…Thought of the projects I had planned for this weekend.
I didn’t get as much painting done as I hoped. It’s hard to keep a baby close with spray paint in the breeze. We moved activities indoors and I finished up a new sewing pattern for Craftbits.com Here’s a sneak peek.
But today, mostly, I just held a baby. Which, to be honest, is my most favorite thing to do.
It rained last night and brought the temperature down to 78 degrees this morning. I’m off to get my painting clothes on and finish the chairs before it heats up.
I was thinking this morning about how much I want to lose this pregnancy weight.
I want it so badly that I can bake a huge batch of cookies and not taste one.
I can make lasagna for the family and eat grilled chicken over romaine.
I can bake chocolate strawberry shortcake and only eat strawberries.
I haven’t always wanted it that badly. We’ve all had the uncomfortable situation of hearing a friend or family member say how much they want to lose weight and then watch them eat things that will prevent that goal. Should we say something? NO! They already know it…they just don’t want it bad enough.
The key to will power is a healthy level of disgust. The #1 enemy to will power is denial. To be fully committed to change we have to look reality square in the face, acknowledge how gross it is, identify the behaviors that created the situation and plan new ones to take their place.
What turned the corner for my fitness committment was my before pictures. I had no idea I looked like that. Really? Pictures don’t lie. What turned our corner in the financial world was writing down all our debts and how long it would take to pay them off if we continued the way we were living. We looked at our dreams and which ones were attainable with the payments we were holding. It’s the same method that will get my house perpetually clean, and my children better behaved. It’s simple, when you think about it. If only it were easy.
The original recipe came from here: http://www.mykitchensnippets.com/2008/04/blueberry-cheesecake-bars.html I had to search awhile to find a recipe that called for real blueberries and not blueberry jam. Once I did, I used my pantry items to substitute for the original recipe items. The results were delicious. Here were my list of things I needed to use up:
3 gallon bags full of sugar cookies leftover from camp
1 lemon left from my last month of pregnancy (And it still looked fresh!)
1 tub of homemade creamcheese frosting
1 bag of frozen wild blueberries
I doubled the recipe to fit in a 9 x 13 pan. Substituted crushed sugar cookies for the graham cracker and butter crust. I used the entire lemon zest and juice from the lemon. Reduced the amount of sugar slightly and topped the entire thing with cream cheese frosting. I only had 1-80z brick of low fat cream cheese, so I substituted thick plain yogurt for the blanace of the volume. And I used frozen wild blueberries for the fresh cultivated ones.
Here’s the new recipe:
3 cups crushed sugar cookies, pressed into a gresed 9 x 13 pan–set aside
Mix in an electric mixer until smooth:
1 8 0z brick of low fat cream cheese, plus 2 cups of strained plain yogurt
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
juice and zest from 1 lemon
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup skim milk
3 eggs
When mixture is smooth, fold in 3 cups of frozen wild blueberries (if they are frozen in blocks with ice, rinse in a strainer just long enough to separate them.)
Pour mixture over the cookie crust and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Remove from heat and place on a cooling rack. Immediately pour warmed cream cheese frosting over the top (about 1.5 cups.) Allow to cool and cut into 20 bars.
View from the street. Notice the one blue chair is visible while the other seems to melt away.
It was too hot to paint over the weekend, so my chairs and door still aren’t done. I tried and the paint bubbled up like it was boiling, lol. It looks like next Friday will be cool enough to paint again.
Before
After
I got up early enough to paint my new house numbers before it got over 100 degrees and they look so nice. The trash is off the porch. The new hanging baskets are in place I had already bought them on sale before reading about the window boxes in your fantastic comments on the last post. I think I would love the window box look next year, but for now this was an afforadable alternative.
We planted the hostas, which aren’t too happy about the heat. Next year they will be showstoppers.
While running my errends I grabbed a new door mat monogrammed with a C. Our old doormat was 10 years old. I tried to throw it out, but DH moved it to a less visible door where he thought it could still trap some dirt. Sometimes he thinks thriftier than I do, lol.
I also scrubbed the front of the house with a hose and soapy sponge. The white areas really need a fresh coat of paint, but for now it’s a big improvement. You are right, the porch needs painted. We bought the stain last fall and still haven’t used it. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I’m afraid I’ll make a mess of it.
So much better without the trash! I had planned to recover the setee in the corner to use in my kitchen. But now I think it may not be sturdy enough to go through the effort. Some day soon you may drive by and find it at the curb. It would be a relief from my mind to have the project off my plate.
