Happiness, Kids, and The Week Ahead... 2/11/13

I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition on Friday (like I do every morning) and they did a piece about happiness and how many countries have adopted some measurement of happiness as one of their published statistics. The interviewer was speaking with an economist who's been tracking happiness for a number of years. Many economists and psychologists have kept data for so long that they believe they can gauge a person's happiness by knowing some personal information. The third bit of personal info requested was if the interviewer had children. She did, which according to one economist meant that she was unhappy, but the other said that was debatable. When they said parents were unhappy my husband responded, "That's because we're always tired!"

How true! I rarely go to bed before 11 and I'm up at 5:30. Lets admit it, that is just not enough sleep for anyone. One of the main reasons I'm up so late is because I spend a fair amount of time preparing food for the next day and making my lunch. I'm not the most efficient person when it comes to keeping on track and staying focused on a task later in the evening. After thinking about this for a while I've decided that I need to start doing more of what my nutritionist calls "convertibles", when you re-engineer a meal as a different meal later that week. This is my first attempt, and it's not very creative but hopefully I'll get better.

Last week I had also started pre-packing snacks for the week. If I know I'm going to have hummus and chips in my lunch every day, why not package them out at the beginning of the week and save myself some time?

Now to return to the happiness and kids thing... Raising children (or a child, in my case) is incredibly difficult but incredibly rewarding! Cliche, I know, but it is the truth. One of the things I read in a parenting book that has helped me the most is knowing that my child's job is test. Push and push until I finally set a boundary. Try it again, with maybe a slightly different twist, and see where the boundary is now. That's how children learn. It's trying, but at the end of the day when you get a huge, tight hug and a kiss it no longer matters!

May the week ahead be filled with happiness, children or not!

(Find that NPR report here)

Menu for the Week of February 11, 2013

Sunday

• prep chili

Monday: chili in the crockpot (didn't get to it last week)

• prep broccoli and slaw dressing, cut and degunk squash

Tuesday: baked beans, roasted kabocha squash, broccoli and apple slaw

Wednesday: Cuban style beans from the freezer, and rice (sweet potato for me), avocado, tomato, cheese

• prep cauliflower, degunk squash

Thursday: still trying to work up a recipe with acorn squash, cauliflower, and spinach (I had to do something different last week because the grocery store had neither acorn squash nor cauliflower)

Friday: leftover chili over baked potatoes

(Of course, I came home from my mom's tonight with leftover meatloaf and au gratin potatoes. I think it will mostly be used for lunches, but it may become a last minute substitute!)