Bountiful Basket adventure

I have been meaning to get back to this for a while now and finally had a second and I'm not to tired to care here I am! So I have been looking at Simply Organic and following them on facebook now for a while but never was brave enough to try it. Well I was introduced to another similar program call Bountiful Baskets and they had a pick up location in Shelton unlike the other so I thought I would give it a try. I LOVE IT! We didn't know what would be in our basket but for $25 this is what I got...

Fennel, Green Onions, Kale, Celery, Apricots, Grapes, Tomato, Plums, Nectarines, Corn, Avocado, Cantaloupe and Cucumbers!

My tomatos are a little soft but I'll use them in my salads for lunch the next couple days so they wont go bad hopefully! I will deffinitly be particiapating in this again so worth it. The only thing I really dont know what to do with is the fennel but that is what google is for right!

Kitchen wars Part 1

It has been a struggle lately to cook meals after work and get to tball practice on time soooo I had a brilliant idea to make a huge (two) batches of soup to keep in the freezer for those nights. I forget how difficult Jackson can be when I don't have Jared to hand him off when I need to get something done so lets just say cooking was an adventure when I finally had a chance to stop the spinning I just laughed at the mess I made :)

Jackson wouldn't eat for me while I am also trying to cook two huge pots of soup so I just gave him the bowl and spoon to play with....it was worth the pictures and it kept him occupied for about ten minutes

I haven't blogged for so long I thought I would just post a few pictures of our life the last few weeks....

Meet Buster..our now 10 week old yellow lab  and below is Hailey bugs first day of tball this year!

Six Months and counting

My little guy is 6 months old already. Tonight he tried bananas and DIDNT like them!!! SERIOUS haha we will give them to daycare and try again tomorrow but I cant believe its been six whole months. He is precious and getting his little personality which is the best part of having your own children to watch them change and grow. He really has changed so much, he went from a wrickly old man(first born) to this cute grown up looking little man. I had to share a few pictures from tonights attempted photo shoot.

Life after 21

Life after 21 has been same ol same ol....not completely back to old eating ways but certainly not as disciplined as the challenge. I'm fighting to make this lifestyle change for the better but having resistance doesn't make it easy. You need that support system and partner in crime so to speak to help with the struggles and the successes. I find it very difficult to plan and prepare meals because I’m the only one who really wants this life style and so I am running out of ideas and motivation. I can only cook chicken breast so many ways ha ha. I really think getting the cook book that goes with the challenge would be a great gift (in case you needed ideas for me lol). I think meal planning needs to become a priority and I need to not worry so much about other people’s input and just cook what I cook and whoever eat will eat. I want my daughter (currently 5) to stop asking if we can "go out" to eat, I was it to be a given that we will be home eating in the evening. So I have been looking into seeing a nutritionist because my insurance will cover it and I could definitely use the education, I mean this is an appointment id make so I would HAVE to make time to do it.

As you can tell I suck at this whole blogging thing. Life gets away from me and I am either frantically trying to get things done so I can go to bed knowing I’ll be waking up every couple hours that I forget to stop and make time for myself. We forget how important making time for you is. I have forever been so focused on making those around me happy that I rarely think of myself and I mean never. So doing the challenge was the first thing I had done for myself in a long time. For those of you mommas that find time to work full time jobs, this includes you stay at home Mommies also and carve out time for you in that busy day is a miracle and I’d like to know your secrets. For me my dream would be to let go of my guilt enough to find some time to work out again, I have always craved activity and these days it just seems like there are not enough hours in the day for it all. I feel guilty if I spend the few precious hours in the evening away from my kids because I'm gone all day so those hours are golden to me. Then waking up an extra hour early although I could do it seems impossible and silly at this point with getting an average of oh I don't know say 3-4 hours a sleep a night. This alone is killing me and I know it is only temporary but it is a struggle none the less.

