Clean Eating Challenge

Flashback to January 2014...

 

A girl I went to school with since 6th grade was posting all this information on Facebook about an Arbonne clean eating challenge.  I had seen her talking about it  for a few months prior and decided to contact her to ask what it was all about.  She explained it to me and told me of her own reservations for trying it and it took her a year to work up to finally going through with it.  She had mentioned that prior to her husband participating he would have a horrible time sleeping at night and said that his body using so much energy to process his dinner it would actually keep him from sleeping through the night.  Maybe that's what my problem was too with staying asleep, since I have zero problems actually falling asleep.  She sent me a sample menu with the grocery list and also gave me a few sample items like protein powder, green tea, fizz stick, etc.  After looking at the menu I knew there was no way that Jimmy and Kiera would eat the majority of the meals or let alone the side dishes plus I just wasn't willing to cook 2 separate meals for the 3 of us.  So that is where it all ended.  For the rest of the year I would continue to sit on the couch every evening for hours doing nothing.  I was pretty down at times and didn't have the motivation to get up an exercise or anything else.  I knew what was going on I just didn't care.

 

Fast forward to December 2014...

Jimmy's cousin got me a Misfit Flash activity and sleep tracker for Christmas.  I knew that she had one and I had always wanted one it just wasn't something I though about buying for myself.  I am so in love with this thing it's not even funny.  It is exactly what I need to get going.  If I saw that I wasn't going to reach my goal of activity for that day I would get up and move around. 

 

January - March 2015...

After having my activity tracker for a couple weeks I decided it was a good time to start exercising.  We have had weights for years we just never did anything with them so I brought them out along with my yoga mat and started doing some easy exercises at home.   A number of the exercises I just used my own body weight which was enough to feel the burn.  I also started changing what and how much I was eating.  I started eating smoothies for lunch a few days out of the week, less bread and dairy, minimal sweets, smaller meal portions.  In February we bought an elliptical which I just freaking love.  I began gaining muscle and losing weight.  I also started sleeping better through the night and not waking up at 3am for the day on the weekends!  By the end of March I had lost 13 pounds! During this time my friend Kailan and I started talking about the clean eating challenge.  She wanted to participate but was in the same predicament with her husband and 3 boys.  We decided that we were dead set on doing the challenge and she offered to cook the meals and we would split the cost of the groceries. 

 

March - April 2015...

So at the end of March we began the clean eating challenge!  Things were going great for the first couple weeks, and I didn't have a problem with the transition since I had already changed my ways of food an eating.  There in the middle it got a little rough for me.  I did cheat just a few times throughout the month but not even enough to throw anything off.  It was too keep my sanity alright!   

(Baked sweet potato, steamed  zucchini, blacked salmon, mango salsa - all made my me)

And now our clean eating challenge has ended.  Since January I have lost 21 pounds and 8 of those was during the challenge.  I feel great, I am sleeping through the night, I have lots of energy and no stomach issues after eating. Not that I had any before but there is no more bloating and indigestion that I would get after eating big heavy meals.  Except for the celebratory pizza lunch Kailan and I ate at the end of the challenge.  Within 20 minutes I was completely drained of energy, I was so bloated and my heart was racing.  I won't be doing that again!

 

I am half way to my goal body type and I know that I can and will do it!  Plus the cute exercise clothes that I have bought help to stay motivated.  It really does!

Pops Arcadia, OK

The weekend before my birthday (I turned 35 last week!) we took a little trip down to OKC for the weekend and drug our camper and my father in law along. I am going to share in no particular order, just going along as I get the pictures edited. 

 

We stopped by Pops in Arcadia which is about 20 minutes northeast of OKC on old Route 66.  It was the first time Kiera and I had ever been and Jimmy and his dad hadn't been in a long time.  Oh and I must mention first that I was 2 weeks in to a month long clean eating challenge.  I totally cheated...but just a little.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They literally have any and every flavor of pop that you could imagine...coffee, buffalo sauce, bacon, maple, Ranch dressing, Celery, Sweet corn...I would love to try them but I don't want to spend $2 on a whole bottle and hate it.

