Primal Comfort

I love eating Primal. The food is fabulous.  I don't really miss roughly 98% of what we used to eat. 

However, that 2% that I missed? I think biscuits and gravy made up roughly 1.5% of it.  I haven't really gone out trying to find substitutes for my old favorite things.  It just seemed better that way. 

My sister-in-law, one of them at least, is eating primal, too.  We found it roughly at the same time and completely independently of one another. 

She's ahead of the game though, because she found Primal biscuits and gravy before I did.  She's that awesome. 

I made it and then changed it.  The husband is pretty excited to have this back in the meal rotation.  It's even worthy of having for dinner on occasion. 

Behold, Primal biscuits:

Primal sausage gravy:

Now, the biscuits are different than regular biscuits.  But they make up for the "different" in the "easy" category.  And let's just say it like it is:  the biscuits are really just there so you don't have to eaty the gravy with a spoon.  That's just weird. 

The gravy is just as good as any gravy I've ever made with flour.  Arrowroot starch/flour is a great stand in for flour as thickener here. 

Primal Biscuits

Makes about a dozen

6 egg whites

3/4 cup blanched almond flour

1/4 cup coconut flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 cup milk

1-1/2 teaspoons butter

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Mix almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder and salt together in large mixing bowl.  Cut in butter.  Stir in milk.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl wisk egg whites until they are very frothy.  (I cheated and used the blender.)  Fold egg whites into flour mixture until combined.  Drop batter by spoon fulls onto baking sheet. 

Bake 15-18 minutes or until tops are golden.

Primal Sausage Gravy

1 lb. ground sausage

1 tablespoon almond flour

2-3 tablespoons arrowroot powder

2-4 cups of milk

salt and pepper to taste

Brown sausage until cooked through.  Remove from pan, keeping drippings in the pan.  You'll need about 1/4 cup of drippings.  You can add butter or bacon grease if needed.

To drippings add almond flour and arrowroot powder, wisking over medium heat until you get a good paste.

Add milk--I used about 3-1/2 cups since I was feeding my family of six.  Bring to a slow boil, stirring constantly.  Add sausage back into the mixture and continue stirring until it is the desired thickness.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over biscuits.

Primal comfort at its finest. 

I'm not going to lie. I think you ought to eat primally.

Inspired by my new low yesterday, I decided that I want to be able to do a pull up.  Just one.  And all I need to do is start getting back on the exercise wagon. 

I haven't done any "formal" exercise for months.  And while my weight loss slowed down, I didn't feel hopeless and I still felt pretty awesome and hopeful.  The whole purpose of my journey to wherever I'm headed was to feel better so I could get out and have fun with my kids.  Recently I realized that my goal has been realized. 

When we went rollerskating some weeks back, I was one of maybe a dozen parents on roller skates.  Of the fifty or so families there, I was out there with my kids skating around and having fun.  Not just sitting there watching.  Part of that had to do with the fact that the husband took the two younger kids, but the rest of it was the fact that I COULD go out and do it and I WANTED to go out and do it.  I can't say all those things have been true in the past when I had no energy and no drive. 

Since starting to eat Primally, I have realized that quite a lot of what I was dealing with had to do with what I ate.  It sounds silly to me now, but before, I just didn't put those things together.  Here's a short list of things that have been resolved without any other intervention other than changing what I eat, and what my family eats.  Some of them I didn't even realize were problems until I realized they were gone.

1.  Eczema--I haven't had a flare since Thanksgiving, a holiday on which I pretty much ate everything in sight for three days straight, whether it was primal or not.  I was not surprised by the flare, but again realized that what I eat affects what my body does.

2.  Joint inflammation--I was beginning to get some inflammation in my pinkie and thumb on both hands.  Arthritis apparently runs in my family since my mother and two of my grandmothers have it.  A couple weeks after beginning to eat primally, it was completely gone.

3.  Energy levels--I don't feel like I'm dragging through my day.  I have energy and I dance around the kitchen singing silly songs with the kids.  I drag them out in the cold and make them run around the yard with me.  We go places and we do fun things and I KEEP UP WITH THEM and even PASS THEM UP on occasion!

4.  Brain fog--I feel like I can think clearly and I don't feel like I'm struggling every day to just get the daily things in order.  My house is still a mess, but I can think and focus and plan.

