Juice Fast 2012

I'm ready!

I have all of the initial fruits/veggies purchased and ready to go. And don't worry--the leftovers in the fridge will be gone by Sunday! Nick and I are pretty excited to see how this goes, and to see how we feel after detoxing and fasting for almost 2 weeks.

The book you see in the second pic above is one I purchased from Amazon along with my juicer. I have already scanned thru most of it and there is some pretty interesting information in it. There is info about how the body detoxes, which plants help which organs, good combinations of fruits/veggies to use, etc. Very informative!

Here is the plan:

• We are going to juice our "meal" 3x a day with lots of water in between. I am going to keep a pitcher of filtered water with fresh sliced lemons in the fridge at all times.
• I am going to blog daily about which juice recipes we used and how we liked them
• I will also weigh daily and post how much weight I have lost (but not what I weigh!)
• I will post daily about how I feel, and any other symptoms/side effects

I am pretty competitive (and stubborn) so I am confident that I will complete a 10 day fast. I may even extend it if all goes well! Nick is aiming for 10 days also, and I will give him my full encouragement. I think he has a slightly more emotional attachment to food so it may be harder for him to fast.

In other news, here is a baby blanket I finished for a friend at work:

I used a special pattern from a book for the middle, then just continued the rounds outward until it was the desired width.

And here is a onesie I embroidered for friend's baby due in April:

I am very much looking forward to this weekend and my goal is to get all of my Christmas decorations taken down and the house put back into order. Don't forget about the juice fast--it starts Sunday and I will blog daily about!

My 2 1/2 Year Old (and Christmas)

It is here, Bradley's 2 1/2 year post! I refuse to call it "30 months". When he hit 1 we quit counting months!

Weight: 26lbs
Height: 35 1/2"

As you can see, I had a fun time trying to get him to stand still and look at me. He seems to be getting better though! I would have bribed him with candy but it was right before bed time. Now for his milestones!

At 2 1/2 years old you...

• have almost outgrown size 5 shoe
• wear size 4-5 diaper
• wear 2T clothes
• have 20 teeth
• are using toothpaste now (and getting better at spitting it out)
• know tons of words and better at communicating
• can say 3-4 word sentences
• can identify many things/animals correctly
• sleep from about 8pm-9am
• take one nap from around 1pm-4pm
• absolutely love anything sweet or chocolatey
• have become slightly picky but still eat almost everything we do
• drink milk and ovaltine every morning, then 50/50 water juice the rest of the day
  
• know how to ride your tricycle with a little help
• recently starting saying "I yuv you"
• sometimes ask for your paci (but you don't get it)
• love to play outside and take walks
• like to sit on the counter and watch me cook
• love watching the Incredible Hulk
• use a spoon easily and getting better with a fork
• sit at the table like a big boy for meal times
• tell us when you pooped (but only after the fact...)
• sit in the grocery cart and say HI to everyone you see
  

We had a wonderful and busy Christmas weekend and spent time with lots of family. I had to work Saturday afternoon, but we spent the evening at home and Nick's family came over to share our tradition of Arby's roast beef sandwiches on Christmas Eve. We exchanged gifts with them and had a good visit.

Christmas morning we all got up early and headed over to my mom's house for our annual Christmas breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy. We came home for a couple hours, I cooked several things after we opened our presents, then we headed back to her house for a chili and baked potato lunch. We got home from that around 2pm and after I threw the turkey in the oven we all took a nap!

I cooked the rest of my big dinner and had 10 people over to our house for a traditional turkey dinner around 5pm. We saw some family we hadn't seen in a long time and had a great evening catching up and exchanging presents by a roaring fire.

^watching cartoons Christmas morning over my shoulder

I worked most of today but after I got home we all went to the store and picked up Brad's last Christmas present--a beautiful red betta! It is his first pet!

We put the fishbowl in his room and *hopefully* he learns how to feed it correctly and doesn't mess with it too much. Just ignore the tape and scissors....we've been having diaper issues.

I have a few more orders to fill and after that I MUST catch up on scrapbooking! I have all of the photos developed and organized. I just have to sit down and get started.

One thing I am pretty excited about is a "project" Nick and I are going to do together starting January 1--a juice fast! My juicer is supposed to arrive this Friday and we are aiming for 10 days. I plan on documenting the whole thing on here so keep an eye out for that!!

Christmas Treats

I spent my Sunday (after working a bit in the morning) baking up a storm! Every year for the last several years I make a bunch of treats and put together cookie tins for all of the family and close friends in my life in lieu of presents. This year I made marshmallow fudge, mini banana bread loaves, oatmeal raisin cookies, and for those with dogs--homemade doggie treats!

Nick helped me the whole time in the kitchen, and even wore a Christmas apron with me! He is too cute. I was able to get everything done all while little Brad was taking his nap! I can't find the recipe on my Pinterest, I will have to get back to you on the link. But so far the 3 dogs that have tasted them LOVED them!

