Clean Eating

Did you enjoy your view of my fridge? I don't think I have ever seen so many fruits and vegetables in it there at one time. Why so many? In attempt to lose a few of those extra baby lb and better my eating habits I decided it was time to try clean eating. My dear friend over at Dear Mushka inspired me with this blog post. I knew I wanted to try something similar, but I was at a loss of how I would figure out what to cook every night. I love cooking, but only with lots of dairy and lots of salt. Two things clean eating does not allow.

Enter in Beautiful Habits. She is a friend of a very dear friend of mine and, while I don't know that much about the author, I joined her challenge and received a free copy of her meal plan. Free! I like that. Plus, it mapped out exactly what I could eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner for an entire week! Perfect. It also included a balanced amount of proteins and fats. The RN in me was happy.

So there you have it. Two weeks of clean eating has commenced. In an act of sweet encouragement The Farmer even agreed to join me on this adventure. We are on day 3 now and still going strong.....for the most part. I might have added a bit of salt to the soup last night. Oops. I just love salt!

But today is a new day. Cheers to a Wednesday filled with veggies, fruit, whole grains, and peanut butter! I'll check back in with you over the next few days and at the end of our challenge to let you know the final results.

Note: Beautiful Habit's challenge is supposed to last 21 days. However, we have a trip planned to the infamous family Hog Farm over Memorial Day weekend. Do you remember my first post about my sweet Mother-in-Love? About amazing a cook she is? Needless to say, we are only doing the plan for 12 days. But 12 days is better than none right? Hopefully, I will learn a lot by then and I won't gain all of my lost weight back.

Happy "clean" eating!

Philippians 4:8

I need this verse.
In my life.
On my bedroom wall.
One of the first things I see and and am reminded to pray when I wake up morning.

In light of that - I decided to make this printable on photoshop and share it with you!! It prints off in an 8x10. I'm still figuring out how to add it as an attachment to my blog, but my little HG just woke up from her morning nap and I must run. Until then, save the image to your computer maybe?

Be blessed! And have a fantastic, lovely Monday!

The Water Challenge

As a nursing major I was forced into studying the benefits of drinking water and let me tell you they are plentiful. Google "health benefits of drinking water" and a countless number of medical pages and websites will pop up. At a glance, drinking water helps flush toxins out of our bodies, boost immune systems, relieve headaches, improve skin complexions, encourage weight loss, and can give you more energy through out the day. Wow! That's a lot of punch for a little tap.


Even though I know how healthy it is for me to drink water... I'm horrible at it! During my pregnancy I even struggled to keep guzzling the stuff down.


And so to combat my, and possibly my Farmer's (although he is much better at it than I am), bad water drinking habits we invested in some new glass water bottles and created a water challenge for ourselves! Why glass? It's easy to clean. BPA free. Won't collect nasty crud on the inside or deteriorate like my aluminum water bottles from years past. And you can pick cute covers out like the one to the left (yes,  the cuteness factor helps encourage me to drink more water, whatever it takes right?).


The challenge? The first person to drink 4 bottles full of water today gets an extra 10 dollars of personal spending money for the month. Not the most stellar prize in the world, but it added a little extra incentive to our game!


We've been texting each other pictures of our full and then empty water bottles all morning. So far, we're neck and neck in the race. 1 down - 3 to go. And you know what? It's been really fun! A nice, small, and atypical way to stay connected with each other when the mister is at work.  I've even managed to finish an entire bottle while writing this blog post :)


Can you drink 8 glasses of water today?

Chicken Fajita Chowder

In case you were wondering how we planned on using those beautiful red bell peppers from yesterday....

Chicken Fajita Chowder

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts, diced in 1/4-1/2" pieces
• 3 bell peppers, any color, diced small
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 T. olive oil
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 1 cup uncooked instant brown rice
• 10 oz green enchilada sauce
• 4 oz green chilies, undrained
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 oz (1 cup) shredded Mexican Cheese
• 1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
• 1/4 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

Recipe

1. Heat up olive oil in a dutch oven (or big cooking pot) on medium heat.
2. Stir in chicken, peppers, and onion. Cook until the chicken is done (no longer pink) and the vegetables are tender, but crisp (about 5-8 minutes).
3. Add the broth, corn, rice, enchilada sauce, chilies, and salt to the pot. Bring this entire mixture to a boil.
4. Once boiling, reduce to simmer, cover, and allow to simmer for 40 minutes.
5. Remove the pot from heat, and add the cheese and sour cream. Stir until cheese and sour cream are melted.
6. Add cilantro. Stir.

Servings: 6-8 one cup servings

Notes: this is another wonderful recipe from my Mother-in-Love. It's served best with tortilla chips and Cayenne pepper (in case someone has a hankering for spicy). The recipe on its own has a nice flavor, but isn't very spicy hot. Tastes great sitting on your back porch of a breezy spring evening.

Delizioso!

Yes you may.

Play.

I love to let Hannah play. Even if it means dirt in her finger nails. Grass stains on her jeans. Books all over her bedroom floor. And bruises on our sweet red bell peppers.

We attended a parenting&marriage morning at church this weekend, and one of my favorite pieces of wisdom from the pastor's wife was to "say yes to your child as much as possible." She will hear enough no's growing up. But how can I make sure she hear's enough yes's?

Beautiful.

A New Home

How did the house debacle end? It became a home.

We closed two weeks ago Friday!

Highlights of the closing:

• A courier delivering the corrected deed from the long lost owners to our title company on Thursday evening just minutes before they closed
• My husband and the seller digging up the neighbor's fence, with her permission, in the rain the night of our final walk through

It truly was a miraculous closing, and through it I learned patience, trust, and about contentedness in the Lord. I am thankful.

And They Praised Him (cont)

Psalm 147:10-11

"His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor His delight in the legs of man; the Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love." 

And just like that - a closing was scheduled for Friday morning.

Last night we talked to the sellers and all seemed lost. They didn't want to go chasing after the original property owners (and neither did we). Their plan was to move their fence and re-list their house without that additional .4 acres of property. We were not interested in the home without the extra land, so we told them we planned on walking away. I finally breathed easily knowing it was at least finished. Our title company wasn't searching for the long lost owners. We didn't think it was prudent for us to go searching for the long lost owners. And the seller wasn't going to go searching for the long lost owners. Without finding the long lost owners there would be no closing. Period.

And when all hope flickered and we finally completely surrendered to walking away, the Lord was still working! Within 15 minutes of that original conversation with the seller, we received a second phone call informing us that the seller's title company located the long lost owners and both parties (as they were divorced) agreed to sign over the land without any contingencies. Wow. Did that just happen? The Farmer and I did a double take at each other.

And this morning everyone busily got to work preparing for a Friday closing.

Praise the God who gives and takes away. Only He could jump through so many hurdles and provide.

**minor note** The neighbor's fence is still up, but we have been assured it will be down by closing. If it's not dismantled, we will decline closing. And the adventure continued!