5.  Food is EASY to prepare and YUMMY to eat and we have very little waste--I'm not a slave to the kitchen baking bread and other meals that seem to take such preparation.  Maybe it has to do with the brain fog lifting, but now that I have a good rotation of good meals that I know my family will eat (and that I'm working on adding to as well), it's so EASY.  For dessert instead of making cookies, which we all know is a huge mess, takes all afternoon, and then since I eat way too much cookie dough I don't even want a cookie, we make maple glazed pecans for dessert.  Pour a couple tablespoons of real maple syrup in a pan, bring it to a bubble, pour in some pecans, sprinkle with salt and stir for a bit.  Pour on a plate and cool it until you can touch them and put them in your mouth without burning yourself and enjoy.  The kids come running.  Except Carsten just sucks the syrup off and spits it on the floor.  But whatever.  And I no longer clean out the fridge and find a half dozen containers of rotting food in there.  We just eat it all.  All of it.  It's awesome.

6.  My Calla--This kid is awesome.  But sometimes she can get out of control in a way that you can tell that she really doesn't have any control over what she's saying and doing.  She just doesn't.  Since switching them all to eating primally we have noticed a HUGE difference in this kid.  She's my steady, thoughtful and deliberate kid now.  Except when we go to Costco and she gets 1/8th of a burrito from a sample table.  Then she's completely out of control for the next 18 hours.  There's definitely a connection between what she eats and how she acts.

7.  The husband has noticed a difference in how he feels--He commented the other day that since he's started P-90X again, he got back to where he was before much more quickly. 

8.  The winter germs--It's January.  We've had two colds in this house.  The husband got one from work, but nobody else got it and it lasted three days and he wasn't even sick enough to miss work.  Carsten got one this week.  He's on day three and it was only boogers and he coughed about five times.  Yes, we're homeschooling, too, so that cuts down on the germs we are exposed to in the first place, but I still think this is a significant development that nobody has been sick enough to actually cancel some event so they can be home in bed all day.

9.  I'm not a slave to food.  If I skip lunch because I'm trying to get all the kids fed and out of the house to go do something fun, I don't get ravenous or cranky or desperate for food.  I am hungry, but it's not the kind of hungry that makes you want to eat your hand.  It's the kind of hungry that somehow seems natural and actually kind of beneficial for my body.  Cleansing might be a good term for it.

10.  I catalog shop with a smile.  You know those clothing catalogs you get in the mail? Not the ones with the scantly clad models that make you feel dirty just touching the catalog, but the ones with healthy, athletic models in cute clothes out surfing and hiking and riding bikes in the sun?  Those ones.  I was looking at one of those the other day thinking that some of what was in there would actually be cute on my new self.  It used to be a "when I lose this weight" thumb through the publication.  Now it's "when we get our tax return." 

11.  I feel great about the food that I'm feeding my kids.  For snacks they eat apples and carrots and cucumbers and olives and jerky and bell peppers and cottage cheese and they drink water.  There's good stuff in every bite.  Yes, I still make them popcorn with lots of butter.  And I'm not going to be the mom who demands my kids don't have pretzels and fish crackers at church.  Or cookies at grandma's.  Those things aren't going to hurt them in the quantities they get them outside the house.  But my goal is to feed them good food and keep them feeling good so when they get out on their own, they know what foods make them feel good and what foods make them feel like garbage.  We talk about it and why we don't eat certain things we used to eat all the time.  I'm not convinced they miss the old foods either.  Now that I figured out how to make biscuits and gravy primal, I'm good to go!

13.  It's EASY and it doesn't require *special* foods or a stupid membership or anything else.  It's everything you need in a book.  Or if you don't want to buy a book, go to http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ and sign up for the newsletter.  You'll get everything you need right there to get started.  There's no commitment other than you have to read the material.  Really.

12.  We only get one chance at this whole health thing. We live and die by what we eat and what we do. This is the real deal.  I no longer struggle and feel discouraged about myself and what I'm eating.  In the 21 Day Total Body Transformation, one paragraph basically asks how what it is you are doing now is working for you.  I thought it would be difficult to give up toast and honey and sugars and such.  But I'm sitting here thinking that I really don't miss any of it.  None of it.  Maybe it's because it makes me feel like crap. 


**This post brought to you by a girl who flipped through her closet today and tried on a pair of size 8 pants.  They fit.  Almost.  A few more pounds and they would actually be comfortable.  YAY!**

Oh, and I don't get paid to say this stuff.  I just really think everyone should try it.  I dare you to try it just for a weeek and see what happens.  It's changed my life.