I have goals and dreams and I think I am more sentimental now because I have been watching One Tree Hill again these past few weeks and let me tell you is sure makes me miss the "good old days" you know the high school and college ones where you see and talk to your childhood friends every single day. You play sports and involve yourself in activities galore. All the time in the world for you. You hold hands and show PDA without a second thought.(I am a sucker for a good love story...real or fake and yes I do watch the Bachelor haha). I have thought a lot about who I was in high school wishing I was more outgoing and friendly....missing those I spent my time with and those were mostly seasonal friends as I switched from sport to sport. I never really belonged to a group and guilty for the ones I treated poorly even if it was one time or just plain rude because I wanted to be. I have sense because a quiet reserved person uncomfortable in large groups and so thankful for my hubby who can do the talking for us. Staying home is my specialty :) I sure am thankful for a group I am included in on facebook because I am more talkative and participate in conversation way more than I ever would before, probably because we all have common interest and I feel comfortable with most of the members.

I had coffee with an old classmate a few weeks back and it just made me wish that stuff happened more often. I have to thank her for asking me to join her because it was great. Something I would have never done myself but glad she did. It makes me want to ask others out to catch up to see how life is. Anyway, duty calls but I wanted to start something a little different after each blog post Ill end it with my future goals. When I come back to write again I will update you on those goals and see how I do following through

so here it goes

Goals:

make more time for me in day. read a book, go for a walk, sit in a quiet room and relax.
clean out my closet (this is seriously a huge problem)

until next time my friends....

 

The end of the beginning

Well I've finished my 21 days...it was a rough go. Especially the last few days our household got hit with a major head cold and all I wanted was comfort food...Probably one of the hardest things I have ever done....did I make it 21 full days noooope did I try my hardest YES! I honestly did give it a good effort and this way of eating I am going to try and stick with just not as strict. I like honey in my tea and other small things like that. I give props to those peeps that have to eat like this for one reason or another! It's hard work... Over all the most valuable thing I learned was the beginning of a skill in cooking! This is something I have been wishing I was better at always saying "I wish I liked to cook" or could cook but I tried some things I would have never tried and it got me started on learning! I officially have gifts for the next oh I don't know...5 years for birthday and Christmas all kitchen utensils and supplies haha :) 

The most disappointing part was how expensive supplies are. Good food should NOT be impossible to afford! I mean for goodness sake why should I have to choose between feeding my family whole healthy foods grown organically without chemicals and crap or paying my electric bill!! It just makes me angry because we both have good jobs and make enough to support our family but spending up words of $300 a WEEK to eat healthier is so so sad! Granted I'm sure there are tips and tricks you pick up the longer you live "clean" ...I've said it a millions times before but it just makes me want to move out into the middle of a farm and become a farm lady :) if you knew me before this I can imagine how that sounds haha but it just has recently become one of my passions. 

I have thought a lot about continuing this blog or stopping after my 21 days and after a lot of back and forth I have decided to keep it going. Bettering myself is really a life long journey and this just seems like a great place to keep my thoughts. I want to continue to become healthy as my children grow, being as athletic as I was in my "younger" years it blows my mind I even allowed myself to become this unhealthy...now I could give you all about ten million excuses but I won't bore you. I will probably not post every day or even ever week sometimes but I will turn to this as an outlet during the good times and the bad because I love my food especially when I am stressed or sad or bored or maybe I just like food a little much!! I will try my hardest to live with the saying "eat to live, don't live to eat" 

Until next time my friends...

Am I not suppose to start feeling better...

Man oh man have I been cranky for the last few days. I have had this headache that comes out of NOWHERE from not having one to hurts so bad i cant blink in 15 minutes....My face was looking amazing but now it looks terrible. wah wah wah....ok im done with my pity party. Week two was rough, I was not as prepared and did have the money to buy all the stuff on the shopping list. It is ridiculous how much whole unprocessed food cost compared to the "boxed" stuff...its like the more processed it is the cheaper it is and that is Bullsh*t! makes me want to move away on a farm and just live..raise my babies and live off the land. Some day Ill have some land to at least pretend :)

The Food- I didnt really try any new recipes from the book, I have been eating what I have on hand so breakfast is eggs with a veggie tossed in today it was zucchini. I did make this big pot of kale and chicken soup its amazing and all mine because my husband wont touch it haha. It is was not for my daddy (yes I still call him that) I would have gone hungry this weekend. He has been doing this with us and lost 6 LBS! in a week and a half, gives me some leverage to encourage him to keep it up :) its crazy what little changes can do. I have been sticking to chicken and veggies for dinner for the most part. I of course have not been perfect so this 21 days didnt exactly happen and Im ok with that so for now I will finish off as strong as I can and try to keep it up.  I also tried to make these almond butter cups that taste absolutely horrible! so bad that I will be tossing them out! so so yucky but here is a picture they looks really yummy but looks can be deceiving haha...this is honestly the first thing I can say that I have made from my book and absolutely positively will never ever make them again!  Anyway this busy Momma has a ton of stuff to get done and no one to do it for me so off I go :) Until next time my friends nighty night OH and I didnt read or proof this soooo oopsies if there are errors.

