Nanny Diaries

I jotted this down a while ago, because I wanted to remember it. Now I'm "publishing" it.

I'm currently a live-in nanny with a super fun family. I watch the kiddos 12 hours a week. Tomorrow is my 9 to 5 nanny day with the kids. I enjoy it. Last Thursday I cycled through eight children in one day. Kids were literally flying in and out the door. If that confuses you, I'll break it down. The family has three boys. They have one foster child. That makes four. The other four kids came from three other families. But I'm not complaining. It keeps the day interesting. I suppose it can also make me lose my mind a bit. Here's an example.

A few weeks ago I wrote this status on Facebook:

Crazy, right? After I got the keys back, I found the incident funny. During the two hours of waiting because I dropped the car and house keys into the city sewer and then proceeded to lock myself out of the car (by shutting the door to pick up the keys that fell). My cell phone was locked in the car and I had young children by my side. At that point, I looked like the ghost emoji with a blue forehead and transparent eyes. We were stuck outside and I really didn't know what to do. I couldn't put my hand in the storm drain to fish for the keys. I couldn't call someone for help, and I could only walk so far with toddlers. And, like, where would I walk to? I dunno.  Be advised, I only had two of the kids with me at this time.   

After the initial moments of panic, I did something right -- I started knocking on doors. First door, no answer. Second door, a nice gentleman named Paul was willing to help. Well, willing to let me use his phone to call for help. This is where having a great dad comes in handy. He rushed over and managed to get a City of Minneapolis truck to follow him to the scene. hallelujah! So I thought. The worker lifted the metal plate to the storm drain and went down. He dug and looked all over, but no sign of the keys.  I just concluded that I'll have to shell out a few hundred bucks to make a new Volvo key to open the door to fetch my phone and wallet, and, well, drive the car. Life happens, that's why we save and have emergency funds. But the worker gave me the number to the Minneapolis sewer department so they could attempt to go into the sewer tank to find the keys. For those who understand how the pipes and drains work under city roads, don't quote me on what I'm saying here. All I know is that when the sewer department came, they lifted the plate in the middle of the road and went down and managed to come up with the keys. 

Yeah, I said it. The man found the keys! He reached into a pipe under the road and then came out with them. Isn't that awesome? 

I still don't completely understand how I managed to drop the keys. Actually, I do: installing carseats. not fun. But hey! It all worked out and I now I have a story that I can take away. I can also assure you that I'm not parking over a storm drain, like, ever again. 

Something new

I've had this little blog for quite a while, but I still haven't been able to establish a rhythm or feel like I'm doing this blogging thing right. Is this blog supposed to be an artistic journal? Should I write for the sake of others? How much can I share? What do people want to hear, what do they not want to hear? Who's really reading this blog anyways and who cares? What if my writing is bad? What if I offend people? 

There's just a lot of questions I have. Most of those questions I should just ignore. There's a lot of questions that just can't be answered or I'll never know. Yet there are some questions that answer themselves through writing and experimenting. I do enjoy the blogging process and I've enjoyed it for years. If I find joy in it, that should be enough to keep me blogging. I don't have to worry too much about its purpose. 

Now this post isn't about how I'm going to change up my blogging routine or anything, but it is a blogging-type-announcement. And I'm pretty excited about it. For this semester and possibly beyond, I'll be interning with Pinch of Yum- A professional food blog that I adore. Check out this post (for proof).

Why I wanted to intern

I like blogging and I like business. I wanted to do something that would give me experience in those fields NOW and interning for Pinch of Yum fit the bill. I'm still a student and I work as a nanny so I needed to do something that would be really accommodating to my schedule. I also really enjoy food blogs and food photography. This internship gives me a peak at what it's like to blog for a living.  The couple who runs this blog are also really great people, and you'll see that if you follow them on the blog. Lindsay was a teacher and graduated from a Christian college that I took some PSEO classes at.

The deets
This internship is part time. My main role is social media management and marketing. There are a few other tasks that I do from time to time. I'm still in training mode, but Social Media is a big piece. I'm contracted to work 5 to 15 hours a week. It's a paid internship.

