Going Paleo

By now, I'm calling it official: we're going paleo.  The paleo diet just makes sense for our family.  It started out with Hubby.  During kettlebell class, he became more and more interested in this diet that was supposed to make you stronger and feel better.  That led to research and reading and soon he was on the paleo diet.

I found this to be terribly ironic.  Four years ago, I went in tears to a nutritionist.  I was uncontrollably itchy and had been living this way for over a year.  None of the doctors could find anything wrong.  I also have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  She looked at my diet and said, "All I see is sugar, sugar, sugar."  She advised me to quit wheat, gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, and any fruit except Granny Smith apples.  


The results were extraordinary - I quit itching within a day and felt truly better in a week.  I ate this way without fail for about four months, and since I have not returned to eating the same foods.  My Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (which has been traced to insulin resistance) disappeared. Of course, after I raved about it, Hubby forgot about it until he saw it in class.  Husbands!  


At any rate, Hubby went entirely paleo very quickly.  I have been making the conversion gradually.  The household itself, though, had already started making the transition.  Nobody ate the bread and it went moldy.  My daughter, M, is eating cereal only around once a week.  We started having grass-fed beef delivered to our door. We started building a home vegetable garden with blueberries and strawberries as well.  At a festival one weekend, a vendor asked what we would think about having organic fruits and vegetables delivered straight from the farm - I said sign us up!  So now we're taking full advantage of the farmlands north of us and getting it way cheaper than the grocery store, too.  


During this time, Hubby dropped 15 lbs. (and counting) without dieting.  I started to feel better and the junk food and wheat just weren't around.  M still drinks milk of course, and we still have cheese occasionally, but that's about our only cheat (except for my continual love of wine).  Our final decision came when we had to pick what we were doing for her lunch at her new school.  They have what they call "hot lunch" at a rate of $4.50/day (ouch!), consisting of sandwiches and potato chips, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and pizza.  Alternatively you can pack your little munchkin's lunch.  We have been rather spoiled at our current daycare, where an on-site chef is employed full-time.  But now, we decided we couldn't in good conscience or good financial sense go with the hot lunch option.  This actually simplifies things because now we'll be making lunches for three ahead of time instead of one.  


Hubby has been really creative with our diet.  Instead of having chili, we'll sub the beans out for broccoli slaw.  We eat all kinds of fruit and vegetable varieties, as you never know what's ready for picking from the farm and will show up at the door.  We eat sweet potato fries occasionally.  We make breakfast for M instead of throwing cereal at her in a cup on the way to school. And the infrared grill which makes all food rock is getting a true workout.  And we actually eat leftovers before they go bad! Imagine that!


Since we made the switch, we're finding out some of our friends have been doing this for a long time, some of them for various health reasons.  We're not alone.


One more reason I <3 steak!

Updates

Wow has it really been that long since I've posted?  I guess it has.  I've been pretty busy - I am in the middle of a work project that's about to hit the ground and I also took over for someone in my department who is now on maternity leave, a month and a half earlier than expected.  Between that and my ever-present insomnia, DH and I decided that I should take the summer off from school.  So I have some more time to work and hopefully someday I'll have a little time to relax!


In all this craziness, I have found that sometimes it is actually better to work a little at night and on the weekends so that I can get ahead of my overloaded to-do list.  This is contrary to what I usually have experienced in the past; normally this just makes me crazy.  But since the work itself isn't all that bad, just the amount of it, things seem to go better when I put in an extra hour on the laptop here and there with no distractions.


The other thing I discovered is how much a workout can take a load of stress off of you and just burn it off.  Last week I felt simply panicked at how much was on my plate, and burned rubber to get to Zumba in time to screech into a parking spot and run in.  Soon I was working so physically hard that I forgot all about my other stuff.  Much to my family's delight, I was a much more calm and pleasant person.  The key is to find something that you love to do to expend all that energy, not just slaving away on the treadmill (unless you're into that sort of thing).  So don't lose yourself so much in taking care of other people or working that you forget to let yourself take care of yourself once in awhile. You might even do it all better as a result.

