Week Two In Review

I'm now two weeks into this journey, and I'm starting to get busy! Work is crazy now that September has hit, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with going to the gym regularly and many of my other usual activities have resumed. It's getting harder to find time for cooking, trips to the market and baking. But, I'm pressing on! Despite the fact that I came home from work absolutely exhausted every day this past week, I (mostly) stuck to my plan.

This week I had again made a couple of casseroles in advance. Although to be honest, I didn't end up using one of them. Monday was a holiday, so I had lots of time to cook up some chicken, veggies and rice for us that night. Then, on Tuesday, Peter was scheduled for dinner duty. Boy, was I glad he was, too! I was tired, cranky and had the worst blisters on my feet that I've ever had after a very busy day at work. Wednesday was supposed to be the day for casserole #1 (lasagna!), but one of my best friends was home visiting from Ontario, so we went out to dinner with her instead. Thursday, I made some fish that I had bought at the market last weekend (did you know how easy steaming fish is?? you can literally have an entire meal made in under 15 minutes!), and Friday I was heading out for a weekend retreat with my local Mary Kay group (yes, I'm a Mary Kay lady :). The other casserole (taco bake! dee-lish!!) was planned for today so that I wouldn't have to cook a big meal right after getting back. I had also made some apple cinnamon muffins and almond power bars for snacks this week (both really good, I thought, though Peter wasn't a huge fan of the power bars.. too healthy for him! haha).

Overall, the week was quite successful. We only had one day that didn't go according to plan, and we ended up going to a local restaurant that is known for being organic, local and healthy (her choice, not mine, I swear!) The food there was great! It is a bit more expensive than other restaurants, and I'm not totally sold on it being worth the price, but it does conform with everything that I'm working towards, so I really can't complain.

My biggest concern this week was really not that I would stick to my eating plan, to be honest, and I think that's a big sign that great changes have taken place already in my life. My biggest concern was that I was going to be away Friday evening and all day Saturday. When was I going to make my meal plan, go to the market and do my grocery shopping?? After allowing myself to stress out about it all week, I finally realized that I could probably make a meal plan Thursday evening or Friday during the day, rather than do it Friday after supper like we had been (right. the world is not ending. whew.), and I could do my trip to the market after church on Sunday.

So, let's talk about the market on Sunday. There is not nearly as much there as there is on Saturday! That being said, I was able to get everything I really needed - milk, meat, veggies, fish. I did have to pop into SuperStore quickly on the way home, which I knew I was going to have to do, and make another stop at Julien's bakery (not planned) for bread. Overall, though, not too bad. A tiny bit extra hassle than a planned Saturday trip, but not much. Also, since I had the lasagna already made from last week that I didn't use, I didn't need to do a bunch of cooking today, which I probably wouldn't have had time to do after running errands all afternoon. I did do a bit of baking - more muffins and some granola bars - but that didn't take very much time at all.

The verdict after week two? I can do this! Cooking's not so bad (even when I'm tired and cranky), I can be organized, and I can find ways to work around weekend trips!

Coming up next on the blog? I'm working on two posts - one on defining what organic is and one on the price difference between organic and "conventional". I don't have quite as much information as I want yet, but I'm doing some more reading and hope to have them ready soon!