How did I get this position?
This goes back to the why I wanted part. I really liked Pinch of Yum and I wanted to work with them. I simply sent an email and attached my resume to see if they were interested in an assistant or intern. They were! I had an interview with them shortly after the email and everything fell into place.

Don't be afraid to reach out and create opportunities for yourself if you are interested in something!

Keep Pinch of Yum on your radar. Follow their Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest too :) 

Whole 30 & My Experience

This August I decided to try Whole 30 . The first half of the Summer I indulged, like, way too much. I needed to change things up, so I decided to do Whole 30 for the remaining weeks of the summer. Whole 30 has you eat only whole foods: meat, veggies, fruits, and nuts for 30 days. I couldn't eat dairy, legumes, grains, or sugar. TOUGH STUFF right there. Doing Whole 30 in the summer was a really good idea for me because fresh foods were abundant in the city. If you aren't familiar with New York City, you would probably think the opposite. Fresh food in the city? What? I thought NYC was full of $1 pizza slices and bagels. That's still true, but there are green carts on pretty much every block and produce is CHEAP. During the summer I nannied 40 hours a week and then the rest of the week was my time to enjoy (Ahhh. I loved that schedule.) Anyways, I had extra time on my hands so I could eat healthy. I was also making a little extra dough with the nannying, so I could spend money on healthier foods. This eating plans seemed like a good route for me. 

For this post, I'm going to break my experience down in three categories: 1) The structure, 2) The hard parts 3) The good parts. 

The structure and key facts 

I found out about Whole 30 through Instagram (no surprise there). I used Instagram for inspiration and accountability. I took pictures of the foods I was eating and I saw pictures of foods other Whole30ers were eating. My Whole 30 experience lasted 28 days. It would have been cool to make it through the whole thing, but I didn't. I shopped at Whole Foods and NYC green carts. Occasionally there was Whole30 approved meals I could eat where I nannied, so I was able to shop the nanny fridge.  I took daily field notes to record this experience on my iPhone. I don't think I'll share these notes, mainly because it's TMI all the way when it comes to my digestive track. I probably cheated between 5-10% of the time. I never ate grains, but sugar, dairy, and legumes were harder to avoid. 

The hard parts.

1) Eating at a social table. Weekends were killer for me because of social outings. I would go to China Town with some friends and we would order a delicious spread, but I found myself only able to eat the beef and broccoli picked out of a rice bowl. I could never order desserts. I was just so limited when it came to eating out with friends. That wasn't fun. I didn't appreciate the attention either. You're gluten free? Are you on a diet? Do you feel sick? 

2) Meat and veggies - all the time. I probably could have done better research on dinners recipe to eat, because it felt like my only options were some form of meat and veggies. It got boring. Breakfast was exciting for me, and I usually ate a tasty salad for lunch, but dinner was typically anti-climatic. 

3) Saying goodbye to New York. I mentioned that my Whole 30 was really just a Whole 28. That's because my LAST few days in New York were celebration days, and I wasn't able to resist those final ice cream and bakery dates with dear friends I made. I was okay with ending this early. I know it doesn't make me qualified to honestly review the Whole 30 experience, but I got a pretty good taste of it. 

The good parts.

1) My blender and I were BFFs, so that was fun. I was able to make lots of uber healthy smoothies and puddings with that thing.

2) People around me started making healthier choices. I wasn't going for this at all, but it was fun to see the ripple effect. The girls I nannied (especially the 11 year old girl) started asking for vegetable omelettes for breakfast instead of coco puffs. She started to think eating healthy was cool. When I had friends over to my place they were excited to eat zoodles or other healthy snacks. 

3) My workouts were better! This was fun! I never felt bloated or sick when I worked out. I was able to run my fastest mile ever and I managed to run a 10k with a friend (something I haven't been able to do since high school). 

Would you do a Whole 30? Are you gluten free? Have you tried eating paleo? Let me know about your experience.

The pictures throughout this post were all taken by me from Instagram feed. 

I'm going to share another post on Whole 30 that talks about what I learned about my eating "style" and habits. Stay tuned...