Dieting and Doing OK!

I have been on the sugar free, starch free diet for over a month now and I have almost hit my first goal! I have not seen the number that is on the scale in a VERY long time and it feels fantastic! I really feel like I have a handle on this way of eating and it has not been as difficult as I thought it would be. I may actually be making a lifestyle change! That is something new and different for me!

I have not started an exercise program yet which is a little disappointing, but I am trying to stay active with my kids through the entire day I am with them and when I am at work I have been getting up from desk and walking around as much as I can. It isn't much, but like changing my eating I need to do this in baby steps. I am trying so hard to not put too much pressure on myself. I really think that has been my big mistake in the past.

The recipe I want to share this week is a SUPER simple one, but it is so freakin' delicious! In fact, I have made it 3 times in the past 2 weeks. The name is Cheesy Buffalo Chicken. The recipe can be found at:
http://www.peanutbutterandpeppers.com/2014/03/18/grilled-cheesy-buffalo-chicken/
The recipe recommends grilling it, but I made mine in the oven. I served it with a side salad and mixing it all together was so good! My husband is a big fan of this dinner too, which is always a big plus!

On a separate note--I can't believe my baby girl is going to be 1 in just a couple weeks! Where did the time go! I can't remember what life was like before her (not that I would want to!), but I still can't believe it has been a year since Izzy entered our lives! It has not been easy having 2 little ones only 16 months apart, but everyday I am more and more glad it happened the way it did.  I am sure I will be eating my words when they hit the teenage years, but for right now seeing them grow and learn from each other is pretty fantastic!  Can you tell today was a good day? If my kids were cranky today this would be a completely different paragraph :)

What a Day!

So today was a bad, good, bad again, then good again day.

It started out with 2 super cranky girls. I tried to be a Pinterest mother extraordinaire and make edible finger paints so the kids could have some fun artistic time. I made the paint and set up everything out in our screened in porch. I was so excited! Unfortunately I was the only one who was. My 1 year old looked at me from her high chair like I was insane and my 2 year old just kept telling me it was messy. It lasted all of 1 minute before they were wanting to do something else.  Just a bit of time, energy, and supplies wasted.

Then the morning started to look up when a friend of mine asked us to meet her and her kids at the Children's Museum. I told her yes emphatically and started to get us all ready. It was pretty much a nightmare. The littlest one screamed bloody murder if I tried to put her down and the older one was pulling all of her clothes out of her dresser drawers and refusing to get dressed. Needless to say I ended up cancelling on my friend because I could not get my sit together. At this point my nerves were a bit shot and I felt like leaving the house would not be a good choice.

We made it to naptime and the day started looking up. They both slept great and my friend Jess (Aunt Jess to my kids) came by to spend some time with us. We were going to go to Target and Walmart so I could get some shopping done. My oldest literally has no short sleeve shirts and since the weather is getting warmer she needed an updated wardrobe. 

Shopping went great! It went as smoothly as it possibly could with a 1 year old and a 2 year old. I got everything I needed and felt very accomplished!

We got home and I started to make dinner for Jess, the kids, and I. Jess's husband and my husband have hockey practice together on Thursday nights so we decided to make a dinner just for us that our husbands would never eat.  I made Bruschetta Chicken and it was crazy easy and super delicious. The recipe can be found here: http://paleonewbie.com/paleo-bruschetta-chicken/

Yup, that picture is actually out of my oven! I was so pretty and smelled so good! Luckily it tasted just as good as it smelled. I highly recommend it and it has nothing but good for you things in it. I can't wait to eat the leftovers tomorrow.

Ok, so things were definitely looking up now! Jess even offered to stay and help me give the kids a bath and put them to bed...score!! That all went super smooth. We did a bath and then I put the littlest to bed. I came downstairs and went to feed our two dogs like I always do--only they were not in the yard. I called them and called them--nothing. The gate to our fence was somehow open and they had escaped. I immediately got in my car (again thank goodness for Jess--I would not have been able to go look for them if she wasn't here). I drove up and down our road and all the ones near here. I was on my last round, and it was starting to get dark, when I came on  two ten year old boys crouched down near a drainage pipe. I jumped out of the car and asked them what was going on. My sweet pup Mungo was stuck in the drain! I had to kneel in a muddy ditch and yank him out. He is not a light dog and he was pretty stuck. I had to pull and pull while he cried. It was awful. The good news is that wherever one dog is, the other is not far away. I called Molly a couple times and she came running. I put them both in my car and brought them home. Basically the dogs, me, and my car were a muddy mess, but I don't care. I am just happy to have them home. I was pretty damn scared!

Today was interesting to say the least! I am so happy that it ended on a good note.  I don't know what I would do without those sweet pups. Now my kids are fast asleep and  I am not far from it myself. All in all, the good that happened today totally outweighed the bad, and I will take that and run with it!

Delicious Dinner

So 2 blogs in one day will probably not happen often, but I could not figure out how to segue cleaning my bedroom and not watching TV to the dinner I made a couple nights ago. I should have probably posted this the night I actually made it, but going to bed at 8:00 seemed like a better idea :)

I am currently trying to eat healthier. I am working to remove sugar and starch from my diet. With this has come eating a lot more meat, cheese, peanut butter, fruits, and veggies. My big splurge everyday is my morning cup of coffee with agave nectar.  It has actually been easier than I thought it would be. I was pretty much eating sugar and starch all day long so it seemed like this would be a terrible idea, but I wanted to give it a shot. Not just to lose weight, but to hopefully feel better from the inside out.

