Bookvember

Do you like to read?

I mean, really read.

As in you pick up a book and the moment it grips you and pulls you in, you can’t put it down until you have finished it?

I personally love to read but I don’t feel that I take enough time to push through my ever growing stack of novels and series books to actually feel like I’m letting myself enjoy reading. At least not like I used to.

So, I decided to fix that.

At the start of the month I decided I needed a Bookvember, a November full of reading new-to-me books! I can always pick up some old faves and read them quickly, but this was my chance to bust out the stash of books I had been picking up this year, and add in the ones my grandma picked up for me to read from a library sale. I have so many things I want to read and I just don’t take the time, and this was my chance to push myself to actually sit down and enjoy a few books.

The goal of Bookvember was to see how many books I could get through throughout the month of November. Physical books or e-books, but not audio. I didn’t and still don’t feel that audio books would count since the goal for myself was to take time and sit with something to physically read. It’s almost too easy to put on an audio book while I’m walking or in the car waiting for my son’s school to let out. It seemed to me more like cheating my initial plan.

Well, now that it’s rather past halfway through the month, I must admit, the first four books in my stack that I had hoped to get through, I have not gotten through. I managed to read my first one in two days, and likely only in two because I didn’t allow myself to read the rest of it before I went to sleep the day I had started it, or I would have had it done quickly. It was a short read and rather well done for a quick read, so it was nice to push through that one while enjoying it.

The second book, however, I started and have yet to get past the first few chapters. Not for it being uninteresting at all, but just for the fact I have been too mentally busy to bother to sit and read.

Kind of defeated the point of my making Bookvember a thing for me, huh?

Oops.

I will finish that second book, however, and I hope to start a third before the end of the month. I do need to make it a point to plan time to read every week, though. I for sure do not do that enough, and I rather miss it. I have good intentions, especially when I keep buying new books to read! I just need the push to sit down and actually follow through with what I’d like to do.

One day, that’s all I’ll do.

Read.

Everything on my shelves and in my bins and boxes.

I’ll catch up on everything I’ve been saving up to read for years.

One day.

Hopefully.

♥

Welcome Back

Hi! I know, I know… It’s been a while. Actually, it’s been a long while! When looking back here, I noticed that I had originally started this post back in August of 2020. That would have been a little over a month after my dad’s passing, a few weeks after joining Weight Watchers (again), and roughly five months into the COVID-19 pandemic, here.

Now, it’s November of 2022.

In the past two years I have lost a brother, broke a foot, had surgery, gained and lost a lot of weight, been put on new medication, have become the shortest person in my household, and have done a lot of soul searching and thinking about where I am and what I have been doing in my strangely lived life.

Let’s look back a bit here, shall we?

I was initially coming back to this blog as something to make myself feel good again, and give me the motivation I knew deep down I was going to need to continue with what I needed to do for myself. A few weeks after my dad died, I joined WW (Weight Watchers) again. His death was not fully unexpected, but it also was not figured to be so soon. He was 79, and as stubborn as they come. But I remembered one thing he kept telling me after he had had his first stroke not all that many years ago. He would call and chat while he was in a rehab center, relearning to walk and take care of himself, and while in a call with me would always wind up emotional and repeatedly tell me to make sure and take better care of myself, to take really good care of my health. It always broke me to hear him say that because he never once in my adult life told me I was too ‘fat’ or overweight, or that I looked anything but healthy. Truth be told, my weight was always a question for the doctors when I would go in for appointments, figuring they’d find me pre-diabetic or having high blood pressure or something that wasn’t quite right for someone of my height, with my weight, that would be considered ‘more serious’ than just having a bad back. (And that bad back has nothing to do with my weight, but everything to do with a stupid college dumb move injury.) So after his death, I was reminded of that and decided to do better, for myself, for my dad. Whether I ever actually made him proud or not, I wanted to make sure I took the last advice he had given me for the years up until his death, and do what was needed to be done. I know he’d be proud of me for just trying to do better with my weight, knowing that his weight was a significant reason for his health issues in his older age.

And I did okay. It didn’t last as long as I’d have liked, as I did wind up quitting later into 2021, but I had what I considered a really, really good reason to not stay on plan and just cancel things.

I broke my foot.

Not only did I break my foot, I managed to tear things up bad enough it could only be healed with surgical repairs and titanium plates and screws. Oh, and months of not being able to actually walk at all! I took to eating whatever anyone would bring me to eat, and that was the year we learned that DoorDash was the best thing in the world. It may have cost a bit more, but it meant a clean(er) kitchen, no risk of my teenager burning the house down, and frankly it was just easier to deal with. I can say there are times I think back on last summer and wish I had planned better for things to eat, though. I could have still stuck to WW, I’m sure. I may not have lost much, being stuck to being mostly immobile, but it would have helped me in the long run.

