{ Feeling the burn }

I've now done 3 days straight of exercise, which for me is a huge accomplishment.  I've always been good about staying on track if I'm counting calories or back in Idaho when I was doing Zumba twice a week.

I had no issue with that, my issue came after I moved to Texas and life got in the way.  I stopped exercising, and now?  Ugh, it's just a pain to even get the motivation to do it, but I have my girl's graduation coming up and summer activities and plans and really need to get back in shape.

So I've stuck with my current plan, I'm doing Lucy Wyndham-Read's May Challenge, which you can find over on Youtube.  Every day, 4 minutes, that's IT.  I know I can squeeze in 4 minutes and I have made sure to get it done early morning because the longer I let it go and the later in the day it becomes, the less I want to do any kind of exercise.

I'm feeling the burn, oh my word, I didn't think 4 minutes would hurt but Lucy is a genius and absolutely brilliant at giving 4 minute workouts that work every single muscle you need to hit to lose weight.  Be sure to check out her website for tons of exercise plans that will suit your needs.

Mister over here always thinks I'm playing around, so the minute I try to do any kind of exercise, he is all over me, drives me quite bonkers lol

He's so handsome though and such a sweet dog. :)

Except for the accidents and pottying in the house.  He knows better, he is house trained but the past month he is going outside to mess around and then coming in to do his business, which means my poor carpet cleaner is working overtime.

Extremely frustrating but I'm going to keep pushing with him to go out and I'm hopeful he will one day click and be done with this.  Until then, this cleaner is my best friend.

I finished my first review book today.  I was surprised at myself because for what seemed like ages,  I haven't been into reading.  I guess I lost my reading mojo.

I read through the review books but it was so mechanical, like reading because I knew I had to but not really enjoying the process.  So I thought I would try and kick start it by going to the library and grabbing some interesting books I knew I would enjoy.  That didn't work.

I went to the book fair and bought a bag full of books, thinking that this surely would get my reading bug back.....well that didn't work either.

And then the first book of many came to my door and I sat on the couch two days ago, grabbed the book when I had about 30 minutes free time, and forced myself to read it.

Just like that, I remembered why I enjoyed reading so much, and I fell into the blissful lull that is sitting with a new book and immersing yourself into the story.

It didn't hurt that I found this book so fascinating and literally could not put it down.  I can't wait to tell you all more about it next week.

With my first one out of the way, I am now ready to move onto my next lined up review, and that is for The Marriage Bureau.  I don't know friends, but just from the cover and the little blurb in the front, I think I'm going to enjoy this one too.

I feel so content lately, like I'm truly back to myself, to the things I like and to the life I have always enjoyed.  It also helps that I've been sleeping well and getting enough rest.

I think the last piece to the puzzle now is to get back into my food blog.  I have a few recipes I need to put up, like this one that I tried tonight.  It is from one of my Gooseberry Patch Cookbooks.  The whole family enjoyed it, it is quite inexpensive to make, pretty simple and filling as well.  All big pluses in my book :)

I apologize if my posts often seem a random jumble of words, I tend to write how I think and I sometimes jump from one subject to the other, but I'm keeping it as real as I can here, and this is me so I hope you don't mind.

My days may seem boring, as a homemaker there's not always exciting stuff going on, but I think it's important for me to record what I'm doing on a daily basis because what may seem like boring, non productive days, will be interesting and fun to look back on in a few years from now.

With that in mind, I finally sat down this morning and started making blog books out of my posts.  I would love to do a book for each year, but there's just no way I can do that without it becoming extremely expensive.  So for now, I'm doing month at a time, and that's still expensive as well which means I'll be buying blog books for the rest of my life hahahah

If any of you have used blog to book programs, or websites, and know of a cheaper easier alternative, please let me know in the comments.  I'm currently using Blog2print.

Oh and last but not least, I watched the first episode of the Victorian Slum House series, and I can tell you that I'm going to enjoy every minute.  It does make you think and appreciate what you have, but that's for another day, maybe tomorrow because the episode made me think about a lot of things, namely how we are so quick to complain about how bad we have it without even realizing that some families went through incredibly hard times.

Definitely a post for another day :)

{ She is driving, and I held my breath the whole way }

Like no joke, seriously friends.  I didn't realize I was holding my breath until she stopped the car.

Ok let me backtrack a bit, remember last year Jasmine went for her learner's permit?  She was all eager to drive and stuff, then she held onto the permit for the past 6 months and only drove a little here and there because she was scared.

The past few days she has decided that she's now 18 and needs to get her license and wants to drive, so she's been asking if she can do the driving.

Now I don't know about you all, but this stuff scares the bejeebers out of me.  There's nothing like being in a car and knowing that the driver is not experience and they could do something to seriously hurt you both.  Like how do all parents do this?  I just want to snap my fingers and hand her a driver's license and know that she's a good driver, without having to go through all this LOL

Anyway, I started the day with some exercising. I did Zumba yesterday and today I did Lucy's Hiit Workouts which are only 4 minutes long but intense and designed to work every single muscle in your body. I feel it, I'm sure I worked the muscles it was intended for plus many others I had NO clue even existed.  I also always follow my workouts with a smoothie, today was blueberries, a banana, mixed strawberries and mango, coconut water, milk and peanut butter.  So yummy!

I'm hurting, my legs are killing me, it hurts to walk up or down stairs and sitting is a feat in itself. BUT....and here's the best part, it feels amazing. I always feel so good when I'm exercising and working towards being healthy.