 

We ate lunch and Kiera's first choice of pop was strawberry.  Jimmy had a Black Cherry Cream which was wonderful.  I only took little sips of them since I am not drinking any pop due to my clean eating and because I have just basically cut it out of my life anyway.  Jimmy and I shared an Arcadia burger which had blue cheese, bacon and barbecue sauce.  We weren't sure how the bbq sauce would be on the burger but they all worked together very nicely.  I totally cheated and ate a quarter of the burger and some fries. It helped my mental clean eating issues.  Jimmy's dad had a salad I think and Kiera ate a corn dog. 

 

Pops has 6 pack boxes that you can grab off of the shelves and put together your own selection to take home.  $15 for these 6 but the experience and excitement for Kiera picking out flavors was well worth it.  She had a blast.   

 

 

 

The only ones Jimmy and I got to pick out were the very cherry and apple pie.  I was a little overwhelmed with the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of choices.  The cases were pretty much sorted by type or flavor so once I really started looking it wasn't so bad.  And the bottles are stinking cute, we are keeping them.

Mouse Valentine's

Well hello there!  Long time no see?  I have been super busy with all sorts of busy things called life.  Since my last post I was able to cross a couple things off of my non existent bucket list and it.was.awesome.   But I am not here for that today, I am here to share this years Valentine's that Kiera and I made for her class.  I think these were the easiest valentine's I have made thus far but that is probably due to the fact that Kiera was actually a big help with it this year.  Twas a lovely Saturday night crafting together.  Apparently I really needed to do some crafting and it wasn't until we started that I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. 

 

So after some looking around on Pinterest Kiera decided that she wanted mouse valentine's.  We came across this picture for inspiration and then Kiera and I discussed what she wanted to change about it and what colors she wanted to use. 

 

Creative Me Inspired You

 

 

We already had everything on hand at home but the card stock and felt hearts.  What you will need...

 

Pipe cleaners (cut in half)

Googly eyes

Felt Hearts

12 x 12 Cardstock

Sharpie

Hot glue 

Fruit snacks (or candy if you must)

 

 

First I folded the 12x12 sheets of cardstock in to fourths and then cut them out.

Then I folded each fourth in half and drew a half heart shape with pencil and cut it out.  Make sure you cut out the side that does not have the seam on it.  I used that first half heart shape to trace on all of the rest of the papers so that afterwards I could just go to town cutting out the shapes. 

 

Once you have all of your mouse bodies cut out you can used the edges to make the mouse ears.  Now if you have a circular paper punch thingys that would be awesome and fast to use, however I don't have one so they were all cut by hand.  You will also want to do this with a light pink card stock for the center of the ears. 

 As I was finishing up cutting out the mouse bodies Kiera was drawing noses and whiskers on the mice that I had already cut out and also gluing the ears together.  Man it was awesome having her help. 

 

 As she was finishing up the ears and faces I was gluing the tails, googly eyes and ears on the ones that were ready. 

I glued from the nose half way up the body so I could create a pocket to put the fruit snack in.  I just can't bring myself to send candy for valentine's because there is already so much of it.  I am not anti candy (hello sugar lover) I am just trying to lessen the amount.  

 

Then you glue around the the rest of it, slap on a heart and voila!  We had a few pop back open behind the ears but I just put a dab of glue there and sealed it back up.  We actually still need to glue the little "Hope you have a "MICE" Valentine's Day!" tag behind the heart and then they will be done done.  On the back I wrote "To" and "From" and Kiera filled in "You" and her name. 

 We also have to make a shoe box for her to receive the valentine's from her classmates only I have no idea what she want to make.  It will be interesting for sure. 

And here are the Valentine's I have made in the past...

