The Taekwondo Kid

It’s Saturday, that means the farmers market, yay! Ok, well not this time it doesn’t.

Today Tyler and I had our belt test for Taekwondo and then a big BBQ afterwards. Yes, for the past 6 months Tyler and I have been taking Taekwondo together. That was one of those things I wanted to write about but didn’t feel I should since it really had nothing to do with being green.

I signed Tyler up back in January because he was still having a hard time adjusting after the move here. He’s a bit on the sensitive side and was having trouble with a couple kids in his class. He didn’t have any confidence and wasn’t sticking up for himself. Now I certainly didn’t want him to start fighting anyone but I did want him to feel good enough about himself to say, “Leave me alone”.

To make a very long story short, he did get confidence (he’s absolutely amazing at Taekwondo) and they did start leaving him alone. By the end of the year he was actually friends with one of the boys. As his mom I will probably never like this boy, but I’m glad Tyler and him worked it out.



So back to today. Today we were testing for our yellow belts to show that we know our form and one-steps. After that there was a big BBQ for the students of the 2 schools and their families. And I sit here embarrassed to tell you that I not only forgot to bring either our PeopleTowels or Litter Free Lunch napkins, I also forgot our water bottles.



Being up in front of people totally freaks me out. It was all I could do to just make myself eat something this morning. I even almost forgot to bring the cookies (everyone had to bring either a dessert or a salad) that I stayed up all night making. Ok, I didn’t stay up all night but it was pretty late.



I found this recipe for flourless cookies that I had wanted to try out and this seemed like the perfect time. Actually, making them a week earlier to make sure they were good and then making them for the BBQ would probably have been a smarter way to do it but what fun would that have been?

The recipe was super easy and had absolutely no nutritionally redeeming value to it. I tried to focus more on the former than the latter. All you need to make the cookies is powdered sugar, chocolate powder, cornstarch (I used potato starch), salt & egg whites. I did substitute cacao powder in an attempt to make them “healthier”. Hey I can pretend. Needless to say, they were a huge hit.

Now the best part of the whole day for me came when I met one of the teachers from the other school who is also gluten, soy and corn-free just like me. Apparently she makes her own bread, bagels, pizza dough and tortillas and they even taste really good! We exchanged numbers and soon we’re going to get together so she can teach me how to make all those wonderful things. She also gave me the number of her chiropractor (or Voodoo doctor as she lovingly calls him) who is really into eating live foods, something that I’m striving to be better at.

So even though I didn’t get to go to my beloved farmers market it was still a pretty good day.

Oh, and I’m sure Tyler and I passed our test which means we’ll be low green belts and at low green you start sparring. Eek

P.S. I got special permission from Tyler to use those pictures. He really is awesome at Taekwondo and is very proud of himself.