healthy living

april 01, 2010 has arrived and with it the beginning of my new project. a brain storm that has been brewing over my head for a week or so now, is about to pour. and i hope it pours hard. i hope it’s a downpour. 

i’ve spent time thinking, pondering, & dwelling on the idea for a little over a week now and although my inner dialogue is telling me, “no. wait. you need to do more research. you need to wait until your back in town, you need to wait until you have a more creative project name, you need to wait until you have your own kitchen. blah. blah. blah.” i am choosing to ignore the “perfect me” voice battling inside my head and just dive into the deep end. 

funny thing is, this is not a serious project. it is not one that requires perfection. for pete’s sake it’s even a project where planning is built into it – that’s the beauty of it really. i have no excuse not to begin, because i can plan later, i have planned time to plan (my mind is a scary place at times – be warned. i mean who needs to plan to plan? twisted isn’t it?) 

so what is this project? drum roll please….da da da da (insert trumpets here)

it’s, live to be inspired’s healthy living 2010. 

for the next 12 months i will spend each month, all month, focused on a specific area of interest in regards to food, budgeting for food, planning for food, anything to do with food and managing a kitchen basically.

 i have selected 12 categories and have assigned each category a month between now and april 2011. 

the monthly categories are as follows: 

april: the little man’s food & H20

may: eating at home & recipe organization

june: budgeting & money saving 

july: fruits, veggies & puree’s

august: cooking from scratch and substitutions

september: food storage/stock piling

october: grains & proteins

november: freezer & crock pot meals

december: creating the atmosphere 

january: organics

february: cooking from food storage

march: growing in the garden

each month i will focus solely on researching and putting into action any improvements i want to make to our lifestyle that fall under the specific category assigned. that’s it. that’s the plan. of course there may be some overlapping and i may make a crock pot meal or two before november or start budgeting before june. the method to my madness though is this breaks down everything i see we need improvement on and makes it more manageable to my type a mind that wants to do everything at once, immediately, and perfectly – which isn’t humanly possible and, of course, since i know this isn’t humanly possible my safety zone in the past has just been to do absolutely nothing. look the other way. ignore that i haven’t eaten a fruit or veggie in a month. i tell myself i’m an all or nothing person which gives me an excuse to do nothing. that is not going to be true anymore. i am not an all or nothing person. i don’t have to be perfect. i just need to do my best and let what happens happen. 

this way, i can happen to read something about puree’s, even get excited about puree’s, but remind myself that they can wait until july. for now all i need to be perfect at or focused on is consuming more aqua and my little man’s food intake. that’s it. puree’s can be filed away until their own special month where it will be nothing but puree’s for 30 days straight. my hope is that each month i will get better in each area and over time all the areas will begin to overlap and blend as new ways of eating and being are formed. then at the end of a years time we will have experienced a total overhaul of our eating habits but without feeling totally stressed and overwhelmed. 

each month i will document my research and projects here. all the details (good and bad) will be posted.

i hope some of you (or a lot of you) will join me in this undertaking. i’d love to share insights, inspirations and ideas. get a forum of sorts going. the fun all begins right now. today. no waiting. no procrastinating. 

i’m simply diving in!

ps – this is how i am envisioning my fridge looking like at the end of the year. all pristine and perfect. totally organized. crisp clear containers. a shelf for everything and everything on it’s shelf. it’s pure fridge heaven in my book. just look at the containers of spa water and fresh herbs? think of feasting your eyes upon a site like this as you begin breakfast each and every morning, i may be weird, but i find it extremely calming. yes. this is my hoped for end result. i want all other fridge’s to be envious of my utterly fabulous fridge. it’s true.