So Much Has Happened – So Much More to Come

Two months ago tomorrow I went to my Mom’s house and found that she had died in her bed.

Friday, November 11, 2011 started as normal as ever.  Got the kids out the door to school and did some work on the computer, went to the middle school honors assembly that morning as Becca had made Honor Roll and then returned home to do more work and get ready for the weekend – Becca was going to her first school dance that night and I was coordinating drop-off, pick-up and sleep over arrangements with a friend.  I checked the phone for messages and saw I had missed a call from my Mom’s next door neighbor but there was no message.  I could not figure out why they had called so I dialed the number back.  Kathy told me that they hadn’t seen my Mom in 2 days, that her garbage and recycle cans were still at the end of the driveway since Wednesday morning when they saw her take them to the curb, there were also 2 newspapers in front of the house.  They had knocked on her door and there was no answer.  I told her that I’d be right over since I only live 3 miles away.  I tried to call my Mom – no answer.  

I got to the house, Kathy was outside waiting for me.  I walked in and knew at that moment everything in my life had changed.  The smell in the house was that of decay and when I walked into her bedroom I saw that there was no question, she was dead.  I had Kathy call 911 and the police and ambulance showed up, the ambulance left and I waited with the police for the coroner’s office while I started calling family and through a lot of tears I talked to one of my brothers and some of my Aunts. I fed my Mom’s dog and gave him water – he was a mess.  My husband was in a lunch meeting and could not be reached, and even when I did reach him he was offsite and nowhere near his car to come to the house and be with me.  One of my brothers was impossible to reach, his phone went directly to voice mail and his office told me he was not there that day.  I answered a ton of questions for the police and waited.  My friend Denise came over to the house and waited with me.  My husband got there as soon as he could and we waited some more for the coroner to arrive.  They came and took her body away and we figured out what we would have to do next. 

All indications were that she passed away Wednesday afternoon November 9^th, I had spoken to her that morning and so did one of my Aunts, she had scribbled some notes on Wednesday’s paper about her conversation with my Aunt and some things she wanted to do.  Every afternoon she would go into her bedroom, lay down, say the rosary and take a little nap – she died in her bed with her rosary in her hands. 

My kids loved their Granny very much, just that morning the little girls asked when they’d be able to have another sleep over at her house – they loved doing that.  We had called the school and asked them to have the girls go to the after school program that day rather than come home on the bus, we told the school why but not to tell the girls.  Next, we had to tell them the news.  

The kids attend the same Catholic grade school and church that my brothers and I attended and where my family has been members for nearly 40 years.  We stopped by the church office to let them know prior to heading down the school, as soon as I walked in, the church secretary expressed her condolences – word travels fast.  Father Estabrook came down to the school with us to tell the girls, I could barely say a word to them, Jason and Fr. Estabrook did the talking – I was pretty talked out from my phone calls with family by that time.  We prayed. I will forever be grateful to both of them for being there I don’t know how I would have managed to tell them alone.  More tears.

It was getting later in the day and we still had not reached my brother Gregg and I finally talked to my Uncle who lives a couple of miles away from my brother just outside of Pittsburgh.  I had already talked to my Uncle earlier in the day as my Mom was his little sister and he decided to just drive over to my brother’s house and let him know.  They drove to Cleveland that night and got to my house a few hours later.  More tears, some wine, some laughter.

The next days were a whirlwind of family, friends, funeral homes, church, school for the girls, all the things that every family deals with when someone dies.  Honoring wishes but being ‘reasonable’ at the same time, making sure that everyone is “happy” with arrangements and decisions is exhausting.

Was she sick?  This is a questions I’ve been asked many times.  No, she was not sick.  She was out running around taking care of things on Tuesday the 8^th and we had planned to meet for lunch that day but I had to cancel.  She did have undiagnosed heart disease and that is listed as her cause of death but it was not something that was ever so bad in her day to day life that she ever sought care for it.  

