I really wanted to do a true “Style” board for January, but it turned into a “Smorgasbord of Things I Can’t Live Without Right Now” board. Starting from the top left corner going clockwise:

1.) My new accordion organizer that Carissa gave me for Christmas. I do not know what I did before I had this ingenious little notepad that helps me keep my grocery lists and coupons sorted so that I’ll actually use them. I especially enjoy that it is PRETTY!!

2.) My day planner, another new addition to my routine that I’m finding I don’t want to live with out. It is like a 365 day journal of to-do lists and boy is it keeping me busy. Hopefully that is busy with my work, not writing lists.

3.) My Bath and Body Works Wallflower in Fresh Balsam. “Crisp, clean balsam fir blends delightfully with fresh eucalyptus and sweet pine layered with notes of bright apple, cedarwood and musk.” For me, it’s an emphasis on the CRISP and FRESH and makes my tiny office smell like an invigorating walk in the mountains of NC. Let’s just say, I’m not thinking about palm trees when I smell this.

4.) My Max 365 Perpetual Calendar has been giving my office a much needed graphic punch for a while now but I’m still enjoying the bold statement it’s making day in and day out. It even looks good when I forget to change the date every day (woops). Extra points to me for finding a thumbnail image with today’s actual date on it.

5.) These two gorgeous fabrics are just a couple of many that I’m currently drooling over at the moment. But one way or another, I have to have these two in particular. There really isn’t anything I can’t think of a reason to use fabric for, from curtains to aprons to potholders to quilts to bags or to artwork and this adorable “Bird Swing” fabric by Michael Miller is no exception. The combination of yellow and gray continues to enthrall me even after many months and I don’t see myself tiring of cute bird silhouettes any time soon. The graphic but subdued floral print “Lorenza” by Alexander Henry is just what I’ve been looking for and I can’t wait to pick it up as soon as I can and make curtains for my office.

6.) Is that what I think it is? No it’s not, but it’s oh so close. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Orla Kiely must be feeling mighty fine about herself. Either that, or she, like the rest of us, are balking at the many blatant rip-offs of her ubiquitous “Stem Print” design. As much as I shake my head in disbelief at how eerily similar this Tea Time mug from Pier 1 is to Kiely’s design, I must admit that I broke down and bought two of them on clearance. Orla, I promise it’s you I’m thinking of whenever I sip my Constant Comment.

7.) A cup of tea would not be quite perfect without a matching porcelain stirrer from CB2. You cannot go wrong with these $.99 utilitarian beauties. I have a dozen of them and they are without a doubt some of the most used items in my kitchen.

8.) Green tea. I have determined to drink more of the stuff this year and right now I am enjoying a new-to-me variety. Jasmine Tea has such a delightful flavor that I’m only now beginning to appreciate. Be careful not to over-steep it as it can be much too strong otherwise.

9.) To my surprise, Baggu Bags were having a sale last week of 50% off a set of 3 bags. I now own a total of 7 Baggus and that should be plenty to go plastic-free at my next grocery outing. Now I just need to remember to keep them with me so that I’ll actually use them! Pretty easy to do since the sets of 3 each came with their own zippered holding bag.

Well there you have it, my style board “Smorgasbord of Things I Can’t Live Without Right Now” board. I suppose I ought to still make a January Style board. Perhaps I can call this something else?