The Importance of Preparation

Yesterday I learned a very valuable lesson, not that I didn’t know this already but it sure set it into stone….PREPARATION IS KEY TO SUCCESS! Now a little back story for you all (which will sound a LOT like an excuse but rest assured I take full responsibility) My son is 4 ½ months old, slept really well for the first 4 months of his life only waking once a night to eat quickly and always went right back to sleep. Well about 3 days before I went back to work full time he decided it would be fun to wake up every oh 1.5 – 2 hours all night long and eat every time he woke up needless to say this was a little bit of a shock to my system because he spoiled me so much while I was off work.…SOOO it begins the other night he actually slept a full 8 hours IN A ROW!!! This was a blessing and a curse for a few reasons but the most important is that I slept completely through my alarm…I mean he has been my alarm for two weeks now I completely didn’t hear my actual alarm when it went off. I woke up a full hour later than I normally do and if you have children you know that even 5-10 minutes can be detrimental to getting somewhere on time….because he didn’t wake up to eat 5 times I also had some other issues that needed taken care of. THIS my friends is where it alllll went wrong! I did NOT have anything prepared for lunch OR breakfast for the day because the night before I decided I would just get it ready in the morning…ya know because I’ll be up and all… well as I rushed to get things done, bottles put together, dressed, showered, kids dressed and Jackson fed I did not make time to get meals ready. I had a croissant…BAD BAD BAD! I didn’t think about it, I didn’t feel guilty it happened so fast. I did however feel so sick after and if that was not punishment enough I now had to spill the truth to all of you. Come lunch time though I was back on track and I ate a salad from subway. This made me feel a little better and instead of just giving up and quitting because I didn’t stick to the plan exactly for my 21 days like I usually would have I just decided I would go home and have something ready for breakfast and lunch before I went to bed.

Now that I spilled my terrible mistake to you all I’ll get to the food I did eat the last few days that followed the plan….I have been making the smoothies and they are actually very good! So far I have tried three of the four recipes in the book and I’ve liked them all, there is one that you put unsweetened cocoa powder in which gives my brain that small amount of chocolate it needs to think I just did something I wasn’t supposed too. Monday for lunch I had left over meat balls and boc choy slaw..which was something that was really great. I will make them again and again because it was not only super easy but it tasted good! Jared wanted to try a meat ball and I wouldn’t let him because he chose to eat dinner and his mom and dads this, may be evil but I’ll make them again and he can eat with me next time hehe and that way I had lunch leftovers. For dinner my dad made my mom and I shrimp pad Thai, something I would NEVER consider even trying because of the shrimp but because my dad sent some along for me I decided to put my big girl pants on and eat it…and I’m glad I did it was yummy and I even ate all my shrimp! Of course you know I didn’t eat breakfast and for lunch yesterday I had a salad from subway that had meat on it and various veggies no salad dressing, But for dinner again I didn’t have anything ready I so called my daddio and he made us all chicken. It was really good along with the dressing he home made from the book. I have and will continue to beg them to go to storage and get their stash of mason jars so I can have some jars to put my homemade stuff in…salad dressing, mayo etc. and because today I am back on track I had scrambled eggs for breakfast with spinach chopped up in it and an avocado. YUM YUM!

I saw something on a friends Facebook, that said to get rid of the word “DIET” from your vocabulary and that is just so true especially with having a beautiful little girl in my home, I have never been positive about my post baby body (not that I openly bash myself or anything in her ear shot) but its so important to teach good eating habits and the importance that we don’t live to eat we but eat to live…fuel for our bodies! If we treat our bodies right they will be good to us. And on that note I vow to try my hardest to never “DIET” again but to continue my journey towards eating healthy and clean for the sake of my children, Hubby and of course myself.