If any of you have ever heard my father speak before….if you haven’t, you should! Check out his blog http://www.joachimworld.blogspot.com/

I digress!!!! I often heard my father say in his speeches that Sir Francis Bacon says “Knowledge is Power” but that he should have said “Applied Knowledge is Power” because if you don’t apply, you don’t know.

I have taken that principle with me throughout my life and if there is one thing I have focused myself on is if I learn something that I consider to be positive, powerful, or good for me and my family…I immediately take action to apply that idea, principle, or strategy.

The reason I write this today is because reading about healthy tips or recipes is not enough. To get results you have to act. It might be difficult at first but and you may encounter resistance but its all part of the process.

So, after pouring my heart out on this blog regarding my childrens’ lunch dilemma… I have received great advise and tips to provide better lunches for my kids.

This weekend I immediately went into action…searching for TOOLS for my kids’ lunchboxes. I bought:

• 2 thermos from Walmart (they aren’t fancy, but they were a great price)
• 2 small recyclable snack bags & 2 larger sandwich bags from The Container Store, and
• 2 water thermos

So i made a delicious quinoa with chopped up carrots and homemade black beans. Yes I tried my FIRST black beans made from scratch.  I can’t say they were delicious but I’m not the chef in this house! and they came out pretty darn good for my first attempt!

I put the hot quinoa first in the container and poured some of the black beans on top. I also packed a little box of raisins, a cheese stick, and grapes.

After ALL my hard work, I got home, opened my kids’ lunchboxes and the grapes, raisins, and cheese were gone!!!! The thermos was pretty full 🙁

So I asked them about it and they both told me they just didn’t like it too much.

They did love their stainless steel water bottles!!!!

I guess I was a little bummed but not discouraged! I think the issue is that they are not used to eating those things at lunch. So much of what we do has to do with what we are used to!!!! So my kids are used to a yogurt or a sandwich, etc. They see rice and beans (which they would devour at home for dinner) and all of a sudden they are not that interested.

But there is a silver lining to this story! When they got home they were still a little hungry! I had to make a decision at that moment, do I feed my hungry children because they didn’t eat their lunch or do I continue with the normal routine. I opted for the latter.

I put them down for nap like I always do and said, its not snack time yet. If you’re still hungry from lunch time then tomorrow you can make sure you finish your lunch. When they woke up I fed them their regular snack. They had fruits yesterday. And then I gave them their regular dinner at 5:30pm. They did devour their dinner. I think they were hungry because dinner was no fuss which was nice. They had a delicious left-over chicken soup.

So today I will try again. We used the remaining Quinoa last night to make our Quinoa Fried Rice with Kimchee (YUMMY!!!!!) and I will give them the left overs for lunch today. Wondering if today will be different than yesterday. We will soon find out! I believe that it will be.

And so we move forward to another change in the process…because we can’t grow and improve unless we change.

Thank you friends for giving me new, healthy ideas to apply to my life. Like my favorite doctor of all time would say….let’s keep spreading the good word!