Food Friday

I thought I would do these little posts about what I ate throughout the week just to give anyone who reads this an idea of how to eat healthy meals. By any means am I getting on a soapbox because I did eat two disgusting hotdogs this week. I have an issue with food, I cant just let it sit in my house and waste. I would rather throw it away so I don't eat it if its that unhealthy or just slowly eat it overtime. Right now we have hotdogs.. Sorry folks.

I eat pretty much the same things Monday through Friday. That is when I am the most strict with my meals. So these posts wont have the same thing re-occurring unless I toss it up some. I do not believe in diets, they are fads. People never stick to them and it just results in yo-yo'ing with weight, majority of them are unhealthy and have negative side effects that you never hear about. It just leads to more problems than good. What does work is figuring out what works for you, what are you triggers? What can you not live without? For me its chocolate, candy, cake, sweets you name it I will eat it. Its the worse but the thing that I have figured out is this, cutting myself completely off doesn't work because then a holiday or birthday rolls around and BAM I am shoving that crap in my face like I have never seen it before. I have a candy drawer I will admit and all that crap food on my Pinterest yeah I have probably made it and ate it. It is ALL about BALANCE, learning what your body needs and responds to.

This is what I eat every morning for breakfast. These smoothies really fill me up and they are so delicious. I have added spinach before to smoothies but I would recommend Kale it has more protein in it than red meat and it is fat free. 

I should also add in here that I do not believe in fat free, low fat nothing. In my house we drink 2% dairy products. No reduced fat. Your body needs fat to work properly so cutting it off is not good same goes for eating nothing but high fat foods. A little goes a long way and too much of anything that is good for you is bad. 

Without fail this is what I have for lunch of a daily basis. Half a turkey sandwich with 1/4 slide of cheese, mustard and cabbage on it. Then some mix of fruits and veggies. 

Dinner is always a different story simply because making dinner for one person sucks and it is not the easiest thing to do. It is something that I plan on working on harder so I am eating better meals at dinner. I took some left over tri-tip and reheated it in a frying pan with some broccoli I added a little olive oil and garlic to this mixture. I then took some pasta and cooked it. This meal was pretty dang good. 

Acorn Slippers

I have never really been much of a slippers person at all. I honestly don't like things on my feet and would prefer to just wear socks. I also do not like carpet (dont worry I am going some place with this). When we had our house built we decided to only put carpet in the bedrooms and put tile and hardwood every where else. Needless to say my feet get cold now and the only time of slipper I have ever liked are the ones that look like socks. I had a pair from Old Navy a long time ago and one of our dogs destroyed them. So I started my hunt for some slippers that would keep my feet warm and not annoy the crap out of me. I found some Acorn slippers on Zappos read the reviews and decided what the heck the worse thing could be is that they are itchy. 

I honestly did not have my hopes set very high at all on these slippers to be quiet honest with you. I felt like I was going to be over paying for some itchy wool sock slipper and they were going to be mega ugly. Boy was I wrong. I LOVE these slippers they are amazing they keep my feet warm, not itchy and are actually pretty dang cute. They are so much more durable than I thought as well the leather soles is actually made out of real leather. I have worn these for the last 2 months pretty much straight, they are that amazing. I have put them in the washer and hung them to dry and still amazing. Not a change at all. The best thing is that over time they become shaped to your feet. 

The only downside is that I read the reviews on Zappos and everyone said that they ran small so order the next size up. So I did I normally wear an 8 so I ordered the size 7 1/2-8 1/2 they are a tad bit too big. I wish I would've ordered the 7-8 but after 5-10 years of wearing these bad boys I'll just order a new pair and get the correct size. So I would suggest not ordering a size or half size up from what you normally would wear. In my case it did me no good. 

DIY Stain For Wood

I found this tutorial on a blog off of Pinterest. I twisted what the author did in her tutorial to make it work for myself. I will link her blog at the end of this. I did not take step by step pictures to this but I can tell you exactly where I got every supply you will need.