I am very lucky that my brothers and I get along very well.  I hear horror stories of siblings being torn apart when their parents are gone because this one or that one has hurt feelings.  I hope that as the process here goes forward we don’t run into any of that but so far, so good.  Dealing with banks, IRA’s, accountants, lawyers and more we are all “on the same page”.  And I thank my Mom (and Dad) for laying out everything clearly in her will and the trust that was set up to handle the real property (house and vehicle).  Gregg took her dog to live with him.

Thanksgiving appeared out of nowhere a week or so after the funeral and as has been the new tradition we hosted at our house it was nice, but sadder without her there.  Christmas came and went with big meals and family together again at our place.

Now decisions are being made about what to do with “everything”.   

My brothers do not live in town so I have been very busy meeting with appraisers, house inspectors, and an estate sale expert.  Next will be an electrician and perhaps a contractor to take care of some of the issues around her house.  “Our” house these days as my brothers and I have now found ourselves 1/3 owners each of the house I grew up in.  

Looking Backward - Moving Forward

Four years ago yesterday my daughters, our cat and I got off of a plane from Hawaii to come and live with my Mom in her house, we had lived in “paradise” for nearly 6 years and Jason stayed behind to continue to work there for a few months while trying to find a job back here on the mainland.  It was too expensive to stay there any longer and we were very fortunate that my Mom never listened to all of the people that told her to get rid of her big house and move into something smaller.  This place was waiting for us.  

Moving in with her was a transition and kind of stressful for all of us.  She had been very used to a nice, quiet, clean, neat, simple house – just her and her dog.  I showed up with a 1-1/2 year old, a 3 year old and a nearly 9 year old.  Diapers, toys, books, snacks, picky eaters, a cat, a husband 4000 miles away, school, homework, friends, and more. A few months later Jason joined us in her house and we lived that way for a number months until we found a place that we could do a rent-to-own lease purchase option on.  As much as we all loved each other I’m quite sure she was very happy to have us out.  

We lived only 3 miles away and in the past few years I never went more than a day or two without talking to her and probably not more than a week without stopping by or getting together with her.  I got very used to being close by after living out of state for nearly a decade, and we got very used to my kids having Granny time as well.  She adored my kids and they loved her dearly.  Going to Granny’s house was always high on their list of things they wanted to do. We all miss her very much.

Mom’s house is in a state of transition now, there is a TON of stuff.  Generations worth of stuff, even though the house is not even 40 years old.  When my Grandmother passed away much of the contents of her house were brought to Ohio and stored in my Mom’s basement.  Rooms that were empty when my brothers and I moved out were again filled with furniture and “things”.  Now it’s time to clean it out, fix it up and get it ready for the next family to make it a home.  My family.

So much more to come – so much to do… 

Music - Life's Soundtrack

Music Music Music

I got my new (to me) piano on Tuesday and I’m finding myself very out of practice.  I love being able to play music and I’m finding myself frustrated by how I’ve let my skills atrophy.  I’ve taken formal lessons on piano, organ, clarinet and guitar.  Music, in one form or another, has been a part of my life since I was 7 years old and my parents took me up to Mario’s Music Villa for lessons.  Back then I HATED IT.  Hated it so much that my teacher told my parents they were wasting their money on trying to have me learn to play piano – he said I just wasn’t cut out for it.  What they were really doing was wasting their money having him try to teach me how to play.  What I really needed was the right teacher.  Joe was the right teacher for my brother Marcus – not so for me. 

Helen, on the other hand was the BEST piano teacher I could ever imagine having.  I learned so much from her, not just how to play notes, but how to play them with feeling and emotion.  She was an older lady who had grand children who were older than me and she had been a professional pianist downtown during live radio shows, in the days before TV killed radio dramas.  She understood music and could improvise like nobody’s business – she was amazing and I wanted to play like her.  She taught me basics and fundamentals and when I got better she let me choose the music I wanted to play – always pushing me to play harder and harder pieces.  She always had confidence in me and taught me to have confidence in myself on the piano.  She ignited my passion for playing music and my love of losing myself on those 88 keys.

