Getting healthy food into everyday life.

As a working, single mom, I am always asked where all my energy comes from and how I manage to accomplish everything that I get done.  A friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with a cancer and her interest in super foods has prompted me to look at how I feed myself and my family.  Most people fixate on my weight and want to know how I have stayed basically the same weight since my teen years.  They always seem to be asking for a secret that I can pass on, a magic pill of some sort that will allow them to maintain their current life style and be a size 4.  I don't have a secret, of course.  A lot of it is just plain genetics but I also eat very little processed foods.  I make most of mine and my kids food from scratch.  Every day, every meal.  I like to cook, I like to bake and on top of that, I'm extremely frugal.  I don't understand things like pancake mix.  From scratch it's: flour, baking powder salt, sugar, egg, oil, milk.  From a mix it's: mix, egg, oil, milk.  You are paying for some one to mix 3 ingredients for you.   And add a ton of chemicals.  I just don't get it.  Making it yourself, you get to control the salt and sugar levels and I keep a cooked container of quinoa in my fridge and add a couple of table spoons to the batter, sometimes extra wheat bran and on special occasions I add cocoa powder.  It's so much healthier and tastier than the store bought mixes and can be used for waffles as well.  My 9 year old just found out I have been putting quinoa in his waffles his whole life and was deeply disturbed to find out I have been making them healthy and that he never even noticed.   When I feel especially creative I experiment with gluten free flours, just for the challenge.  My ever present quinoa, I've discovered, can be run through the food processor once it is cold until it resembles the texture of cornmeal and be substituted into pretty much any baking for up to about half of the called for flour. The results are a little heavier, meatier, but always delicious.  I remember being absolutely heartbroken when my boy came home from a friend's house and informed me he had eaten the best food ever and asked if I knew you could get macaroni and cheese in a blue box.  I've gotten a little less fanatical as the boys have gotten older as I've realized I can't control everything they consume and concentrate on keeping our home as healthy as possible while still allowing them to experience the joys of a Happy Meal occasionally.  I keep our fridge stocked with Greek yogurt and accept that they will just go ask the neighbour's mom for the highly sugared,artificially coloured, individually packaged yoghurt facsimiles once in a while.  As a general rule we don't eat candy, fast food, potato chips, fried foods and to be honest we rarely even drink juice.  We drink iced tea made from no caffeine fruit teas with little to no added sugar.  We don't buy boxed cereal except as a treat.  Most mornings, I make oatmeal for us and stir in some of the pre cooked quinoa and mix it with unsweetened apple sauce and Greek yoghurt.  Some times we add nuts and seeds.  We make our own jams and preserves and we even make our own nut and seed butters from scratch.  It's a super fun and easy project with limitless flavour possibilities and nut combinations and a much cheaper option than store bought.  As for my seemingly boundless energy, it comes from a couple of sources, one, I love coffee, and secondly, I start every single day with my favorite smoothie.  It's packed full of great foods and is like eating ice cream for breakfast.  I blend ice, one banana, half an avocado, pure cocoa powder, peanut butter, Greek yoghurt, (I prefer vanilla) and milk.  Some times I throw in quinoa, strawberries, blueberries, or, next week, local blackberries we will be picking ourselves, pretty much anything else you could think of but most days I stick with the basics and race out the door with one in my hand as I rush of to school, pre school, work, daycare, church,volunteering .....It's my favorite way to start my day, right after my coffee.  So I guess what I'm saying is, I don't need to count calories, I know exactly what's in my food, because I put it there and whenever possible, I grow it too.  I don't mean to imply that I'm perfect, I've been known to eat an entire cheesecake for dinner.  I just don't do it more than once a year and I make sure it's at least a pumpkin one so it counts as a balanced meal.  Pumpkin=veggies, cheese=dairy and protein, crust=fiber and bonus points if you can sneak some quinoa into it.  My son and I just finished a batch of granola/quinoa/rice bars made with a touch of local honey.  Such a delicious treat, gluten free and for this batch anyways, nut free.  The next time we make them I think we'll add some dried local fruit, just don't forget to cook and cool the quinoa first, before you start substituting it into your favourite recipes, especially if you're putting it into your food processor or blender!  Trust me, once it glues itself into a ball, it's pretty much useless for food purposes.  It makes a decent, albeit pricey, play-dough substitute.

    These days I am always having to take a deep breath and remind myself that worry rarely changes the outcome of any situation.  That, when faced with what at first seem like insurmountable obstacles in life, we, as moms, can generally pull off near miracles from just the contents of our cupboards.  When I embarked on this journey of parenting, I, like most people, was much more at it before I had put in any actual woman hours.  Always ready to offer unsolicited advice and quick to judge.

     Having been blessed with a relatively quiet and subdued first boy child, I was able to merrily sail along balancing parenting with working nights and congratulating myself on my vastly superior parenting skills because we were able to go to fancy restaurants with toddler in tow and he would sit quietly at the table and read his books or play with his cars while we basked in the envy of every other parent in the place.  The arrival of boy number 2 quickly dispelled any illusions I had regarding the level of control one actually has over one's children.  I understand now who is actually in charge.

I am now the mom that gets shot dirty looks and not so quiet remarks of derision from the childless and from those parents that had the good sense to stop at one, as I attempt to maintain an ounce of dignity and professionalism while I drag an irate toddler through the mall by one leg (face up, of course) as I race from one appointment to another, so I can pick up the older boy from school on time and get him to one of a million extra curricular activities.  I now know you get the easy baby first, it ensures the propagation of the species.  If the order had been reversed in my two, there would not have been a second one, I'd have been too afraid.  Continuing to work nights while juggling a newborn with the early mornings of a school aged child proved that human beings, even moms, need SOME sleep.  So with that realisation, combined with the knowledge that I'm just driving the crazy train and am not really in control of anything, I decided a drastic career change was now a necessity, not just a dream.