Moving into this year, I rejoined WW mid-May after a visit to my grandparents’ place to see them and my mother. She knew that WW was always something I did well with, if I stuck to it, and she did encourage me to join back up. I got home after that weekend, saw they had a deal going and signed back up right then, at the heaviest I had ever been (286.6lbs), with a solid determination to not let life get in the way of my attempting to be lighter and feel better about myself.

Now, here’s the rub…

Everything was going pretty well for the summer, I was doing okay with my eating, keeping track in the WW app, and frankly just happy with how things were going. Then, disaster struck in the form of COVID-19. That’s right. I managed to go over two years without contracting that nasty virus, and then I was stuck isolating in my basement while the husband was isolating upstairs, and the teenagers had the run of the main floor. Let’s just say that I know how I get when I have a cold or the flu or generally just feel sick, and my biggest concern was then, just making sure that I ate anything at all. So I didn’t really care what it was I ate as long as I ate. Needless to say, I didn’t eat the greatest, didn’t track anything, and where I didn’t gain much back at that point, I did manage to lose my progress some.

I have gone from a loss of 23.8lbs (as of my COVID-19 diagnosis) to now just a 20lb loss (as of November 7). This has me in a semi-good place, mentally, because it means I have not made things so much worse than I could have done, and it’s a reminder that I still have the determination to do better. (Even if I seem to risk sabotaging myself, repeatedly!)

But eating isn’t all of it, right? I mean I have to not just move more for my health, but I have this darned foot that has not wanted to fully cooperate with me after finishing physical therapy a year ago. Once I was able to start walking again, in a boot, with a cane, etc, I needed actual motivation to do so.

Enter The Conqueror Events!

These have been worth every penny I have put into them, and the medals earned have been gorgeous, but most of all, it’s the push and motivation I get to know I can complete these distances challenges with whatever it takes for me to do so. I have been using my daily steps, mostly, on them, because honestly I just need to walk around more often, even if it’s just around my living room and kitchen! I currently have one that’s just for me and my steps, and one that is just for outdoor/indoor walks and stationary biking with my son, who is doing that one with me. (Although, I do feel he may need a bit more motivation than I need sometimes to get off his butt and move more…) I am hoping that this winter, when it’s not just too cold, but too icy out to walk around the block, that I can get back into doing the Leslie Sansone videos on YouTube and using my stationary bike in the basement. I find that since both things are very easy to calculate the distance on, that those will be easiest to do. Otherwise, I have every intention of getting this Infinity Hoop back out and one day (when my foot cooperates more) getting back into doing yoga. Anything to get my body feeling better and be an example for my kids to want to keep healthy and active!

Of course everything has its setback items, and this is no different. I have been known to just not care when a depressive state sets in and is a struggle to get out of, so I eat whatever I feel like, or I don’t do my scheduled exercises. Or sometimes I just don’t eat at all. I also have a love/hate relationship with water, so I struggle to keep up with drinking my water every day. I did invest in a Cirkul and I love it, but I feel like I get sick of a flavor a little too quickly than I’d like before a cartridge is empty. I am trying though to do better about that, as a whole. Water is my biggest struggle, so I think I will be planning another ‘no soda’ month going into the holidays and see how that goes. I seem to do better at removing instead of adding things, lately!

Have I gone on enough here, yet?

Probably…

So with that said, here’s the blog plan: For the time being, I am planning on sticking to more WW content, recipes, updates, etc, as a means to keep myself accountable and on track. I also plan to get back not only into crafting more regularly, but posting about what I’m making, what I’ve made, and where it’s going. (I make a lot of gifts for family but also make things I hope be able to sell.) I am doing my best to read more again, too, and with that plan on at least suggesting the books I read, even if I don’t give details about them. Why not details? Because I am not a book reviewer, and I would likely wind up putting more spoilers in a post than I would ever intend on doing! Since I’m not a huge fan of spoilers, I wouldn’t want to inadvertently spoil something for someone, myself.

Oh, and if I’m feeling up to it, maybe I’ll share more about what’s going on with my family, what we get up to, what’s going on in our town, and anything else that comes along like that. We have a handful of new restaurants in town, plus new-to-me places I’ve not been yet, lots of things that go on here that I sometimes forget about happening, but we love participating in, and generally good things to share and talk about.

So, welcome!

Welcome back!

And don’t let me get too far away again, would ya?

Thanks!

♥

Let’s Go, No Carbs!

