Today was a fun day. Our 4 and 8-year old friends, accompanied by their father, spent the afternoon and evening with us. And I got to prepare a lot of fun foods. We started with Dr. Fuhrman's almond chocolate dip, available at the recipe center (for members only, sorry), or p. 283 in the new edition of Eat to Live. It's like chocolate frosting! I thought it was too rich at first, but of course it's a dip meant to be eaten with fruit and it was very good that way. We had it with strawberries (frozen, but partially thawed), apple slices, fresh pineapple and bananas. The adults enjoyed it, but the kids preferred m&ms and hershey's chocolate candies. That was partly because the m&ms came from a machine that you had to stick pennies into.

I recently received my copy of the new edition of Eat to Live. I'm looking forward to reading it. I started with Chapter 8, to remind myself of what his recommendations are for following the eating plan. Even though I probably know it by heart and try to follow it already, I'm influenced by the New Year traditions and think this a good thing to re-commit to. Then I will enjoy reading the first 8 chapters to remind myself why I'm eating this way. It's updated with the latest information from the scientific literature.

Yesterday I had more ice cream for breakfast/lunch. In one serving I added mangos to the bananas and walnuts. The other was just pure bananas and walnuts--still the best! Then, fortunately, I ran out of bananas. Dinner was some lettuce, carrots, and red cabbage. I also ate a small apple. I was going to make a big ole' squash lasagna meal but I'm not in the mood for cooking while I have this cold. I've notice that my congestion is correlated with how much I eat. Eating less at dinner makes me sleep much better.

This is a great post on diseaseproof. The sugar beast is definitely on my back this holiday season. I've avoided it so far, but have compensated by eating more nuts and a lot more bananas than I need. Every time housemate pops a piece of chocolate or a christmas cookie in her mouth (she got a lot of both for Christmas), I think, I want something too! I'm also suffering from the urge to splurge before New Year's Day. It's our custom to reform our ways after New Year's and party hard before. Maybe I'm lucky I have a cold because that is moderating my behavior. My congestion is pretty strongly related to how much I eat. The less I eat at dinner time, the better I sleep. But every time I go near SAD food this week, I am tempted. This is so different from normal for me. The little devil over my right shoulder says, why not splurge before New Year's? Come to think of it, why is the angel over my left shoulder silent most the time?! This time he/she actually came up with a good counter-argument: How about if I don't splurge before, and then if I regret it on New Year's, I can splurge then? 'cause that's what the little devil on my right shoulder is implying is that I'll regret not having fun with everyone else. Well, let's see if I do regret it.

I got some cashews, pistachios and dates for housemate's smoothies, and I decided to mix them up ahead of time and enjoy some of the results myself, over berries, which was yummy.

Since I have a cold, I'm working from home this week and have more time to play in the kitchen, so I'm enjoying healthy comfort foods. They really do make me as satisfied as any SAD (Standard American Diet) food and I don't feel awful after eating them (except when I eat too much).

Well, I guess I was over-confident heading off this weekend. Eating healthy was harder than I thought. Aunt Margie's cookie balls were the most tempting, even knowing they are loaded with butter, white flour and sugar. I resisted, but acted out in other ways: by overeating when I returned home--both yesterday and today. I've really been susceptible to the social situations lately. The problem is that when you give in once, like I did in France, it makes it a lot harder to resist the next time. I have a harder time now than I did my first few years because the novelty and fun experimentation with recipes has worn off. And I let myself think I'm healthy and can afford a few lapses. Unfortunately that food is so addictive that a lapse just leads to more. I need to try to be more aware of my weaknesses and prepare for it. Yesterday was kind of a humorous incident even though it led to overeating. I was in the grocery store and saw friends with their new baby so I ran over to talk with them and they were standing in front of all these freshly baked vegan treats--chocolate chip cookies, chocolate bars, and other stuff. Well, after watching everyone around me eat cookies and chocolates all weekend long, I wanted those cookies! Somehow I resisted and ended up buying nuts and dates and overeating. dang it.

Okay, it's Christmas this weekend. My situation is not normal. I will be visiting family and will bring my own food--they are used to it--and, let's just say, this is not a situation where I am tempted to misbehave. For one thing, I don't think there will be a vegan item in any house I'm attending, not even veggies or fruit. Believe me, I have many demons and situations that are triggers for me. This just isn't one. So don't get the impression I'm a saint. It's social situations with friends here in Madison or while traveling that are difficult for me, like the last 3 weeks have been. But this other situation is like escaping into a monastery for a few days. In fact I almost wish I could just fast for part of the time because it's so sedentary and quiet with no temptations; but even though they accept I'm crazy, I think they would freak out if I did that. So with all that long-winded description of my weekend, here is what I bought at the grocery store for 3 days + one breakfast:

This week got hectic so meals took a backseat. Fortunately or unfortunately I had a fair amount of bananas, soy milk, and walnuts, so I continued my ice cream obsession. When I ran out of berries (Monday morning), I had the still wonderful banana walnut ice cream (Monday night and Tuesday). I went overboard on both days. oops. In a way, it made Wednesday easier because I wasn't hungry and I had a huge deadline. I can work from home if I want, so I got up at 7 am, walked 10 feet to my home office, and sat in my chair grading job applications until 9:45 pm. I got up every once in a while to make herbal tea, or decaff green tea, or grab a carrot or lettuce or cabbage from the fridge. Talk about a sedentary day, body wise, though it was a marathon brain-wise. But I didn't need much food. It paid off, because I made the deadline and we had a productive 2 hour telecon this morning and accomplished what we had planned. Then I thought, time for a well-deserved break! So I threw together some food, and went swimming followed by ice skating with my good friends, whose ages range from 4 to 61! Both were wonderful!