The Juggling Act

  Yesterday morning, I was feeling pretty together.  I even got a compliment from my daughter's daycare teacher on our little nametag clothing stickers and wrote down the url for the site where we get them.  I drove to work with a song in my heart, parked the car, popped the trunk and realized: I left the laptop at home.


Yes it happens to the best of us and I am, admittedly, not the best planner and organizer.  However I do manage to hold my own - most of the time.  I've come a long way from the disheveled mess I was two years ago.  I have taken some well-published advice and made up a few tricks along the way, adding in a dash of Lean and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM).  Here's my crazy method that usually works well:


Rule #1.  Do little tasks when you remember them, not when it is convenient.  If I would have put my laptop into my trunk the minute I finished with it, like I usually do, I would have never had that 'doh! moment the other day.  Or when I saw it in the hallway at 10pm the night before.  Or at 7am in my pj's.  This goes for taking out the trash, taking the laundry downstairs, and pretty much everything else that is easy to forget repeatedly.  If you are a parent, you are constantly distracted and the chance of derailment by munchkin or anything else is very high.


Rule #2.  Sync calendars with your partner.  This way, you don't get sidelined by a surprise activity, whether that is a commitment that one of you made that the other might have forgotten, or something else that one of you plans to do but forgot to tell the other one.  The added benefit is if one of you forgets to look, the other one picks up on the activity in their calendar.  In business we call this having a project plan.  Here, your family is the overall project.  As in business, don't put every little task or reminder in here or it gets cluttered up and ignored, and you have no concept of what the big stuff is anymore.


Rule #3.  Try, try, try to put your stuff in the same place.  Everyone knows this and we're all guilty of breaking this rule at one time or another.  Sooner or later it catches up with ya.


Rule #4.  Get your kid to help you.  I was shocked to find out how helpful a two-year-old could be.  If they have enough motivation they can accomplish quite a bit, like finding lost keys, cleaning up, etc. and may well find the task more enjoyable than you ever would.


Rule #5.  Stick to structured routines during the week and leave the spontaneous things for the weekend.  If you always do the same routine, chances are it takes a lot less effort to remember.  For my morning, it's get dressed, check on the munchkin, feed the fish, feed the cats, start the coffee, make breakfast.  Like clockwork.  Little kids crave routine - can you really blame them?


Rule #6.  When it all comes crashing down, laugh, brush yourself off, and forgive yourself.  None of us are perfect and things go wrong all the time.  There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on it.  As I learned in a well-known weight loss program, One day at a time, no guilt, and move on!


Two years ago in the middle of PPD, I would let something as small as forgetting a bib to completely ruin my self-image as a mother.  Today, I remind myself that forgetting a bib is nothing more than that, forgetting a bib.  If everyone's still alive and in one piece, you will recover and that's all that matters.

School, Parenting, and Networking - It Shouldn't Be Impossible

The Princeton Review sends out a comprehensive survey to MBA students in order to come up with their B-school rankings.  The survey asks questions about everything from the professors to the facilities, from minority to family-friendly programs.  As I was taking the survey this year, I tried to honestly gauge where I felt my school was doing well and where it was missing something.  One section really gave me pause.  It went something like this, although I don't remember the questions exactly.

On a scale of 1 to 5, would you agree with the following (1 is strongly disagree, 5 is strongly agree):

My school provides plenty of opportunities for networking.
Yes, there are plenty of networking activities going on all the time.  But I can't attend any of them because they take away family time.

My school has part-time options for working students.
My school is 100% part-time; all the classes are in the evening.  In this we excel.  In fact, many students choose this school (including me) particularly because of the part-time non-cohorted aspect because they work or they have kids, or both.

