Back in January I wrote about losing all direction when it came to blogging. I pretty much just let the whole thing go and figured that if this is something I'm meant to do then an idea will find me.
Well, it found me. I'm not going to give it away just yet as it's in the super early stages of planning and team building, but my hopes are that the project will start out small and eventually turn into something really big and really great. My hope is that this idea will literally change lives. And it will as long as I can get it off the ground.
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
No Direction Here
I've been away from this blogging business for a little bit. I spent two weeks up north for Christmas and just kind of fell out of my routine. When I got back, I had little motivation to write anything. I couldn't figure out why. I mean, I always have thoughts circling around in my head - sometimes good, sometimes bad - and I actually did type up a few posts but they're still sitting in my "drafts" unedited and unfinished. But again, I have almost zero motivation to do anything with them. Why? I'm not really sure.
I've been picking up in terms of freelance work, which is fantastic. So I've actually been pretty busy with that during the precious free time I have when J is actually taking a nap. And if I'm not blogging for my freelance gig, I just don't really feel like blogging here.
This job also requires that I watch my fair share of reality tv **comments to yourselves...I'm getting paid***. One night, while binge watching an entire season of Kendra On Top, my husband asked me what I thought it might be like if we had our own reality show. And do you know what? It would be pretty flipping boring. Seriously. I am probably one of the most uninteresting people I know. Which is another reason why I can't seem to figure out a direction for my own blog.
Going back and taking a quick look through some of my older posts, I am, for the most part, all over the place here. It started out as a pregnancy/mom blog. But there are a million of those and all of the good niches are taken. I'm not crunchy, nasty or funny. Nor do I really want to slather Baby J's face all over the internet no matter how adorable it may be. I really just do my own thing in terms of parenting and it's not very interesting.
Then it kind of turned into cooking. I love to cook and I love being a stay-at-home mom. So then I thought, maybe just an average stay-at-home mom's blog. I mean, a lot of people do wonder what SAHMs do all day long (one of my unfinished posts was written after hubby made a comment about how I get to nap during the day. Yes, he seriously said that and I almost hit him). And then I got on this Wheat Belly diet kick and messed that whole thing up.
So I think the fact that I just don't have a solid direction here is making it really hard to pick back up.
Although, now I feel like I do have a lot going on. I realized that we are basically going to have to start saving up for a house from scratch. So I have spent a lot of time this past week trying to teach myself how to really budget. I've always loved saving money - finding a great sale gives me such a rush! But the problem is that because I save so much every time I shop, I really end up spending too much because I get ALL the deals! Like, I buy things I really don't need just because I'm getting such a great deal. No good. Basically, we need to make huge lifestyle changes and since payday was today, today was officially Day 1.
So maybe I'll share some of the things I learn along the way. And please feel free to comment and share any tips or tricks that you may have!
I've been picking up in terms of freelance work, which is fantastic. So I've actually been pretty busy with that during the precious free time I have when J is actually taking a nap. And if I'm not blogging for my freelance gig, I just don't really feel like blogging here.
This job also requires that I watch my fair share of reality tv **comments to yourselves...I'm getting paid***. One night, while binge watching an entire season of Kendra On Top, my husband asked me what I thought it might be like if we had our own reality show. And do you know what? It would be pretty flipping boring. Seriously. I am probably one of the most uninteresting people I know. Which is another reason why I can't seem to figure out a direction for my own blog.
Going back and taking a quick look through some of my older posts, I am, for the most part, all over the place here. It started out as a pregnancy/mom blog. But there are a million of those and all of the good niches are taken. I'm not crunchy, nasty or funny. Nor do I really want to slather Baby J's face all over the internet no matter how adorable it may be. I really just do my own thing in terms of parenting and it's not very interesting.
Then it kind of turned into cooking. I love to cook and I love being a stay-at-home mom. So then I thought, maybe just an average stay-at-home mom's blog. I mean, a lot of people do wonder what SAHMs do all day long (one of my unfinished posts was written after hubby made a comment about how I get to nap during the day. Yes, he seriously said that and I almost hit him). And then I got on this Wheat Belly diet kick and messed that whole thing up.