What You Need To Make the Stain:

Steal Wool Grade #0

Black Tea Bags

Vinegar

Hot Water

Mason Jar or container of choice

Steps:

Boil about a cup of hot water and Place 5 tea bags into the water. The amount of liquid you end up with really depends on the project you are doing these letters I did did not use that much of the stain so make according to your project. The more tea bags you add the darker it will be. Set cup of water and tea bags aside until the mixture is at room temperature. Take your steal wool and place it in the mason jar, you are then going to want to take your vinegar and poor it over the top of the steal wool until it is completely submerged. Do this while your tea cools. Once your tea is completely cool add it into the vinegar and steal wool. Now let it sit.. for awhile.. You want everything to have time to mix together and make a good stain for the wood. I think I let mine sit for 5 days or so. 

What You Need to Paint:

Cheap or old paint brush

Cheap Paint

Rag or Paper towels

Sanding block 

Letters

Steps:

I went to HomeDepot and bought a small sample container of paint in Swiss Coffee. I also picked up the paint brush and sanding block from here as well. I laid the letters down on some cardboard in the garage. It was in the middle of winter so our garage was not warm. The paint was pretty thick which actually helped me do what I wanted. You do not want to coat the letters so you cannot see any of the wood anymore you basically want to barely put any paint on your brush and then move that in as much as you possibly can. I did not go in the same direction at all on the letters I just went crazy. I knew that if I went in the same direction that I would end up with a final project that looked too neat. I used the brush and paper towel for this to make sure it was completely rubbed in. Essentially I "white washed"the wood letters without mixing the water into the paint but that is the technique I used. In some areas the paint was too thick for my liking so I sanded some of it off. I was trying to go for an old distressed tarnished look. 

Once your paint is dry on the letters (I let mine sit for two days before adding the stain) you are going to want to get your concoction and brush it over the letters or whatever you are using this technique on. I did two coats of the stain and then I let it sit for awhile. I also took a rag and rubbed the stain into the wood to make sure it was getting into the wood. Now because these letters are just going to sit on my wall I did not add a sealant but if I was using this on a headboard or on something that was going to get a lot of movement or touch I would definitely look into some clear sealants. 

Here are the links that gave me the idea:

http://beingbrook.com/rustic-headboard-aged-wood/

http://beingbrook.com/farmhouse-desk/

Its been almost a year since I have actually wrote anything and a lot has changed from that time. Then I was in school, now I am not.. I graduated. Been looking for a job and no such luck yet but there is still hope. We built a custom home a dream home, which is where I spend my days now.

I think I will be doing some revamping to my blog changing the context. I want to focus more on health, healthy foods, workouts open it up to be a health discussion I suppose. Probably talk about some of the fads, why they wont or do work and share recipes on here things I have tried on Pinterest and liked and things I have had no success with. 

There will always be hints of fashion on here because its in my blood. As well as home decorating, lets face it I have an empty house that needs help. 

I guess we shall see where my blog goes.. in the coming months hopefully some place good. 

Three Bird Nest

So here I am!!!

I know I have been MIA for awhile due to school and a lot of changes that are going on right now that when I have a second or two I will up date everyone who cares. 

I have been browsing this Etsy shop for awhile just staring at the beautiful scarfs and headbands, not sure which one to buy. This last Sunday I noticed that this grey and white stripped scarf was back up and I pounced on it. I ordered it without even thinking. I got the package in the mail today and opened it looked inside and didn't even take it out. I immediately thought "you have to blog about this shop asap!!" 