The past week was my official ‘no carb’ week. I did my best to stick to foods with zero to less than one carb per serving, no sugars, no diet soda (even though it is carb free), and even had a couple of more fatty meals, but I also at the end of the week moved up my no-carb to low-carb, and I will explain why in a moment.

I will gladly share my weight here, too, so to people who have seen me in the real world, don’t scoff at my weight compared to my size. I have been told more times than I can count (even by my doctors in the last six years), that I do not look as heavy as the scales says that I am or have ever been. I take that as a blessing, but that doesn’t change the fact that I find my weight to be an issue for me, especially where my depression is concerned.

Now onto the real meat of the post!

I started Monday morning with my typical weigh in. I say typical, because it has become a sort of ritual for me to weigh in before I get dressed for the day. I had to weigh daily for Noom when I started that back in December 2018, and I still find it a great way to keep tack of daily fluctuations in my weight based on what I have eaten or drank, and what kind of activity I did or did not do. So, I did my best to remember to weigh all week to keep a solid track of where things were at with my so-called ‘test’ for this blog post, and aside from totally spacing Tuesday morning, I’ve kept good track! So here’s the break down…

Weight Tracked

• Monday: 236.8 lbs (starting weight)
• Wednesday: 232.8 lbs
• Thursday: 232 lbs
• Friday: 230.8 lbs
• Saturday: 230 lbs
• Sunday: 230.2 lbs
• Monday: 229.2 lbs (ending weight)

As you can see, the week progressed with some decent loss (a whopping 7.6 pounds!), and I will fully admit that I lost much, much more than I thought I would.

What I Did

So as mentioned, my goal for the week was to go ‘no-carb’. As I mentioned above I did shift toward the end of the week into a ‘low-carb’, and my reasoning for doing so is that I was gaining more calories this way. (Not to mention that my body was extremely happy to have something other than canned tuna or eggs again, and no one had to listen to me be in tears wanting something different!) My specialized program through Noom has me with a goal of 1,200 calories a day, but eating zero carbs for the first few days, I found I was way under that mark. When I wound up at Chili’s Thursday with my kids (the husband works there and suggested we come in for lunch on our way home from the zoo), I decided on a no-carb version of a cheese burger. (And yes, it indeed is a very doable option!) The plus of having that burger was that it boosted my calories for the day. BIG TIME! Granted, the cheese and beef meant I was having much more fat than I had been enjoying all week, but it was all worth it. I felt kinda out of it and gross later in the day, but I’m still sure that was because I had way too much caffeine. (It was hot and I’m a sucker for a good iced or cold brew coffee…) This is the only time I broke my ‘no soda’ rule for the week. It’s not like I couldn’t have a diet soda while doing this ‘no-carb’ thing, but the extra sodium that’s in a soda is why I was avoiding it. My goal was to cut out all the ‘extra’ stuff that I didn’t need and new I could pretty much survive without. (However, I am currently craving a huge soft serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate and a warm slice of fresh from the oven bread with butter. Mmmmm…) I broke that ‘no soda’ rule when I needed to settle my stomach and had my husband grab me a diet 7-UP from the shop on the corner by our complex. I figured even a few sips wasn’t going to fully break my progress, and sleep was much more important to me than anything that night.

By Friday I decided that I would be making the veggie soup that I always ate when I was still doing Weight Watchers (now WW), because I love veggies, it’s super filling, and it makes a ton! So even if I didn’t eat only that over the weekend, I would still have some going into the next week (this week).

But Remember

Now, keep in mind, I started this while also having that detox tea and taking Forskolin every day. There’s a good chance that Forskolin is why my body felt like it was betraying me after I had that bun-less burger, but it could also have just been the fact that I was exhausted that day and nothing felt ‘right’ after getting home. AND I was also back on a regular exercise schedule doing walk videos through YouTube and yoga DVDs I had bought about a year ago and have missed doing.

This kind of plan is not going to be for everyone, and I love breads and ice cream and candy way too much to give it all up for good. This is the type of thing I can see doing again every couple of months, maybe, or even a couple of zero carb days during the week. Does it work? Sure! But who’s to say that this time it didn’t work so much better than the last time I tried, due to the extras I was taking, and the added movement I was doing throughout the whole ‘experiment’? I guess the only way to really know, is to try it yourself.

Remember to always talk to your doctor before starting any sort of weight loss plan, to make sure what you are wanting to do will actually be safe for your system. Not every plan is for every body.