(Yes, I just decided that’s what I’ll do! At the beginning of every month I’ll post a style board and in the middle of the month I’ll post a “Can’t Live Without It”-type board. )

I mentioned in another post that in order for me to be a frugal grocery shopper I need to take the time to plan out our meals for the week so that I am not wasting money or spoiling food. I went ahead and got started planning for the entire month but to be honest, it took a while. I have a number of things in my pantry and freezer that I want to use up so I’m trying to get myself organized by coordinating meals around those items. I have to think about what ingredients in a meal can be re-used that week if it’s a fresh ingredient, or frozen for use later if it’s a non-perishable item. (However, I will soon be exploring the concept of blanching/freezing fresh produce.) I also don’t want any meals in a given week to be too similar, unless I’m intentionally eating leftovers. Then there’s the process of researching recipes, first deciding if something sounds tasty and then determining if it is going to meet my healthy standards. (hah) Calling it meal “planning” is no joke. This junk takes some brain power! Of course, I love cooking, being creative and experimenting, saving money and eating FOOD, so the end result is a win-win. I suspect that once I get a few solid months of planning down, I won’t have to do so much of it because I’ll have already done the work.

To save myself a little time, I’ve decided that one night a week we will have a big salad for dinner, one night a week we will have breakfast for dinner and one night a week we will have soup for dinner. We ate a lot of salad dinners last year and as much as Dave LOVES it, as in, he goes BONKERS for the stuff, I feel like we ought to have some tasty hot meals on the table once in a while, as opposed to cold limp rotting lettuce. I plan to include salad with every meal because, if I don’t, Dave will go to the fridge and make himself a one anyways. And then we may or may not argue about it. Haha, I love that man. And he loves his salads. Let’s be clear on that. So salad with every meal, for sure and a big salad as our actual dinner on one night a week. Then a breakfast meal of some kind because breakfast foods never disappoint and soup because soup is MY personal all time favorite. The exception to any of these meals is if I happen to come across a recipe that is as easy or easier/cheaper/more available than breakfast/salad/soup.

As I was planning out our meals for this month, I also began writing down specific ingredients for the recipes I’ll be using. I figured, why not, I have all the info in front of me now. This way, for example, if I know I need tuna for next week and it’s on sale this week, I can go ahead and buy it now. I wouldn’t have known that I needed tuna if I hadn’t planned and I wouldn’t have been able to save $7.50.

Here is my menu for this month so far. Notice that there is nothing planned for Sunday nights because there should be plenty of food to snack on for a light dinner like we always do. And as for Saturday nights, well our budget would like us to eat free Chick-Fil-A this month. And whatever our budget says, we DO. (Yes, we eat at Chick-Fil-A often, and this month weekly and I’m going to defend that place till the day I die because it gives me free food. The end.)

Week of January 4th – 10th
Monday – Broccoli Soup
Tuesday – Salad with Tuna
Wednesday – Pasta and Sauce with Salad
Thursday – Leftovers
Friday – Scrambled Eggs with Veggies and Fruit

Week of January 11th – 17th
Monday – Pork Loin with Sweet Potato and Green Beans
Tuesday – Herb & Cheese Tortellini Soup
Wednesday – Speedy Chicken Potpie
Thursday – Chef-type Salad with Boiled Eggs
Friday – Fettuccine Alfredo with Bacon

Week of January 18th – 24th
Monday -Butternut Squash Risotto with Spinach and Chicken Sausage
Tuesday – Spanish Style Tuna and Potato Salad
Wednesday – Quick Chicken Noodle Soup
Thursday – Dijon Croque Monsieur
Friday – Salad of some kind?

Week of January 25th – 31st
Monday – Roast Chicken with Balsamic Bell Peppers and Coconut Rice
Tuesday – Tuna Panini
Wednesday – Bean Burritos?

That’s what I gots so far. This month we have some delicious food goodies that my mom gave us so I’ll be cooking those up one night a week. Most of the other recipes came for the most recent issue of Cooking Light and I was very impressed with the nutrition stats. Yes, even the Fettuccine with Bacon is from Cooking Light. I try to keep my dinners as close to 40-30-30 as I can but I don’t mind if there are some nights where the scales tip a little off of those proportions. I definitely cannot handle lots of potatoes, casseroles, cream sauces, more than 1 – 1.5 servings of pasta or rice and tons of bread on the side. Not gon’ happen.