I want my kids to have that.  I want them to have a love and passion for music and to be able to sit down and make music themselves. 

My oldest started lessons at 7 years old when we lived in Hawaii and she took lessons for about a year and a half until we moved back to Ohio and I had a hard time finding a teacher and the money to pay for one.  A little over 2 years ago she took up the alto saxophone at school and has been a part of the school band for over a year now.  She plays very well (especially when she practices) and recently moved up to a tenor saxophone at the request of her teacher and the band director.  She is the only tenor sax in the band and I’m very proud of her.  But the piano calls – especially since it is now in the house.  She wants to resume lessons as do my younger daughters.  At least this week – everyone wants piano lessons.

When I was 16 years old my teacher was attempting to lower the number of students she was working with and sat down with my Mother and I and discussed having me take on some of her students and become their teacher.  I was flabbergasted and honored at the same time.  ME – teaching piano?  Take that Joe at Mario’s!  I had the skills and knowledge and took on 2 of her students.  She helped me a bit on how to work with the kids and how to talk to them and how to teach them – kind of like an apprenticeship.  But, enter the fact that I was a 16 year old teenage girl with “things to do” and “places to go” and friends to hang out with and I gave up on teaching those kids – they went back to Helen and I hope they stuck with piano – it is a great instrument and they had a great teacher.  A learning experience for all of us.

I now find myself going back to those days with Helen and her confidence in my abilities and belief that I can also teach this instrument.  Remembering the things she taught me about teaching the piano and not just playing it.  So, I am now sitting down and creating lesson plans and music work sheets for my own kids and choosing, at least at this point, to use them as my test subjects in order to get back into teaching this great musical instrument.  There is just something so satisfying about watching my 6 year old get a look of complete joy on her face when she knows she is playing the song on the page exactly as it is written.  The same goes for the 12 year old and the 5 year old.  I don’t know how long they’ll want to do this and the novelty of having the new piano will wear off and the desire to practice and play will likely wane a bit but I will encourage them, I will help them, I will teach them and I hope that I will finally live up to Helen’s expectations.  And who knows, maybe get a few other students as well.

Grown-ups Live Here - Really

Grown-ups live here – Honestly they do!  Though I realize that sometimes it can be hard to tell.

Is it too much to ask that when someone enters my house for there to be signs that grown-ups live here?  I don’t mind that there are signs that there are kids living here, after all I’m the one who put the Fisher Price Loving Family dollhouse in the living room, I’m the one who put the kids DVD’s in the corner and the little table and chairs with the moon-sand kit on it in the room but the rest of the stuff in the room should show some sort of sign that there are grown-ups living here.  I don’t want a sterile “adult” place but I’d like a few less princess things in the communal living space if you know what I mean.

When the kids were really little it was hard to get rid of the “kids rule this place” look since there were swings, baby seats, bumbos, high chairs, rockers, changing tables, strollers etc. to take up a ton of space but the “baby” here is now in kindergarten and its time for a major kid stuff purge.

We regularly do a sweep of the place for stray toys, wandering stuffed animals and piles of books and other paper items trying to get them back in their place (kids rooms or the basement, on shelves or in the trash) but somehow the place always looks like a combination of a toy store and paper factory explosion. And all of them now being in school has not helped things at all.  The sheer volume of paper that finds its way home from school and into the clutter that is taking over is driving me nuts.

So, I ask, do other people have “kids stuff everywhere” issues?  Or, do they do what I do whenever other “grown-ups” are coming over?  Usually I feel that I have to spend a couple of hours plowing through all of the stuff that has escaped the kids rooms and basement and found its way into the rest of the house.  Of course there is never time for that so it hardly every happens and everything gets scooped up into my arms, deposited in a large box or bags somewhere and squirreled away in a closet, bedroom or the basement waiting for “when I get some time to go through it and take care of it all”.  What usually happens first is the kids find it all again and they pull it out making the stuff migrate all over again.  Lather, rinse and repeat.

