Week 33

                    The fair is in town. We went. Note to self for next year do not work out the day before especially my hips & butt.... I'm so sore I can barely move. (Not to mention with me eating extremely healthy for almost a month) Good (healthy)food at the fair is hard to come by. Me dying of thirst I stopped at the first place & bought a coke( technically Slice orange for those not in the South). I was excited to "splurge" on eating healthy, I took a swig and YUCK!!! It took everything I had to continue drinking the sugar bomb! I couldn't believe how much my taste buds had changed in a month. 

Adyson had the best time! She finally grew enough to go on 90% of the rides by herself. Exciting moment for her, sad moment for me. I realized how big she really is. You can see her videos on Youtube

Still smoke free!!!


READING- I'm still reading  The Lightning Thief. I know it takes forever for me to finish a book, its not that I'm a slow reader its the interruptions. If I had 4-5 hrs to sit and read from beginning to end I could finish it! I'm half way Its sounding similar to Harry Potter but with Greek mythology instead.  I love it so far!!!


EATING HEALTHY- has been going great! I have been using oatmeal a lot lately. I have found it tastes great in anything! I'm using it in my smoothies, pancakes, and actually making oatmeal with real fruit for breakfast! No more packaged oatmeal for us! I've been using honey as a sweetener instead of sugar lately.

Blueberry & Oatmeal pancakes topped with bananas & honey!!!
YUMMY!!!!!

Long cooking oatmeal with peaches, strawberries! 

I have also found a love for wraps! Add some hummus, spinach, turkey, cheese and wrap it up!!! Or you can try my favorite which is a chicken caesar wrap! You create so many different options its unreal!

I have also been loving 4C drink enhancers! These guys do a great job for the liquid drink enhancers. It only takes 1-3 squirts to a water bottle (depending on your taste buds). I found this 4 pack at Sam's Club for about $7.50, which is an awesome deal because individually they are about $3.00-$3.75 depending on flavors, each bottle has around 24 servings, so to me you get more servings then the "other drink enhancer powders". I also like the fact that it is liquid so it mixes better, and I don't have to worry about the wrappers from the powder packets. I keep one of these in my purse so I always have it! My daughter carries one in her lunch box. Its nice not carrying 10 little powder packets, the wind blowing the powder everywhere, throwing away the wrappers.... AHHHH I love these little guys!!!!
www.4cstore.com

                         

 EXERCISING- I have an exercise board on Pinterest so I have lots of ideas. In the 3 health magazines I get every month it talks about if you haven't exercised in over a year you need to start slow to prevent injury. So in my workouts that I started August 1, I do more floor exercises right now. I need to build up the muscles I have, along with balance. I do use the video that I posted 2 weeks ago, week 31. So I pick a workout from Pinterest or from my spiral notebook, everyday (well Monday thru Friday anyway). I also do the 30 day ab workout challenge! So by September I will be increasing my workouts and challenging myself more. I'm feeling great!

NO CHEMICALS- I'm still working on this. I am slowly transitioning from boxed/packaged stuff to natural products. I haven't run out of anything lately. Although the next time I run out of sugar I want to try the new Stevia that everyone is talking about. I'm always looking at labels now and I'm more aware of the chemicals that are in everything we use. I'm still looking for a good homemade dish soap! The recipe I tried doesn't cut the grease. If anyone has any ideas leave them in the comments below PLEASE :)

CRAFTS- I am going to be starting a special project soon! I want to make my grandmother a Halloween Village for her birthday/Halloween. If anyone tells her I will be very upset! I found the idea on Pinterest!!!! I can't wait to start I will post pictures throughout the process. Does anyone have any cute ideas they are going to start/do for Halloween???

GARDENING-
NOTHING went as planned this year! The sister planting (planting corn, squash, & beans together) didn't go over well, the beans over ran the corn & killed it.

ALL (yellow, Zucchini and pumpkin) my squash died beginning of August. I have no idea why. It all turned yellow and died. 

The garden still floods when it rains. So the husband and I are going to try to raise the bed and make some new planter boxes!

The dog dug up ALL my herbs while we were on vacation. I guess he missed me! So I will have to start those over.

The 3 tomatoes that survived are doing great! The poor green pepper plants are only 2 foot tall and producing mini green peppers! HAHA Same goes for the banana peppers!
How did your gardens do this year?

MOVIES-

The Raven- Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's life or an adventure starring Edgar Allan Poe. It was a great murder/mystery movie set back in the 1840's? Similar to Sherlock Holmes in my opinion. Very interesting & would watch it again! 

Salt- great female "spy" movie! Loved it & might have to buy it! 

Temptation- Tyler perry knows how to write/direct movies!! loved it!!! Slow to start & a surprising ending!!!! 

The Possession- was a simple "possession movie" for me anyway. No scary parts just basically how a family deals with an issue like this.

Frankenweenie- was a Tim burton special  but all done in black and white. It was ok.

Hotel Transylvania - was a cute monster/vampire cartoon for kids. I loved it! 

Lorax- adyson loved it! I love Dr. Suess!!!

Mirrors- Seems to be the adult version of Poltergiest 3. Seeing things in mirrors and the "spirits" in the mirrors taking control. Its OK. 

Let me know what you thought of the latest movies you've seen. 

Operation Kitchen Reorganization

Finally all my oils, vinegars, syrups in 1 cupbaord!

