caesar dressing (while not super high on the "low fat" or "low calorie" list - it was still made with nothing processed, entirely whole ingredients, freshly this morning!) I paid $4 (after employee discount) for a chicken breast to go with it. For a snack I had some of the organic peanut butter and one of my Honey Crisp apples sliced up - that was SO yummy. I'll admit I've never had apples and peanut butter before, and it was very good! Another confession  - the organic peanut butter alone is pretty nasty but with the natural sweetness of the apple it was delicious! And I ate one of the fruit leathers on my way home from work this afternoon.

Now my house smells amazing because my two ingredient clean chicken tacos are simmering on the stove. I modified the recipe from a crock pot recipe. It only called to cook for 4 hours and that wasn't really a good window of time for me since I was at work most of the day. Not to mention I can't find my crock pot anywhere (and it's a Green Bay Packers one too...boo!) I used a dutch oven stock pot over the stove - heated some olive oil on medium high and seared the chicken breasts on both sides to brown them, then deglazed with a little chicken stock and poured the fresh salsa over the breasts and they are simmering away  on LOW heat. And it seriously smells soooooooo good in my kitchen.

Ok just checked the chicken and it literally fell apart when I tried to pick it up with my tongs. I hope these taste as awesome as they smell! Can't wait for the farmer to come home so we can eat dinner. Then I have a volleyball game at Elmbrook tonight and I'm hitting the sack early. I'm so tired, but so glad that this day was yet again encouraging and not a total fail!

1 down, infinity to go!

Happy Monday from the Farm,
The Farmer's Wife