I used to pride myself on being very organized, I used to have an organized home and while at work (when I had a job), my work space was always in line and I could find anything on a few minutes notice.  I have this great goal to establish my business and work from home but I need my work space to be organized and since my home would be my office the fact that it is taken over by chaos is not helping me in my efforts.  Clearing out the basement office is a plan but as that is the hiding room for all of the stuff over the years it is also a mountain to plow through first.

So for the past 2 weeks rather than blogging as I intended, (or searching for paying work as I should be) I’ve been spending a lot of my waking hours with no kids at home going through boxes of “stuff” (or crap as I like to call it).  Boxes of kids clothes that I was waiting to get to, boxes of paper and stuff that I was waiting to get to, piles of kid stuff everywhere, toys that my kids are way too old for, boxes that have been moved over and over again waiting for me to get time to go through are now all in my sights. 

So in my quest to make my house workable and look like grown-ups live here I’ve taken 11 boxes of stuff (not crap) to the Salvation Army.  I’ve emptied out and or consolidated another 15 boxes of stuff (down to 4 or 5 boxes at this point) and filled many many garbage bags with a lot of that stuff I was waiting to get a change to go through and decide what to keep and what to get rid of (guess I know what was actually “crap” now) FINALLY.  Yikes – this could take a while.  Stay tuned.  Sooner or later this place will be workable and it will look like grown-ups live here. 

Everything Changed That Day

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001 Jason had an 8:00 a.m. (central time) breakfast meeting as part of the Evanston Human Relations Commission, and he would be going to work in Chicago after the meeting.  We only had one car at the time so on the way to the meeting he dropped me off at Motzart’s, a coffee shop around the corner from where I worked.  As I was getting out of the car the news mentioned something about an airplane hitting one of the World Trade Center’s towers in New York City.  My mind immediately filled with an image of a little Cessna 172 hitting one of the huge buildings, I got my bagel and coffee and walked over to my office.

I fired up my computer, logged in and replicated my lotus notes with my company’s servers in California. I worked as a Field Sales Coordinator for the Trinchero Family Estates, they are the owners of many different California wine brands and you will not find a better group of people to work for or with. 

I turned on my radio and heard the news that the plane that had hit the North tower was not a small private plane but instead a commercial airliner filled with passengers.  It seemed impossible that had happened, was it an accident, was it intentional? What?  I jumped onto the Drudge Report website to see what was happening and saw the news update that a second plane had hit the South tower.  I still remember the feeling of every hair on my body standing on end.

I called my husband’s cell phone – voice mail – left a message about the planes.  Asked him to call me when he got out of the meeting.

Our little office was over a steakhouse in the ‘middle” of Evanston and only my boss and I worked out of that office.  Though, on this particular Tuesday his boss was in town from St. Helena and they were going to be visiting distributors, on-premise locations and retail outlets so she’d be there at some point after their visits.  I was sitting there by myself and getting more and more agitated as the radio kept updating the unfolding story.

As I listened the news became more urgent about the belief that the attacks were purposeful and the intent to kill many people was real.  They talked about the WTC bombings years earlier and speculated who had orchestrated this attack.  They wondered how many more of the planes up in the sky were waiting to be used as bombs.  They attacked New York… would they also attack Chicago?  San Francisco? LA? Dallas?  DC?  What was next?  The news came shortly that the Pentagon had been hit.

Tried Jason’s cell phone again – voice mail again – left a message again – 3 jetliners into 3 buildings, still more in the air.  Don’t go down into Chicago, call me when you get this message…

I knew my boss Bob was in town and left a message on his cell as well.

I called Joy, our travel agent in New York, she handled all of our corporate travel, I knew she was in Midtown. My boss Bob traveled a lot, so did the other sales representatives, directors and managers in the 22 states that I assisted – all in all we had about 70 or so people on the sales team and on any given day at least one of them was probably traveling.  Most of my guys were accounted for.  Joy was very worried about what was going on in New York but promised to keep me updated.