My school provides resources for parent-students.
What?  What is that?  I know I can't be the only parent, but I haven't run into anyone else that's a parent.

My school provides daycare for children of students.
Um, I think so.  At least I know there is a daycare for the professors' children.

Is there anything you feel is missing from your school?
Now that you mention it, I would like to network with other students.  But it would be really great to meet other working (or non-working) student-parents and network with my daughter, so I could spend time with her at the same time.

Thus an idea was born and our school's MBA Parenting Network will kick off in February.  So far there's been a lot of interest from the school staff and all that's left is to decide on an activity. We'll probably try to do a monthly activity and a network of contacts.  Even if all we end up doing is swapping poopie horror stories, it will be well worth the time for the emotional lift and to know we're not alone.

You needn't be an MBA student to start your own circle of similar-interest parents.  There are a plethora of Mommy and Me-type organizations that already exist, or you can always start one of your own centered around your chief issues du jour.  What are you waiting for?  Get out there and make friends!

In-scan-ity

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, the TSA has stepped up its screening practices with a choice between a high-powered scanner or a rather intrusive pat-down.  Just as a friend posted earlier this week, I take issue with the idea that we need to participate in this three-ring circus.

The deeper problem, though, is our prevailing attitude towards technology, as if it's this panacea that's going to save us from goofing up at work or getting blown up on a plane, even if we take out rational thought processes.  I see this at work when an analyst fires up a piece of software that he doesn't really understand and spends two hours on an analysis that he could have done with a five minute hand calculation.  Oftentimes, he doesn't even know that his results are unreliable based on his inputs because he doesn't understand the fundamentals of what the software is trying to mimic.  I see this in the parent-hysteria marketplace with GPS trackers for our kids, as if a kidnapper would never think to toss the kid's backpack from the outset.  And we seem especially susceptible to technology worship when someone mentions the word "terrorist" or the phrase "homeland security".  These words should be re-labeled as "fear of the unknown."  How did we get so distrustful of our own instincts?

Is it the marketing, the fear of not being objective enough and/or getting sued, or are we just purely in lust with the whiz-bang factor of complicated machinery and the like?  I wish I knew.  

Here are a few facts to inform you of the impact of your choices at the airport this season:

1.  It wasn't so long ago that world-renowned hospital Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles was found to have accidentally zapped over 200 CT scan patients with more radiation than they thought they were using . . . This mistake went undetected for 18 months.  The CTs were set up by medical professionals.  The airport scanners are set up by the TSA.

2. This.

3. The fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guards against unlawful search and seizure.  I am pretty sure this extends to my private parts.  

4. This poor 3 year old girl.  I can't even imagine what I would do if they did this to my daughter.

5. Not one of the terror incidents on planes in the United States (including 9/11) would have been caught by this new scanning process or the pat-down and not by previous procedures.  Not one.  This process does not scan for liquids, so if you soak yourself in turpentine, you'd still get by (if you wore a ton of cologne I guess).

6. It is only a matter of time until a terrorist sidesteps this process somehow, builds a better bomb, etc.  We're treating this like an arms race when the terrorists treat it like more of a process to terrify us.  Looks like it's working very well.

7. People are getting rich off of this of course.  People you're at least vaguely familiar with.

8. Take a look at this book.  I read it while in college and it is still the best literature I have ever found on the topic.

9. If you are more inclined towards a business approach, I refer you to Lean and Theory of Constraints approaches - technology is almost never the answer.  As Edward Deming once said, "If you design it for any idiot to use, any idiot will."

In short, unless technology starts to approach the levels seen in The Matrix, all the scanners in the world are never going to be able to protect you as well as a human being with human instincts, intuition, and ability to read behavior, who has the backing of the authorities and/or their employer (as the case may be) to act on those instincts.  That applies to scanners as well as analysis software and stranger danger.  