A new low (or high!) and hope for Mount Laundry!

After struggling since basically Thanksgiving to get my Primal ways working and in line again, this morning I got on the scale and saw a number that I have not seen in quite some time. This number has been elusive since before Grace was born over eight years ago. And just to check, I got off the scale and on again. And I saw it again. And then I did a "new low" dance (fully clothed of course) right there in the bathroom, making it up as I went along. I'm sure it wasn't pretty since I really have no dancing skills, but it was still a great way to start the day.

THEN, I called my friend and she told me that she's building a family closet in her new laundry room. The more she told me about it, the more I realized that I NEED ONE!!! I told her about my awesome calendar that has simplified my life (I even wrote my new little neice's birthday on it and she was just born YESTERDAY! How's that for efficient!?!) and how I had been thinking that there has got to be some way to simplify my whole laundry mess. Now I have this idea in my head of a laundry room between two bathrooms that is a huge closet where everyone has a space for all their clothing and accessories and everyone gets changed in there and it's all in ONE big room! No more transferring laundry to and from everyone's space and . . . I'm shaking with anticipation. Though it might also just be the coffee.

No, it's definitely anticipation, because right now I don't have the space for it and we are not planning to be here in this house forever. And my washer is broken. So no laundry for today! hahahaha!
Some days are just awesome. Today is awesome. I have HOPE!!!!

A little Primal update

I think we've been eating Primal for several months.  And I've lost roughly 30 pounds.  But Thanksgiving kind of rammed a plateau into my efforts.  Between travelling and all the food, particularly the sweets, I have been on a plateau for roughly two weeks.  Just in the last couple days have I gotten that back under control and gone back to my losing ways. 

That's my biggest weakness.  Sugar.  I could honestly not care less about the bread and cereal and all the grains, including rice.  I am thoroughly enjoying all these amazing foods that we are eating.  The rest of the family is, too.  The husband could eat fried yams every day for the rest of his life.  Violet, age 3, did a little cheer in Costco last week when I picked up a package of brussel sprouts.  (YAY!!  I LOVE THOSE!!)  She also loves almonds and pumpkin seeds.  There are NO leftovers in this house.  No casserole rotting in the fridge.  The smoked chicken, primal pot roast, sausage stew and other yummy dinners get eaten.  Every last piece.  What doesn't get eaten gets "recycled" as lunch the next day. 

My biggest challenge regarding the family is keeping enough good snack food around for the kids.  Fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds.  Cans of olives.  They eat it all.  And they love it.  Yogurt and cottage cheese and other cheeses round off the list of foods they love. 

As for eating, like I said, sugar is my biggest weakness.  And it took me a couple weeks after all the pumpkin and apple pie and other treats, which pretty much made me feel sick to my stomach anyway, to get myself back under control.  But finally the last few days I pretty much put my foot down and made myself behave.  Coffee with maple syrup and real cream in it is yummy.  And I was going way overboard in the chocolate department.  But I think I have some sort of an allergy involving chocolate.  It makes my throat and ears itch.  Or something in it makes my throat and ears itch.  I don't have the energy to figure that out right now, so chocolate is off the list for a bit, at least.

What I realized was that part of my problem was not enough sleep.  So I really tried to get a couple good nights sleep.  That helped.  Quite a lot. 

Also, after Thanksgiving I had an eczema flare.  I haven't had one of those for months.  Even through all the moving, which in the past has resulted in cracked and bleeding hands. 

I need to get back on the exercise wagon.  The move pretty much killed that effort.  And I haven't been able to get it back in the mix.  I've been working on the "moving often at a slow pace" part.  But not very hard. The fact that it's cold and somewhat gloomy out quite a bit isn't helping, either.

A little Primal update

The last two weeks have been pretty crazy.  Moving across the state can turn your world up-side-down and give it a good shake.  But in all honesty, remaining in my Primal path was pretty darn easy. 

Oh, and I found my scale.  It says I lost weight.  Over THIRTY POUNDS since around this time last year.  Granted, I was not on my primal path this time last year, but there was a spot in there where I lost about fifteen pounds.  And then I probably gained most of it back. Then sometime the end of June I packed up my scale and put it in storage. So I'm thinking that since going Primal, I've lost over 20 pounds. 