I decided to leave the office and see if I could go find a television somewhere to see what was going on.  I would have bought one and taken it back to the office if I could have found one – the Osco in the middle of Evanston didn’t have any for sale (I though they always had those 13 inch things).  I went back to the office.

Even though it was still very early out west, winery personnel in California were trying to account for every single one of our people across the country.  We set out a plan for a couple of us to handle making calls to everyone’s cell phones, home phones, office phones etc. until we had spoken to everyone – especially our east cost folks.  There was one we couldn’t get in touch with – he lived in New York.  He wasn’t scheduled to travel that day and we hoped and prayed he was out of danger wherever he was.

Joy called from New York – “the building fell down Ellie, the whole f***ing building just fell down!” were her words.  WHAT?  “the building fell, the whole building fell.” She told me they were evacuating and she didn’t know how far she’d be able to get out of the city and she gave me her cell phone number to keep in touch.  I had never met this woman in person, she handled travel for my team so I talked to her multiple times a week but I felt like she was another one of my co-workers, I knew she had just had knee surgery, I  knew she was not able to walk far distances, I wondered where she had to get to in the evacuation – I promised to stay in touch.

Around the same time the news came in about the plane crashing into the field in Shanksville, PA.  Why was this all happening?  What was next?

Jason got out of his meeting, came to my office and called his boss to say he wouldn’t be coming in that day.  It made no sense to head into Chicago when a million people were trying to get out in case we were next.  I wondered if we should go pick up our 2-1/2 year old daughter from the babysitter, we decided not yet.

The second tower fell.

We went to the Evanston Hotel Orrington restaurant – we weren’t really hungry but they had TVs there.  We watched.  We didn’t talk, we just watched.  We stayed for a while watching and then we went home.  We put on the TV and we watched some more.  In awe, in horror, in fear, in confusion.  We watched footage over and over and over and over.  Terrified people falling or jumping from the buildings, others running in the streets from the debris of the falling building, burning buildings, images of planes crashing into buildings, fire and rescue personnel.  Shock.

The news put forth numbers like crazy.  How many people on the planes, how many people working in the towers on a given day, how many people died at Pearl Harbor – would this day have a higher loss of life?  As the afternoon drew on the horror unfolded on the screen in front of us.

Images of the suspected hijackers, phone conversations from people on Flight 93 as the passengers took on the hijackers, images of the rubble. Images of people celebrating in the streets of the middle-east mixed with the pictures of horror from New York assaulted us from the TV – I had to finally turn it off for a while – but then back on because I couldn’t stop watching. 

Word came that the Evanston Ecumenical Council was putting together a mixed faith service to be held at the Presbyterian Church because it was likely big enough to hold all of those who would want to attend. 

We went out side, many other neighbors were also outside, just talking, quietly – in shock over the events of the day. The sky was silent – there were no planes flying overhead any more.  O’Hare wasn’t exactly close to Evanston but there seemed to always be planes in the sky – it was Chicago airspace after all – and it was quiet.

One of the most surreal moments I remember from the day had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks, which may be why it stands out in my mind.  There were two women who lived in the downstairs apartment of the 2-flat that we lived in.  They were a couple and always arguing.  Judging from what we often heard it seemed to be an abusive relationship.  That afternoon these two women were having a screaming fight right in front of the house.  It was about money, it was about respect, it was about lying, it was about “them” etc. one in her car and the other on the porch and I wondered if they even knew what had happened so wrapped up in their little world were they.

I called family members.  I went to get my daughter from the baby sitter. 

We decided to go to the prayer service that night - Priests, Rabbi’s, Ministers and an Imam brought their flocks together than night to pray for the people in New York, the people in Washington, and Pennsylvania and for all of us because at that moment we knew that nowhere was safe.  Someone wanted us dead simply because we existed.  A simple commuter flight was no longer safe and even going to work held a risk that it never had before.  

