Life is just a candle, and a dream must give it flame.

The title of this post is from a song by Rush from their Caress of Steel album, The Fountains of Lamneth.  This is definitely a thought-provoking line.

Well, the weather has returned to being amazing after several cold, overcast, rainy days.  The girls are all busy with their homeschool co-op today, so I decided to capitalize on the weather and take Ginger for a walk on the trail.  I did the now-usual walk to the bridge and turned around to come home.  For some reason, Ginger was really anxious and pretty much tried to pull me home once we started to head back.  I really hope that by taking her out for walks we can both benefit - me by getting the much needed physical activity and her by growing accustomed to the walks and not being so anxious all the time.


I haven't used the Wii Fit Plus for almost a week, now.  This is partially due to a lack of motivation to do so but it is more due to the fact that I just haven't had much of an opportunity over the last week.  The girls had a 4H event on Saturday and that took the whole day.  Additionally, I just wasn't feeling too great which is probably what led to my lack of motivation.

We need to go grocery shopping soon.  I am running low on milk and I am out of yogurt among other things.  So, today for dinner I made French Toast!  You know what is really odd about French Toast?  It is neither French nor toast.  Bread dipped in egg and fried in a skillet.  For my French Toast, I used Ezekiel 4:9 bread and cage free eggs along with a little 100% pure organic maple syrup.  I used 2 slices of bread instead of only one.  Finding the cheaper price on it at Trader Joe's makes it a little easier to use more than one slice, though I am still trying to keep to an average of 1 per day.

Window shopping...in a grocery store?!?

Today, we decided to visit our closest Trader Joe's grocery store.  It is 12 miles away in West Hartford, CT and only minutes away from where we attend church in New Britain.  We had already done our grocery shopping for the week, but I wanted to at least see what they had to offer and at what prices they offered it.  We had been to Trader Joe's on occasion, but never with The Maker's Diet in mind.  This time around, I was looking specifically for grass-fed beef, free range chicken, and anything that featured sprouted grains.

My mission was quite a success!  Trader Joe's has a selection of beef that is labeled as free range but not specifically grass-fed.  They also have one offering that is grass-fed though it is only offered as ground beef.  I didn't look too closely at the free range beef prices as I am mostly interested in the grass-fed option.  They sell this in 1 pound packages at $5.99 each.  Sure, this is more expensive than other options, but as long as I keep it to an occasional 'indulgence' and reasonable portion sizes, I should be fine with the expense.

I was also pleased to find that that have a decent selection of free range chicken, though I was a little less than pleased by the prices.  I am not used to chicken being more expensive than beef!  Sadly, the free range chicken will be more of an indulgence than beef due to the expense.  I will probably buy some once in a while.

One of the more pleasing discoveries was that Trader Joe's carries Ezekiel 4:9 bread and they sell it for $3.99 per loaf - that's $1.70 less than what It's Only Natural sells it for.  They have both the regular and the cinnamon raisin varieties, but they did not have any of the Genesis 1:29 bread.  I am not sure if this is simply an issue of it being out of stock or if they just don't carry it, but I am happy with the Ezekiel 4:9 bread.

Trader Joe's - at least our 'local' one - is not quite as complete as other grocery stores.  For instance, they do not have a full service deli.  As such, we will not be able to rely solely on Trader Joe's for all of our food needs.  Overall, though, we were quite happy with what we found.  It was interesting to discover that quite a few of the options were actually less expensive than what we normally buy.  I found frozen, organic raspberries like I buy at Stop & Shop to add to yogurt.  Trader Joe's had them for about $2.30 less for the same quantity.  I just wish that they were a lot closer - though 12 miles doesn't seem like a great distance, it is not terribly convenient.  We can easily go shopping after church on Sunday given that we are already nearby, but one thing that turned me off was that the store was really crowded.  I felt like I was in the way of other customers.  I have to admit, though, that even in the chaos the employees were very cheerful and helpful.