The Bakery Share and Other Bits

• I bought a great deal on Amazon Local (similar to Groupon but more "local" which I LOVE) for a local bakery share. It sounded good, but you never know. Today, our first share arrive. We are getting it half-price right now but for $10/week this month, we receive a weekly box that we pick up at a location near our house. Even better, we can specify a gluten-free box. Our box today had a loaf of buckwheat bread, caramelized onion tarts, brownies, and orange-cranberry cookies. Because it is a share, some things have nuts but ingredients are listed. If I continue it is a little spendy, so we will have to evaluate. I don't have time to bake and gluten-free bread is usually $7+/loaf so it could work out to be worth it.

• I'm three days from the end of the Clean program and I'm really ready for it to be over. I was fine with it; it has been valuable but those onion tarts are looking really good. I haven't lost more than 6 lbs. which sounds like a little but they feel like more than that. Most importantly, I think the experience has reminded me that I need to be in charge of what I eat with my head, and not resort to cleaning up kids' plates or eating the last little bit so I don't have to put it away.

• I watched Buck this week. A documentary about a very successful horse trainer I came away really re-thinking some of my parenting. Not so much what I do as why I do it and how to make it work better. Buck Brannaman tells horse owners that their horses reflect them; they train them with their own issues. I realized that this is true for parents too. I have a little one who is like looking in a mirror and today I tried in new tack in training. It required more time and stamina from me, but the results were much better and in the end, I think this little one finally got something I've been saying but not showing to her for months. "You can discipline to discourage or discipline to encourage," was a Buck quote that will stay with me. The latter is the way I want to do it. Consistent parenting is so much harder than it looks on the outside.

• My baby is gone and in her place is a little girl with pigtails who LOVES imaginative play. Her chosen toy right now is the train set but unlike Ben who made train noises at her age, Everleigh has conversations between animals and people who must be riding the train. I had to work hard not to bust up laughing while working in the kitchen today and hearing her having conversations with herself.

• Life is so full, and so good right now. There's a lot of it, but it is good stuff.