For a couple of years now I’ve been following (by that I mean ‘interested in’) the 40 30 30 diet composition. Many people know this as the “Zone diet” but I first learned of it through a book called “The Formula”. The simple concept is that the total calorie count of a meal should be broken down into 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat. Eating this way keeps your blood sugar, insulin and glucagon levels where they should be, enabling your body to use stored fat for energy. That’s it in a tiny nutshell but you can read much more about it in the book called The Formula: A Personalized 40-30-30 Fat-Burning Nutrition Program. I can’t say enough good things about this book! Though it was written primarily as a resource for those looking to lose weight, I believe it is a diet plan that can be followed for LIFE, regardless of weight. A word about losing weight though, if you want to lose it, this is THE way to do it. If I will never attempt any other ridiculous “diets” after finding this one. If you’re one of those people who has “tried them all” and not lost weight, believe me, you have not tried THIS. I followed the book’s concept in my day to day eating for much of 2009 and I can say that for the extended periods of time that I ate 40-30-30, I had never felt better in my whole life. You can also follow the Zone diet which is the same concept but is structured differently. (The Formula book/plan was developed because of the Zone diet, by the way.) The Zone diet is unique in that you can easily develop your meal plans by selecting “blocks” of food groups that have been broken down into their appropriate portions. If I want to create a balanced meal, all I need to do is select 3 blocks in each category, carb, protein and fat. Personally, I prefer the Formula because it is what taught me all the science behind the 40-30-30 concept, and because it’s what I read first. (ha) I would strongly recommend reading the Formula book first and then combining it with the Zone diet block system if you want some variety. Here is an excerpt from the Formula book:

“If you eat a meal that is primarily carbohydrate…the level of glucose in your body will rise. When large amounts of glucose enter the bloodstream at one time, your blood sugar level rises and insulin is released to lower it. Elevated insulin levels force your body to burn glucose for energy instead of stored body fat. Even worse, elevated insulin levels convert excess carbohydrates into fat.”

Yep, that totally makes sense.

Anyways, as I mentioned, I implemented the 40 30 30 concept in much of my diet over the course of 2009. Yes friends, you still saw me pig out on Little Italy’s and Ali-Oop’s and I will not deny that I have a problem with social overeating. (I plan to stop perpetuating those jokes in 2010 so we’ll see how that goes.) But for the 5 or 6 days a week that I wasn’t stuffing myself for the sake of big laughs all around (is this sarcasm or not?), I sincerely made an effort to eat in a very balanced and healthy way. In order to have a balanced diet in accordance with the 40 30 30 concept, you have to change a lot of “habits”. Some of those habits for me included cereal, huge portions of rice or pasta, orange juice, bananas, crackers, bread and *cough*dessert*cough*. Basically all carbs that have a high glycemic load. They aren’t all inherently unhealthy, but eaten in an unbalanced way, they become unhealthy. For example, if you do the math for a bowl of your average raisin bran with skim milk, you come up with a ratio of a 52 carbs to 9 protein. What??? Is that a joke? That’s nowhere near 40 30 30. For the record, a bowl of raisin bran (and I mean, ONE serving, not a huge heaping bowl) has not once been enough for me as a satisfying breakfast. I always pour some more into my bowl. Yeah, I do. Now, contrast that with a bowl of oatmeal with cottage cheese and almonds and you get 20 carbs, 15 proteins and a satisfying breakfast. (Notice I didn’t even mention the calorie count. Calories are made up of essential nutrients called, ahem, carbohydrates, protein and fat. It is the ratios of those nutrients that are important not the sum total calorie count. ) As much as I adore cereal and could eat it for every meal plus dessert, I’ve found it hard to justify now that I know about the science of a balanced meal. So I cut it out. Instead of cereal for breakfast, I ate oatmeal, eggs, cottage cheese and fruit or a protein smoothie. For those that could not possibly fathom cutting out cereal, I do believe it can have a place in a balanced meal, just like a lot of other carbohydrates, but you have to read the label and plan to combine it with other proteins. For the most part, I’ve found that having 1/2 cup cereal to stay within a reasonable percentage for carbs just isn’t worth it. Nor is it worth it to pay big money for expensive cereal that has added protein. I’ve found the alternative that works really well for me and I have not at all missed eating cereal for breakfast.