So I think the fact that I just don't have a solid direction here is making it really hard to pick back up.
Although, now I feel like I do have a lot going on. I realized that we are basically going to have to start saving up for a house from scratch. So I have spent a lot of time this past week trying to teach myself how to really budget. I've always loved saving money - finding a great sale gives me such a rush! But the problem is that because I save so much every time I shop, I really end up spending too much because I get ALL the deals! Like, I buy things I really don't need just because I'm getting such a great deal. No good. Basically, we need to make huge lifestyle changes and since payday was today, today was officially Day 1.
So maybe I'll share some of the things I learn along the way. And please feel free to comment and share any tips or tricks that you may have!
Thursday, January 15, 2015
So about that Wheat Belly diet...
It's stupid. While some people swear by it, I just can't. I made it a little more than a week. Over the course of that week, here's what I learned:
1) I really don't eat that much bread or pasta anyway. Adding a menial amount of crushed crackers or bread crumbs to one of my recipes is not preventing me from losing weight. Nor is one bowl of protein and fiber packed steel cut oats in the morning.
2) More veggies are good. I actually love vegetables to begin with - especially when they're fresh - and I have been making more of a conscious effort to make more of them since I started this a week ago. So that's a plus.
3) Shiritaki noodles are disgusting. I didn't actually eat them because the smell was so rancid (the package actually tells you to boil or microwave the noodles first to help weaken the "natural aroma" of these nasty things). They smell like chemicals.
4) I just can't do "diets". Just knowing that I couldn't have something only made me crave it. So yes, I totally failed.
Well, at least I tried it, right?
1) I really don't eat that much bread or pasta anyway. Adding a menial amount of crushed crackers or bread crumbs to one of my recipes is not preventing me from losing weight. Nor is one bowl of protein and fiber packed steel cut oats in the morning.
2) More veggies are good. I actually love vegetables to begin with - especially when they're fresh - and I have been making more of a conscious effort to make more of them since I started this a week ago. So that's a plus.
3) Shiritaki noodles are disgusting. I didn't actually eat them because the smell was so rancid (the package actually tells you to boil or microwave the noodles first to help weaken the "natural aroma" of these nasty things). They smell like chemicals.
4) I just can't do "diets". Just knowing that I couldn't have something only made me crave it. So yes, I totally failed.
Well, at least I tried it, right?
Monday, January 12, 2015
The First Week
I love the NyQuil commercial with the dad who walks into his son's room and says that he will be needing a sick day. But in reality, dads don't take sick days - they take NyQuil.
My cold got the better of me last week and while I couldn't take a day off from J, I did take a few days off from writing. And while I still have some lingering congestion, my head no longer feels like a giant water balloon and I'm not about to drop dead from exhaustion.
So days 5 and 6 of my Wheat Belly diet were pretty decent. I don't remember which day was which, but my breakfasts were pretty much the same: two egg whites and one whole egg. One day I added fresh baby spinach and some feta cheese, while the other day I just added a slice of swiss.
Lunches were leftovers: I finished up my minestrone soup and the other day I had....I actually don't remember.
Dinners: I made a roast chicken and brussels sprouts and the other night was steak and sautéed green beans.
I gave myself Saturday off. And it was bad. Bagel for breakfast, chicken sandwich for lunch, and eggplant parmesan for dinner with chocolate cake for dessert (in all fairness, dessert happened because we went to family's house for dinner)!
Sunday was better: eggs for brunch and I made Spanish chicken for dinner. Normally I serve this dish over rice, but I skipped that last night and served it with sautéed green beans.
The scale was down a total of 1lb. Yup. That's it. Despite the gallons of water and tea that I drank all week, the lack of salt and sugar in my diet together with the lack of carbs and snacks. Granted, I didn't work out at all because I was sick, but the fact that the scale only budged 1 pound isn't exactly encouraging.