I was able to get my Grandma and Aunt's goodies all boxed up and shipped early Monday morning so hopefully they get there soon! I just have a few left to hand out.

I colored my hair Saturday--don't worry, nothing crazy! Just dark brown again to cover the never-ending grays. I swear every time my roots grow out they are worse than before! Thanks dad.

Well I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend and remembers the TRUE reason from whence our celebrations stemmed (yes I just said whence). We have lots of family coming over Christmas evening and I am in charge of a big turkey dinner! I can't believe Christmas is only 3 days away now! If only we had snow....

Keeping Busy

In the last couple of weeks we have gotten a couple more things knocked off of our 'to-do' list for our house. I didn't take of a picture of it, but Nick installed a whole new sink faucet in our kitchen. My only request was that it be tall (for filling up things) and it is! I love it. This week he rebuilt the shower faucet and regrouted the entire shower!

The picture may not show much, but trust me--it looks great close up!

I finally finished up one of my hat orders today. It was for 5 custom hats. Here are 4 of them:

Today I got to do something I have wanted to do for years--go to the Nutcracker ballet! I assumed I would go with my mom or someone, but she wasn't interested. So Nick offered to go with me, and he ended up loving it! We had the best time and enjoyed getting all dressed up.

The dancers, music, and set were amazing and we can't wait to go to another show! I am already planning on going to their Wizard of Oz performance next April!

I started wrapping all of the gifts I've accumulated throughout the year today, but Brad didn't take a very long nap so I didn't get them all done. Most, but not all. I only have a few people left and they are the hard ones. I found really good prices on kid stuff through the year so I got several presents for all the children in my family for dirt cheap!

I intended on doing my holiday baking tomorrow but I don't know how that will work out now--I am on call tomorrow and they let me know tonight that there are already 3 surgeries scheduled in the morning. Looks like I'll be spending most of my Sunday in the PACU!

Rolls and Crafts

First off is a new recipe I tried tonight that I found on Pinterest and loved it! They are called 30 minute rolls and are yeast rolls from scratch with NO kneading!

They plumped up nicely in the oven and I'm sure if I had made them smaller I could have gotten about 20 rolls from one batch. Here is the recipe (and link to original poster):

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1 C plus 2 Tbsp warm water

1/3 C oil

2 Tbsp yeast

1/4 C sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

3 1/2 C flour

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In your mixer bowl combine the water, oil, yeast and sugar and allow it to rest for 15 minutes. Using your dough hook, mix in the salt, egg and flour. Knead with hook until will incorporated and dough is soft and smooth. (Just a few minutes)

Form dough into 12 balls and then place in a greased 9 x 13 pan and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees or until golden brown.

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To go with them I baked onion-crusted chicken and steamed veggies. It was so good and entire dinner took about an hour to make. YUM.

Last Saturday was my last craft show of the year. My mom came to help me run it and we had a great time! There were tons of people there all day and I sold several items. Hey as long as I break even I'm happy! I have recently gotten a lot of orders from the internet and right now I have 9 things to make for 3 different people with more possible orders on the way!

Here is an item that I made today (without a pattern!). I know they would have sold like hotcakes at the craft show but I didn't think about it until a few days before, and didn't have any of the right colors. Hopefully I'll get some sold before Christmas!

As you can see, I have been staying very busy! I work the next 3 days then Friday evening is my work Christmas party at a restaurant on the north side of the city. We are going to get all dolled up and have a great time! Now if we could just get some snow....

Getting Things Done

I have been a busy girl! You might notice I marked a few things off of my list -----> but unfortunately they will not all be done by January 1. But I'll get back to that later on!

I had been working on these crocheted stockings for a couple of months but I kept putting them down to get other things done. Well I finally finished them last night and they are hanging on the mantel! I had a spot saved just for them and look marvelous.

Somehow they all turned out a different size, even with the same pattern! I think it was because I used a different hook for each one but who knows! I gave the big one to Nick, the medium one for me, and the little one for Brad--kinda like the 3 little bears. These stockings (and my new advent calendar) will remain in my Christmas repertoire for years to come!

We wanted to go get our tree on Saturday but after I worked in the morning it started raining and continued to be mucky all day. We did go get it Sunday though and here it is after we got home!

Nick got it all ready to bring into the house while I cooked lunch for everyone. Then while Brad was napping I got it all decorated so that he could see it first thing when he got up! He points at it and says "lights!". It looks so pretty in the corner of our dining room and smells wonderful too! I always put the tree on a timer so this year it is set to come on around 5:30 and go off around midnight.

Last week I got an order for a few custom hats from a lady. Two of them were to look like "Ernie" on Sesame Street for her little girls' birthdays that weekend....

She is very happy with how they turned out and already wants to order some more!

