30 Days Down and a New Hobby

Hey, y’all.

I made it 30 days.  🙂

No sugar.  No grains.  No Soy.  20 of the 30 days without dairy.  It was hard but I did it and I’m going to keep going.

Just a reminder…I’m following Whole 30 ‘rules’.

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They allow potatoes (white too) plus nuts.  No sweeteners at all.  My plan is to continue with this until Easter then reevaluate.

Let’s see…what else has happened since we last met…

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Another pressure cooked pot of stew.

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Mama B accidentally clicked the camera button as I was turning my head and caught this great picture of my hair color.  I love it so much.

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The first few grape plants of mine and Papa B’s future vino empire.  🙂

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Homemade macadamia nut butter.  Homemade nut butters don’t firm up like commercial butters because they don’t have any stabilizers.  They’re way more delicious though.  🙂

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Salt encrusted baked potatoes and blackened Mahi.

And the star of this week…

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That’s right, y’all.  At allegedly 40 something…I’ve decided to teach myself how to sew.

What?  I know.

Meme, Mema and Mama B were all phenomenal seamstresses.  Phenomenal.

Mema used to make our dolls clothes.  Meme made gorgeous quilts.  Mama B made most of our clothes until around Junior High.

How did all of that rub off me you ask?  Not well.  Back in the dark ages we had to take home ec in 8th grade and then again sometime in high school.  I took mine my sophomore year.  The cooking portion of the class = love.  The sewing portion?  Hate x a bazillion.  I’m not even exaggerating when I say that my version of the shirt they made us sew looked worse than the shirt Denise sewed for Theo on Cosby.  Of course Mama B saved it and I now have her on the hunt for it so I can take a pic.

Back then I hated everything about sewing.  The rules.  The need for perfect lines.  The cutting…ironing.  Just everything.

So right about now you must be wondering…if she hated it that much why did she just go buy a sewing machine?

Well if you followed the old blog you know I’ve been trying to find a new hobby ever since I had to stop baking / creating in the kitchen.

For some crazy reason I’ve decided that sewing is going to fill that void.   I mean with all that sewing in my DNA I can’t completely suck, right?   🙂

I’ll write more about it as I get going but for now…

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This is waiting for me.  Wish me luck.  🙂

Hope y’all have a good weekend.  If you’re partying for the Super Bowl be safe.

Y’all know I’m a huge football girl.  But I’m an even bigger women’s issues activist.  Given all the domestic abuse cases brought to light in the NFL …I just never could get into this season.  I always try to leave my political views and modern day feminist opinions off the blog…and I won’t write much more than this…but today instead of leaving with a song I’m gonna leave y’all with this super bowl commercial.  People faked all sorts of moral outrage in Sept and then just moved on once the season got going.    Thank You, UltraViolet for not letting this go.  🙂

See y’all next week.  🙂

The Best Kitchen Tool ~ Ever :)

Hi, y’all.  🙂

Hope your week was good.  For me it’s been a long one…full of horrible fire place smoke smell everywhere…2 days of interent problems and the horrible customer service that went along with it…plus some sort of sinus problem thrown in.  I hope it’s just my body purging out toxins.

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Change ‘bread’ to ‘cheese’ and that’s the message I’m needing today.

I started out the month with the plan of doing a full Whole 30.  I did that for 10 days and then added in cheese…still keeping to all the other Whole 30 rules.

Taking the cheese out and then adding it back showed me how much it really does affect me.

SO…I’m back to trying to live without it and really really not enjoying it. 🙁

But on I go.  🙂

Last time we met I was going out for the first time since all these changes.  Obviously I survived.  Mexican too.  🙂

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Taco salad.  Since I can’t use commercial dressings I used guac and salsa to make a dressing.  It was really good.

This is one of the best kitchen tool investments I’ve ever made…and y’all know I love me some kitchen tools. 😉

It’s the Instant Pot.  An electric pressure cooker.  It. Is. Amazing.  I’ve done stews, several batches of short ribs, our Thanksgiving turkey breast and now some vegetables.  🙂

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Isn’t that gorgeous?  My Meme would be so proud.  🙂

Green beans, red potatoes, and a ham hock.  Remember I’m using Whole 30 rules for my jump into paleo…they allow potatoes.

I can’t recommend the Instant Pot enough.  It makes meat so tender.  The short ribs are the house fav so far.  They’re so good they’re always gone before I even get a picture.  🙂

That’s all for today.  Y’all have a good weekend.  🙂

 

Learning to Embrace the New

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Before I started this whole Paleo (with dairy) thing I knew it would be a rough transition.

I mean switching from running on sugar to…running on things I’ve hardly ever eaten in my life…is a change.

I downloaded / printed a bunch of positive affirmations…pulled out the scrapbooking tools…and made a pile of magnetized quotes and affirmations to stick on the icebox.

Wisdom from the likes of good ol’ Socrates (above) and Pat Benatar (song from last post).

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I know.  Scrapbooking with actual paper is like so 2003.  😉  Don’t care.  🙂

Anyway the point of this is to say that in honor of focusing on the new while still feeding the tastebuds of the old…today I made my first spaghetti squash.  🙂

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Can y’all even believe I made something like that?  Muchless ate it?

And then when having Italian what’s a Paleo (with dairy) girl to do to feed the need for the flavor of cheesy garlic bread?

Well this girl whipped up some cheesy / garlic-y artichokes.

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‘chokes.  Melted ghee.

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Mozzarella / dollops of ghee.    Baked at 350* for about 20 minutes.