My biggest problem, however, with this diet is that I love to cook. I love finding new recipes or tweaking a recipe to make it my own. Now, when I come across a recipe that looks or sounds yummy, I find myself saying "well, can't make that because it calls for bread crumbs", or something like that.
So I'm thinking that I'll give it another couple of weeks and see what happens once I add workouts to the mix.
And for now, I'm off to make some chicken noodle soup...sans noodles.
My cold got the better of me last week and while I couldn't take a day off from J, I did take a few days off from writing. And while I still have some lingering congestion, my head no longer feels like a giant water balloon and I'm not about to drop dead from exhaustion.
So days 5 and 6 of my Wheat Belly diet were pretty decent. I don't remember which day was which, but my breakfasts were pretty much the same: two egg whites and one whole egg. One day I added fresh baby spinach and some feta cheese, while the other day I just added a slice of swiss.
Lunches were leftovers: I finished up my minestrone soup and the other day I had....I actually don't remember.
Dinners: I made a roast chicken and brussels sprouts and the other night was steak and sautéed green beans.
I gave myself Saturday off. And it was bad. Bagel for breakfast, chicken sandwich for lunch, and eggplant parmesan for dinner with chocolate cake for dessert (in all fairness, dessert happened because we went to family's house for dinner)!
Sunday was better: eggs for brunch and I made Spanish chicken for dinner. Normally I serve this dish over rice, but I skipped that last night and served it with sautéed green beans.
The scale was down a total of 1lb. Yup. That's it. Despite the gallons of water and tea that I drank all week, the lack of salt and sugar in my diet together with the lack of carbs and snacks. Granted, I didn't work out at all because I was sick, but the fact that the scale only budged 1 pound isn't exactly encouraging.
My biggest problem, however, with this diet is that I love to cook. I love finding new recipes or tweaking a recipe to make it my own. Now, when I come across a recipe that looks or sounds yummy, I find myself saying "well, can't make that because it calls for bread crumbs", or something like that.
So I'm thinking that I'll give it another couple of weeks and see what happens once I add workouts to the mix.
And for now, I'm off to make some chicken noodle soup...sans noodles.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Day 4
I suck at life when I'm sick. For the first time ever, I completely burned dinner. As in, charred and black. I can't even tell you what happened so I'm going to blame it on the fact that I can't smell and my head feels like a water balloon.
Waiting for hubs to get home from work to see what he wants to do about this - my guess is that he'll seize this opportunity to grab some takeout. Fail.
Anyway, the rest of the day was okay. I was craving snacks today - nothing in particular, but I wanted something crunchy. Good thing I threw out all of the chips and chex mix!
Breakfast: 4 small wheat-free, gluten-free toaster waffles courtesy of Trader Joe's. Not so great since they do have potato starch, but I still avoided the wheat.
Lunch: Leftover minestrone soup.
Dinner: Was supposed to be maple pecan crusted chicken with a side of roasted brussels sprouts (those came out just fine) but now it's TBD.
Drinks: Tons of water and tea.
Snacks: I think I had 2 or 3 oranges (I bought an 8 lb bag at Whole Foods for $6 so I'll be eating these for a while!) I also had one square of chocolate.
Overall: Definitely not my best day and I'm only 4 days in. Like I said earlier, my head feels like an overfilled water balloon so I had zero desire to cook breakfast this morning. And as for dinner, I haven't even cleaned it up. I just want it to go away so I can go to bed.
Waiting for hubs to get home from work to see what he wants to do about this - my guess is that he'll seize this opportunity to grab some takeout. Fail.
Anyway, the rest of the day was okay. I was craving snacks today - nothing in particular, but I wanted something crunchy. Good thing I threw out all of the chips and chex mix!
Breakfast: 4 small wheat-free, gluten-free toaster waffles courtesy of Trader Joe's. Not so great since they do have potato starch, but I still avoided the wheat.
Lunch: Leftover minestrone soup.