What’s Next

I am trying to find a good time frame this coming week or in the next for doing my intermittent fasting plan. I am going to spend a couple of days this week for sure testing what times during the day work best for me, and then my hope is to go into the following week with a more solid plan. My main goal for this coming week is to keep up with my workouts, the extras I am taking, and try to nail down solid times for this fasting gig. Oh, and to not completely pig out at Unity on Thursday, when I go see Skillet! Gonna rock my lil’ heart out and have completely planned on some fair-style junk food to get me through the night!

Admittedly, I almost gave up. I did this no-carb thing once before with the goal of a full week, back in April of 2018, and not only did I not lose the same amount of weight, I also gave up! I told myself five days was good, and to be honest, it was. I was proud of myself making it that far. However, that is precisely when I wanted to give up again this time. But I pushed through and encourage anyone who wants to try the no-carb thing to not give up unless you are genuinely concerned about your personal health during the process. With that said…

I wish luck to anyone who wants to try this past week’s ‘diet plan’ for themselves, and please feel free to comment with any information or tips or suggestions for future post ideas! See you next time…

♥

Avoiding the Dreaded ‘D-Word’

You all know what I’m going to say. I know that deep down you really do know. You just don’t want to admit it. It’s a taboo word in today’s healthy lifestyle circles, but it still cannot be avoided. When used correctly, the word isn’t so scary. But, either way…

Say it with me, now:

DIET!

*insert terrified horror movie type scream here*

Yup. The dreaded ‘D-word’ is indeed DIET!

Now, ‘diet’ doesn’t have to be a bad word. As much as I hate using the word, it is sometimes the only way to get people to understand why I am following a strict(ish) plan with Noom, and why I am constantly telling myself and others that I am not allowing myself to divulge in certain foods when I know I’m feeling extremely weak, etc. Sometimes, telling people I’m ‘on a diet’ just helps them to understand more about what I am doing and going through, vs ‘I’m in the middle of a healthy lifestyle change.’ Life is too short to complicate things and try to explain situations to people who will just smile and nod at you, pretending they have the slightest clue regarding what you’re talking about. Less painful for all involved, in my opinion.

But this post isn’t about me being on a diet, or having joined Noom (which I mentioned in a previous post this year), but it’s about the fact that no matter what I do, don’t do, try to do, etc., I still get slapped in the face with diet and weight loss tricks that tend to make me more intrigued than annoyed, some days.

So, since it has been a long time since I have done anything new for a Try It/Test It series, I thought I would come up with some things to run at head first and try for the benefit of YOU, the readers, the followers, and generally curious to see if I succeed or fail in my crazy endeavors.

Weight Loss Item #1: Detox Tea

While bored out of my mind earlier in the month, I decided to shop around on Wish.com and see if anything peaked my interest. I found a few things I figured could be fun to share with the kids, a couple of birthday ideas for my soon-to-be 12yo daughter, and a couple of weight loss items, the first of which being this Tea Cleanse. Because I was, of course, skeptical, and reviews were fairly promising to read, I went with the lowest price point option and time length, 10 days. The package is simple, stating you can “shed up to 10 pounds a week, boost your metabolism and improve health,” but did not come with instructions. However, based on my being a regular tea drinker, I figure I can use the most typical water temp and brew time for something like this. Those missing instructions also leave me having to figure out when to drink it. Should I have it first thing in the morning, before eating anything? With my lunch or dinner? Maybe before bed? I have settled on making sure that I have this tea at night, before bed, as the last thing that I have for the day. The concept of anything that is supposed to work through your system and detox your body makes the most sense to have it before bed, giving it time to work without anything else getting in the way, other than maybe having to get up to pee in the middle of the night.

Weight Loss Item #2: Diet Patches

My second wish.com find for diet tricks are these weight loss patches. I honestly have more skepticism with these than the tea, strictly for the fact that at least I know that tea tends to have some serious health benefits and some teas have been known to help you lose weight. But a patch? I mean really, talk about a Meet the Robinsons ‘caffeine patch’ moment with these things. Can they really do whatever it is they are supposed to do? Reviews were mixed. Most that I read were just responding that they got the item and were excited to try it. A few others stated this was their second time purchasing, or that they liked it and would buy it again. But no one really said if they really worked, or if they used them with a moderate diet and exercise plan, or with not doing anything different. There really was only one way for me to know if they would be remotely beneficial for me, personally, and that was to order them to try them for myself. These little suckers came without any special packaging, no instructions for use, and left me laughing at the concept of wondering where the heck I was supposed to stick them to. But after some research on “Chinese diet patches” I found that they are not only a legit item, but that the instructions were all pretty much the same: Wear them for no longer than 8-12 hours (overnight being best), to use a warm compress on the area before you apply the patch, and to use a moisturizer on the area you will apply it to, if you have sensitive skin. Simple enough.