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I have to say…this was actually really good.  After topping with sauce the squash tasted like nothing.  But the star for me was the cheesy ‘chokes.  Next time I will just eat the sauce on top of that.  Keen eyes might notice that my usual ranch is missing from atop the sauce.  I can’t eat bottled anymore because of the soy and other junk so I’m gonna have to make my own each time and just didn’t have time to do that for this meal.  Next time, ranch.  Next time.  🙂

Turns out ol’ Soc-y was right.  We shouldn’t waste time mourning what we can’t have.  We should use that energy to figure out how to live with what we CAN have.  🙂

I’ve now made it 14 days and tomorrow is my first shopping trip out of town since starting this…so first time eating out too.  Wish me luck.  🙂

Hope y’all are all safe and warm.   🙂

 

 

 

Brrrrrr

Are y’all enjoying the cold?

It’s way cooler here than it usually is.  And as much as I enjoy this standard ‘outfit’ of leggings / Uggs and long tunics…

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…winter, I’m gonna need to you to be packing up and moving on along pretty soon. I think you might have gotten a little lost but this is South East Texas.  It’s time for you to go.  😉

I’m seriously trying to figure out how I can sue my town for allowing people to burn some horrid toxic wood this year.  We didn’t really have that cold of a winter last year so I don’t know if these people are burning old wood that sat out in the elements all year or what but It.Is.Awful.

The only real cooking project I did this week was to make some ghee.

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Butter melting.

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Cooked til all the solids separated.  Love love love the smell at this stage.

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Strained.

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Yum.   Liquid Gold.  🙂

Let’s see…what else…

Those of you who know me might wanna sit down for these next pics 😉

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This pic makes it look like all of that stuff is sitting on the counter.  It’s in a glass bowl.

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Taco salad.  With some special ingredients I’ll write about later this week.

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That’s right, y’all.  Instead of drinking my greens.  I’ve been eating them.  🙂  This is double good because it means that some of my celiac digestive problems have healed.   🙂  I couldn’t have eaten this a year and a half ago without being sick for days.  Now?  I had this for lunch twice this week.  So happy.

For the last couple months I’ve been experimenting with Paleo style eating.

As part of my healing from within / holistic healing approach I’ve now jumped all the way in.

No grains, no sugar, no soy.  But I am allowing dairy starting tomorrow.  I did ten hard core ‘clean’ days but I have no intention of ever giving up cheese so I think it’s best to just incorporate it now for the start.  I think I’m gonna call it Paleo with Dairy or pwd.  🙂  I know.  There’s already a plan name for that but I like mine better. 😉

Anyway…so far so good.  🙂

I’m also trying out some new supplements but I wont write about those til I’ve taken them for at least a month.

That’s all for now.

Stay safe and warm.  🙂

Happy New Year

Hope the hangovers have subsided and 2015 is off to a roaring start for y’all.  🙂

Before sharing my 2015 goals I thought I’d look back at last year.

Looking back over the year…it was good in some ways and absolutely horrible in others.

I spent so much of the year (around 28 weeks total) sick…but at the same time we ‘cured’ Mama B of her year long cough.   I’m very grateful for that.  She’s still rocking right along with her low acid / no sugar lifestyle.  🙂

I don’t do resolutions.  If I want to do something I just do it instead of waiting for a date on the calendar.  But last year I did have a few goals.

One of them was to stop coloring my hair.  The dye was making me sicker and sicker each time.  I probably had a PPD allergy all along and just didn’t even know what that was.

Dec 20, 2013 was the last time anything bad touched my hair.  🙂

For those of you who don’t know me in real life…Mama B’s side of the fam suffers from premature graying.  Her dad was completely white haired in his 20’s.  I started graying in my early 20’s and started dying it immediately.  Every 4 weeks like clockwork.  For over 20 years.

Needless to say I really didn’t know how saying goodbye to the dye and hello to the gray was going to go.

Was I going to cry?  Was I going to start drinking coffee at the crack of dawn and watching Walton’s reruns?    Ya know…like a little old lady.  😉

Thankfully no.  None of that happened.  I completely embraced the process…even practically shaving it all off to just go ahead and get all the non-gray growth gone.

And it’s been one the best things I’ve done for my health in a long long time.

It was also so very completely empowering.  Saying “nope…sorry…media / advertisers / superficial people’ you aren’t going to tell me how I need to look…it’s seriously empowering.

I’ve been telling y’all for a while that I was going to do a before and after post.  I promise I will.  I just don’t have the amount of growth I thought I would have by now so I’m still saying no to pictures.  I think the short hair makes my face look humongous.  I did allow ONE single pic at Christmas for Mama B.  After cropping everyone else out it’s not very big at all but I’m gonna stick it here just for those of you who’ve been wondering how it’s going.

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It’s a cool mix of gunmetal gray…white and some buried natural brown that hasn’t turned yet.

I seriously love it.

Maybe by Easter the sides with have some good growth and I can do the full before / after post.

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For 2015 I have some goals planned too.

One I’ll share because I’m sure I’ll write about it a lot as the year goes on.

I’m going to work on a more holistic approach to treating my Lupus.

I first started having symptoms in 1998.  I was finally diagnosed in 2002.  From 1998 – today I have really only totaled about TWO years of feeling well.  Not a consecutive two years.  Just days and weeks added up.  I’ve been on various medication the ENTIRE time but yet feeling worse and worse.  🙁

So I figure giving something else a try can’t hurt and very well may help.

I’ll keep taking my blood thinner but am going to try weaning myself off of everything else (safely of course).

I’m also going to eliminate the last small bits of soy remaining in my diet.  So that means a lot of experimentation in creating a homemade mayo recipe.  Because if ya know me…ya know life without mayo isn’t an option.  😉

I’ll share more as things happen but that’s about it for now.

Hit me with your best shot, 2015.  I’m ridiculously determined to make you a million times better than previous years.  🙂

Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by.  🙂