And I feel great. 

Did I mention that I took the whole family with me?  I decided it needed to happen.  And aside from Grace asking if we have toast for breakfast and Calla wondering if she'll ever have macaroni and cheese from a box again (which was rare to begin with), there have been few complaints from that section.  Even the complaints I get are not really that passionate.  More of a passing, wondering comment.

We did realize last Friday that we didn't have any fruit or vegetables in the house.  And the kids were hungry.  So we told them we'd go to the store and get some.  You would have thought we had given them a free lifetime pass to Disneyland or something.  Seriously, I'd say kids in a candy store, but it was the produce section!  They were really that excited.  They picked out apples and oranges and grapes and carrots and cucumbers and orange peppers and green peppers and purple cabbage and green cabbage and pomegranates.  And they came home and ate them.  My kids are weird by many standards and I love it.

Now for the last three days Grace has been asking for turkey pizza.  It's a white sauce pizza I make with garlic and cheese and such.  It's an after Thanksgiving tradition we have.  And we had a package of turkey in the freezer.  So I went to work figuring out how to make it without the crust. 

I found this recipe for flourless pizza.  The crust is made out of eggs.  You whip up the whites, fold in the yokes and bake it for a few minutes.  I forgot to add the salt, but it turned out beautifully.

It kind of reminds me of Dutch Babies, only without the flour.  And it was SUPER easy!  Easier than making a bread dough crust.  And faster, and with way less mess, too! I count a triple bonus there!

Here's the pizza all ready to eat. 

One excited.

Two excited.

 Three excited

Four!

And there was not a single complaint from the complaint department!  In fact, they all ate more than one piece. 

Hey mom, are you done yet?  I'm trying to eat here.

Sorry little dude.  Carry on.

The husband didn't have any complaints either.  So I declared dinner a success.  Then they had yogurt for dessert.  Plain yogurt with some jam stirred into it.

Some of you who have been reading my blog for a while will recall a journey I went on a few years ago to make my own sourdough starter.  I baked my own sourdough bread for over two years and it was delicious.  But I will honestly say that I don't miss it.  I don't miss making it every other day (and the mess).  I don't miss the inflammation in my hands that I have since learned was caused by grains.  I don't miss the bread, either.  I'll admit that it is a little sad, but I feel roughly THIRTY pounds lighter and roughly a MILLION times better.  I've noticed that my kids are thoroughly enjoying good food and I am putting forth a lot less effort to feed them. 

And I feel like my journey has just begun.

The book claims that weightloss the Primal way is effortless.  I find that to be true.  It's taking a lot less effort to both lose weight, do the recommended exercises (which is a wagon I need to jump back on here soon) and prepare the food than I think most folks put forth in their non-primal ways.  It's quite incredible.

It all makes me very happy.

Gone Primal--and apparently it shows!

In the last three days I have gotten at least six "lookin' good, Heidi!" comments. 

I feel like that's a huge deal.  Not because I'm excited that people noticed my behind, but because THEY NOTICED! 

Thank you!  Yes, I have been working at it! 

And one of my new favorite foods is green cabbage and bacon sauteed in bacon grease.  Another one is sweet potato fries--but really they aren't fries.  I just peel the thing, cut it into discs, drown them in olive oil, salt and pepper and bake them until they are almost crispy.  It's kinda like candy.

Today was day four of the 21 day transformation (but I've been at it for nearly 8 weeks) and I realized today that I really don't think I eat nearly as much as I used to.  Not nearly as much.  And food isn't nearly as important as it used to be, either.  One concept that he uses is intermittent fasting.  Just skip a meal because you can.  And really, I can skip a meal, or two, without getting that ravenous feeling I used to get.  Or the headache or the crabbiness.

And check this out.  I've been doing the workouts.  And I've had progress.  Granted, I'm only on level two on most of the exercises and I haven't even attempted a pull up.

The first number is from my first workout on 10/12/11

Push up: 36/30 TODAY: 40/30!


Plank: 60/1:05 TODAY 1:48/1:31

LS Plank 1:22/1:15 TODAY 1:45/1:15

RS Plank 1:10/55 TODAY 1:45/1:15

Squat 30/30 TODAY 45/40

Overhead Press 30/28 TODAY 44/30

These numbers tell me that someday I will be able to do a REAL push up.  And if I stick at it, I might even be able to do a REAL pull up. 
 
