Hey! Where's My Feet?

I know I know... where in the world have I been... I been busy.  Life over the last couple of years has been an absolute mess, physically, mentally and emotionally.  But guess what... I'm back and I have good news to share! So with all the roller coastering the last couple of years my weight has gone up and up, back down a little then back up but never once was I able to gt back under 300 pounds no matter how hard I tried.  Well back in March I came across a post on Facebook about this amazing weight loss supplement... now I've been a big girl my entire life and have tried pretty much everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!!  So you can imagine I was a bit skeptical... I did my usual research and since they offered an affordable trial package, I went for it just to see how it'd work for me. I'm not even kidding here... in less than 3 weeks I was back in the 200's!! I was on cloud nine, beyond ecstatic.  I'm I'm still down, my scale doesn't move much right...

In my quest for a healthie lifestyle I came across this simple cookie recipe… we all have those sweet cravings right?   So what better way to shut them down than with a healthy treat!?   And in my world, simple is better… you don’t have to have fancy and expensive foods to eat healthy.   Bananas and oatmeal, that’s it… plain and simple. You’ll want to adjust your banana measurements based on size.   The original recipe called for 2 banana’s but mine were a bit on the smaller side so I went with 3, I suppose if I’d gone with only the two they would have been more flat than ball shape.   Anyway… here’s what I did… I took 3 medium-ish bananas mashed the buggers up, then mixed in a cup-ish of Quaker Instant Oats – the regular old fashion stuff, not that high in sugar crap.   Then for funsies I threw in a handful of chopped walnuts.   Mixed it all together and used a tablespoon scooper to dollop them onto parchment paper.   If you aren’t u...

I’ve been turning over to healthy eating little by little for several years now… though the last few months have gotten out of control.  It’s not an excuse but the reason being… surprise surgery… it knocked me on my butt for 2.5 months and I still wasn’t able to exercise until a week or so ago. Anywho… I’m back to eating healthy and following a somewhat strict program.  I say strict because it’s not the carefree way of eating that I’m used to!  So this is it, I’m doing it, I’m sticking with it, and I’m making it work this time.  Sooo… last night I had a friend take some “before” pictures of me…. Ugh.  Who the heck is that tubbo in the pics?  I took one look at the picture of my backside and immediately was like, “dat ass”… though I think it was more like O.M.G. dat ass, where’d it come from and how did I not see the wide load coming!?  Seriously… I move around just fine, I don’t struggle to do things… so why don’t I feel as big as I look or am in ...

Being overweight has been a life long battle for me... I think I first joined Weight Watchers when I was 14!  I think I've tried every weight loss "method" known to man... grapefruit pills, Weight Watchers, cabbage soup, various prescribed meds, Atkins, slim fast, paleo, just to name a few... after years of yo-yo dieting I had finally figured out it's more about just eating healthy... but what's healthy? Seriously!  What's healthy anymore?  Eggs are bad for you, then they're good, then only the whites are good... butter is bad, you should use margarine instead... oh wait, butter is actually better for you and that other stuff is about 2 molecules away from becoming plastic.  WHAT!?  Oh sure, we've gotten lazier over the years as those handy inventions have come along to make things easier but how are we supposed to know what's truly healthy when doctors keep changing their minds?  Just look at Dr. Oz... great guy right?  I'm sure he's a v...

I’ve spent the week preparing for a new lifestyle of clean eating, researching, making lists etc… then Friday happened.   Usually the best day of the week right?   Still is, but let me tell ya – today was a bitch.   A bitch in heat.   Seemed no matter what I did, I was gonna get screwed… definitely was not a productive day. It started out with not having enough time to put together my lunch… something that will be changing with this new healthy lifestyle adventure.   So you know what that means… make a run for the border.   So the three musketeers piled in the car and away we went… As we stood there gazing at the menu I thought this would be a good time to try something new… so I got the same thing I always do. ;-)    My go to meal at Taco Bell is known as the T6 around these here parts… beef please, or at least as much beef as the FDA will allow you to get away with before throwing other non-beef crap in there.   So the usual 2 go...

