Sunday, November 15, 2015
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Another Hit
Wished I had taken a picture of my lunch today to share. However, it was very tasty. An attempt at a new recipe was "a hit" thanks to Pinterest. Today is Sunday so a perfect day to put lunch in the crockpot and it be ready when you get home from church. The new recipe was for pork chops. Only two ingredients and very tasty. Those ingredients were cream of chicken soup and a half a packet of dry Hidden Valley ranch dressing. So easy. Then to compliment this entree we had baked potatoes, green beans with bacon and onions and broccoli salad. Did I say tasty?
You'd think we never have good meals the way I'm going on, but I must admit with the unusual work schedule my husband has, home cooked meals are at a minimum.
If you're looking for a different recipe for this week, give "best ever pork chops" recipe a try and enjoy.
You'd think we never have good meals the way I'm going on, but I must admit with the unusual work schedule my husband has, home cooked meals are at a minimum.
If you're looking for a different recipe for this week, give "best ever pork chops" recipe a try and enjoy.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Advocare Challenge Update
Today is day 11 and I have finished phase I, the cleanse and have lost 9 pounds and 4 inches! This is totally great and encouraging news to me the dieter. I've been extra busy at work and working on the house along with entertaining family for the last few days so have not even exercised. My clothes are fitting better. That makes me oh so happy. My desire to lose more weight and to move ahead to my goal is growing with each pound I lose. Expectant anticipation fills my heart.
The second phase is to help curb my appetite and guide me to reaching my weight loss goal and eating more healthy. I will admit that with my love for favorable food I will from time to time make scrumptious desserts and cheese infused recipes after I complete the 24 days, but hope to keep it to a minimum and maintain my desired weight goal. So far, the diet has been easy. I rarely feel hunger pangs. Snacks are allowed three times daily so that makes a huge difference.
Thirteen more days remaining of the 24 day challenge. Stay tuned for more progress notes.
The second phase is to help curb my appetite and guide me to reaching my weight loss goal and eating more healthy. I will admit that with my love for favorable food I will from time to time make scrumptious desserts and cheese infused recipes after I complete the 24 days, but hope to keep it to a minimum and maintain my desired weight goal. So far, the diet has been easy. I rarely feel hunger pangs. Snacks are allowed three times daily so that makes a huge difference.
Thirteen more days remaining of the 24 day challenge. Stay tuned for more progress notes.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Are You Weight Conscious?
Most of America is not a size 2 and is somewhat weight conscious.
Especially, us girls. Most of my adult life I have not
Especially, us girls. Most of my adult life I have not
had problems with my weight. However, after
moving into my middle 40's, the problem that
plagued me as a child came rushing back to take over.
Over the last few years, I have bounced from
one diet to another. Making great strides with
the product Metabolife until it was taken off the market.
When on this diet, I ate as I liked with a few exceptions:
NO CAFFEINE
NO SOFT DRINKS
NO TEA
NO COFFEE
NO CHOCOLATE!
Yikes! you might say. I cannot do without ....
Honestly, I had no great addictions.
Although, I love my chocolate and Dr. Pepper!
So taking a tablet before each meal, the
weight began to slip away and so did my appetite.
After a certain amount of time, I decided
to go it on my own. That worked for a
while, then my appetite increased
and I still ate what I wanted but the
appetite depressant was gone:(
A short fling with Slim Fast began, but
due to becoming lactose intolerant,
drinking the shakes for meals created
problems. Therefore, old habits began
again and so did middle age. During
this time, women often gain weight
as easily as they breathe.
ENTER --- ADVOCARE 24 DAY CHALLENGE!
Thank you to my daughter who introduced this
product to me after she began eating healthier,
gaining more energy, and a bonus of losing weight.
DAY 1 for me was Sunday, September 20.
The first ten days is the Cleanse Phase.
Days 11-24 are to help you reach your
desired goal. On day 3, I weighed and measured
myself and had lost 4 pounds and 3 inches!
This definitely was an encouragement to me to
keep on keeping on!
This is not the kind of cleanse where you
drastically reduce calories or only consume
liquids. This is the beginning of a healthier
lifestyle. You can do Phase 1 every 90 days
if desired, but you can continue on Phase 2
as long as you wish. What makes this so
simple is that you can download the Advocare
app to your iphone and it will walk you through
the plan, set up reminders for you throughout
the day of when to take a supplement,
when to snack or eat your meal, it has
food options, recipes, portion sizes, and
you log each day when you take your
supplements, what you eat, and how
much water you drank.