I will be honest, I feel pretty good! I don't necessarily think it has been the answer to everything I was hoping it would be, but I definitely feel better than I did when I was bingeing on cookies, candy, ice cream, etc.  One thing I am doing differently this time is keeping the idea in the back of my head that if I really want something I can have it. I had cake at my husband's birthday and tonight I really wanted to sit on the back porch and drink a beer so I did. I think a big part of always failing when I diet is that I go balls to the wall being super strict. I do it all or nothing. I am not going to that this time. I am not going to designate a day or meal as a cheat--I am just going to ask myself "Is it worth it and how bad to I want it". If I can't trust myself to moderate what I eat who can I trust. I need to learn.

I think the best part of this new diet (and what has kept me interested) is trying new recipes. I never really thought of myself as a cook, but I have really started to enjoy it!  Pinterest has been my best friend. I try 3-4 new recipes a week. Some work and some don't. I thought I would share the ones that work on this blog along with pictures. Basically I am trying to stop myself from posting my food porn on Facebook and Instagram!

The other night I made Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken Wings with roasted squash and zucchini and it was the BEST meal.  An added bonus is that it was super easy to make. My husband could not get enough of them! The recipe can be found at: http://steamykitchen.com/7055-baked-parmesan-garlic-chicken-wings.html. As for the squash and zucchini, I just cut them into chunks and tossed them in olive oil, salt, and pepper. I cooked them in the oven with the wings for the same amount of time at the same temperature and they came out perfect.

Two Amazing Things

Two amazing things happened today! Now to the naked, untrained eye they may not seem terribly amazing, but trust me, for this household they are pretty damn fantastic.

First, my husband and my bedroom is CLEAN!!! Yup, vacuumed and dusted. It has been a long, long, long time since I have thoroughly cleaned our bedroom. It was so bad that I actually had to vacuum the walls--that's right the walls! There was so much dog fur from my 2 four legged babies that I could have made a couple new dogs!

Since I had kids my priorities on cleanliness have changed. My top priority is to keep the main room that we play in and the kitchen clean. Other than those two--it gets done when it is so bad I can't stand it anymore! Luckily the girls pretty much just sleep in their rooms and the dogs rarely go it them so other than changing a crib sheet, they can go for awhile without a good cleaning (thank goodness!!). Our room on the other hand has two dogs sleeping on the floor (or in the bed) every night---and man do they shed! My excuse is that my husband and  I are the only ones who ever really go in there so if we can handle it we are good to go! Today was the day neither of us could take it anymore. So now our room officially smells like Carpet Fresh and Lemon Pledge! It is glorious!

The second amazing thing that happened today--we spent an entire afternoon with NO TV!! I struggle quite a bit with the thought that my kids watch too much TV. I try to turn it off and play music for a stretch of time everyday, but other than that the TV is on. It isn't always a kid program, sometimes my husband watches sports or The Daily Show, and I have been known to watch Ellen in the afternoons, but it is still on. The kids are pretty active the entire day playing and don't just sit and watch it so I am able to justify it for now, but I do love the days when it is not on at all! It was such a beautiful day today we went to the park (which only lasted about 15 minutes), we went on the swings in our backyard, blew some bubbles, and then took a nice long stroll up and down our street. It was absolutely wonderful and made me so happy.

I don't know how often we are going to have days like this, but I will take them as I get them.  I am pretty sure we will continue to watch TV tomorrow and I will continue to question my parenting, but isn't that pretty much all parenting is anyway? Questioning your decisions and second guessing yourself? I know I do plenty of that. I try to remind myself that the important thing is that my kids are loved and even more importantly that they feel loved.  And I know for sure they are loved and I am pretty sure with all the hugging, kissing, and snuggling that I give them they know they are too.

I wonder...

I wonder if other women feel the way that I do.

Does every woman feel pulled in a million directions at once? Does every woman feel like they are juggling a million things and if they look away for a second things will fall?

How do women do it? How do they work, and be a mother, and a wife, and a friend, and exercise, and eat healthy? I am trying so hard to figure all this shit out! I try everyday to do the best I can in all those areas and it is exhausting. I am I pretty sure I am not even doing that well most days with any of them! Somedays my kids watch too much TV, somedays I forget to ask my husband how his day was, somedays I feel like a selfish ass with my friends, somedays I spend all day shopping online while at work, somedays I eat every single meal at a fast food restaurant, and most days I don't get off my fat ass to exercise.

I want to better myself. I need to better myself.  How will I do it you ask?

#1: Lighten up--this is both literally and figuratively. I need to lose weight, that is a given. I also need to put less pressure on myself. I can only do what I can do, no more, no less.

#2: Stop complaining--for Pete's sake I have it pretty freakin' good! I need to start appreciating all the things I have and shut the hell up about everything else. I can't really promise that I won't EVER complain again, but I can certainly do it less and I can definitely be more positive.

#3: Eat healthy most of the time--I know I am not going to be perfect with this, but I think I can commit to at least 80%. I am not going to life the rest of my live without sugar and starch. Most days I can handle it, but let's be honest when it is my kid's 1st birthday I am going to be shoving cake in my face as fast as she will be shoving it in to hers. I don't have to be perfect (see #1), but I will do what I can whenever I can.

#4: Stop with the laziness--I have a tendency to be a bit lazy. If I can put something off until later (or never) I will. Honestly, I think I would sleep my life away if I could. These are not things I am proud of, but I have to deal with them nonetheless.  I need to stop making excuses not to work out. I need to stop making excuses to run the errands I need to run. I need to stop making excuses not to clean or do laundry. There are about a million other things I could list here...

This is all I got for now. Let's see how it goes!