     This week has been challenging. Trying to quit smoking, organizing my kitchen, etc. But I survived!!! That's the important part.  My "new" kitchen looks great. I was able to save so much space! When I open my cupboards now they almost look empty. Me being a couponer, I had stockpiles of everything! Now it's all condensed down into containers. No more stuff falling over in my cupboards. I even put my cookbooks into categories (breakfast, dinners, desserts, etc) so no more searching for the right book! This took 8 days, but you have to understand how detailed I got with my kitchen, I also have a 3 year old who tried to help me, plus one day the Seattle Seahawks played (I had to stop and watch the game)!

 All these containers were part of my starting point. I'm sorry I forgot to take good pics before I started but I did post pics of all my ideas, & cupboards along the way. You can kind of see the tops of my cupboards as you look through the pics. Before I started this the tops of my cupboards were FULL of stockpiles from couponing. I had no more room on top of my cupboards.

Here are all my containers. I purchased them from Walmart.com because I could buy them in 4pack or 6 packs. (PS look
at the top of my cupboard at all that JUNK! )

BEFORE

AFTER

This entire project took me 8 days. It was VERY detailed

Day 1- I went through cupboards and took inventory of what I had, and what would fit into containers. I found that MOST of my stuff would fit and stack better in containers. So I worked clockwise around my kitchen (so I didn't miss any cupboard or drawer). As I was doing inventory I would measure my cupboards & shelves (so I could purchase the containers to fit my cupboards). I also adjusted a few of my cupboards to fit my needs. I also found stuff in back of cupboards, who knows how long some of it had been opened so in the garbage it went! I found I had multiple spices open, 3 black pepper, 2 salts, 2 garlic powders, etc. So I combined them into 1.

Day 2- I went through and double checked my measurements, researched containers and moving stuff. I this was the day I started having piles of stuff on my counters & table. You may notice the orange post-its on the top cupboards, my notes of measurements, how many containers needed, & what is going in those containers.

This is what my kitchen started looking like about day 3-4.... :)

Day 3- I went through ALL of my cookbooks. I was so tired of searching for the right book. So they all got organized my category- breakfast, lunch, snack, desserts, etc. They all got a good dusting and set aside. Then I found all those pieces of paper with recipes on them. So I found a spiral notebook, labeled the front and wrote or stapled recipes in them.

I chose to have all the books a different color so I could "grab & go" by color.

Day 3-4- When I found all those recipes I chose the ones I know I would cook, and tossed the rest! So I spent the rest of day 3 and most of day 4 writing/ stapling into my own cookbooks. By the end of day 4 my containers had come in.

Day 5- As I was pulling EVERYTHING out of my cupboards I found 2 wine bottle holders. We don't drink wine so who knows why I had them. But I got creative! I bought those decorative pebbles (cheap at the dollar store, $1 a bag, used 2 per wine bottle holder) this gives it weight to hold up my cookbooks!

                    

Also as I finished day 5, I noticed that my kitchen doesn't make sense. I had oatmeal & poptarts in cupboard, but cereal on top of fridge. I had pudding in one cupboard but other lunch snacks in other cupboards. So EVERY cupboard in my kitchen now holds a "category" of food. I chose what fits ME! Be creative with your cupboards and make them fit YOU!

Beans, canned veggies

Dinner boxes, rice, salad toppings. The other cupboard is spices.
Like my beautiful display of my cookbooks on top of my cupboards?
No more junk on top

Seasoning packets, broth packs.

You guys get the idea. I organized  according to what fit ME.  

Now ALL breakfast in on top of fridge.  5 boxes of oatmeal fit in a large container. 2 containers of cereal, 1 healthy & 1 for

kids. 1 container of the breakfast shakes, my protein powder, 1 box poptarts. All the "extra" boxes of cereal now fit stacked toward back of fridge

Look at all that empty space! It was COVERED
in all my stockpiles. Now the only thing up there
is what goes in the cupboards below it. So proud.

  

In large container is ALL 7 packs of puddings/fruit cups.  In the smaller red lined is the  cracker packs,  green lined is granola bars. Drinks to the right. In the back of cupboard on shelf is all the snack/lunch bags of chips. So when I make lunches every morning, EVERYTHING that goes in them is in this cupboard. The kids also know this is for LUNCHES ONLY. The "home" snacks are in a different cupboard!

Day 5-6- Washing/dusting everything and putting the stuff in its new home! I did have 1 box that went into the garage. It was full of stuff I only use once a year during the holidays such as my Christmas serving platters & trays, deviled egg holders, Christmas baskets, holiday cookie cutters, why keep all this stuff in your kitchen if you don't use it on a regular basis. I understand some people may not have that ability to do this, but I do so I am taking advantage of it!

Day 6-7 Putting away more stuff. So all food now has a proper cupboard to go into. I have made a Baking cupboard & drawer. All my mixers & bread maker, special cake pans fit into 1 cupboard. In the drawer was all my measuring cups/spoons, cupcake holders, cake decorating kit, candy thermometers, spatulas, etc.

I have all my "frying" stuff together, my Deep Fat Fryer, griddle, George Foreman grill in a cupboard together!

Day 7-8 getting the table cleared off, the poor table, it was the "catch all" for the entire process. The box packed properly and taped and put in garage. Sweeping & mopping.

I'm glad I did it! I was able to go start to finish. The whole project cost me about $150. So to me that's not bad. Especially for all the space I now have in my cupboards! I really feel like I need to go grocery shopping, after having stockpiles/boxes of stuff all over my kitchen for the last couple years and to look at my kitchen now with all the extra/open space (even though I only took 1 box of holiday stuff to garage) feels weird!

HAPPY ORGANIZING!!!!

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