He Is Risen Indeed!

Happy Easter Monday! How did you spend your Easter? I woke up at oh-dark-thirty yesterday morning to make the three hour drive to my parents house. I hadn’t originally planned on going home for Easter, but my mom has the guilt trip down to a fine art 🙂 Plus, I realized I didn’t want to spend the holiday alone.

I made it home just in time for church. I love the church my parents go to; they still sing hymns and our Pastor conducts the congregation. I miss singing hymns – at my church, we have a praise band, and while they are very talented it’s just not the same.

But, again, I digress.

After church we came home and started prepping for Easter dinner, which we always have at 1300. (That’s 1pm for those who don’t understand military time) The menu for my family: ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, corn, and rolls. Since I’m on the Whole 30, half of that stuff is off-limits, so I improvised:

my plate: ham, sweet potatoes, and mixed veggies.

Technically, the ham wasn’t Whole 30 approved – when doing a Whole30 (and for good health overall) you need to pay particular attention to your ingredients and avoid processed food. Only buy meat with no nitrates or nitrites added, and pay careful attention to added sugars – brown sugar, honey, agave, etc, are not allowed. However, I let this slide because:

1. I made a last minute decision to spend Easter at my parent’s house; and

2. My parents are NOT doing the Whole30

Good enough for me. I try to make the best choices I can, but sometimes it’s just not possible. For example, had I said no to the ham and just tried to eat veggies and sweet potatoes for dinner with no protein, I’d have been starving fifteen minutes later and probably would have made a bad decision – like diving face first into my mom’s homemade peanut butter eggs. (Yeah. I resisted, but barely.)

After we cleaned up from lunch, we decorated Easter eggs!

Yes, I am 31 years old. No, I do not have children. Yes, this was my idea.

When my sisters and I were young we decorated our own eggs every year. It’s tradition that each family member gets their own specially decorated egg with their name on it, and then on Easter morning we’d wake up to a jelly bean trail leading us to our baskets, which were filled with decorated eggs and candy. Each one of us had our own different color jelly beans to follow, but I’m pretty sure not a year went by where we didn’t mix up our trails or lose our baskets.

Obviously there were no baskets or trails this year since I’m not eating candy, but hard boiled eggs are a great on-the-go snack. Plus, who DOESN’T enjoy eating an egg that was hand painted by a member of their family? (Or is that just me?) So, we boiled two dozen or so and I took a bunch back home with me.

We didn’t have anything planned for dinner, so I was forced to scrounge around the fridge for something Whole30 approved to eat. This is what I came up with:

Leaf lettuce with deli turkey, bell peppers, and fresh salsa, with a hard boiled egg on the side. Super quick and super easy. Again, the deli turkey may not have been 100% approved (see above re: nitrates/nitrites), but again, I made the exception based on what I had to work with. It was still a much better option that mindlessly eating candy or popcorn or who knows what else I would have come up with.

And now, I am off to catch a nap! I woke up at 0300 to make the three hour drive back home from my parents, and I drove straight to work. I’m beat!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!