A PINCH and a punch for the first day of the month.
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February rolled around with the new working week, bringing with it the first school lunch boxes of the year and FebFast, to boot.
The timing is terrible!!
However, maybe this double whammy is the dose of reality we all need to shift back into some sort of healthy routine after getting way off track in January during overly long staycations amid a global pandemic.
Yeah right!
Anyhow, work with me here!!
FebFast is the challenge that asks people to pause for a cause during the month of February.
Participants give up alcohol, sugar or some other vice of their choice to support disadvantaged young people across Australia, aged 12 to 25.
It's an excellent motivator.
Having weaned myself off beer and white wine varietals over recent years, I'm left with just red wine.
That narrows it down to only about 32 varietals.
Red Feet Pinot Noir, I think I love you!
Dal Zotto Sangiovese, you were more than just a summer fling!!
However, giving up red wine seems entirely more doable in February than say the middle of winter. (Dry July is another challenge altogether!)
This year will be my sixth attempt at FebFast including my pathetic, faux go during 2016.
That dry run was well documented, making things slightly simpler in subsequent years.
No one wants to look silly two years in a row.
There are Timeout Passes for FebFast participants.
While I'm sure some people have valid reasons to use them throughout this month, I can't think of any that would stack up for me.
Wine Wednesday. Friday night drinks. Sunday Session. It's a slippery slope once you go there.
MORE MATERIAL GIRL FEBFAST:
However, giving up red wine seems entirely more doable in February than say the middle of winter. (Dry July is another challenge altogether!) This year will be my sixth attempt at FebFast including my pathetic, faux go during 2016. That dry run was well documented.
On a sobering note, school's back this week and, with that, so too are the school lunch boxes.
For years I bought the Nude Food Movers Smash range of lunch boxes for our primary school-aged kids.
Like their marketing suggested, they really were the best thing since sliced bread!
A poor man's bento box, the plastic lunch boxes with compartments or snug-fitting fruit or yoghurt containers, had all the right junk in all the right places.
That's my Meghan Trainor take on it!
Then my girls got older and outgrew those practical, slim-line lunch boxes, choosing insulated, soft-pack styles instead.
These seemingly bottomless lunch boxes don't come with any containers.
To keep these lunch boxes stocked requires a military might amount of containers in the mix, given the number of them that don't come home for weeks on end because they're lying in the bottom of a locker or sleeping over in a classmate's school tub.
If you're lucky, the Great Plastic Container Shortage will kick in by about Week 3 of Term 1.
With schools rightly promoting sustainability and nude food, you're loathe to resort to packing popcorn and grapes in Ziplock bags by Week 4.
"Containers must come home," I implore, "Or we're getting the bento boxes back."
Always looking for a better muesli bar recipe, I combined versions by Donna Hay and Bill Granger at the weekend.
I removed the nuts, adding more seeds.
Neither child was the biggest fan of them, but my husband took one for work.
He packed it in a Ziplock bag.
His sandwich was wrapped in aluminium foil.
"Have a good day," I say, "But, just so you know, you're killing the planet with that lunch wrap."
"I couldn't find any small containers," he says.
Welcome to Week 1.
The struggle is real.
