Did you say FOOD???

Let me start by admitting it: I LOVE FOOD!

Yup! Cheese, veggies, meat, fruits, bread and most importantly—chocolate! As I head closer to my 50s (gasp!) I realized I will never be able to give up any type of food. Cut carbs? No way! No butter on my brussel sprouts? Nope! Give up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups ? Um...NO! This is probably why I haven't been able to lose the weight I want to lose. :)

However, as I get older I have changed my focus. No longer is it how much I weigh or how much weight I want to lose to become the "perfect" size...but how healthy I feel. Can I walk up a flight of stairs and not be winded? Can I go for a bike ride and not have to take a nap afterward? How can I feel healthy and live a healthy as well as ecologically friendly lifestyle?

Recycle! Eat farm raised meat! Cage-free eggs only! Whole wheat! Watch your trans-fats! You've heard it all. It's overwhelming. It's crazy. One step at a time, folks. That's the best you can do. Am I the best at recycling? No. Ask my husband! When there's three peanut butter cups in a package do I save one for later? No! (Nancy laughs) Ask my daughter.

So, why should you read my blog? I'll tell ya'. My husband and I (and occasionally my daughter—teens, ya know?) eat out A LOT. We also have purchased a share in the Naperville CSA (www.greenearthinstitute.org) and turned our small yard into a vegetable/herb garden with some fruit (strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) thrown in. Oh, and we have a walnut tree.

We try to use every available inch to grow our food (much to the dismay of our German shepherd). We compost. We save our rainwater. We recycle (threes and fives go to Whole Foods).

But most of all we EAT! We go to restaurants and then come home and try to recreate what we ate—in our kitchen. Sometimes we create something that tastes nothing like what we had, sometimes it's spot on! We try to make it healthier (our home grown and CSA food), easy to make (any more than five ingredients, and I'm lost) and cost effective (the economy is still not "right" yet, folks!).

So between eating out, CSA, our garden, composting, collecting rain water and recycling, I will share with you everything we go through. Our successes and, yup, our failures. I promise you it's not all "roses and caviar," but it IS fun and I guarantee you some laughs and some useful "stuff." With that being said, we have planted a few things inside already.

Next blog I will let you know how they are doing ad how our planned "yard overhaul" this weekend goes! Meanwhile, eat well and enjoy your food!