Weight Loss Item #3: Forskolin

For the final item I found during this mini shopping spree, I really only grabbed up because when I have seen these supplements elsewhere, they are upwards of $20.00 for roughly a month’s supply. Reading up on Forskolin earlier this year, it is supposed to help aid with a hormone that the female body has a hard time creating after things like childbirth and reaching a certain age, or some weird concept like that. Studies I am seeing, however, all seem to be using men as the test subject, and we all know that men and women have completely different luck when it comes to weight loss! Nothing is set in stone and there is just not enough research on the supplement as a weight loss aid to really know if it’s legit or not, but I figure it can’t hurt to try it, right? I had ordered a bottle when I saw it on Amazon, and cringed the whole time I put it in my cart and checked out, knowing I was about to pay twenty bucks for something that may make me sick to my stomach, or at the very least, not be worth taking. Admittedly, I had a hard time remembering to take this stuff once it did show up, and kept telling myself I’ll order more and start fresh and actually track my progress, etc., but I never did. Shopping on Wish, however, I found this stuff much less expensive and decided that $9-$11 was much better a risk than $20, so threw it in my cart. What showed up was a pleasant surprise, because I didn’t expect to see the name brand of one that I had actually done research on months earlier when I found out about this stuff.

The Plan

With three new things to try and the rest of summer ahead of me, filled with things going on that will mean I cannot avoid certain foods, and won’t always be home to take what I need to take when it says to take it, I am going to work with a basic plan to start.

Week 1: July 29 – August 4

I am going to dive head first into another no-carb week. I have done it before and as much as I hate giving up all carbs as a whole, I am going to push myself to actually make it through 7 full days. Last time I stopped after 5, figuring I had gone long enough and needed to allow myself a couple of days to not be so cranky with everyone.

On top of no carbs for the week, I will be coupling it with the detox tea and the Forskolin. The tea being a 10-day cycle for the package I ordered, I will be starting the tea tonight (the night before) and letting it run its course past the 4th. The Forskolin, I will also keep using into the following weeks, to use the full supply in the bottle. (To note, I will be using the brand new bottle pictured above, not finishing the one I had previously ordered, just for the sake of control.)

Week 2: August 5 – 11

The plan here is a little less organized at this time, but this will be the week I start using the diet patches. I currently have set aside the idea to try Intermittent Fasting. I have been wanting to try it, and I think it could be seriously beneficial for me. However, this is the week of Unity and my family will be going to see Skillet on that Thursday night. This could turn into a slight disaster depending on when I decide my eating window will be, and I am going to figure that into my plan. You just can’t go to Unity and completely pass up cotton candy and an elephant ear, and let’s not forget butterfly fries! (I can feel my stomach churning at just the thought of all those greasy things, though.)

I am not going to use Intermittent Fasting as ‘diet plan’ to blog about in the sense that I am with the other items. I have been wanting to try it for quite a while and pairing it with my Noom program, along with regular exercise, I am hoping it works well for me in a way to learn to stop eating right up until bedtime and not feel gross when I wake up in the morning if I did or didn’t eat right before I went to sleep. I will post about my experience, but I am not using it as a ‘trick’ for this Try It/Test It series.

For now, I am only going to talk about the first two weeks just to fill you all in. My goal is to be able to blog about the experiences, what worked, what didn’t, and keep track of my weight at the start and finish. Oh, maybe I’ll dig out the tape measure and track my size, too, but really… Probably not!

♥

Exciting Things!

Very few people, aside from my immediate family members, have known my struggle with weight loss over the past 5 years. I had been a Weight Watchers member for a second time, and had been making good progress for a year. Then my doctor put me on an anti-depressant that was desperately needed. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I happen to be one of the 1% who, when on that particular medication, experienced massive weight gain. We’re talking going from 200lbs to 235lbs in two months time. Needless to say, I canceled my Weight Watchers program because no matter how hard I tried, how to the plan I stuck, how much I moved, the scale kept going up.

I was officially heavier than when I was pregnant with either of my kids.

As much as it sucked to be that heavy, I never looked my weight. In the past year, no one would have guessed I was 115lbs heavier than my wedding day, just two months ago. (I was 130lbs when I got hitched in 2005!)

I decided after Christmas to look deeper into the cost of signing up for Noom and was able to join at a discounted rate.

This has been the best thing I could have done in the past few years, not only for my physical health, but my overall mental well being!

I have been using Noom for 6.5 weeks now and have lost and kept off 11 total pounds. I am, for the most part, eating better, moving more, doing yoga (of all things!) and just generally being a happier person.