The two rockers look lonely to me. I’m having second thoughts about the table I found. It’s more money than I was hoping to spend and doesn’t have much surface on the top. I did some price shopping Saturday for cushions and tables and came up empty handed. I may have waited too long to shop summer clearance…there wasn’t much left. Now I’m deciding if I want to wait until next year, or look for some outdoor fabric to sew. Since I still haven’t found a lot of extra time in my day apart from basic chores and holding Grant….I’m leaning towards next year, lol.
My front porch needs a makeover! It look like it belongs to an abandoned farm house. Full of junk and rough furniture. I’ll be working on that this weekend as long as the heat allows.
Above is a partial before picture. My hanging baskets died. The porch is full of trash, and the sitting areas are hard to see from the road. My fron door is open, but it is dark red. And the house numbers scream “Hello, this house was built in the ’80s.
My plan is to paint the furniture a snazzy color (Ooh, risky….but it only costs a few dollars to fix if I hate it.) That way it will be visible from the road in contrast to the white railing. The snazzy color won’t go with the red door, so I’m going to paint it charcoal and put a vinyl welcome sign on it. I looked into buying new house numbers and anything classy looking from Lowe’s or Home Depot was adding up to over $50! So I decided to paint over the tiles in black or gray and paint white numbers on them. I also need to replace the hanging baskets and plant the hostas (donated by a friend who dug hers out) in the place of those ugly bushes. Finally, I’ll need to figure out what to do with all the Misc. that has found it’s way to the porch. Thankfully I won’t have to do it alone. My mother in law will plant for me, and my sister in law is coming to see what she can do.
I’ve already started on the chairs.
I’m not sure if I love the color. When it first came out of the can, it was quite shocking. But I’ve seen the color on porches in several of my favorite magazines and loved it there. It didn’t help that everyone who passed by while I was working, made some interesting comments like: “What are you DOING to those chairs!” and “Is that the real color or only the primer?” I may be about to make everything worse. I saw a cute lime green stool/table that I was hoping to slip between the two chairs and then top them off with white and orange outdoor cushions. Am I crazy? What do you suggest?
Saving money on groceries gets easier and easier the longer you do it. The Grocery Shrink method is a lifestyle of shopping, planning and cooking that can lower your grocery budget like no other method can. I’d like to point new readers to The February 2011 Archives. I dedicated that entire month to describing the basics on how to shrink your grocery bills. If you like what you read there, you’ll love the ebooks.
Also, January 2011 was dedicated to fitness and adjusting your menus for healthy weight loss. I’m still referring back to what I wrote there as I work at shedding the extra baby weight.
I have some big projects going on at home, some secret, and some just menial work. So if you don’t hear from me every day for awhile, you can still get some great reading that will help you along the road to your financial goals.
I had to make the hard choice today to give Fritz a new home. Life is overwhelming right now and as much as I loved him, it was one area I could simplify. He requires being sheared every 2 months and recently I’ve been putting it off too long until he gets matted all over. He deserves better.
I found out a good friend of mine bought a pair of English Angora rabbits for her farm and I offered her our German/Satin cross. She agreed to take Fritz and gave him a lovely home amongst her other animals. It was fun to find out that she loves to spin too. And even has a big loom.
I expected the children to be sad. Dub cried hardest of all. But I didn’t expect me to be so sad. I know it’s for the best, but I feel the loss just the same. I know I can go and visit him if I need to…but it doesn’t feel better yet. I thought tonight–“I should go and feed and water the rabbit and give him a love.” Then I remembered he wasn’t there. I thought I would feel relieved, but didn’t.
I think I did the right thing. Did I? Time will heal.
When life is busy one of the hardest parts of keeping meal’s costs down is doing the preparation at home. The more prepared we purchase our food, the higher the price. What if we could have the convenience of prepared foods but pay for unprepared ones?
Last week I showed you two ways to do that, make your own mixes by pre-assembling dry ingredients of scratch recipes and cooking more than you need of rice, hamburger, or pasta and freezing the excess for another meal.
The most time effective way to do these things is while you are cooking the same food for immediate use. Make your cornbread mixes when you are baking cornbread. You were going to get all of those ingredients out anyway, might as well measure more than one batch.
Another way of saving time is to only touch the food one time. For example, when you come home from the store, wash your produce for the week and prepare it for eating. Then put it in the fridge ready to go. This will encourage you to grab a healthy snack since it’s just as fast as grabbing a bag of chips.
If you purchased chicken breast, pour the marinade on now. You can even freeze it this way until you are ready to use it.
