The policy that led a nursery to confiscate a toddler’s ‘unhealthy’ cheese sarnie stinks worse than an ageing Camembert
I love both the content (but I send nutella sandwiches with my son to school) and the glorious writing style! Here’s an excerpt:
The cheese sandwich is worth defending. For when curd and crust combine, an alchemy transforms them into a uniquely moreish proposition. Cheddar and white sliced is spectacular enough. Meanwhile, the finest soft French cheeses teamed with a baked-that-morning baguette come as close as food can to crack cocaine.
#1 – Set the clock for five minutes and stick to it. There’s no huge time commitment here. At just five minutes, it’s easy to find the time to pick a superhero or a supervillain and draw with your child … cousin … neice/nephew … neighbor … student … etc.
#2 Check your self-consciousness at the door. When you’re a kid, you’ll draw for hours with no thought to your skills. You were good. You just knew it. It was all about the joy of drawing and imagining. When you’re an adult … you worry … you fret … you criticize. But, just remember: No matter what … the kid you’re drawing with thinks you’re awesome. Just draw. And, with only five minutes between you … there’s no time to be a perfectionist.
#3 Talk while you draw. Talk about the hero or villain you’re drawing. If you know a lot about comics, share it. If the kid knows more, ask questions. If the only thing you both know is “Spider-Man is cool,” talk about that.
#4 Have fun. Umm … I think I’ll leave this up to you.
#5 Draw tomorrow. The only thing better than sharing the first “5 Minute Marvel” with the child in your life is … the second one.
Saw this post from Half Fast and thought it summed things up pretty well:
You have probably been asking yourself that question and it’s one that I hope to answer with this post. You may also be worrying that I’ve stopped blogging but hopefully this post today is enough to allay those fears.
Well, 2009 had it’s ups and downs. I that firing on all cylenders in the Spring – running 3-4 times a week up to 16 miles with a long run of up to an hour and down to my lowest weight in years. But I didn’t keep up with it. By the end of the year I had gained back the ten pounds I worked so hard to lose and was having trouble getting 2 runs in each week.
In looking back, I think my struggle to keep with my training plan was the result of three things:
My treadmill broke and my gym membership expired and so I had trouble getting in workouts when the daylight was limited or the weather was bad.
I stayed up too late and had trouble getting up early enough to squeeze in a workout even in nice sunny weather. I think my chronic lack of sleep also caused me to get sick a lot, further limiting my workouts.
Related to #2, my kids are getting bigger and stay up later. I used to be able to put the kids to bed by 7pm which left time (and often daylight) to work out in the evening. Now it’s usually 8 or 8:30pm before we’re done with the bedtime routine and they’ve stopped thinking of questions to ask or wandering downstairs to see what’s going on. By that time, I’m tired and it’s too dark and too close to bedtime to start a workout.
I’ve tried workout during the day. As a working mom, I try to keep my time at the office each day to the absolute minimum. It takes a full hour to run and get cleaned up and I have trouble “escaping” from clients and colleagues to workout consistently. With a 2 hour+ daily commute, I need to be focused on working during the time I’m in the office so I can get home in time to spend time with my family before bedtime. I can’t depend on working out in the middle of the day during the workweek.
My Goals for 2010:
Join a gym or buy a treadmill. After some research, I decided on the gym and joined a Planet Fitness less than a mile from my house. It was cheaper than investing in a treadmill and has weight machines, ellipticals and bikes for cross training.
Go to bed by 10pm in order to get up at 5:45am to workout twice during the work week. (But can I sneak out of the house without waking up the kids and pissing off my husband? This is one of the benefits of a treadmill in the basement.)
Be diligent about scheduling my workouts and sticking with my plan. I need to say NO when someone suggests I do a planned workout “later”.
Run 520 miles in 2010 (last year I ran 397 miles).
Run 3-4 times a week, extending one run to 45-60 minutes.
Well, 2009 had it’s ups and downs. I that firing on all cylenders in the Spring – running 3-4 times a week up to 16 miles with a long run of up to an hour and down to my lowest weight in years. But I didn’t keep up with it. By the end of the year I had gained back the ten pounds I worked so hard to lose and was having trouble getting 2 runs in each week.