Dinner: Was supposed to be maple pecan crusted chicken with a side of roasted brussels sprouts (those came out just fine) but now it's TBD.
Drinks: Tons of water and tea.
Snacks: I think I had 2 or 3 oranges (I bought an 8 lb bag at Whole Foods for $6 so I'll be eating these for a while!) I also had one square of chocolate.
Overall: Definitely not my best day and I'm only 4 days in. Like I said earlier, my head feels like an overfilled water balloon so I had zero desire to cook breakfast this morning. And as for dinner, I haven't even cleaned it up. I just want it to go away so I can go to bed.
Minestrone Soup
This soup is so easy to make and is a great way to get rid of those veggies in your fridge that are looking a little...well, less than fresh.
Being sick and exhausted, I did this as quickly as I could. There's a lot you can add to this soup (zucchini, fresh green beans, kidney beans, ground beef or turkey, tiny pasta, etc.) but I kept it simple this time.
Ingredients:
Being sick and exhausted, I did this as quickly as I could. There's a lot you can add to this soup (zucchini, fresh green beans, kidney beans, ground beef or turkey, tiny pasta, etc.) but I kept it simple this time.
Ingredients:
- 1 large (or two medium) yellow onions, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3-4 stalks of celery
- 4-5 carrots, peeled and sliced. Or you can use a few handfuls of chopped baby carrots - I never measure these out. I just add however many I want)
- 5 cups beef broth
- 1 can diced tomatoes (I don't drain them)
- 1 can tomato sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- Palmful of italian seasoning
Directions:
- In a medium-large soup pot, saute onion, garlic and celery until softened in vegetable oil.
- Stir in the broth, tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt, pepper and seasonings. Bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat, cover and simmer for one hour.
If you want to add zucchini, beans, pasta, add after one hour and then simmer another 20 minutes before serving.
If adding ground beef or turkey, cook the meat first and then add with the zucchini, beans, etc.
Top with freshly grated parmesan cheese and enjoy!
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Day 3
The cold that my husband and J have been fighting off finally hit me at about 3:30 this morning. My head feels like it weighs 100 lbs and my throat is killing me. The fact that J is non-stop on the go is not helping anything. Did I mention that she's climbing things now?
Anyway, while it would be easiest to either skip meals or have my husband bring home takeout, I'm determined to stick to this Wheat Belly thing.
Breakfast: 1 egg yolk, 2 egg whites scrambled with a handful of fresh baby spinach and one slice of swiss cheese. 1/2 avocado and a piece of wheat free focaccia with some cream cheese.
Lunch: One piece of leftover sweet potato kale pizza from last night (my husband normally steals all of the leftovers but he wasn't a fan of this pizza.)
Dinner: I managed to whip up a quick batch of Minestrone soup this afternoon. Sorry, no pictures of the process today.
Snacks: I ate two or three oranges in hopes that they'll help fight this off.
Drinks: Copious amounts of water and tea with honey.
Exercise: Nope
Overall: I feel like crap. J is napping now which is just enough time for me to get this post done and go close my eyes for a bit.
Until tomorrow.
Anyway, while it would be easiest to either skip meals or have my husband bring home takeout, I'm determined to stick to this Wheat Belly thing.
Breakfast: 1 egg yolk, 2 egg whites scrambled with a handful of fresh baby spinach and one slice of swiss cheese. 1/2 avocado and a piece of wheat free focaccia with some cream cheese.
Lunch: One piece of leftover sweet potato kale pizza from last night (my husband normally steals all of the leftovers but he wasn't a fan of this pizza.)
Dinner: I managed to whip up a quick batch of Minestrone soup this afternoon. Sorry, no pictures of the process today.
Snacks: I ate two or three oranges in hopes that they'll help fight this off.
Drinks: Copious amounts of water and tea with honey.
Exercise: Nope
Overall: I feel like crap. J is napping now which is just enough time for me to get this post done and go close my eyes for a bit.
Until tomorrow.
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