Now that I am trying to eat healthier,
I can continue to use the great products
to maintain energy, control my appetite, and
overall wellness. Are you interested?
You can contact Amber Lounsberry Martin
on Facebook who is an Advocare
Independent Distributor and begin your
journey to weight management, obtain more
energy or overall healthier lifestyle.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Vacation Memories
So many people plan exciting get-a-ways every year. Some travel abroad, some to far countries, some to different vacation spots in the USA, and some to visit family.
Most of my 37 years of marital bliss we have lived away from one of our families and we traveled back and forth to visit family and friends each chance we could. Most years this meant a few days for holidays and a week in the summer. For the last 17 years, we have lived several hundred miles from both of our families. Vacations have always meant one night in a coveted motel, one day at a theme park, and throw in a visit to Branson, a night at the stock car races, a visit to the fair, or maybe a rodeo. No glorious, exciting plans or venues.
Three years ago my husband and I and one of our daughters and our son by marriage made real vacations plans. My daughter asked me where would I like to go. I did not say my all time coveted vacation dream spot -- Hawaii. Oh, how I'd love to go there and see the beauty of this island dream land, but that bucket list item, I fear, is not going to be met. So, I thought and a southern city instantly came to mind. Some where I'd only heard of and never really put much thought into going. Now was my chance. I said ....
Can you guess this lovely old southern town? Here's another clue...
Our tour guide on a horse drawn carriage showing us so many of the gorgeous historical homes, churches, stores...
One last clue ... this city has the BEST local food eateries. So authentic. Loved them all...
You guessed it! Charleston. Unlike any other vacation, we made flight reservations, rented a car, and experienced different tourist sites each day and ate at one of a kind restaurants each day. We had a marvelous time drinking in the sites of the city, experienced a different tourist site each day, and ate at delicious one of a kind local eateries. Not to mention fun time with our family making lasting memories.
This vacation, for us at least, was exactly what we've always wanted to do. Not bad for a first time at a real vacation.
Page 2 will be the plans for our second real vacation. This is so exciting and this time it will be just my hubby and myself. How will we ever make all these plans and arrive where we are suppose to be:)!! See you soon with the reveal of our new destination.
Most of my 37 years of marital bliss we have lived away from one of our families and we traveled back and forth to visit family and friends each chance we could. Most years this meant a few days for holidays and a week in the summer. For the last 17 years, we have lived several hundred miles from both of our families. Vacations have always meant one night in a coveted motel, one day at a theme park, and throw in a visit to Branson, a night at the stock car races, a visit to the fair, or maybe a rodeo. No glorious, exciting plans or venues.
Three years ago my husband and I and one of our daughters and our son by marriage made real vacations plans. My daughter asked me where would I like to go. I did not say my all time coveted vacation dream spot -- Hawaii. Oh, how I'd love to go there and see the beauty of this island dream land, but that bucket list item, I fear, is not going to be met. So, I thought and a southern city instantly came to mind. Some where I'd only heard of and never really put much thought into going. Now was my chance. I said ....
One last clue ... this city has the BEST local food eateries. So authentic. Loved them all...
This vacation, for us at least, was exactly what we've always wanted to do. Not bad for a first time at a real vacation.
Page 2 will be the plans for our second real vacation. This is so exciting and this time it will be just my hubby and myself. How will we ever make all these plans and arrive where we are suppose to be:)!! See you soon with the reveal of our new destination.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Thursday, September 10, 2015
4th Journal Entry of our Move
The "first impression" to your home is the first room people see when they initially walk in. That would be our living room. Your personality can really show up here. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. Accent walls were painted Sherwin Williams Terminal Taupe. Not such exciting name but it really complimented our furnishings. However, Terminal Taupe is not in this photo. This shot of the living room is the first impression wall:
We rearranged furniture for a while and this is what we came up with. The clock on the left side of the picture is one of my all time fav purchases. A modest expenditure from Cato. Love good deals. Then we took the drapes and swagged it to one side to tie in the wall and seating grouping. Apple green is yet again a constant color theme in this room as well as most of our other rooms. An idea taken from Joanna Gaines is my newly purchased mirror and a floral wreathe placed in the middle . Don't you just love her ideas. Hobby Lobby and many of the flea markets in our area are carrying so many of the items she uses or similar. This makes my life a lot easier. An area rug sits in front of the couch and love seat. Next entry will show you the face-on view to the right of the picture where the love seat is and sofa table.