Part of the Noom program is to reward or treat yourself. Tangible rewards are something I started setting aside a list for and one of those rewards I signed up for in January and got my first box just Monday of this week: Darn Good Yarn’s $10 Mystery Yarn Subscription. For ten bucks, I wound up with a small box of stuff that just makes me crazy happy: Crochet materials! WOOHOO!

The rainbow skein of yarn and the needles and hook set were the packaged deal, and also included a pattern to knit and one to crochet. The red and grey skein was the $5 mystery item that I added to my order. I am really loving how both skiens feel and the colors!

To fully get into this semi-review of the subscrition box, I felt I needed to actually use the yarn and pattern included, so broke out the crochet hook and got to work that night.

Finishing it up the next day (and finally starting this post that seems to be taking me ages to complete), I learned a few things about hand dyed silk yarns and was reminded of why I stopped using wooden hooks.

The colors in the rainbow skein are gorgeous! However, my yellowish dyed fingertips, nails, and hands would state that using this kind of thing regularly will require stronger soap and some serious lotion for all the hand washing needed after. The hook, while very wonderfully colored, is not going to be my first choice for use with this kind of yarn again. It did not slide as easily as I would have preferred and my new wooden hook is now chipped and worn on the very tip from just one short project.

Overall, would I get it again? Of course! If anything a single skein of yarn every month that could cost $30 or more depending on the type of material will be worth it. Besides, it will mean me having a new collection of yarns to work with an love on! (I can already see my Christmas gift project list growing in my mind…)

For more information on Noom and Darn Good Yarn, I’m including the links below.

I hope you can get as much enjoyment out of these two things as I am gaining in my life!

♥

Noom

Darn Good Yarn

Online Craft SALE!

Is it too bold of me to do a post about my Etsy store? I sure as heck hope not! I mean, this blog is my space to share the things I have made, created with my own two hands from whatever materials I have managed to get my hands on (usually purchased or given to me, of course), so why not share that I have a little shop on Etsy and that I am currently holding a sale on wearable items?

That’s right, I said a SALE!

And when I say wearable items, I mean any current jewelry listings and crochet hats or scarfs. The holidays are coming up and where I can always use a few extra bucks to toss toward Christmas gifts for the family, I know people are going to be looking for unique things for their friends and family.

So have a peek and see what’s there.

There are some new things needing to be added, and I am working on getting all photos of all items updated, as well.

The current sale I have going on is 20% off these items and only through the link I am sharing in this post.

A quite note, before I go: I don’t tend to take on custom orders for things, but I am always willing to consider them, if I find them doable within the time frame given. (Keeping in mind that I do have other obligations to tend to during the day, and of course my family to take care of, and that these creations are all things I make during my free and spare time.)

So click here to check out the sale! I even have some new item added today and more hopefully will be added this weekend, too.

I hope you find something you like, friends!

♥

 

Today’s New Items:

For info and close-ups of lockets, see their listings in my Etsy store.

Something New: Part 1 Follow Up

It has taken me forever to write this post and not erase it again and again.

Why?

Well, because making this Cloud Bread may have sounded like a great idea at the time, but everyone in the house liked it except for the person I was making it for: ME!

Needless to say, I did not make it again. In fact, I am not sure if I still want to try the other recipes I found for this type of item or not, anymore.

The concept is great, low- to no-carb bread type item that can substitute normal bread. However, I couldn’t get over the taste of EGG and how that is not really what I wanted to taste when thinking of eating bread.

So, I will stick to just lowering my carb intake by not eating as much bread, but stop considering denying myself breads and bready things altogether.

I figure I can do this the ‘easy way’ or I can continue to enjoy things that taste good and not feel like I am starving for the sake of the ‘easy way!’

Maybe I will find something to try again that I will like better, but for now. I find cloud bread to be a bust in my house and will just continue to spend the rest of my 2018 avoiding the leftover Halloween candy and from eating all the cakes and pies and such that will come along with the upcoming holiday feasts!

♥

Something New: Part 2 (and Part 2 Follow-Up!)

It seems that I am starting off these posts with recipes I have found and want to try. Where Part 1 was planned out for trying to make Cloud Bread for the first time, I have put that follow up post on hold. Why? Well, I found multiple recipes that I wanted to use it with, one of which was my biggest pastry weakness ever and well, I figured that follow-up post needed to include all the ways I found to try it. So that one will take a bit longer to post about.

Part 2 is also a recipe, but as a comparison to a specific recipe that I grew up with: My grandmother’s lasagna!