Other “habits” that I’ve either cut out or cut way back on are orange juice, bananas and bread. I used to love a glass of OJ every morning until I realized how much of a waste it was to drink my breakfast. You’ll never find health at the bottom of a juice glass, I can tell you that much. Want OJ? Eat the whole orange. (Or juice it if you must) Far, far better for you. Bananas are a littler tricker to maneuver because, well, I love them. Their fault is that they have a very high glycemic load and I’ve learned that they make my system react the same way it would after eating ice cream or candy. Alternatively, I like to throw in half a frozen banana with a strawberry protein smoothie. Voila, balance. And bread, sweet, glorious bread….. I’ve known for a long time what a wolf in sheep’s clothing you are. I”m all for bread, obviously. Who doesn’t like bread? Bread is, simply, heaven. Unfortunately, bread can be very very sneaky. Over the past couple of years I’ve become more and more aware of how selective you need to be when it comes to what bread you decide to give in to. We all know about the goodness of “whole grains” and “100% whole wheat” and blah blah blah. Bread is bread. Some bread is better for you, most definitely but all bread has a high glycemic load (expect for sprouted grain bread, I believe). My simple criteria for a good bread in-stores is one that has no high-fructose corn syrup, no soy of any kind, and nothing that ends with “extrin”. So, I guess that means no bread for me. To be honest, I’ve just completely eliminated bread from my at-home diet. I only buy it for Dave’s lunches. I don’t eat it for my lunch and I don’t serve it, as a rule, with dinner. I would be interested in exploring alternatives to store-bought breads. After all, I do have a bread maker. Genius. And that WOULD be one way to ensure that my bread has nothing in it I don’t want. Another excellent bread-y option is sprouted grain bread. It is THE best (most healthy) bread you can eat and it is so delicious. It’s also astronomically expensive at the health food store. Yes, it is. The good news is that one can actually make their own sprouted grain bread. Beware, it is nothing like the bread you’re used to. It’s not soft or fluffy, rather it’s dense and chewy and nutty and seedy and grainy and sprouty and…well, I think you understand. I’ve never tried to make it but I’ve definitely researched how. Though I’ve found that it’s easy for me to live without bread on a day to day basis, I would be very interested in bringing sprouted grain variety into the mix.

Lastly, sweets. I don’t personally know anyone with a bigger sweet tooth than myself. Frankly, I’m not sure that I know many people who enjoy eating more than myself. But, it’s kind of a no brainer that dessert is bad for you. It just is. If you can learn to stop buying it at the grocery, you can learn to stop consuming it on a regular basis and your body will in turn learn to stop craving it. I know mine has. Caveat: I am fully aware that I have this great tendency towards weekend bingeing and I would actually really really like to change that about myself. As much as my 2009 eating habits were leaps and abounds ahead of my past gluttonous tendencies, I still have a lot of room for improvement. I’m a big social eater, unfortunately, and I still haven’t figured out how to get control of that. I know quite a lot about health and nutrition but I can’t seem to implement it when I’m “just hanging out” with friends. Or inexplicably eating a bagel between services on Sunday. What is WRONG with me?!?!?! Haha.

Good health and well being isn’t everything, in fact, at some unknown point in the future, it won’t be anything. However, I still want to resolve this year to improve my eating habits further and especially learn how to disassociate eating with “fellowshipping”. Oh my word, for example, care group snack. How pointless is THAT?!?!? We do NOT need it. We don’t need ANY snacks at these events. It only encourages desperate social eaters like me. No more snacks. No more chips. No more of the most delicious bean dip I have ever eaten. PLEASE. It only makes me want….more. Ok sorry. Tangent.

