Hey, how’s it going?

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Gingham Apron

I’ve been absent, again, I know.

I have been going to the gym with regularity for the last 6 weeks. I’m sitting at the same weight loss I was when I started, but my muscle definition has increased SO much, and my pants are fitting better than before!

Sophia’s had a few field trips I’ve attended.

I had a Girl Scout bridging party, and the final meetings. Which ended up being WAY more planning than I ever thought possible.

I had quite a bit of dental work done – more fillings than I will admit to, and a deep cleaning on both halves of my mouth.

There have been school functions, and a PTO meeting where I was elected as the secretary for next school year.

Tomorrow is the last full day of school for the girls. They have free day tomorrow, and then the graduation ceremony on Friday. I will cry like a baby I’m sure, but my baby is “graduating” from Kindergarten! How in the crap do I have a 1st grader already?! It’s simply not possible!!

I hove posts to make, updates to past posts to make, and not having a schedule that looks like this – take kids to school, go to gym, eat, shower, pick up Sophia, attempt to clean house, get Nola, make dinner, stare off into space all evening – will help greatly in being more regular with posts. Also next school year.. Sophia is going to be FULL DAY! The moderate gas savings makes me a happy camper.

Follow me…

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Gingham Apron

… on Facebook!

I have and iPhone and an iPad, so posting quick updates and photos there is so very easy for me, and I do it quite often. Everything from my recent inability to flip a pancake and my scrambled egg fail to yummy homemade pizza and chicken stock. I have had almost 3,000 unique page views here, so I know people *do* visit my blog.

Here’s the deal… I like giving away books. I especially like giving away cookbooks. If I get to 100 likes on Facebook I’ll do another drawing for a cookbook on my Facebook page.

So this means you need to go like my Facebook page, and then share it with your friends.

And yes, every time I put Facebook there is a link to my Facebook page.

Spring Break

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Gingham Apron

I took the girls down to Alameda for the first week of Spring Break. They enjoy going to Stephanie’s house because they are a little more free to run around outside there. I enjoy going there because we end up pigging out on something baked, craft, and have quite a bit of fun.

I may also love the Bay Area a little bit…

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Who can argue with that?!

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Homemade Almond Butter

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Gingham Apron

I’ve heard of all sorts of people making homemade butters – peanut, cashew, sunflower, coconut, and almond. I finally decided to give almond butter a try since I’ve been successful twice now at making almond milk from scratch (which I *still* need to photograph and post). How hard could making almond butter be, right?

Well, after pausing the movie that my sick kid was watching – because I have amazing timing and all – it took a solid 20 minutes of thinking I was going to kill the food processor. There were a few stops to scrape down almond chunks. I stopped a few more times because I just *knew* that a second more and it would give up the ghost. But in the end…

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I had almond butter!!

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Imagine

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Gingham Apron

David has 3 guitars. One electric that rarely comes out of the case, an inexpensive acoustic that he’s had since before we were together, and a Takamine acoustic guitar that he got last year (it was very much a splurge item that he’s been holding off nearly a decade to buy). Music is kind of a thing here. I fully admit I like it when he plays the intro to Tesla’s “Lovesong”, and just about any RHCP.

The same day he got his Takamine we got Nola a ukelele. It’s not been used much by her, actually David has used it far more. Nola has been wanting to do a myriad of things for “Community Gathering” (a monthly talent show of sorts) at school for some time now, and I have been telling her that she should really practice with her ukelele and get good. She finally told David she really wanted to have a lesson on her ukelele today. <3

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Horsing Around – A PSA

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Gingham Apron

You know the saying “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt” … ??

That’s like a motto in this house, especially with Sophia.

Okay and maybe me too.

Apparently when you bend down and a knee comes up bad things happen. Also teeth and lips don’t mix so well. Tuesday night I spent nearly 4 hours in the ER getting 3 stitches in my lower lip, and a tetanus shot. Awesome way to spend a Tuesday night.

Let me just say a few things right now…

1) The “numbing” shit felt like the doctor was ripping my lip back open. I have no nice words for this experience.

2) Tetanus shots hurt more 2 days later, especially when you lean the poked arm against the couch.

3) Lip wounds bleed. A lot. I’ve got a labret piercing and my tongue pierced. Never a drop of blood. Put a tooth through your lip and it’s like a massacre.