We watched the rescue efforts long into the night and the next day and the next and the next and on…and then it became recovery efforts when all hope of rescue was gone.  Planes flew again, my Mother flew from Ohio to California on the Tuesday after 9/11.  She and her brother were going to visit another of their brothers for a couple of weeks.  She told me that there were only 5 people on the plane – one an air-marshal. 

We saw photos of the missing, we heard tales of the dead.  An old college roommate lived at that time in New Jersey let me know that classmates of her children had lost parents – their town had lost over a dozen people.  Recovery would take months – plans to rebuild were already being talked about. 

Everything changed that day.

Ten years have passed.  I remember like it was yesterday.

Kids and Technology

My oldest has had a facebook page and cell phone I’m okay with that. Most of her friends also have facebook pages and phones there is a lot of communication going on via FB and texting these days and if used safely and monitored regularly it is fine. She mainly plays games and chats with friends from school and some other friends from cities we used to live in who she no longer gets to see on a regular basis. Granted if I could have bought her a phone that had no camera I would have gone that way – but the only phones with no cameras these days are military spec phone and incredibly expensive – go figure.

While she has a FB page, I have her password, and I set her privacy settings, I have veto power over anything on her profile and when necessary I have changed things, taken things down and even changed her password. I can do that because while it is her page she knows my husband and I have ultimate say on what she can do regarding it. (See This is not a Democracy - )

So, I guess with all of the information out there on what to not let your kids do and say and post online,information on being a vigilant parent regarding social media etc. I’m amazed when I see some of the updates from her friends and other younger FB members. I’m generally astounded that other parents are okay with some of the stuff that their kids are putting out there for the whole world to see. And I wonder if their parents even check to see what their kids are up to. I see things that immediately cause a red flag to go up in my mind and sometimes I would like someone to explain to me how some of this stuff is okay. Kids that aren't even my FB "friend" have wide open profiles and I see rude and insulting comments, I see inappropriate photos, I see out of line messages on the photos and I also know that these kids are under 18 years old and someone should be monitoring their behavior.

I believe that kids need to learn how to use technology and social media in a responsible way since it is so much a part of our lives. The level of instant communication and multitude ways they are constantly in electronic contact with many people are both wonderful and incredibly scary at the same time. For example, the good: when my daughter wiped out on her bike last week she could call me within seconds and I could come get her and her bike from where she fell – and the bad: so many stories of facebook stalkers, cyber bullying, creepers checking out images of kids online, sexting and the plethora of information on protecting identities on line.

I work hard to teach her that it’s always best to err on the side of caution when posting messages, status updates and especially photos online. I’m not especially naïve or particularly prudish regarding things online or in life (and those of you who have known me for decades can probably attest to that) but I am quite protective of the images and profiles of my children online which is why you don’t see their photos on this blog. I pick and choose carefully which photos are online on my facebook page and I have “veto power” over what my daughter posts on her facebook page. Security settings are locked down quite tight and I like it that way.

I have to remember that a middle schooler/high schooler idea of watching what they post may be very different than mine and as a parent I need to be vigilant and remind them that what is posted is a reflection to the world of how the kid sees themselves and wants to be seen - and with my own kids my job is to teach them to only put their best forward – it is also not just how she is posting as a middle schooler, but how she will present herself as she gets older and the example that she sets for her sisters and others in her life. It is something that it is better she learns now rather than learning the hard way down the line while on a job interview or in worse ways.

I realize that teens think that they are incredibly smart and quite invincible but I also believe that their parents ought to know better. So go online, get your kids password, lock your kids profile down, don't let just anyone in the world have access to their information, take their phone numbers and e-mail address off of their info page. Let them know what is okay to put out there for the whole world and what is not. Teach them to make wise and good decisions. It's not easy - but parenting is a pretty tough job.

Oh, and if you see they're posting at 2:00 a.m. on a school night - take their access to social media away for a while.

My New Found Freedom

A strange thing happened started happening last week. At 7:20 a.m. all three of my kids walk out of the house and down to the bus stop together to go to school and I am alone in my house for what felt like the first time.