 

Ninjas

 

Cats

 

Owls

 

A little random

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I need a place to vent this to and this is a safe place for what I am about to say.  Every.single.day for the past year I have been parking in the exact same spot at work.  Then someone new comes in a starts parking in my spot.  First off they were parking somewhere else and then a week in moved on over to my spot.  Now we don't have assigned spots but everyone in the office knows where everyone parks and you just stay out of that spot. Is this a petty and stupid thing to be upset over, of course it is.  Is there some slight animosity towards that undeserving person?  Unfortunately yes.  Do I park in MY spot when it is open, you bet I do! 

 

And just last week there were a few people (not at work) that I would have loved to do this to, but I love my car and I am truly not a mean person.  Everyone has had these moments. 

Any who on to happy things!  I finally tried out the beachy wave look on my hair and I loooove it!  I am so thankful that my super straight hair will actually curl and hold it.  Now I can actually do something with it! 

 

The earth and sun have been kind and produced some beautiful scenery in the skies.  I mean just look at this sunrise and sunset! 

Kiera requested ponytails all over her head for crazy hair day at school.  Apparently the name they though up was octopus head or something like that since she actually had 8 pony tails.  She said she won for craziest hair but I am not sure if that is entirely true. 

Our vampire pumpkin with a mustache designed by not me.  I got in trouble for not adding the nose.  I can only do so much with a knife before I lose a finger! 

The late afternoon light that pours in to our dining area makes me happy every time I see it.   And one of these days I will share pictures of our kitchen redo. 

 

Jimmy is growing a beard per my request. Well as much a s he can since he isn't hairy at all.  I think this was a week ago after 2 weeks of growing it out.   He has some white hair on his chin and it is hawt.  He also has a little throughout his head and I am liking that too. 

 

 

 

But he will never ever ever be able to get to the level of beard that my brother has.  3 months in the making this one has. 



Katy Perry

On October 6th I took Kiera to see Katy Perry and her concert was ah-mazing.  Now this was my first concert to see at a big venue (BOK Center in downtown Tulsa) so I had no idea what to expect.  Shoot, the last concert I actually went to see was Gavin DeGraw at Cain's 10 years ago.

 

 

When we first got inside we went to check out the concert gear you could buy.  Uh $40 for a t-shirt?  No thank you.  Kiera brought her own money and bought a bracelet and some buttons.  After that we went a walking around the massive BOK center and found us some food to eat.  Chicken finger basket, yum. 

 

 

 

Some crazy fans errbody had to have their picture taken with.

 

The first act up was a guy called Ferras and I really liked his music though I had never heard of him before.  Kiera wasn't too thrilled with the loud music and kept asking when Katy was coming out.  There were a few tears but I helped get rid of those with some silly comments about Ferras' dreads.  Then came Tegan and who I have heard their music before!  Kiera sill wasn't enjoying herself too much until they started to sing Everything is Awesome from the Lego Movie and she perked right up after that. 

 

 

 

 

 

(these next 3 pictures are borrowed from other people that were in the pit at the concert, not in the nosebleeds like us)

 

The first few songs that she sang I knew all the words to (along with a lot of her other songs) so I was singing along at the top of my lungs.  I ended up choking a bit since my vocal cords were taking some abuse but I got them nice and warmed up for the rest of the concert.  Kiera was able to sing along to a few of them also.  And let me tell you my girl can scream.  I have never heard her let loose like that and it made me laugh every time. 

These days everyone uses phones to sway around instead of lighters.  I was doing it wrong according to a certain 7 year old. 

Kiera was dancing at this point but I don't remember to which song.  I on the other hand do not like to dance publically (even though I did when I was younger and I still dance in my car every day) but I was out of my seat busting some moves. 



 

During one short break there were these cats in different scenarios playing (this one got its hair did, another was at a massage parlor, etc.) on the screen and they were freaking hilarious.  Of course this was Kiera's favorite part of the whole entire concert.  

 

Now I just need to someone to send me to see Justin Timberlake in OKC in December!