Like I said I ordered this on a Sunday and sometime during the day I received a shipping notification saying that my package was ready to ship. I was not expecting this seeing as it was a Sunday, so that was a huge plus. I didn't have any problems with my order and no need to contact the seller. But when I opened my package I was in awe, I am just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

I love.. love the packaging I am a huge sucker for packaging. Send me something in cute packaging and I will write a review on my blog ;)

I thought the dumb dumb was a nice touch and it was delicious too.. If you look right about the sticker that is holding the sucker on she hand wrote thanks!. I thought that was a really nice touch, after all it is a small business but to take that time out of her busy day is really nice to her buyers. 

Now onto the scarf.. It is seriously the nicest, softest scarf of life. It would be perfect for either summer or winter its really light weight and BEAUTIFUL!!! 

If you guys are in the market for a scarf I highly recommend going over to Three Bird Nest and placing an order with this awesome Etsy Shop!!

www.threebirdnest.com

I apologize for the iPhone photos my camera was dead :(

Well Hello There...

So when I started this blog I figured I'd have enough time to write all the time and boy was I wrong. Especially this semester and everything else going on in our little lives has not provided me with a bunch of free time to sit and write. If I have free time now I want to sit and do nothing, although when I do sit and do nothing I get bored.. Oh the irony.. 

So my life as of right now is consisting of going to class five days a week, volunteering at an elementary school strategies room and on the weekends looking at houses to buy. Oh and doing a butt load of homework.. 

I'll just get down to the nitty gritty of this post, I have five classes left till I graduate and that graduation day (December 8th, 2012 exactly 262 days away) can not come soon enough. It's stressful getting close to graduation, one of our good friends graduated last spring and she was always saying how stressful it was getting close to graduation. I kind of thought she was crazy but now I understand, you have the last four years or five years in my case coming down to one day. Its exciting but its way stressful, you start worrying about how you're going to get a job and support yourself because being a poor college student isn't going to cut it anymore. 

Volunteering is actually a requirement for my disability class I am taking this term and it was fun and I enjoyed it until I got bit my a child, then it got annoying. This strategies room I am in has four autistic kids, a kid with huge behavioral issues that does not belong in there and one with a rare genetic disorder and one with fetal alcohol syndrome. I wont go into to much detail about any of the kids because there is confidentiality I have to worry about here. But it has taught me a lot already in the month I have been going, I really enjoy my thursdays/fridays being in the room but some days are harder than others. 

Ahh a house :) Tony and I hate this apartment we are in, the longer we live here the more we hate it. The management here gets ruder with each year and I will seriously be writing a review when we get out on apartments.com or something. We started the house buying process in January and started looking at houses in February, we put an offer on a house about a week and a half ago and now we are just waiting. Originally this house was one I would not have lived in at all due to a wonderful smell. It was built in 2006 and wasn't taken care of, originally Tony and I dubbed this house the rat house. Its super nice granite counter tops, tile floor and owners who didn't give two cents about it. It'll definitely be a project for Tony and I once we get ride of the nasty wall colors. 

So that's what I have been up to.. Hope all of you are doing swell :-)

Amanda Curtis

One of our really close friends was recently diagnosed with brain cancer after being in remission from HER2 positive breast cancer it is a very rare and agressive form of cancer. Seeing as Amanda will now be receiving 20 straight days of radiation and and then doing oral chemo she wont be able to work. This has now placed the financial burden on her husband who doesn't need to be focusing on money but rather seeing that his wife gets healthy. 

What I am asking from you, my blog followers is to donate what you can to a fund that will go directly to support her extra medical costs. I know not everyone has wads of money sitting around so anything would help even $5. 

Cancer is a nasty SOB and has affected many of us personally in various ways. Helping to fund medical costs of those who are affected helps them to not worry about financial woes and allows them to get more rest, focus on healing and allowing the medication they are taking to do its job. 

Please go to the site below and learn more about Justin and Mandy and their family. 

http://www.gofundme.com/e52to





Just as a side note: The third person who won my give away never contacted me after two emails and me waiting two weeks I gave up. Instead of drawing another winner and trying to get into contact with them I gave the prize to Amanda's daughter, Brooklyn.