I love eggrolls... one day an acquaintance had me try some of their homemade eggrolls and I almost melted right there, they were THAT good!  So after some time I got to thinking about it and came across a recipe that seemed easy enough and decided to give it a whirl.  I figured if the acquaintance could make them, certainly I could... so I did.  I quickly came to the conclusion that 1, that bumble head did NOT make those eggrolls, and 2, I should have known better than to think they did.  Oh there's no doubt that they were homemade, but not by that person. Either way, they were pretty easy to make... and they don't even begin to compare to the ones you get in the restaurant.  I've made them with a pork/beef combo and chicken .  I always bake them, they're quite tasty and slightly healthy this way... I'm sure fried is the preferred method but who wants to use up all that oil?  So... over the years I've experimented with the eggroll idea whic...

When it's winter time I love love love eating soup, but rarely is it ever from a can - most always made from scratch around here!  Now I've made many a chicken noodle soup in my day but never a creamy version, so here we go... my new favorite soup!! *Please keep in mind that the measurements for these ingredients are only estimates* 2 celery stalks chopped 2 carrots (4 or 5 baby carrots) chopped 1/2 white onion chopped 3 gloves garlic minced Saute` them up until tender... I sauted them in a smidge of bacon grease and butter.  Then add a little flour, I'd say about 1/3 cup and heat until golden forming a roux and one tablespoon of Italian seasoning like this.... Then I gradually added about 20 ounces of unsalted chicken stock , stirring and mixing well.  As it started to simmer I added 2 cooked boneless chicken breasts (rough cut), one can of evaporated milk then about 1 1/4 cup of Ditalini pasta.  Let it simmer until pasta is co...

Over the last few years I've gradually been cutting out processed foods and going with more natural eating... not necessarily organic, but natural as in I can pronounce every ingredient and know what they are!  You will find NO boxed foods in my home, such as hamburger helper or au gratin potatoes etc.  Of course there is the occasional box of mac n cheese for the kids, but on any general day You'd be hard pressed to find any thing like that here. One of the things I've been wanting to try is making my own mayonnaise.  Have you ever read the label of a jar of mayo?  Take a look at this "healthy" mayo... they say it's supposed to be healthier but after reading this label, I'm not so sure... Ingredients you can't pronounce, don't know what they are or as it's noted, are "not normally found in mayonnaise"... Seriously?  If it's not "normally" there, then why are you putting it there??  After all this time I've n...

I came across this salad "recipe" and had to try it, mainly because of the dressing.  I absolutely love cilantro.  The recipe called for an orange bell pepper but the store I was gathering supplies from didn't have any at the time so I went with red and it all worked just the same. So I cut up a head of romaine lettuce, half a red bell pepper, a half can of drained and rinsed black beans, 5 chopped green onions, maybe a cup or two of thawed frozen corn and a mini pack of cherry tomatoes also chopped.  Put them all in a bowl like this... For the Creamy Cilantro Lime  dressing, I took about a cup of plain Greek yogurt, half a bunch of cilantro without stems, lime juice, garlic, olive oil, cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt and blended it in my wonderful Magic Bullet.   Most recipes I've seen for this calls for white vinegar... I like to live large and used apple cider vinegar instead.  Really I'm just cheap, already had the apple cider and didn't...

I know right?!  Wine Slushies... who would have thought?  Just the thought of it makes my mind race with endless ideas!   When you get a chance, check out D'Marie - they have some neat gift ideas.  Not necessarily healthy, but neat still the same. Back in Spring of 2012 us girl cousins got together in Birch Run MI for Shipshewana On The Road ... if you've never been I recommend going at least once!  I would like to one day make it to  Shipshewana IN but for now, I'll make due with the traveling one!  While we were shopping and enjoying all the vendors we came across someone serving up wine slushies!  Now I am by no means a wine connoisseur, not even close to being one so for me to try something like this was out of the box... but I did, and I'm glad because turns out it was yummy and I actually bought a box of mix. They told me how to do it, suggested a couple different wines but I was scared... of the unknown.  I bought the mix bu...