Re-evaluation and Rejuvenation

I have to apologize for my lack of content in the last few weeks.  I've been thinking about my decision to go to school while my daughter is so young.  It is natural to re-evaluate your decisions every once in awhile and certainly it never hurts to check yourself before you wreck yourself.  It all started like this . . .


I was doing some volunteer work for church and I met a fascinating woman in the process.  Since we had a lot of downtime between customers for festival tickets, we had an abundance of time to get to know each other.  She works in quite a different industry than me and also runs her own business.  As we chatted about the realities of full-time working and full-time parenthood (in my opinion, there really is no such thing as part-time parenthood unless you mentally check yourself out of your kid's life), I began to think about my schoolwork and the stressful weekend the family had.  We had run from place to place getting chores done and in my so-called "downtime" I was behind in my schoolwork, not to mention that work was feeling very non-rewarding at the moment.  Then a friend stopped by to ask if I'd be willing to sponsor someone through the process of joining our church, which involves a very serious time commitment and an even more serious mental commitment.  At this point I was standing in the rain and I just had it.  I said that no I couldn't sponsor someone as I was barely together myself.  After she walked away, I said "That's it I'm quitting school."  


The remark wasn't callous - I truly believed I was done at that moment.  I wanted a break!  I wanted to sit and veg in front of the TV every night and maybe knit some.  I wouldn't really gain much time with the munchkin as I don't ever try to do schoolwork when she's awake; at most I would gain three hours on school night.  But I was drained.


A few days later, I made an appointment with the faculty advisor to discuss a leave of absence.  I wanted to quit for awhile and then re-evaluate whether I was truly done.  The appointment was set for the day after I came back from visiting my in-laws.  


On the plane to the East Coast, I got all my homework done.  I was finally caught up!  I spent a few wonderful days with my fun family-in-law and rested my soul a bit.  While reading the homework, I had some great academic discussions with my husband and realized I understood what was happening with our economy for the first time, and why it really mattered - as in how the decisions by our leaders and the public have such a dramatic effect on our daily lives.  Maybe this b-school stuff wasn't so bad after all.  I even squeezed in a visit to one of my company's other locations to see how they were doing and say hi to a few long-distance friends.  


I discussed my thoughts with my mother-in-law.  While my husband had said he just wanted me to do what I really wanted, I needed another person's opinion.  Was this school stuff taking a toll on my daughter and husband that I didn't see?  We had a great conversation.  I will spare you all the details but I ended up knowing that it was worth slugging it out in school and I wasn't dragging the rest of the family down as a result (thank you Mom Mom!)  As she pointed out well, as a mom you have to nurture your own soul if you want to nurture those around you.  


I left the East thinking maybe I would stay after all.  I cancelled the advising appointment.  The next school day I went up to my professor's office to get the results of my midterm.  He said that I was excelling in the class and he was glad I seemed to be very engaged.  That really sealed it for me. 


I did make some changes as a result of all this contemplation.  At the beginning of every semester, I struggle with the right amount of studying and work to do.  It is always a panic.  Towards the middle of the semester, if I am doing well, I relax a little and don't freak out if I don't read the next chapter until an hour before class.  I'll be looking in the spring to relax more towards the start of classes so I don't throw everyone in the household into a tizzy with me.  Also I left a little of the guilt (there will always be guilt) and promised myself to enjoy learning again.  As the munchkin would say, "Learning's my favorite."

QE2

Do you know what QE2 is?  If not you better figure out quick.  This is going to affect all of our lives in the US, and even the lives of those around the world since the dollar is the benchmark currency.  I suggest you figure out what it is very soon, and thus how you feel about it.  It didn't work all that well in Japan by anyone's estimation, or even here in the US during the first quantitative easing.  But we are looking at essentially printing money in the amount of 1/4 GDP into the economy.  So all I'll say here is at least know what it is and where you stand.  


This is a recurring point of discussion in many news outlets and econ classes for a very good reason.  Printing money naturally leads to inflation, which has certain consequences . . .