I have issues.

Other upcoming blog posts include my adventures with making steel cut oatmeal in the crock pot, more posts about FOOD, a list of things I want to accomplish this year and so much more frivolity it will make your little head spin. Weeeeee.

On this first day of 2010, it is very fitting to have watched a documentary that will likely change many things about the way we live this year. I would very strongly encourage everyone to view Food, Inc. and be prepared to have your eyes opened. Whether the information in this film is completely new to you or something you’ve been aware of for some time, you will see things that will without a doubt compel you to do something about it. For me personally, this film is like the straw that broke the camel’s back and I have a feeling that I am now on a journey I didn’t think I would ever take.

The truth is, I have been interested in health and nutrition for years now, and despite my propensity for astronomical social bingeing, I very much desire to consume food that is healthy and good for my body. Now more than ever before, I am inching closer and closer to the edge of the slippery slope that is eating organically. Ironically, this is coming at a time when tightening the grocery budget is of paramount importance and there is little to no room for extra “frivolities” in the shopping cart. Oh, silly me. What I used to view as a fad for “those wealthy people” is now something I can no longer ignore as important for ME. What now? How can I reconcile these two seeming extremes: Grocery shopping on a shoestring budget and buying healthy, raw, organic foods?

I’m convinced it can be done, but not without considerable time and effort. It takes much planning to grocery shop with frugality in mind and I would imagine it takes even greater planning to grocery shop with both frugality AND health in mind. Laughably, I am determined to do just that. In the 3 years that I have been married and have been responsible as the main grocery shopper and meal planner, I have learned that it is never frugal to shop on a per day or per meal basis. It is also never frugal to shop in one fell swoop without planning to actually consume what you’ve purchased before it expires. The alternative to the fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants mentality is to actually sit down and think it through. Make a plan. Plot it out. Write it down. It doesn’t have to be a laborious process but it does have to BE a process. It’s a mental processing of “What would we like to eat this week? What can I make this week that I didn’t already eat 3 nights in a row last week? What’s on sale at the grocery stores this week? How can I coordinate my ingredients so that everything gets consumed and nothing is wasted? How can I configure the menu so that my house doesn’t smell like tuna fish and boiled eggs on Wednesday night when I have 15 people coming over after dinner?” (haha. true story.) After this thought processing is complete, it’s off to the store to purchase what is on my carefully collated list. And nothing more. (Purchasing additional items for the purpose of stocking your pantry or freezer is acceptable but deserves its own blog post. Next time, folks.) Now that I’ve decided that eating organically is, at least in great part, “gonna happen” I’m fairly certain my brain will be inundated with even more troubleshooting for how to make it all work in a budget friendly way.

The good news for us penny pinchers is that we really don’t need to eat as much as we think we do. Growing up, I had absolutely no concept of what was a proper portion size for a girl like me so I just ate my food because it tasted sooooo good. And then I ate some more. It has only been in recent years that I realized just how much food I was eating. In fact, I’ve come to believe that Americans in general eat far, far too much and don’t even realize that they could be slimming down and even saving money for all the food they don’t need to be eating after all. As I’ve learned about what a person of my weight and stature should be consuming, I can take heart because though it may cost more to purchase the organic equivalent, I actually need less of it to fill me up anyway.

For 2010, I’m excited to make some serious changes in the way I shop, cook and eat but I know it won’t be an easy transition, especially coming out of a Holiday (eating) season to beat all Holiday seasons. In order to help perpetuate my motivations, I plan to use this blog to write quite a bit about this subject, along with many more subjects pertinent to home life. In fact, my next blog post will be about my vastly important opinions on cereal, eggs, and bread. So good.

And since I’m out of touch with blogging and I don’t know the proper way to end a post, I will just stop writing now. That is all.