If you're on Facebook or Pinterest you've likely seen the posts for crockpot chicken teriyaki, much like I have.  Over and over I kept seeing the post, finally clicked on it and the recipe seemed simple enough... so simple I decided to change from the traditional Christmas ham dinner to chicken teriyaki for our Christmas meal this year.  Ok, so the kids didn't exactly go for it... but I did and it was delicious! So the day came and do you think I could find the exact recipe I originally looked at, no of course not... so I googled it.  Yep, as you suspected 100 upon 100's of versions of crockpot chicken teriyaki.  So as I reviewed the recipes most got a thumbs down simply because there were to many ingredients and or things that needed to be done.  Seriously, the whole purpose of crockpot is to just dump it and go right?  Not cook for 3 hours then do this for 2 then do this and then that and... you get the point. So naturally I decided to ...

If you know me and my kids on a personal level you know of our love for bacon.  This year for Christmas I decided to take it to the next level... ~ PANCAKE FRIED BACON ~      Yes, you read that right... while I'm not a fan of pancakes, the kids are and a friend had posted this idea on Facebook so I thought what the heck I'll give it a whirl.  Ok maybe it wasn't "what the heck", maybe it was more like oh hell yeah I'm doing this one!!  No better time than for Christmas right!?   So when the kids were away I fried up a bowl of bacon - because if I'd done it while they were there, there wouldn't have been any left to make these delicious bites of heaven.     Christmas morning was upon us, the gifts were open, the floor was nowhere in sight, and it was time to begin making the most epic breakfast ever....   I mixed up some buttermilk pancake batter, and just like making onion rings started dipping the bacon in it.... ...

Would you looky there!  We're 10 days into a new year and I have yet to post my prepetual blog about how this is going to be the year... this is the year that I'm really gonna do it!  I'm gonna start eating healthy, exercising and getting back into shape.  Hmmmm... maybe because every time I post that blog, I fail.  So guess what... not doin it this year. Not posting about how this is the year, blah blah blah... nope, instead I'm just gonna do it!  As a matter of fact I've already started... been eating healthy (caveman style), exercising etc and guess what... I've got the first week done and I've lost 9 pounds!!!!!  Can you say Saaaweeeet!?  I know right!?  Granted it's no Biggest Loser result but I'll take it any week! The biggest changes I've made, other than exercising and eating healthy, is that I've cut out ALL fast foods, ALL processed foods, no grains/breads and a few other little things... surprisingly I feel great!  I'm not ...

It's review time kiddies... if you know me, you know two of my most favorite things are bacon and vodka.  You top them with a hefty helping of carbs and we're good to go... now I'm really not so sure how I feel about vodka being in my sghetti sauce, I'm just a little skeered about my food tasting like alcohol.  Bacon on the other hand... let me at it! So there I was cruising the aisle's at Meijer when what do my wandering eyes see... BACON & PROVOLONE Sauce!!!!!!!!!  I give it a woot woot and jumped across the aisle to grab a couple jars - best part, they were on SALE!!!  We put it to the test last night... Bacon & Provolone Spaghetti night was a hit.  The kids loved it, mom ate it but didn't divulge feelings either way.  I however, always have a feeling and an opinion about stuff so here's the low down... It's good.  Different, but good.  It didn't (or at least I didn't tase any) really have much of a bacon flavor per say to i...

That little four letter word that will drive you insane... DIET! Yeah yeah yeah, I know... you've heard it all before.  There's a fad diet around every corner you turn and I've likely tried every single stinkin one of them!  The grapefruit diet, cabbage soup diet, Atkins, HCG, Apple Cider Vinegar, Dukan etc... Well a month or so back I was reading the Reader's Digest and there was a wonderful article about this diet that the Editor had devised and wrote a book about.  How she'd spent years and years compiling and researching what works... yeah, right - skinny thing that she is knows all about trying to lose weight.  And of course there were success stories involved to insprie the uninspired - like me. What the heck, none of the others have worked, we'll give this one a whirl.  Of course in the Reader's Digest they didn't give details - you have to get the book.  To the library I went... they didn't have it, all the interlibrary resources ...

