Bob found a list that was left by his wife
On top of the catalogue Gardening Life.
The list listed planks, and burpees, and crunches,
Box jumps, and twists, and lateral raises.
Bob studied the list. He thought long and hard.
Then he stared out the window at part of the yard.
I’ll make it, thought Bob, I’ll make it today!
She’ll be so surprised, she won’t know what to say.
Off to the hardware store! There he stood,
Staring at all of the planks of wood.
“She didn’t list a number, but ‘box jumps’ makes it clear.
A box is four sides of lumber. I’ll need four planks from here.”
The list said ‘burpees’—“That one’s easy.
I’ll buy seeds of carrots, peasies.”
Bob grabbed seeds from every bracket,
Filled the cart with Burpee packets.
Next was ‘crunches’, grabbed a bag. “Hey!
Must mean gravel for a walkway.”
Bob chuckled, he was quite bemused:
“She wrote ‘twists’, but they’re called screws!”
‘Lateral raises’ he took to mean
Lattices for growing beans.
He checked off each item and loaded the van.
“My wife’s going to be so proud of her man!”
Back to the house to dig in the soil.
Hauling and building, he cheerfully toiled.
His wife came home—“Come look at the yard, Hon!
I found your list and built a box garden!”
His wife took the list. She stared then she smiled
At the new plank box in which dirt was piled.
“I love it, Dear. You’re a wonderful man.
Though the list you found was my workout plan.”
Another potluck barbecue.
A 2014 study showed that people who frequently cook at home eat healthier and eat less than those who don’t. The frequent meal makers in the study ate an average of 137 fewer calories, 3 fewer grams of fat, and 16 fewer grams of sugar per day than their my-oven-is-clean-because-I’ve-never-used-it counterparts. That doesn’t sound like a big difference—and if we were talking about one day, it wouldn’t be—but let’s expand that difference over a year’s time and see how the almost-daily and almost-never cooks shape up.
Some women are novice cooks. They feel that boiling pasta stretches their culinary skills to the max. They use phrases like “Preheat? Is that like speed dial?” or “grilled cheese is gourmet”. Some women are ne’er-say-buy chefs who love to cook and can whip up a meal from scratch without breaking a sweat. They use phrases like “we’re out of mayonnaise, I need to make more”. Both women love their families dearly and want what’s best for them. Cooking at home is a spectrum of intensity and frequency and you do your best with the time and energy that you have.
Most of us want to eat healthier than we do now and in general there are two ways to go about it: the Tortoise and the Hare. The Hare jumps in with both feet: throw out the junk food, learn to cook tofu, and say goodbye to bread, dairy, sugar, fat, and caffeine. The Hare is quick and passionate and her way works well unless you really want to eat bread, dairy, sugar, fat, and caffeine. It’s hard to say goodbye forever. I prefer to say “I need some space! But we can still be friends so don’t leave town.”
The taste of real syrup is a little different than the fake stuff. If your kids balk at change, try mixing the real and fake maple syrups. I started with a 50:50 ratio mixed in a squeeze bottle. Each time the mixture bottle ran out of syrup, I filled it with a slightly higher ratio of pure syrup to fake: 60:40, 70:20, etc. until I eventually set out that same bottle with pure maple syrup and my kids didn’t notice. Pure maple syrup is more expensive, but your kids will be pouring minerals and antioxidants on their pancakes; totally worth it. To use less syrup, give each kid a small bowl of syrup and have them dip each bite of pancake into the bowl. No more cries of “my syrup is gone! I need more!” as it soaks into the pancake.
-Veggies for noodles: noodles are delicious, but most of the time they’re smothered in some sort of sauce and we can’t taste them, so why not smother vegetables instead? Layer sliced eggplant in your lasagna, grate zucchini into your ziti, and sauté some thinly sliced cabbage for spaghetti sauce and meatballs.
A quick reminder that March Ab-ness starts today!
Sex, Soup, and 2 Fisted Eating 