     I decided on a new career that would allow me the freedom to be with my kids, that combined many of my skills and interests and settled upon real estate.  It was shortly after becoming licensed that, once again, reality began to intrude into my plans.  I find myself about a year in and faced with the never easy task of trying to explain current market conditions and, now a single mom, juggling kids, sick days, work and home.  My new career is fun, challenging, interesting and in many ways, not at all what I had envisioned when I started this journey.  I truly love helping people find their perfect home, nothing makes me happier than helping to make a reality, that which seems impossible.  It has forced me to re-examine what I believe it takes to make a house into a home.  I've learned that people are rarely looking for walls and a roof.  People are looking for the right frame to put around their family.

The challenges and successes of the past year have made me realise that I really am capable of almost anything, even if the end result doesn't look anything like what I had pictured in the beginning.  I am probably never going to be the slick and polished real estate agent, with the fancy car and immaculate suit.  I am always going to have smears of home made peanut butter (we ran out, and as most moms can attest, I am willing to try just about anything to avoid a trip to the grocery store with the kids, and we had nuts left over from Christmas and, thank you Google) and goodness knows what else on my clothes.  There will always be Cheerios and granola bar wrappers in between the seats of my car, and I can absolutely guarantee I will not be taking any exotic vacations any time soon, nor will I be making any appearances on television either.  Unless it's a news report about the fire department having to breakdown the door of the bathroom at church because there's a 3 year old who locked himself in and there's no key and he's got all the water turned on.  I also know that I understand all the challenges that face today's families better than any other Realtor around as I've had to live through pretty much every single one of them in the space of a single year.  It has made me a better mom, a better person and definitely a better, more compassionate Realtor.  I've realised just how capable I really am, and that I will get everything that needs to get done accomplished, even if it means using Duct Tape instead of a very necessary but misplaced belt when getting the kids ready for little league practise.  Thankfully he didn't need to use the bathroom during practise!

     I think I might try juggling chainsaws in the coming year, just to keep things exciting.

The days grow longer as we wind our way through spring and life gets busier and brighter, with play dates and picnics and long evenings spent outside with friends and neighbours.  It gets harder and harder to get the kids inside and to bed, harder and harder to get them to sleep in through the sunlit mornings.  We are racing around the city trying to fit in all the fun, to be the super mom we all love to be, meeting the needs of my clients, trying to remember to meet a few of my own needs against the looming deadline of summer.  It must be a hold over from our childhoods, waiting for the promise filled days of summer vacation to arrive.  The first niggling of excitement starts as May blooms and Mother's day breaks.  I got to enjoy a day as close to perfect as I could expect.  Sunday morning breakfast of home made waffles topped with the first crops of local strawberries and tons of whipped cream.  Then a wonderful trip to church to meet the newest family member, an adorable bundle of energy from Siberia, now at his new home here Victoria.  We spent a lovely afternoon at the pool playing, swimming and splashing and then made food to share with our neighbours.  It turned out I forgot to put onions in my ham and mixed bean soup, but that wasn't the important part of the day anyways.  My so sweet baby boy insisted on getting me a beautiful amber and sterling silver ring because he saw a commercial on TV about showing mom how much you love how much she does for you with diamonds.  Of course it sure helped that they were referred to as "candy diamonds".  What a brilliant marketing plan.  I'm betting that dad was grateful 4 year olds don't really know what diamonds are!  It was still the sweetest gift I've ever gotten.
Since that wonderful day, I've juggled working 10 and 12 hour days trying to find the perfect home for my wonderful clients with my beautiful baby boy's crazy hectic schedule of school, gymnastics, baseball and friends.  I'm looking at tomorrow, the traditional start of summer, the May long weekend, exhausted, with a heart filled with peace, love and joy.  I can sense a real turning point in the future.  The Real estate market here in Victoria appears to have picked up almost over night and I love being a part of it.  I don't know if it really is God I am feeling as  the sun shines down on my skin or if it's just the warm blush from a glass of wine on the patio after work, but it sure feels good.  then again it could just be that I'm just too tired to care about anything anymore.  Whatever it is, I'll take it.  Especially after the last 9 months!

Balancing mom and career.

As I embark on this new journey, it is becoming ever more clear that finding balance is critical in achieving success and happiness.   Juggling career and motherhood is a herculean task and everytime I think I've finally got a handle on it a new hurdle lands in my path.  My desire to excel at both at the same time often proves overwhelming and exhausting, unused to failure, I am often unwilling to compromise at either.  Planning my son's fourth birthday party for forty people, including making eight cakes from his favorite painting, (Wayne Thiebaud's Cakes, 1969) with client meetings and property showings alongside volunteering at church and dealing with the emotional wake of a seperation has left me feeling exhausted.  How does one balance a budding new career with the endless rounds of winter colds and flus?  How does one reconcile an absolute faith in God's path when confronted with the irredeemable in man?  Knowing what needs to get done and being able to accomplish it are two entirely different things.  We all struggle and we all toil,.  What, in the end, is it that divides those that succeed from those who fail?  What is the definition of success?  Being able to get your child to sleep through the night?  A comfortable bank account?  Being able to look around your living room and realize you belong to a community of amazing friends?  Knowing when to cut your losses and walk away?  When you recognize the great and critical difference between being a loving parent and a good parent?  When somebody figures it out, please let me know.  www.angeliquetroyer.ca