Hello all you lovely people out there! I just wanted to give a quick update to my situation and let you know how everything is going.
Well, I can’t say it’s been the best. I’ve suffered some major healthy issues this last year, and to say it’s been a struggle is the understatement of the year. Hopefully we are on the right course now to getting me back to normal, or as close to normal as someone like me can be 🙂
Also, I published the 3rd book in my Snow Globe Cafe series! Fans of the series wanted an Emery/Alec book and here you have it! All three books are available for Kindle or paperback. You can find the series here.
I’m hoping to post more recipes soon! As you know I don’t post until I’ve made them 3 times with good results. I have a couple on deck that need one more try and up they’ll go! I can’t wait to share them with you!
I believe I’ve said before on here how getting and maintaining your goal weight does more than just improve your health and your self confidence.
All of a sudden you start realizing things you might have thought were impossible are now not do daunting. You kind of get your excuses taken away, and after a year of maintaining I wrote my first novel. Then I wrote my second novel. My third novel is at the editor right now. It’s amazing what can happen when you take the impossible away.
So now they have a new program that’s super cool. You write in “episodes”. I think for people that may not think they have time to read a book this is perfect!
My story on Vella is called Lucky Me. I have four episodes up right now, and you can read them all for free 🙂
The first three are free to read, and after that you use tokens. The good thing is Vella is giving everyone 200 tokens to start!
If you do check out my story, please leave a like (click the thumbs up at the end) after each episode and follow my story. It would really be helping me a lot!
Thanks again for all your support. I wouldn’t be anywhere near who I am today without all of you!
If you want to go to a fast food place and get a sandwich, it’s going to cost you. Most chicken sandwiches are between 11-20 some odd points! That’s crazy!
I’ve made a version that seems just as decadent but comes in at 7 green points. I’m not sure if the chicken would still totally count for blue, but those of you on blue know!
So I found these Tyson air fried chicken breasts:
4 smartpoints
These are only 4 points! I also cook them in the air fryer – 7 minutes each side, and I throw the bun in for the last minute to toast it as well. If you don’t have an air fryer the package has directions for the oven. I don’t know if they’ll be as crispy as they get with the air fryer, but I’m sure they’ll still be good!
Speaking of the bun:
This bun is only 2 points and is really decent! Of course there are better buns out there, but this one is a great sub and very point friendly!
I put light mayo on mine to which can range from 1 to 2 points, depending on how generous I want to be. Usually I go with one serving for one point, and a tab bit of mustard which is free.
So there you go! I end up with a delicious 7 point sandwich that according to my opinion is just as good as those huge point options from the fast food restaurants!
Like my blog? My first and second novels have been released! It’s set in a small, holiday obsessed town, and if you love Hallmark movies you’ll love this book series!
The first book in the series is called Going Home. Becca, our heroine, returns home after a 25 year absence to reclaim a sentimental family heirloom. She hopes to go in and out unnoticed, especially by the man she’s loved since she was eight years old.
The odds are stacked against Becca, small towns being what they are. Her 25 year old secret is about to be exposed, and she just might get a second chance at love.
Confession time. I hate zucchini noodles, or zoodles as they are called sometimes. People raved about them replacing pasta and every time I tried to make them it was a slimy disappointment. Then I learned the secret to zoodles. Never, ever, under any circumstances do you cook them. You make the sauce and then cover the cold, raw zoodles in it, warming them with the heat from your sauce.
I can’t believe I haven’t posted this “recipe” before. It is simply what I eat every morning – like every single morning. I find it to be really filling and just plain delicious. I can make up five of them on Sunday night and I am good to go all week for work. This works for me because I find I’m not even a little hungry all morning, and it holds me well until lunch.
I usually get all my ingredients from Costco, but they are available everywhere! Recipe on page 2!
The holidays are rapidly approaching, which usually means a rapid decline in my healthy eating habits and bank account. The #Charcuterie Board made entirely from Aldi products is not only economical, it also has many healthy options and is totally delicious!
There are a ton of things you can do with these boards, and Aldi has really upped their game. This is not the Aldi my Mom went to get canned goods once a month!
What I love about these is it’s very easy to be inclusive to everyone that may have diet restrictions or are just trying to eat better. There are also options for people that are saying “It’s the holidays! Screw it!”
Here is how my wonderful niece from The Cookie Bake Shop put one together with only Aldi ingredients!
Mini Naan bread cut into quarters, some brie cheese, cheddar stuffed olives, blueberries and strawberries.