David feels like a horrible human being as it was his knee that met my face. My lip is still partially numb, rather swollen, and and facial movements pull on my stitches – laughing, sneezing, eating, and trying to drink from my CamelBak bottle are all painful still. Smoothies and kefir through straws have been my go to meals. I tried to eat a Beef Summer Sausage log because last night I was desperate. Today I ate turkey bacon. Both of which I came to regret shortly after as my jaw is also in a bit of pain. I want French fries and a chocolate glazed doughnut SO bad right now though.

My next attempt is going to be spinach lasagna. It will require cutting the food into tiny bites, and likely a solid hour to get a serving into my face and masticated.

So, let this be a lesson, don’t horse around. Especially not with someone who has Wolverine like bone density. O_o

Dr. Oz Detox on hold…

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Gingham Apron

This afternoon I started getting the stomach bug that Nola has, and the same thing I had back in January, which kick started my weight loss to begin with. Finding food repulsing for nearly a week will do that. It was also the point in time in which I stopped drinking coffee daily. I had thought I was doing better and had a Sunday cup of joe, and OMG the stomach cramps were unreal. I didn’t drink coffee again for a solid month. I think I’ve had 3 or 4 cups since actually, and it subsequently cut out a large amount of sugar from my diet!

I was going to start the Dr. Oz 3 Day Detox on Friday, but since I’ve currently taken in less than 150 calories today I think it would be irresponsible of me to do something of the sort while my body is still healing. I don’t need any system shocks, and honestly I’ll likely ease my way into eating via smoothies anyhow. A good balance of fruit, veggies, healthy fats, and yogurt for good bacteria.

With that, I am about to take a bath and head back to bed.

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2013 in 2013

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Gingham Apron

It’s been awhile since I updated about how my decluttering is going, and I’ll be honest for awhile it hit a standstill. A lot has been going on around here. First it was me who got sick, then Sophia, and just this weekend Nola got taken out by the same thing I had in January. I got quite a bit done awhile back before my parents came, and since then I’ve stalled. This past week I managed to get some more done, but I did not count exact items.

I’m going to guess I threw away a good 100 items out of my bathroom. I hoard things I think I might use, but never actually do, like nail polish. My “nail” bin was likely the source of a good 1/3 of my bathroom “haul”.

I also cleaned off the kids bookcase (after I nearly broke it, causing all the books to crash to the floor). I donated 4 Bob Books sets – which are like 20+ books each! And then another decent stack along with them, so I’ll say 100 books. I took a few more to school on Friday, so I think my book donation to the school is like 105. I still have another pile to filter through and see if any are usable for school. O_o

I also finally got rid of my ratty sweat pants. David got rid of 2 very old t-shirts, and I gave 2 pairs of kid shorts and 2 kid tank tops to a friend.

So that’s another 212 items this past week!

My new total for the year is 754 already!

It doesn’t feel like much sometimes, but other times I can tell easily (like my bathroom).

Next up is taking down my collection of Cooking Light and Shape magazines. I’m going to clip the things I think are useful and then ditch the rest of the magazine. I also found that I can get digital copies of Cooking Light on my iPad, so I don’t even need to clip! I will not currently fess up as to how many magazines I will be getting rid of. That confession will come another time, when they have met their fate with the big green Waste Management bin.

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Dr. Oz 3 Day Detox

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Gingham Apron

A friend of mine is doing Dr. Oz’s 3 Day Detox. Today was her first day. I of course was intrigued and decided to check it out. I am becoming quite the smoothie aficionado thanks to my Vitamix. When you can get 2 or 3 kinds of veggies and 4 or 5 kinds of fruit packed into one blender.. AND IT’S KID APPROVED .. well, then you’re going to keep making them. And I have, which I promise I will be posting about, but I’m still working out some recipes.

There is a shopping list on there for you to take with you to the store, and it gives the smoothie recipes as well. I’ve already printed it out to see what all I would need, because I am seriously entertaining the idea.

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Baked “Hard Boiled” Eggs

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Gingham Apron

Everyone who has been on Pinterest has likely seen the baked “hard boiled” eggs. Stephanie made them the other day and I decided to do the same. She said that one batch came out sort of soft boiled, and I cannot do anything short of 100% cooked eggs, so I took her incident as a sign and bumped up my oven a little bit.

Those dots all over the shell caught me by surprise. Though I figured it was the many pores in the shell at work, and most of it rinsed off anyhow.

I did 2 dozen eggs, in my normal muffin tins, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Ice bath as soon as they came out of the oven, and then back into the ice bath after I peeled them.

This is what happened……

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