Well now it appears as though I haven't posted anything here in an extremely long time!  Holy cow, how does that happen?  I know it had been a while but APRIL!!??  Certainly I've tried new recipes & gadgets since then... geez, what a slacker I am!  But in my defense, I moved in August and now my internet time is VERY limited so that's part of the lack of posting but what about the 4 months prior... ?? So let me just sound off about a little sumpin to get this blog restarted... are you ready to rumble!? At the end of August I took Baby Girl school shoppin for some new clothes... she was starting in a new school, one that doesn't require uniforms like her last school, so she pretty much needed a whole new wardrobe - yeah, that's not happening in one shopping trip! Can I just say, I was a little disgruntled with the attire I found available for her age group of 5-6 yr olds.  I thought I had traveled back in time to the 80s!!  Don't get...

... SNAP Fitness that is! Joining a gym is something I've been wanting to do for the longest time but always had a reason, or excuse if you will... probably more reason than excuse though.  Well with our recent move to Northern MI, I am closer to family thus I have someone (many someone's if need be) that will watch the kids while I get my sweat on!  My wonderful cousin Krista has been working out and eating all healthy like for probably a year or so and is rockin it out on weight loss - you go girl!  I know she's always had good things to say about SNAP Fitness so I thought now was the time to step it up, they're open 24/7, no contracts and reasonably priced - one of the several reasons I had yet joined before.  Then there's Kasey, she's been rocking it out too this year with getting all healthy... she has equipment at home which would be my ideal set up but I think we all know I have no will power and I need to have my ass drug to the gym or it ain't ha...

It’s review time!   I was at the store a week ago and saw these “Energy Blasts” by PowerBar® on clearance!   Of course at first I thought they couldn’t be to good if they’re on clearance – right?   Right… kinda.   I bought ‘em anyway cause I figured it’d be a good “healthy” work snack for when the munchies creeped up on me. The box describes them as gel filled chews… really?   They’re bland gummy drops with a pea size goop of red stuff that tastes nothing like raspberry.   While still edible, not exactly a gummy bear… though I will finish off the box, so I guess they aren’t completely horrendous.   The thing that get’s me though is their “claim” of being “energy blasts”…. I think they forgot to add the energy.   Granted I’ve only had one serving/pouch but still… oh wait… it says they are for use before or DURING moderate & high intensity exercise.   Oops… I know I’ve been slacking on the work out stuff lately but has it been so long...

Just over a week ago I was at Rudy's BBQ in Leon Springs TX feasting on beef brisket and the best tasting cream corn I've ever had!  I knew I wasn't going to be able to get any safely back to MI with me so I took it as a challenge to figure it out and make my own version.  I'd tried making cream corn once before like some character did on one of those cooking shows but I didn't have the patience... and being that today was a lazy day - it was cream corn by crock pot! Now I don't know if this tastes like Rudy's because I don't have any Rudy's immediately available for comparison but I will tell you... this turned out to be some damn good cream corn if I do say so myself!  The secret ingredient (thank you Danette for the tip) is cream cheese.  I knew I was gonna have to "cream" it up but wasn't sure what to use and I'll be darned if the cream cheese wasn't it!  The hard part came in getting the ratio right, which I didn't b...

BACON! BACON! BACON!  Who doesn't love bacon?  They have Bacon Camp, Bacon Fest, Baconaise, bacon makes everything better!  The basic low down... bacon is cured meat from several cuts of a pig.  If you want more history on bacon you can check Wikipedia or just Google it... cause this here ain't about to be a term paper on bacon.  I just wanna share my love of it and the latest recipe experiment I tried out... BACON JAM!!!  That's right, I said Bacon Jam.  Of course I first came across this mighty invention via Pinterest... did a little research, checked out several recipe versions and decided on this one here... Ingredients 1 1/2 pounds sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces 2 medium yellow onions, diced small 3 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled 1/2 cup cider vinegar 1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar 1/4 cup pure maple syrup 3/4 cup brewed coffee Directions In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium-...