While searching for general dinner ideas on Pinterest (because I always look for new ideas there, and why not, right?), I came across what was being called “Grandmother[‘s] Best Lasagna in the Whole World.”

The best in the whole world? Really? I mean, of course, I had to pin it to try sometime and so why not try it out and compare it to my own grandmother’s recipe, the one I grew up on!

Comparing the recipes, they aren’t that different. There were just a few bits here and there, that could easily be modified from my grandma’s recipe to create the one I found on Pinterest. Simple things like using different meats and cheeses, down to adding certain herbs or spices. Admittedly, the only reason I wanted to compare the two is that they both had one major ingredient similarity: cottage cheese. Mostly, traditional lasagna recipes use ricotta, but where it used to not be as easy to find in a local grocery store, and then horribly expensive when you could find it, cottage cheese was an easy replacement, and became the ‘norm’ for specific dishes, like this. And as much as I loved my grandma’s lasagna when I was a kid, as I grew up and learned the difference between ‘real Italian’ and ‘makeshift Italian’, I went through a refusal to take shortcuts for traditional style dishes (from any country, actually). I stopped using the cottage cheese that my grandmother’s recipe called for and, since the price wasn’t all that different anyway, starting using ricotta.

***This is my moment to state, for the record, that ricotta is delicious but also rather dry by comparison to the cottage cheese, and that I liked this recipe so much that I will probably just stick to using cottage cheese again, from now on.***

So here are the differences:

• ground beef and Italian sausage vs just ground beef
• yellow onion cooked with the meat vs no onion
• red pepper flakes mixed with the sauce vs no red pepper flakes
• oregano and garlic mixed into the sauce vs parsley and no garlic
• mozzarella and Swiss cheeses on top vs mozzarella and Parmesan

Now, I did not use the red pepper flakes, mainly for my children’s sake, and if it weren’t for them, I would have purchased hot Italian sausage instead of mild. The mild, however, did have quite a bit of a bite to it, so I will be happy using that again. Also, I couldn’t find shredded Swiss cheese on its own, so I compromised with what I did find; a mix of Swiss and Gruyere. I also used less of the Swiss than the recipe called for, and used more mozzarella, too. (There’s never anything wrong with more cheese, am I right?)

Oh, and my son, the pickiest eater in the house, did ask me to please not add the onion next time I make this, so I will save him a bit and likely not bother with the onion, just to see if he notices it isn’t in there or not.

In conclusion, this new recipe may not be one I will consider the ‘best in the whole world’, but it is pretty dang good and will become my new standard lasagna recipe. Or at least until I find one I like better than this one. And as it is so similar to my grandmother’s I may even just use hers and switch it up a bit instead. Different meat choices and cheeses really can change the overall flavor of the dish, and as much of a pain cooking lasagna can seem like, it’s worth the time put into assembling this dish. Trust me! If my kids like it, it’s worth giving it a shot!

Here is the recipe I found and followed.

Please comment and let me know if you have a recipe that you love, whether it’s lasagna or not, and think it’s the best one out there! I’d love to try and it and compare it to what I’ve been making in my adulthood or what I grew up having!

I love, love, love trying new recipes!

♥

Something New: Part 1

I am making some changes to my ‘Try It, Test It, Blog It’ bits for this blog. It will be called Something New and each new post will be a new ‘part’, with any follow up posts being marked as such. As time goes on, I hope that this gives me a more solid space to keep these kinds of posts in, as well as the accountability to follow up on each new thing I want to try, test, make, challenge myself with, etc.

Sound good to you?

I sure hope so! lol

Honestly, you see so much stuff posted on the internet that is called ‘the best’ or ‘easiest’ when discussing weight loss and recipes, DIY projects and crafts, that I always wondered if ordinary folks, like myself, had tried any of them or not.

So again, I am going to be that ‘ordinary’ person willing to try and test things out on and for myself and my family in order to hopefully let you readers in on the secrets of it they are worth your time or not.

Sound better, yet?

I know that this is a redundant post to some of you, especially if you’ve been following me from the start and been interested in those posts I used to do. I apologize for that. I am also not that sorry, because sometimes we all need a little reminder as to what we started following a blog for in the first place!

And the best part is…

I need your help!

Seriously, if you have a recipe, weight loss trick or idea, craft idea, or DIY that you would like me to consider doing, LET ME KNOW!

I am willing to do just about anything (as long as it is financially possible), and all you need to do is suggest something in the comments so that I can research it and add it to my list.

I’m thank you all now, for your ideas and suggestions, because I just know you’re going to all come up with something for me to check out and post about!

Soooooo EXCITED!!!

Now… Onto the good stuff:

First item is going to be making Cloud Bread.

