Lunch is on me

Congratulations, Tristan! Lunch is in the mail.

Free Lunch?

A result of the blogging conference I attended a few weeks back was getting to know some of the companies involved in sponsoring the conference. It turns out that women make a lot of the household buying decisions in America, and these companies saw a great chance to sell some stuff to the 2000+ women gathered in New York for a couple of days.

I happened to speak with the folks who make the Healthy Choice line of foods, and talked a little about their new "Cafe Steamers" frozen meals. They talked about their focus on preservative-free, fiber and protein rich foods. This sounded like a great idea to me. When I heard words like "vegetables big enough to see" and "easy preparation," I was in. Why? Because lunch is a challenge for me. I'm home with two small kids, and I don't do hot dogs, chicken nuggets, or mac'n cheese. I just don't. I do, however, rush through lunch so that I can get them fed before Pink's afternoon nap (that saves all our sanity). I usually manage something the kids enjoy and meets my minimum standards for healthy eating. I don't usually manage this for myself.

Healthy Choice offered me a few samples to try to improve my lunches. I tried a couple of the Cafe Steamers, and had to share with Pink, who insisted that the Pad Thai was just her liking. Red tried the General Tso's Spicy Chicken, and was favorably impressed (which is saying a lot from a guy who generally refuses anything that comes out of a box or can). I loved the steaming baskets that let me decide how much of the sauce I wanted to add to my lunches. Super!

Do you have lunch challenges? Want to give these a try? Thanks to the folks at Healthy Choice, I get to give away lunch! I'll pick a winner at random at midnight on Thursday - just leave me a comment with the best or worst lunch you've ever eaten!

The Tutu Tote

I may be taking the girly-ness of my favorite toddler just a little too far, but I decided that she needed a special bag to carry her ballet and tap shoes to class. And it couldn't be just any bag, it had to be cute; no, CUTE.

And what doesn't say "cute" like a tote bag wearing a tutu - with a daisy and enough ribbon to strangle a Labrador?

The best part - I had the tulle, the tote bag was on clearance, and I had a coupon for the ribbon. Final cost for my cuteness overload: less than $4.

Meatball and Spaghetti

About a year ago, Red started shopping for a new car. The first car he noticed on the highway that looked interesting was a Volvo. Fast forward 11 months and many, many test drives. Red was in the Volvo dealership, trying to convince them to give him the car he liked for free. Well, not quite free, but for a price that was pretty laughable. They laughed, we left. A few emails back and forth, but they were still snickering. Until yesterday - the dreaded "last day of the month" - and the last of what CNN is reporting was a horrible car sales month. They stopped laughing, and Red bought the car.

We have a tradition of naming cars in our house, and we struggled with this one. We wanted something that paid tribute to the Swedishness of the car. Sven? Bjorn? Ikea? No, food lovers - the car's name is Meatball.

We celebrated by going out for spaghetti.