My goal this year: Healthify and localize my family

One of the first things that I say to Pat when he gets home from work these days is: "I saw on Oprah today about..." So I watch a lot day time TV now. haha!
So, I saw on Oprah the other day about Food Inc., the documentary that came out in 2009. We finally saw it streaming on Netflix last night and I was unable to sleep after that. It's about the food industry and how the animals are raised and treated to give us meat. It also talks about what's actually in our food, and also about seeds. I've read some about these topics before: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. But books are books; whatever images come out from them are what I make up based on words - and the images that I come up with are kinda vague at best. But this documentary had a lot of very sad and graphic images that was too real. It made me feel really disgusted about the food that we eat, mainly meats and vegetables. So last night, I decided to make a few change:

1. Starting this year, my family is going to be part of the Community Supported Agriculture at a nearby Honey Brook Organic Farm. It's quite simple. We just pay the farmer a determined amount and every week for 20 weeks of the growing season here in NJ, we get a supply of fresh organic fruits and vegetables from the farm. This farm is 7 miles from where we live so instead of driving to the market, we would just drive to the farm to pick up the box of veggies and at the same time, pick some additional items straight from the land. How wonderful, amazing, and local. It comes out to be about $25 a week which is probably about what I would spend for produce in a given week.

2. Farmers' Market is starting again in Lawrenceville in May. We can walk to the farmer's market from our house. There, they have fresh locally raised chicken from a farm just outside of Princeton - Griggstown Quail Farm. I can get our weekly supply of chicken there. From what I remember, a whole chicken there is about $15, which is way more than what I usually pay. I've gotten a whole chicken for about $4 at the grocery store. But maybe that's the price of a real chicken raised outside on grass and bugs.

3. There's another farm about 2 miles from our house - Cherry Grove Farm (on the way to Pat's work), where they sell beef and pork raised on that farm. We often see cows hanging out near the fence, chilling or eating grass. I guess those happy cows become the beef that they sell. I've actually never been on that farm but I think I will go soon. They also have farm eggs and they also make their own cheese. Yum.

4. We will continue to buy our apples and apple cider and other fruits from Terhune Orchard, just 5 minutes away.

5. We will continue to buy our milk from the Halo Farm, a micro-dairy in Lawrenceville. Their milk is only $1.19 a 1/2 gallon. It's local without antibiotics and hormones. They also make amazing ice cream with lots of flavors for less than $2 a pint. And really really good.

So even though we miss living in California cities, these are the advantages of living in Central NJ. We are surrounded by farms and if we try, we could eat very locally for half of the year. I will keep posting my progress.

I am very optimistic about this!
But I will not give up packaged junk food and sweets that I love so much.
And I will not give up Trader Joe's that just opened in Princeton!!!
I tried to go whole wheat on Pasta but that didn't go so well.
I tried to go brown rice but that didn't go so well at all.

I like staying at home

It's been a few weeks since my mom left to go back to Japan. Now, 3 days out of the week, I am at home with 3 kids. And this is going to go on for awhile since I decided not to go back to work. At first, I was a bit afraid of what this is going to be. Me vs. the 3 kids. At times, there's chaos. And at times, I break down. There are lots of yelling involved. But at times, it could be very satisfying and pleasant.

My kids have all these ideas of what they want to do. Spring is coming and Terran wanted to grow things. So I looked up online the simple things we could start growing that day. We decided to sprout the left over black beans by soaking them over night then putting some into a plastic bag with wet towel until we saw some sprouts. Then, we transferred them into our little pots and the kids are now watering and waiting. We are also watching carrots and celery grow their green tops. What fun!

The other day, Terran decided that he's going to draw lots of people. He can now draw a representation of a person and it actually looks like a person. He did a drawing of me which made me cry and smile.

Since we are at home so much more than before, the house is a just a mess. But this also means that I am having so much more time with them and it's just fun, satisfying, and entertaining to watch and listen to them learn, grow, and do their weird things. It could be difficult, but I didn't think I'd love it this much.


At home with Sisi. She likes to push around her little stroller for her dolls. And she likes to wear her backpack with misc stuff in it.

Terran decided to collect branches and make a shelter for a worm that he found.

Aidan and Pat hanging out. Aidan is becoming a chubby little guy.

This is what Terran drew for me the other day. It's a drawing of me when I was pregnant with Aidan.

Oh Potty Potty

Potty training toddlers have been a pretty big part of my life. Just like eating has been a pretty big part of my life.

My wonderful first born sort of figured it out at 18 months. We'd put him on the toilet and he'd release himself. We thought he was really smart. But that's only a tiny part of the whole saga. He only partially figured it out then and it took another 2 years for him to COMPLETELY figure it out. We didn't think he was all that potty smart by then. And let's just say that at 4 yo, he wakes up in the morning with occasional accidents, and if he gets too excited or too busy... he forgets.

The second born on the other hand was clueless about peeing in a designated spot at 18 months. She was clueless at 20 months or 24 months. She was clueless last week. But suddenly, 3 days ago, it hit her and she got it. So since Monday, she has been going in her potty 100%, when, on Sunday, it was just a place for her to sit with her pants down.

Some things that may have helped her:

1. I bought her some training pants with her favorite character, Dora. I tell her that Dora doesn't like to be wet.

2. I give her a temporary tattoo of Dora every time she goes in the potty. I bought the tattoos on ebay and they're really good. The ones from Monday are still on her arm prefectly. So now, she's covered in tattoo.

3. She didn't seem to understand the word "pee". So I told her to go make some water in her potty. And she understood that.

I am hoping that she is done with her diapering phase. With the third born in diapers, I don't want to be paying for 2 sets of them.