My next craft show is this Saturday so I have been trying to squeeze in getting ready for that in between Christmas stuff and other projects.

I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and got a few things to start some more projects soon including a baby shoe shadowbox and a birthday question album!

You Know It's Christmas Time...

...when Crisp has his Santa hat on!!

Today was my *6th* day on call in a row and yes, I got called in every single day. Twice on Saturday for a total of 10 hours and twice today for a total of 4 hours. Needless to say I have felt a bit discombobulated these last few days and have pretty much lost track of what day it is. I really wanted to get my Christmas decorations up this weekend so I was very happy when I had time today!

We recently got our new router and streaming media device all hooked up to our TV and I discovered how awesome Pandora is! Any artist I love is on there--Charlotte Church, Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams, Michael Buble....on and on! So I listened to my faves while I transformed my house. It is 100x more awesome than the digital music channels were that we had with cable.

Here is the finished advent calendar I have been talking about! It is hanging on a wall right in my entry way so it is the first thing you see!

It is all felt and handmade by me! It took a LOT of time and patience but I am very happy with how it turned out and I know it will last for years to come.

I also made a little plush Santa (Nick said it looks like a voodoo doll) to move along in each spot while we are counting down to Christmas.

Now I just need to make one more crocheted stocking and put our names on them, then they can be hung on the mantle! It is so funny how every single year I forget how I decorated the year before and I end up putting things in all different places! And it is always a test to recall how in the world I got everything to fit into the totes...

I also have a couple pictures from our Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's on Thursday:

Brad was really good and had a blast playing with the older boys! We were planning on heading down to Foster to see Nick's family but had to cancel b/c I got called in that evening and Brad was cranky.

Tomorrow will be my first official day off since last Monday so I plan on enjoying it! I am going to finish up the decorating, maybe bake some bread, do some couponing, crochet some presents...

Soapbox

Black Friday seems like an appropriate subject to relay some of my opinions on! Feel free to not read if you don't like other people's opinions...

Those who know me are aware that I am a pretty traditional, old-fashioned kind of girl. I value holidays, traditions, family time, dinners at the table, etc. Now that we have a son I feel these times are even more important for him to experience and remember growing up.

It saddens and angers me how it seems that every year becomes more centered around money, presents, gadgets, the latest and greatest...keeping up with the Jones' you could call it. I think it is ridiculous that almost every store opened at midnight (or earlier) last night just for black Friday sales, but almost equally ridiculous that there are people out there who are waiting in line for hours or days, spending hundreds of dollars going from store to store.

When did Christmas become this evil monster that people try to appease by blowing their budget on useless items that will be forgotten by February? When did businesses become so callused that the common employee who can't spend the holiday at home doesn't matter? When did shoppers become so blinded that physical harm is done in the name of a good deal?

I'm sure my opinions are in the minority--they usually are! But I employ the sentiment that the path of least resistance is not always the best path to take.

To play devil's advocate, I can empathize why some people feel compelled to be so materialistic--it is because that is what society jams down our throat every second of every day. Commercials, billboards, circulars, sales and gimmicks....companies are forever trying to make it "easy" to stay up-to-date and have the world at your fingertips. Almost every adult and now almost every child has the mindset that they can not live without their "**insert device name here**" and there is no end in sight.

Keep in mind that even just TWENTY years ago cell phones were rare, computers were for the rich, people would physically visit each other and write letters instead of just social networking. It is scary to think where we will be in another twenty years.

I realize that I have brought up two different subjects here but they are both part of the same entity--materialism. Christmas is NOT about the number of gifts you get or give, and life is not about how many different portable electronic devices you have. If you are able to afford tons of gifts for everyone on your list then good for you! If you don't have trouble keeping eye contact or conversations going without pausing to (rudely) check your smart phone for updates then congratulations! You are in the minority.

I'm sure if I had the fancy gadgets that I would love them, but I'm also sure that I would soon get to the point of feeling like I NEED them. And that is why I am putting up such a big fight. Thankfully Nick and I are on the same page with this about our own lifestyle and about Brad, so we will do our best to enjoy a simpler existence and all of the things in life that can't be replaced!

A Recipe and a Gift

Some of you may have heard of Pinterest....some may not have. You will see a link -----> to follow my boards if you do have an account! Anywho I found this neat recipe for 2-ingredient Lemon Bars and decided to try it! (I also had a coupon for the pie filling)

You only need a box of Angel Food cake mix and a can of lemon pie filling:

You gently mix them together in a medium bowl (I used a spoon to mix).....

...then pour into a greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes until done!

The original recipe said to bake for 20min but mine were still gooey. I ended up baking for 35 min total and that was perfect. Sprinkle with powdered sugar then serve! YUM.

I have been working on handmade gifts for family and friends this Christmas. The most recent one I finished is a hat and mitten set for my almost-3-year-old niece Zoe!