Someday.  Though right now I have no idea how much I've lost, or even where I started.  I guess that happens when the scale is in storage.  But the new jeans I got are starting to get loose enough that I'm hiking them up quite a lot. 
 
And that wine colored velvet dress in my closet that I've had all these years hoping that someday I might be able to wear it again???  It's looking like I might get to wear it.  Some day.  There's hope.
 
 
I feel like there's hope.  Before I found this I just kind of felt like getting old and falling apart and dying of some horrible disease even though I did all the "right" things was inevitable.  Now I feel like I can go live my life and enjoy my health and my husband and my kids and teach them how to do the same and it's all going to be awesome.
 
I might have gotten the golden ticket and beat the system.  And won the lottery.  And the trip to Hawaii.  And the new car.  All at the same time.
 
And I don't have to go to meetings.  Or pay any fees.  Or buy anything special. 
 
All I did was buy a book and read it. 
 
Can you tell I'm excited?  And honestly, I think I would be just as excited if nobody noticed my shrinking self.  That's just a bonus.
 
Gone Primal.  Still working it out, but loving it.

Finding Family Health—Living Primal

I bought this book today.  The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation.  Why?

In the last three years I have been working hard to figure out what “healthy” is and what it looks like in my family. This is hard because if I were to ask 100 people to define “healthy” I’d get probably 125 different answers. And if I were to go to the grocery store, which as a mother of four I do quite often, I would get 5,000 different answers from products and publications.

I’m 36, soon to be 37. I have four kids with my amazing husband of 15 years. While there are not any major diseases that would be considered genetic by main stream standards in our family, my mom and two grandmothers have arthritis, my husband’s dad has diabetes and there is breast cancer on both sides.

So, as my children grow and I’m making an effort to learn more and more about “healthy” I am feeling pressure to figure out how to get healthy and stay healthy. In the winter I tell my kids that it’s easier to stay warm than it is to get warm. I think the same thing goes with health. It’s easier to stay healthy than it is to get healthy.

My journey has led me over and over to the connection between real food and real health. No, my kids don’t eat Cheetos and Oreos all the time. But they do definitely like them. And that’s an easy one anyway. Everyone knows that Cheetos and Oreos are not good for you. But what I've learned is that even the vast majority of food products that claim to be healthy are just as bad as Cheetos and Oreos. I’ve learned more and more about these and what they are vs. what they claim to be.

I also have many friends with gluten issues. I haven’t had an issue with that—like no allergies and no Celiac disease and such. But I was beginning to wonder if we do have issues and I'm not making the connection.

One of my biggest problems is that I’m not a huge fan of exercise. I think of myself as a pretty active person, but I don't "exercise".  If I do, it needs to be something I can do with my kids or in spite of my kids. As a family we do get out and go on adventures. We hike and walk and play. I’d say that we’re on the above average end of activity. But I’m not going to Shred and I use my husband's P90-X videos for about 20 minutes of Yoga.  Lots of people I know have had success with Weight Watchers and programs like that. But for some reason they just never really rang my bell. So I have pretty much avoided stuff like that.

I read The Fungas Link—fabulous information. Made me feel SO much better. But missing the support and the such.  However, I did lose about 15 pounds.

I read Good Foods/Bad Foods and made an awesome connection between Good food, bad food and fake food and what our bodies do with what we give it. 

In the last year, the husband lost about 50 pounds by changing his eating habits and exercising like a crazy man. I could not in any stage of my life exercise like he did for that year.  I'm super proud of him and supported his efforts, but it's not for me.

I tried Atkins—The New Atkins for a New You. I gave up grains and sugar and felt great. But again, it was missing something.  But I lost about another 15 pounds.



So with arthritis in my pinky and thumb on my right hand, the stress of moving for the fourth time in three years and feeling pressure from only myself because of this desire to feed my family right, I began my search again. I want so badly to be VIBRANT and healthy.  I want to have FUN with my family.

Then I found The Primal Blueprint—Reading it, the first thing I realized was that every time I gave up grains and sugar I felt SO MUCH BETTER. The second thing I realized was that I could TOTALLY do the exercises he recommends. The third thing was that I need to get my family in on this!  And fourth, NAPPING AND PLAYING ARE PART OF THE PLAN!!!  (By the way, if you want a FREE intro, just sign up for the newsletter and download a free PDF full of all kinds of great info!)