Pretzel Slims, Live G Free Multiseed crackers and butternut squash crackers (my favorites) pack a punch points wise if you follow WW. Most are around 20 crackers for 3 points.
Red Grapes, black olives, Happy Farms cheese wedges, truffle cheddar cheese, Irish cheddar cheese, and Honey artisan cheddar.
Garlic Hummus, almonds round out the charcuterie. Not pictured is the prosciutto, as my little nephews decided it was delicious 🙂 That’s the beauty of these boards, there was plenty left to fill in the holes with the leftovers, and you can refill it at least a couple of times in a night!
My favorite style of board can be found here, but you can use anything to make one of these. Use your imagination and creativity and people will be wowed! It really is easy so give it a try this holiday season!
Be sure to follow my blog for healthy holiday ideas all season long! Would you all like to see a sweet charcuterie board?
Like my blog? My first and second novels have been released! It’s set in a small, holiday obsessed town, and if you love Hallmark movies you’ll love this book series!
The first book in the series is called Going Home. Becca, our heroine, returns home after a 25 year absence to reclaim a sentimental family heirloom. She hopes to go in and out unnoticed, especially by the man she’s loved since she was eight years old.
The odds are stacked against Becca, small towns being what they are. Her 25 year old secret is about to be exposed, and she just might get a second chance at love.
Have you ever tasted a hug? I have! This Beef Barley Soup is as comforting as one. Warm, rich and delicious it hits just the right spot as we head into colder temperatures. It doesn’t get any easier than this recipe!
I have directions for both the stBeegove top and instant pot/ninja foodi.
Ingredients:
2 tsp vegetable oil 1 1/2 pound top round steak (cut into one inch cubes, sprinkled with salt) 1 1/2 cups diced carrots 1 cup diced celery 7 cups beef broth (I prefer Better than Bullion) 1/4 cup minced garlic 1/2 cup minced onion 1/4 tsp ground thyme 1/4 tsp black ground pepper 3/4 cup quick cooking barley (not cooked)
Like my blog? My first and second novels have been released! It’s set in a small, holiday obsessed town, and if you love Hallmark movies you’ll love this book series!
The first book in the series is called Going Home. Becca, our heroine, returns home after a 25 year absence to reclaim a sentimental family heirloom. She hopes to go in and out unnoticed, especially by the man she’s loved since she was eight years old.
The odds are stacked against Becca, small towns being what they are. Her 25 year old secret is about to be exposed, and she just might get a second chance at love.
I haven’t had time to develop new recipes, much less make the ones that I have. Since the global pandemic hit I have been working between seventy and eighty hours a week.
If that wasn’t enough to deal with, I was also hit with the one two punch of losing a childhood friend. After you get past the age of twenty-five I think you realize how important these people are. You realize how rare they are and how they feel more like family then just a friend.
I am very fortunate because I still have several friends from my childhood. Sure, we may not see each other every day, but we keep in contact and when we do see each other it’s like no time has passed at all.
Losing even one is hard, incredibly hard. Not only do you lose a family member but you are reminded just how fragile and precious life really is. If you’ve followed my blog you know my initial weight gain was sparked by a series of deaths in my life. My Grandparents, my parents, and my animals all died in a rapid succession that left me clawing my way back up to the surface to be able to breathe.
You all rode along with me on my journey to get back a sense of normalcy and health and were such a big part of it. I was Wonder Woman. I would never fall again because I knew better now. I saw people who gained their weight back and thought rather arogantly, “that will never happen to me.”
I had cracked the code. I understood what I did and why I did it. I knew how much better my life was shedding all those pounds. Not because of my looks, but because how I felt. No more knee pain. No more struggling for breath if I walked up a couple flights of stairs. I could run around with my toddler nephews like I was 18 again.
Now even before the ‘rona hit I have to admit I had gained a bit back. Nothing unmanageable mind you but just a bit. Right before all this happened I was to the point that my cushion I had for weigh in at WW was gone and I might have to start paying this next month.
Then everything shut down.
No accountability.
I’ve never faired well with that. It’s something I need. I had started only weighing in once a month and was proud of myself for being able to do that.
No times a month proved to be very difficult, especially during a time when I didn’t have the time or energy to really be prepared. The key to my success was planning for success. I was great at properly preparing my meals on Sunday and being ready for the week.
It’s hard to prepare on Sunday when you are working 12 hours every Sunday, let me tell you.