Tomorrow's food will be a repeat of today:

I think I bought the last 5 pomegranates of the season yesterday. Today there were none at the store. I'm glad I got them! So I will probably be eating my favorite fall microsalads every day. That's what I made for tomorrow, and it filled up two large bowls. I'm still excited by my newest ice cream concoction so I will have a smaller version of it for breakfast tomorrow. Lunch will be a microsalad. Dinner will be microsalad and veggie bean soup.

I decided to add more veggies to my beans so it's a real soup instead of just beans. You can add whatever veggies you want in whatever amounts. I chose collard greens because they are in my freezer, brussels sprouts because housemate loves them and we still get them locally, mushrooms and leeks because they are good cancer fighters, and zucchini to help make it a nice thick stew. Last week I used butternut squash but that in combination with the beans produced too much gas. :)

Well, you can see from the next 4 posts, I've been making a lot of desserts lately. Looking at all those treats I can't eat at the holiday parties finally got to me! Now I could say that it's okay to splurge and go off-plan every once in a while, like I did last year (or last week in France!). But I've been to 5 events with treats in the last 5 days, and I have several more to go this week. That's more than every once in a while. Plus, I feel crappy when I eat that stuff. So I decided to make my own treats. I did eat more than I needed to, especially the oat balls, but that's an acceptable holiday splurge, and best of all, I didn't feel like crap afterwards.

Dr. Fuhrman is running this "Holiday Challenge" and he sends us a recipe a day. I decided to try Friday's recipe, the "No-cook Apricot Oat Bars." Well, I'm not a good baker (even when it's "no-cook"!) because I don't follow directions like I should, so this turned into something else quite different. And since it did, I figure I can post it as a new recipe.

Additional reductions are being made to the WorkFirst budget (which includes child care subsidies) to balance it for the current fiscal year (which ends June 30, 2011) and the 2011-2013 biennium. This is in addition to $51 million in cuts to WorkFirst announced last August, which at that time included moving from 200 to 175 percent federal poverty level for Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) subsidies eligibility.

• Families who currently pay a monthly copayment of $50 or more will see a $10 increase in their copayment. 
• All new families applying for WCCC must also receive a TANF grant or be determined eligible for TANF to be eligible for WCCC.  
• All eligible families who currently receive WCCC are income eligible until their income is more than 175 percent of federal poverty guidelines. For example, a family of three can’t earn more than $2,671 a month.

When releasing her proposed 2011-2013 budget this morning, Governor Chris Gregoire said the single most common denominator of individuals in state prisons is not drugs or alcohol, but lack of education. Her proposed budget tries to protect education, she said, especially in children’s earliest years.

Still, Washington faces a $4.6 billion shortfall in the coming biennium due to the national economic downturn. The Governor’s proposed 2011-2013 budget includes many difficult choices. It is one that reflects the fact that demands and costs for state services are up when revenues are down.

• Increases enrollment slots for 4-year-olds in the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, while reducing slots for 3-year-olds. (Total of 460 slots cut from ECEAP, and a proportional cut to DEL ECEAP administration, for $9 million savings)
• Eliminates the Career and Wage Ladder program ($3 million savings)
• Reduces funding for administration for Seasonal Child Care subsidies ($2 million savings)
• Does not carry forward Reach Out and Read literacy funding, and does not fund Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS)
• Suspends planned increase of state-funded all-day kindergarten—continuing to fund the program for lowest income schools ($57 million savings)
• Suspends the smaller class size and employee salary increase initiatives under Initiatives 728 ($860.2 million savings) and 732 ($253.3 million savings).
• Eliminates K-4 class-size reduction funds ($216 million savings)
• Eliminates the Children’s Health Program, which provides medical coverage for 27,000 children whose citizenship has not been documented ($59 million savings) and eliminates the Basic Health Plan ($230.2 million state fund savings; $117.3 million federal savings)
• Proposes a new public/private partnership focused on reducing the impact of toxic stress and trauma (adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs), building on the success of the Family Policy Council and the Community Public Health and Safety Networks.

Ingredients:

1 banana
2 cups frozen berries (today I used strawberries and raspberries)
1/4 cup raw cashews + 1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp vanilla

The Legislature finished up a week of committee meetings today. During these “assembly days,” lawmakers get updates on key issues that they’ll likely focus on during the upcoming legislative session (the 2011 session starts Jan. 10).

• On Monday, we and our partners at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction updated the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee on the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) pilot, currently under way in 115 classrooms around the state. Click here to watch that presentation, which includes a “real world” view from a kindergarten teacher participating in the WaKIDS pilot.
• On Thursday, we shared information with the House Education Appropriations Committee on the progress of the preschool work group established in Senate Bill 6759. The work group is charged with creating a plan that looks at what a “voluntary program of early learning” might look like in Washington. (You can read more about this on the preschool work group web page.) Click here to watch that presentation.
• And earlier today, DEL Director Bette Hyde updated the House Early Learning & Children’s Services Committee on DEL’s accomplishments and next steps. Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn and Thrive by Five Washington President & CEO Nina Auerbach joined Bette to talk about our strong Early Learning Joint Resolution Partnership, and the key priorities from the Early Learning plan we are focused on implementing in 2011. Video of that work session will be online at www.tvw.org soon.

Thrive by Five Washington President & CEO Nina Auerbach, DEL Director Bette Hyde and Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn present to the House Early Learning & Children's Services Committee on Friday, Dec. 10.