I’m eating differently from the rest of my family right now and whlie I can usually cook 1 meal, cooking 2 different ones puts me over the edge. To make things easier, I premeasure my snacks (like almonds, baby carrots and edamame). I also cook up a weeks worth of chicken breast and premeasure it in 30z servings. Now I have the makings of a variety of meals just ready to toss and go.
Kim left this comment on a previous post: Angela, my daughter and I enjoyed this post so much, she is the weekly pizza maker in our home, such a great idea, but the one thing my daughter mentioned was how beautiful your skin is, which I already happened to notice, I know you have already posted some beauty tips, but we thought it would be fun if you gave your readers your beauty regimine and what you use on your sakin daily, nightly and maybe if you do some monthly treatments as well. Enjoy your family, and your blessed new addition. Thanks for taking the time Angela, I am sure you are so busy. Sincerely, Kim
Your comments totally made my day, so I’d be happy to share what I do to my skin. I’ll be 35 in a few weeks and have a history of severe acne. I have tried a lot of things to try to get beautiful skin (or even normal looking skin) and finally found something that works for me. I don’t have a lot of time for myself, but I consider my skin routine as essential as brushing my teeth at night. I use a variety of different products and makeups, but most of them last me 6 months to a year. I also sell the brand of makeup I prefer so get a dealer discount, plus have money from teh sales to buy my personal products with. I spend very little actual money on product, but I would if I had too–it’s that good.
Morning: Shower–last thing before turning off the water I wash my face with Mary Kay Timewise 3-1 skincare bar–It costs $18 and lasts me about a year. Once a week, I follow up with the Microdermabraision Set. It’s so easy to use in the shower. I use leftover product on my arms which tend to be red and bumpy.
Right after I towel off, I apply Timewise Age Fighting Moisturizer in normal to dry, and follow up with Oil Free Hydrating Gel. If I will be outside all day, I use Timewise Day Solution under my moisturizer.
My makeup routine includes Concealer under my eyes and in the corners of my nose, Mineral foundation in Beige 1 (I use Ivory 2 in winter, and Beige .5 in between times.) On Cheeks I like mineral cheek colorin Shy Blush or Bold Berry. Occasonally I’ll use Sunny Spice or Mineral Bronzer instead for a super natural look.
On my eyes I use 3 mineral colors, a super light highlighting eye color (that I make sure blends into the corner and slightly under the eye), a medium tone on the lid and dark color in the crease which I blend all together with a clean powder brush. Some of my favorite combonations are: Moonstone, hazelnut, and chocolate kiss; Crystalline, Granite and Coal; and Crystalline, Blue Metal and Navy (discontinued but midnight star is a good substitute.)
I follow up my eye shadow with eyeliner in brown or black. If I want another color, I use a wet eyeliner brush with my mineral eye colors. And top it all off with black ultimate mascara (but can’t wait until my lash love arrives–I think I’ll like that even better.) One coat over all the lashes and several additional coats on just the tips to make them look longer.
On my lips I use Nourishine Lip Gloss. My favorite colors are Beach Bronze, Bronze Bliss, Fancy Nancy, or Sweet Raisin. For evening I use a neutral lip liner under my gloss.
At bedtime I start with Oil Free Eyemakeup remover on a cotton pad. Then wash with Timewise 3-1 cleanser for Oily to Combination skin. Then apply Timewise Night Solution; Timewise Moisturizer for Normal to Dry Skin, and finish off with Oily Free Hydrating Gel.
Whew, It took me a lot longer to write all that down than it does to actually do it :).
I also rub cocoa butter all over my stretch marks, feet, arms and elbows before getting into bed. I’d like to start dry brushing before my shower to help tighten my after baby skin and get rid of cellulite, but I seem to think of it after I’m already in the shower.
Other things that help my skin: Exercise (I do 15 minutes of intense exercise every day) and diet–plenty of water to keep skin from drying out and forming lines. Also I’m avoiding sugar (for weight loss) which makes my immune system stronger and prevents breakouts.
When I do get a blemish, I brew a cup of peppermint tea before bed and press the hot tea bag on the blemish–holding it there until it feels tingly from the mint. When I wake up it is much improved.
Whenever I take a bubble bath I use the Even Complexion Mask while I soak. It is amazing and makes my skintone look smooth and even.
This post was not designed to sell any products, but if you do decide to try something, I offer free shipping anywhere in the contiguous US and off a money back guarantee for up to 1 year after your purchase date. (You can even return it if you aren’t using it like you thought you would, or if the color is bad for you.)
