Day 3: Chicken Challenge, Kale Fail

Yesterday was not a bad day. Sometimes that’s the best you can say, right? I woke up early, made lunch, and then headed off to babysit for family #2. In this case, as it is for the other family, I am simply an adult presence in the house. Both girls are in their teens and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. This leaves me lots of time to waste time on facebook do all my homework. I brought my lunch, naturally, all packed up in my little lunchbox:

This is the kale slaw I talked about in my pre-cleanse recipe roundup. Turns out–it’s not that great! The kale is tough and chewy and too spicy, and the dressing is oily and flavorless. I guess I should have chopped the leaves finer, but truly, I can’t get behind eating raw kale. I know folks who swear by it but I think it’s just not my thing. And I really love cooked kale. Like, really a lot.

Small failures aside, I ate it anyway and felt pretty good all day. Of course, this was in the face of watching the two girls I babysit for, plus two of their friends, eat chicken sandwiches at a local cafe and then move onto the frozen yogurt bar. It was pretty challenging to not grab the bowls out of their grubby little hands, but I rose above my baser instincts and thought about the delicious grapefruit I was planning to eat for an afternoon snack. Mmmm….grapefruit.

Dinner was an exercise in futility as well, now that I think about it. I was inspired by Frugal Feeding’s SImple Dhal recipe and thought I could serve that over brown rice….which I did. I tweaked the recipe a little, using ground cumin, a few whole cloves, and a pinch of cayenne (because, why not?), and because Ryan loves potatoes, I tried adding those, too. It was…basically yellow mush. Tasty…but a little lacking in the all-important texture department. A little squeeze of lemon went a long way.

So far, today has been much more fruitful. I feel more alert this morning than yesterday, for sure. I have to keep energized all day and night, especially tonight, because we’re going to see Bruce Springsteen in Philadelphia! He is my number one favorite of all time and I am so stoked. I’ll have a full report tomorrow. ♡