My daughter left for school early this morning. I left for school after lunch. When school was out, I had a meeting, then she had practice, and then I had another meeting. We didn't leave the school until 8:15. She said, "I was at school more than 12 hours today. Maybe we should just pack our pillows and blankets and move in."

A day like this calls for good food and that calls for planning. For an after school snack I packed her a soy protein bar and some flavored water. For myself I packed a red raspberry spritzer.

For my daughter's dinner I packed pinto beans, rice, and turkey taco meat. For my dinner I packed lamb salad. It contained shredded carrots, romaine lettuce, fresh spinach, and sliced leg of lamb. I usually pour a generous amount of olive oil on my salad for dressing, but for lunch I had dipped okra in olive oil. Though olive oil is beneficial, there is a limit to how much oil is reasonable in one day. I mixed some of the lamb broth with a little olive oil. It made a nice dressing, moistening the carrots and adding a bit more lamb flavor.

We ate together in my classroom in between all the activities. I would much rather eat at home with the family around the dinner table. But when that is not an option the things I must avoid are:

Running out for expensive, unhealthy fast food

Grabbing snack food out of a vending machine to suppress hunger pains

Getting home hungry and trying to serve a hurried dinner late at night.

We're not serious about packing our pillows and blankets to school; but we are serious about packing good food.