I did start to come to my senses in July and decided my old habits had been creeping up on me and needed to be stopped. It started out innocently enough – just pick up something quick on my way home and not account for it because by the time I ate it was time for bed.
I had written down every single thing I ate for three years straight and it only took one death and a lot of work hours to destroy that habit. Amazing how that can happen, isn’t it?
So it was time to buckle down. It was time to pull myself up by my boot straps and get right. I was only about twenty pounds up at this point. Twenty pounds is nothing compared to sixty plus, right?
Then it happened again.
A good friend of mine was murdered this summer. They still haven’t caught the culprit and the police seem to be clueless as to what happened.
You see things like this all the time on the news, and you feel so sorry for those people going through something like that but much like when your parents die you cannot fathom what they are really going through until it happens to you.
I hope every single person reading this never has to go through something like that.
Needless to say death seems to be a trigger for me, and I’m assuming most people, so this has not been good. Not at all.
There was the recognition though. I realized what I was doing. At times I did make good choices because thankfully a lot of those are ingrained in my now.
It was just too much. Just to add a cherry to the top when WW centers starting opening again it was announced that mine would not be reopening, and the closest one was 10 miles of bumper to bumper traffic away from my old center. My leader who I adore only had one meeting or workshop or whatever the heck they call them now, at a time I couldn’t go.
Whether you are writing a recipe or a book it takes creativity. All these things, sometimes big things, sometimes little things zap it right out of you. Most of my work depends on it, so the funk I was in killed my performance.
So I started small. I knew I needed to at least start maintaining my weight before I slid down that slippery slope of gaining it all back.
Done.
Then I needed to at least try to get my book going. It brings me such joy to write. I love it and I love interacting with my fans. One thing I didn’t want to do was write complete garbage for them or for me, so I started doing research for another character that would be popping up in that book.
Low and behold while researching potters on YouTube I found something else to love. It sparked my creativity, was decently easy to learn, and has helped me climb out of this hole as I did before a couple of years ago.
It’s acrylic pouring, and I absolutely love it. I have begun writing again, and the juices are flowing for hopefully some new recipes for you all. I’ve decided that life is to short and have started insisting on days off at work. My mental health is more important than a corporation.
I’m not going to go into detail about my acrylic stuff but if you’d like to hear me ramble about how it has helped me the first video below goes into that.
The second one is just a short demo on a particular style with pleasant music instead of my ramblings 🙂
Enough about me. I feel like I’m in such a better place now and I can get through these latest challenges.
What about you? How have you been fairing during this global crisis? So many lives have been turned upside down. Are you all okay out there? For my followers that do WW, how has it impacted you? Did your WW Centers stay open?
Lastly, I’d just like to thank you all. Some of you have stuck with me for years, whether cheering me on or commiserating with me. Y’all are really the best. You know that, right?
To keep up with me:
Follow my blog with the link in the left hand side bar (or bottom of the page if on cell).
Like my blog? My first and second novels have been released! It’s set in a small, holiday obsessed town, and if you love Hallmark movies you’ll love this book series!
The first book in the series is called Going Home. Becca, our heroine, returns home after a 25 year absence to reclaim a sentimental family heirloom. She hopes to go in and out unnoticed, especially by the man she’s loved since she was eight years old.
The odds are stacked against Becca, small towns being what they are. Her 25 year old secret is about to be exposed, and she just might get a second chance at love.
We are living in crazy scary times. I felt compelled to do something, even if it was small, to help people under quarantine.
As an essential worker I haven’t been safe in my house, but I know after about two days I would be losing my mind. So I thought about what I could do to help those of you who are.
The biggest thing I could think of would be to help make the time go by and entertain you. I’ve decided to make my first novel free. Honestly it’s been free all week, but I wrote this four days ago and didn’t hit publish!
So I’m so sorry but this is only free until midnight tonight. If you like to read, give it a whirl!
Happy New Year! Many people will wake up today with the will to make changes in their life. A week from now, many people will have already given up on that idea. Go to any gym this week and then again in February and you’ll see what I mean.
As most of you know I do WW. January means a flood people, vibrating with excitement for their new journey. Those of us legacy WW’s know to get there early if you want a seat at the meeting, or workshop as they are now called. By February you can jump out of bed at the last minute and have no problem finding a seat.
Why do so many people fail? How can people with so much enthusiasm, excitement, and hope just quit? We’ve all been there. We’ve all steeled ourselves with determination, just knowing this year will be the year we reach our goals.
My 30 Point Life 