All in a day's work

About a year or so ago, my husband brought home a diet book that he was excited to try. Always leery of anything telling me to cut food intake (I will CUT YOU over some food. Don't mess with me), I resisted. I gazed at the recipes, which consisted of about 80% of the book, and was surprised at how yummy they looked. So I started to read, and was appalled at the information I was gaining. The book talked about the amount of sugar that can be found in packaged foods. Shocked at how much sugar was in things I considered "healthy" like pasta sauces, crackers, even milk; I went through my pantry and threw out at least half of it. I couldn't believe what we were eating. It was a huge eye opener for me. This just kind of snowballed to where I am today - packing as much real, whole, natural foods into our diets as I can.

Recently I stumbled across this great blog that was written by a girl who revived my spirit to eat more raw foods. I think the biggest trouble with "healthy eating" is that I feel like I can't eat sweets, which is my downfall. I feel like a failure if I make something that isn't quite good for us. But a girl just NEEDS a cupcake sometimes! This girl has the same problem with sweets being what she craves, and she's come up with brilliant solutions to curbing them and eating healthy at the same time. Because frankly, telling me to replace my chocolate with broccoli is crazy. (I WILL CUT YOU!) Sorry. It doesn't fit.

With the girls in school, I find that I have more time to make food that I wish I could have made before. Which is nice, considering they are getting awfully picky where their lunch is concerned and I refuse to buy processed foods.

So the other day I made these little gems. Raw peanut butter "cookies". Oh me oh my. They are so yummy and really do hit the cookie spot. My girls gobbled them up. Ok, they aren't technically completely raw, but raw enough! You could easily replace the peanut butter with almond butter and leave out vanilla.

In her blog post I believe the girl says she was snacking on them "all week". They didn't last 24 hours at my house, but I'm counting that as a good thing. :) If you're looking for a good for you treat that is really yummy and tastes like dessert, definitely try these. You can make them in about 5 minutes flat (bonus!) and they are so good for you (double bonus!).

Now I'm off to finish putting the sweet potato crackers in a container and the black bean hummus in the fridge.

Look what I did!

I need to admit something. Something REALLY embarrassing. I made the decision this summer that spending time with the girls was far more important than cleaning, and my house has gone to the dogs. Ew. My decision's not embarrassing, but the state of my house is. The girls have been back to school for one week and I am slowly but surely gaining my house back. Well, aside from the huge pile of donations that is growing in my living room and taking over, but that's another story (for business) and totally acceptable.

I've decided to tackle one room a day. Well, I work on it until it's done or my brain is done. Whatever comes first. So far, it's been as the room is done. Weekends don't count by the way. Everyone needs a break.

The other day I redid my mud room. This is our catchall room that houses the girls' shoes, coats, winter paraphernalia, random things that belong to The Mister (why?), games and art supplies and tools that don't have homes. We have a closet in there, and then one of those standard white wire shelves. I am sooooo proud of me. I filled a huge trash bag full of stuff to toss (who knew I'd have THAT much crap in a room that didn't look like it had that much crap to throw away?). I donated 2 grocery bags of things using my favorite easy donation process, freecycle.

The games are now neatly stacked. The shoes are neatly put in bins, where they will stay for - oh, about one day. I went through the coats, hats and gloves and donated a good amount that we don't need. I reorganized the closet. It was feeling pretty good. My Debbie Downer was the annoying thing I call "useless junk you need for school". Bookbags and lunchboxes will probably be the death of me. Because in the past 4 years, I have never really been able to figure out what to do with these things. I've always settled to have Angel's and Bean's bookbags hanging on the two doorknobs in the mud room and the lunchboxes tossed in the pantry. With Bug starting school this year I now had 3 bookbags and 2 knobs. Hm.

A while ago, while browsing around on Pinterest, I stumbled across this CUTE idea of using drawer faces and knobs as wall hooks. Um, stinkin' cute right? Well, I really didn't want to have to go thrifting and pay for a piece of furniture only to tear it apart and toss 90% of it and then have to buy new handles on top of it. So I wussed out and went to Walmart to buy wall hooks instead.

I found some pretty nice brushed nickel ones in the bath aisle for a few dollars each. I needed three, and these happened to have 2 hooks per piece. Awesome! Solves my lunchbox AND bookbag woes in one shot. I brought them home and told The Mister I needed his help to put them up. Well, The Mister likes to take his time with projects (ahem - wait until I've asked him 2.3 billion times), and I'm really impatient. Hmfph. I could totally do this.

I whipped out his screwdriver and hung those hooks like a pro! Lookie!

Forgive the really cruddy quality of these, I used my trusty iPhone. It is just far too much work for me to get out my big girl camera to take pictures of these things. (Just one of the many curses of the professional photographer)

You can see the two rather convenient hooks for both lunchbox AND bookbag!

Yay me!!! I am sooooo proud of me, I really can't tell you. I know what you're thinking. Aside from being really proud of me too, you're thinking "Congratulations. You know how to turn a screwdriver." I just want to remind you that I do not do these things. This is "mans work" to me. I'm new into this area. I likey. I need my own pink screwdriver now. :)

Knock me to the floor kind of amazement!

When we first walked into this house 7 years ago during our attempt to buy a new home, I remember walking out onto the deck and saying "What is going ON in this backyard?" There were vines and all kind of vegetation madness growing up the semi steep hill that made up much of the property. The realtor tells us that the homeowner was going to rip it all out and put down sod. Phew, I think. It'll be done before we move in. It was a relief to know it wasn't my headache.

Fast forward a few months later, and the work still hadn't been done. So I asked the realtor "umm, whatever happened to the sod in the backyard? When is that going to be done?" Oh, no - they were only going to do THAT if no one wanted to buy the house, he says to me in a slightly "duh you dummy" tone. Silly me for thinking realtors never stretched the truth!

And here we sit today, with enough lush vegetation in our backyard to hide at least 1,000 small children. Or I should say SAT. Because our hill is consumed with vegetation no more! The Mister's parents have been working their tails off cutting it all down and digging it all up. And today, for the first time in 7 years, I can see what my hill looks like. "I've never seen you in this light before, you're stunning!" I tell it. Oh, and no I'm not lazy....I did help the first time they came out to conquer the hill. But after a vicious case of poison ivy that forced me onto steroids to get rid of it....I wasn't touching that place with a 10 foot pole.

So today, I took some pictures. Because I can't get over how amazing it's going to look once it's all finally cleared away!

For those of you that have actually been to my house, this is a never before seen sight! There used to be a bush there on the corner that was overcome with honeysuckle. Which we found the root ball for, by the way. Someone obviously planted it there on purpose for ground cover. Way to go in that brilliant move, who ever you are! This was an all summer long project getting this mess taken care of.

A better shot of down that part of the hill, can you believe it? I can't. And all that gorgeous dark soil....I so can't wait to get a garden started back there.

Another spot on my property that I had never seen before. I can't believe it! It's obviously still a work in progress, but we have come oh so far this summer. In my dreams I've already got loads of strawberries, spinach and lettuce, beans galore and rows of carrots, beets, peppers and potatoes. And a few beautiful fruit trees dripping with goodies and a lovely stone path leading down to it. Expect to see hard evidence of this dream in oh, say 2020.