The silence can be deafening.

I’m currently unemployed which has its upsides and downsides some of which are fairly obvious: Up side: time to do things that I want and need to get done. Down side: very little money to do the things that I want and need to get done. There have been some other perks along the way this summer. I spent the entire summer home with my three kids, we went to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, went to the Great Lakes Science Center, we went swimming A LOT, we did things together had fun. Now they are back in school and I’m finding that being home is strange.

For most all of my adult life I’ve had a job either working outside the house, working from home or staying home taking care of my kids. If I was home alone it meant I was sick. If I was home from work other times, it usually meant one of the kids were sick or there was some sort of natural disaster. This is quite different.

I’ve been unemployed before but that was during a time when my younger girls were not yet in school so I always had company while I was looking for work, filling out forms, and taking care of them and cleaning up after them etc. and while I’m still looking for work and at the same time exploring options for working from home and opportunities to derive income through internet marketing this new found freedom is an interesting thing.

Earlier today I decided what I wanted to make for dinner, decided what I didn’t have at home, went out got into the van went to the store and bought it – stuck to the list and came home to no one digging in the bags looking for something to snack on. It may sound mundane but this is really a new experience.

I’m wondering how to adapt to this, I now have so much I want to do while I have the opportunity – a job could creep up at any time - so I have to make the most of my time. I want to clean the basement, organize the closets, clean out the sun porch, get rid of all of the clothes that don’t fit the little girls, organize books, and DVDs and clean out the garage and more. I want to throw a ton of crap away. I want to get the yard cleaned up, the grass cut and I also want to get to the gym and work out without having to keep an eye on the time. I want to work on my websites and earn some more income…where do I start.

So what am I doing here writing about it rather than doing it? I’m a bit overwhelmed. This new found “freedom” is a bit daunting – I guess I need to take it one step at a time.

If you stay at home – what do you do?

BTW: Anyone hiring?

School Lunches

Last year there was talk of improving the quality and freshness of the school lunches at my kid’s school. Well, I checked the menu for the next month and a half and the only thing that has changed is the price. It’s gone up.

Like in so many schools across the country. The food is the same pre-cooked, heat it up, no cooking involved processed crap as past years. I want my kids to eat healthier, I want my whole family to eat healthier both at home and outside of the home and while we’ve taken steps to have more fresh “real” food at home, the list of pizza (often two times a week in various forms), processed chicken products, hot dogs, french toast stix etc. repeat repeat repeat at school makes me really sad and near as I can tell the only people actually “happy” about the meal options are the kids – and frankly they don’t know any better. As it is now – we’ll be packing lunches more than ever.

Today there are more options than ever available to bring healthy food into the school cafeteria and still offer cost effective options that kids like. I just don’t know how to make it happen at our school. I know that Jamie Oliver is doing his “food revolution” all over the place but I’m also not sure that radical sudden change works either – I think it needs to be an addition of fresh ingredients into the meal options that kids already like and getting rid of the pre-processed crap. They like the chicken nuggets, so make fresh chicken tenderloins prepared in various ways. They like potatoes in just about any form so give them fresh baked potato wedges instead of processed french fries. They’ll eat a number of different vegetables but why give them crap from cans when you can go with fresh or frozen for a more healthy option. They like soup – make home made yummy soup for the kids rather than processed canned stuff. And I wonder if the fruit they are being served is packed in syrup or juice.

Why is it so hard to improve the quality of the food and still provide food the kids will eat? What are the answers?

There are farm to school programs and subsidy programs available to getting better foods on the table in schools – how does a school become a part of that? I’ve looked up resources but don’t know how to do it and I think it is going to come down to the parents demanding better options for their kids and the school administration and those running the school lunch program working to provide better food. Anyone interested in starting our own food revolution? Why are we letting the school feed our kids crappy lunch foods? There are delicious meal options of real food that kids like – why aren’t we providing that? How do we do it? Who can help?

I don't have the answers but I'm looking for comments and feed back and ideas and help here.