a peek inside the fishbowl

I’m a big fan of Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness Project. One of the things she did during her year of searching for happiness is to develop 12 personal commandments to help guide her daily interactions. She wrote about it here.

I love this idea so much. It makes sense, but the trick is to really dig deep and think about your 12, and then jot them down somewhere you’ll see them often so they’re top-of-mind.

I’m still working on mine, but I’m thinking:

1. Be Andrea
2. Take action
3. Take the high road
4. Remember joy
5. Love
6. Create
7. Let go of fear
8. Take care of myself
9. Pursue my passions
10. Live mindfully
11. ?

What would you include in your own personal commandments? What do you need to remember as you move through your days?

Before I get to the nitty gritty I want to first shout something from the bloggy rooftops:

MY KIDS ATE THIS.

I was so happy I almost fell under the table.

First, look at all the colourful veggies I used:

For our family this kind of meal works better than a stir-fry since my kids prefer their veggies in raw format. And these are raw!

I think if you’re looking for a gateway dish to Vietnamese-style cuisine this might be a good one for you.

Here’s the recipe … although a did a few things differently you may want to consider too:

• I only had 1 tablespoon of fish sauce left in the bottle (this is something that is commonly available at large grocery chains) and subbed low-sodium soy sauce for the rest. This worked out fine. Warning: fish sauce smells a bit funky, but tastes good when you’re eating it. Trust me on this.
• I used a regular English cucumber
• I didn’t have sugar snap peas so I used raw red pepper instead.
• I cooked up some raw shrimp instead of using pre-peeled/pre-cooked because they’re usually cheaper. (To cook them quickly, just poach for a few minutes in boiling water and run under cold water.)
• I used one teaspoon of the chili sauce, but you can omit this if you want.
• I only sprinkled a couple teaspoons of the dressing onto the girl’s plates. I didn’t want to overwhelm.

This was the finished product. I served it with fresh pineapple and a few rice crackers:

Isn’t it pretty and fresh?

I’m so happy I found a keeper. Man. It was about time.

For my next dish, I’ll be sneaking in some veggies the girls don’t normally eat. (Shhhh!)

First, yes, that was my family in the Citizen on Saturday.

I have been watching the comments on the story, mostly because news sites attract all kinds of yahoos and I am curious to see what they’d say. There’s only one comment over there right now, and it’s about carbohydrates. I guess I didn’t make myself very clear. The point of the sugar fast was to gain some awareness about the added sugars in the foods we eat. I never said we’d be cutting out foods that have naturally occurring sugars – fruit and regular milk and bread. I wasn’t going to make my kids do South Beach in the name of good health.

Also, I recently received an email from someone who has virtually eliminated her family’s intake of refined sugars, and has been doing so since last NOVEMBER. So really, in the grand scheme of things, this was no biggie. :)

Anyway, let’s move on.

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