It also went right along with all the previous theories that I had bought into.  Bonus.

Bingo! I feel better. I feel stronger. My figure is different (I don’t have my scale because it’s in storage, but my clothes definitely fit better!), and the inflammation in my hand is GONE.  The "program" is so comprehensive and really quite impressive.  Plus, it completely makes sense to me.  Basically, feed your body what it expects and move your body the way it is designed to move.  Well, duh.

Mark Sisson’s goal is to help 10 million people get healthy. I’m going to add six to that list. I'll keep you posted.  And if you get this book, he'll send you a bunch of free stuff.  (For the record, I'm not making any $$ off this.  I just think it's the best thing I've found in FOREVER and have to share it!)

I'm also requesting he make a babywearing Mama Grok for mamas like me.  Maybe I'll work on that.

The race is ON!

About a month and a half ago a cyber friend of mine pointed me to a pretty awesome website--Mark's Daily Apple.  It's one of those "diet" things, except different.  I'll go more into that later, but for now I will tell you that I've been going Primal, as they call it, for nearly six weeks and I have not felt this good for a long time. 

One of my very favorite things about this "program" (I will refer to it as a program grudgingly since I don't have a better word for it--maybe lifestyle) is that it is so comprehensive.  And it's easy.  No 2 hours of exercise a day or going hungry because you used up all your points or whatever.  I like it and it makes sense to me. 

And he encourages people to take naps.  I'm totally on board with that.

Anyway, I have the food thing pretty well and I decided that I need to figure out the exercise.  One of the exercise recommendations is to sprint once in a while--like once every 7-10 days. 

Today I decided that since it was so nice out, we were going to give it a shot.  And I got Grace on board pretty easily.  Recently she has been setting up family races, so I kinda jumped off of that.

I figured that if we all did one staggered start, everyone would have a pretty good chance.  So Grace and I drew a course and made a chart so she could track who took what place in each of the five races.  We figured out that the lowest score wins.  (Nothing like a little math/science lesson on this harvest break.)

Then we needed starting blocks.  So she went out to the wood pile and got five blocks. 

I gave her a Sharpie.  She went to work.  And it absolutely made me smile when I saw what she came up with.  Her dad had much of the same reaction.

Then we got the course all set up.  Basically we staggered the start so we thought everyone would have a decent chance of winning at least once.  Grace would say "GO!" and we'd all run around the pole and back to the starting line--which was really pretty imaginary, but worked for our purposes.

Calla dressed for success.  A cape and tie-dye socks completed her outfit of a champion.

My starting block.  And the chart, even though it's upside down.

I think they are ready.

ON YOUR MARKS!!

We put dad at the neighbor's house.  He's really fast.  Even with a 24lb baby on his hip.

GET SET! 

. . . . GO!!!!!

I really was running, but I got some pictures of the kids running, too.  Personally, this on is my absolute favorite picture, cape and tie-dye socks and all.  This is Calla to the core.

Violet is quite the runner, too.  Those shoes are her "ballet" shoes.  She loves them.

Mr. C got in on the action even though his diaper was pretty heavy.  I am that mom.

HERE COMES DAD!!  I took this picture and then took off running the other direction.

I beat him on this heat.  Even though I didn't go all around the pole, I did touch it.  He called me a cheater. 

Tallying the scores.  Apparently a cape helps with the math here.

And the winners!!

Fifth and sixth place goes to . . .

Tied for second and third are . . .

And the winner, sporting a cape and tie-dye socks is, CALLA!!!!!! 

Just and FYI, this kid really is fast.  Even without her tie-dye socks and her cape.  She's a runner.  And she's good at it.

 I love this crew.  And their daddy.

By Primal standards, this wasn't much of a workout.  We only did five heats and we probably could have been more intense.  But it was a good, fun start.  But, on the flip side, we didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Went to bed late and then up with kids several times and then Mr. C was up at a stupid dark hour for a couple hours, and by the time daddy got home, mom was pretty tense.  Not at him, just tense.  But this totally saved our evening.  We got out in the front yard and ran around like the crazy people on the other side of the tracks, because now we are on the other side of the tracks, and I believe I have pretty much established that we are crazy.  We laughed and joked and had a great time.  It saved our evening and we all felt better.  Every single one of us. 

Going Primal.  Having fun.  Saving the evening, with a cape and tie-dye socks.  Because we can.