Every time we walk into this room we love the way it turned out. Many decorators place a coffee table in front of the couch. This is something I considered but wanted to keep the traffic flow open and not have to walk around something each time we go to sit down. Just an idea but it works for us.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Monday, August 31, 2015
Update on the Five New Recipes...
Out of the five recipes I chose to try this past week, the last three: Pumpkin Coffee Cake, Mexican Lasagna, and Sloppy Joes were "keepers".
I have a neighbor who had surgery and I wanted to take something over to her to be of help so I baked up a batch of the Pumpkin Coffee Cake and divided it into two separate baking dishes. One for our neighbor and one for us. Since I had not made it before, I thought I'd better try it myself in the event it was not as tasty as I had hoped. Good news! It was very tasty.
The Mexican Lasagna was quite scrumptious also. With a husband who is a picky eater you never know how a new recipe is going to go over, but to my amazement he said this is really good, not too spicey. Let's have it again. Wow, you have no idea how unique and unexpected this answer was.
Then a couple of nights later I tried the Sloppy Joe recipe. Every now and again I like a good sloppy joe meal, but my other half is usually not so excited. He did, however, eat the meal with NO faces:) and ate leftovers the next day. This will be added to my files for future use.
Thank yous to:
"One More Moore" for the Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookie recipe: http://morganmoore.typepad.com/one_more_moore/2009/04/when-its-too-hot-to-bake-we-nobake.html
"Pretty Good Food.com" for the Pumpkin Coffee Cake recipe.
http://www.diaryofarecipecollector.com/mexican-lasagna.html for the Mexican Lasagna recipe; and
http://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/07/the-best-sloppy-joes/ for the Sloppy Joe recipe.
This was quite the success with 4 out of 5 mouth-watering recipes tried and enjoyed. Now, what new meals shall I try this week?
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Refinishing the kitchen cabinets
On our initial visit to look at our future home, I began to see this house through the eyes of Chip and Joanna Gaines. Mentally, I wrote down the things I would like to do to make this house our home. The first thing was to repaint the kitchen cabinets. I thought my husband can do this because he has done this before to one of our other homes. What I didn't take into consideration was he hates to paint and that he works 70 hours at week. However, he did agree.
My knight in shining armor took on this task before we moved in with high hopes he could finish the project in just a matter of a couple of weeks. Then came a back injury that halted pretty much everything. He is healing slowly but surely and the refinishing will begin again soon:)
The oak cabinets before the repainting began. You may say, I like cabinets. What's wrong with them? Nothing unless you want to update your kitchen and make it look larger. An alley kitchen can only look so large so repainting the cabinets is one way to visibly make the area seem larger and I love the looks of white cabinets.
The cabinets are coming along just great. A sincere "thank you" to my dear husband who has done a marvelous job and updating our cabinets and has put in A LOT of hard work and hours. Just a couple more doors and this side of the kitchen will be done.
Counter tops and a back splash are next on the list for this handy kitchen. So excited to be in this house.
Leave a comment on your thoughts for a great looking kitchen!
My knight in shining armor took on this task before we moved in with high hopes he could finish the project in just a matter of a couple of weeks. Then came a back injury that halted pretty much everything. He is healing slowly but surely and the refinishing will begin again soon:)
The oak cabinets before the repainting began. You may say, I like cabinets. What's wrong with them? Nothing unless you want to update your kitchen and make it look larger. An alley kitchen can only look so large so repainting the cabinets is one way to visibly make the area seem larger and I love the looks of white cabinets.
The cabinets are coming along just great. A sincere "thank you" to my dear husband who has done a marvelous job and updating our cabinets and has put in A LOT of hard work and hours. Just a couple more doors and this side of the kitchen will be done.
Counter tops and a back splash are next on the list for this handy kitchen. So excited to be in this house.
Leave a comment on your thoughts for a great looking kitchen!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)