It’s all over the internet and Pinterest has a bazillion recipes to try. It’s supposed to be one of the best low carb ‘bread’ options without having to consume actual bread, and since bread is one of my biggest weaknesses in the food world….I figure it’s worth a shot to try!

So here I am, stating what I will be doing for the first post. I have my ingredients and a recipe (I’ll be making this one here), and a craving for bread that I must give in to.

Can’t wait to fill you all in on how it turns out!

♥

My ‘New’ Way to be Organized

Back in April, I started my first Bullet Journal.

I spent months searching layouts and finding exactly what I wanted to use for materials. I finally landed on something a bit more expensive for the journal (a Leuchtturm1917) and picked up a pack of fine tip Sharpie Pens.

It was time to dig out my colored pencils and Washi Tapes, a ruler, and set to work.

I have so far only run onto one major issue with my BuJo:

KEEPING IT UPDATED!

Really, I just suck at that sort of thing and as much as I hoped I would stay on track with it, I found myself slacking off. It got really bad while my daughter and I were in Florida, visiting my mom. I just got out of my routine and by the time we were back home, I had stopped even getting it out and marking off my goals.

But this is a new month, and I have determination to follow through with my journaling and using it to be more organized throughout the year.

Let’s start with the most important layouts for August…

BuJo Month-at-a-Glance/Goals/To-Do

BuJo Daily To-Do & Task Lists

My ‘month-at-a-glance’ spread butts up with my monthly to-do and goal lists. I have found this to be the best layout for me, so far, even though I have found others I would like to use. I just keep returning to my simple layout.

The daily layout, however, I have now changed up twice, giving me three different views since April. I may not keep this one, although there is a bit more freedom and less confinement with an open layout like this one. I seem to have a bad eye for placement first few tries, however, so maybe more structure really is better.

The next pages are not so much faves, but ways to keep myself accountable. Back in April, I decided I needed not just a habit tracker, but a way to track the things I don’t want to do, as well. In May, I combined them into one page and by June I had added a mood tracker as well. (It was scoops of ice cream.)

July had me use a different habit tracker layout, but in the end I did not like my choice of mini trackers and so went back to my full triple tracker for August.

BuJo Habit & Mood Tracker

I have followed that up with a step tracker for the month.

As I have and wear my FitBit every day, it may seem odd to some to have a step tracker, but it helps me to see just how much or how little I have moved around throughout the month. It gives me time to adjust my daily routine, if need be.

BuJo Step Tracker

This next spread is just one of two, and I have not quite finished it, yet. (I need to stock back up on Post-It Notes, first…)

My minions are insistent that they take a sack lunch with them to school every day, this year. I said we could try that and then my anxiety inched upward as I thought about it being one more thing to remember to take care off every day. Then I saw a photo of this great layout idea for meal planning and thought I could totally do something like it for school lunches and snacks! (Totally got way too excited about it, too.) The hope is that this layout (and yes, I did one similar for meal planning,) will help remind me of what the kids would like as well as prep ahead snacks and sides so they can pack their own lunch sacks before school.

I really am seriously excited about this spread!

BuJo School Meal/Snack Prep/Plan

I am going to sneak in my debt worksheet here for you to see, as well.

BuJo Debt Snowball Tracker

It is such a simple layout that it doesn’t need much explanation. We (my husband and I) have three loans, two of which are student loans we have been basically been paying on since we got married 13 years ago. We have had a couple of car loans during that time, as well, and this is how I am going to track the snowball effect of getting rid of this debt a bit quicker.

This whole BuJo thing really is a great way to keep track of so much going on in my life that I am more than glad that I started it this year.

I have more than these few pages for August and the debt payoff tracker, obviously, but I don’t need to show you guys all the pages in the whole book. That would be a crazy amount of photos!

I will, however, share two more important pages for every Bullet Journal: The Index and the Key!

When you start putting year long or multi-month pages in your journal it is important to remember where they are. The easiest way to find them is an index. And having a key can help you keep things consistent across the whole journal and keep your brain on the same page with tasks and suck from month to month to month.

BuJo Index

BuJo Key

 

I have blank pages and things I still want to add in between months and such, but I don’t push myself to get it all added at once. I like to browse the net for page and spread ideas. There are so many people posting about their Bullet Journal experience that you can find all sorts of pages to get inspiration from! I scan through Pinterest at least once a week for new ideas and once in a while I find something new that stands out so much that I just have to use it.

I will gladly answer questions or offer more photos of my pages to anyone who is interested in a specific page or section from my index. Just leave me a comment and I will gladly respond with what I have!

♥