I got the dishes taken care of.  I'll be completely honest, there are nights that I don't get to the dinner dishes right after we eat, I'm tired, I'm ready to relax or the dishwasher is full and I don't have the energy to unload it.  Most nights I do, but some nights, I fill the sink with soapy water and let the dishes soak overnight, then tackle them in the morning.

Curt comes home for lunch every day, and most of the time he will grab leftovers, or pop in some burritos, and then other days he has these french bread pizzas.  So on those days, I get them started for him because they do take a bit longer to prepare.

I've been loving stepping outside in the afternoon to enjoy the warm weather, especially now that I have the table and umbrella set up.

Marley usually lays at my feet and naps and I either sit and enjoy the warmth, or I read, which I've been doing the past 2 days.

I'm more than halfway done with this book and I have to tell you, I'm really enjoying it.  I have a review coming up next week, but I can tell you that if Psychology and the way our brains work, interests you, you will enjoy this read.

I've pushed right on with my Mandala Madness.  I finished Part 10 last night and started on Part 11 this morning, though have only made it about halfway through the first round and had to set it aside to take care of chores, schooling, bills etc.

I will say that that the last part drove me a little bonkers, it was time consuming, it was a bit of complicated stitches with constant color changing and I had to count and recount stitches to make sure I was staying on track.  I would have hated to pull even one round apart.

This project started off pretty quick but as it's gotten bigger, the rounds take quite a while to work through, but I'm still loving it and can't wait to get it finished.  I still have 7 more Parts to go, oh my goodness.

It's been a good quiet day for the most part, just the usual daily activities and a doctor's appointment.

I do hope you enjoyed seeing a few bits of my day.  Now I'm going to sit for a bit and watch last night's Victorian Slum House episode.  If you missed it and like period dramas, especially the reality ones like 1900's House, Frontier House, 1940's House etc.....be sure to check your local PBS station.

And here's the trailer.




I didn't even know about this series until I saw a commercial on another channel and immediately went over to PBS to set it to record.

Let me know if you watched it last night and what you thought. :)

{ The tree I thought was dead }

Good morning, it's a beautiful peaceful morning here in North Texas.  The sky is a gorgeous mix of pinks and purples.

I think one of my favorite times during the day are the early mornings, when I first step outside around 6am to let Marley out.

I've had a very busy past few weeks.  I often sit back and think about a few years earlier, maybe 5 or 6 years when we were still active military and living in Arizona.  Things were quieter, time went by slower and I never felt rushed.

I think it has a lot to do with the children growing up and the responsibilities and going ons associated with that.  Feels like the past 2 years (and can you believe it's been almost 2 years since I moved to Texas), life has gone full speed, always running around, always rushing, never getting a moment to breathe.

I long for those days but I can't change it, so I'm choosing to embrace it and blog when I get a chance, sit and relax when I get a chance and basically take a deep breath in between the chaos of daily life.

So anyway, I am glad I got a chance to come in and chat a little with you all.  I made it around to all the Happy Homemaker Monday participants this morning, which I'm super proud of myself for.  Thank you so much for continuing to join in and make this feature such a fun and successful part of my blog.

I wanted to show you this tree.  When we first moved into our house here in Texas, we noticed this huge tree in the front yard, it's humongous branches leaning over the fence into the back yard.  Matter of fact we had a strong storm with high winds that managed to break some of those branches and cause them to come crashing down on the wooden fence, breaking some of the boards.

We had someone come out and take a look at the fence to fix it, and they told us that the tree was dead and it would be better to go ahead and cut down a lot of the upper heavy branches to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.

The poor tree look miserable, with hardly any green on it and just a bunch of mangled ugly branches sticking out here and there.

Fast forward 2 years and we have a beautiful tree full of greenery.  I'm often amazed when I see it, because it reminds me that no matter how broken, how unwell or how miserable one may feel at times, there is always the chance to get better, to flourish and thrive again.

A good thing to keep in mind right?

I've started The 5 Love Languages.  My mother in law gifted me this book when she was over for Jasmine's birthday.  I had heard of the 5 love languages before and matter of fact, hubby and I had taken the test online to see what our love languages were.  I don't remember what mine was but I do recall that we had different love languages, which makes so much sense when I think about our marriage and the way we face and react to things.

I am excited to take the test again and to be able to learn how to apply those results to better our marriage.  We have a good one, but there's always room for improvement and if there's a chance that I can learn how to better understand him and therefore adjust my attitude to some things, I think it will be amazing :)

Have any of you read the book or taken the tests?  I would love to hear your opinions and thoughts.

I'm still really enjoying Once Upon a Time, and any chance I get to sit for even 30 minutes to watch it, I immediately jump on it.  I'm now on Season 6 which is the current season and I'm getting a little sad that I'll be all caught up soon.

Speaking of shows, I am also wanting to start on The Handmaid's Tale, I need to catch up on The White Princess and there are quite a few other Period dramas that I'm looking forward to.

I've been meal planning and using my cookbooks.  I tend to forget about them and just plan according to what I see online or think of as meals that we've had before.  Much as I love the internet and everything it has to offer, I truly feel that it's taken some of the best out of all of us and turned us into technology obsessed humans.

Not that there's anything wrong with technology or the internet, I'll be the first to admit that it opens up so many doors and allows us to find literally anything we are searching for, but it also takes up a lot of my time and blinds me to the things that are right at my finger tips.

So I'm going to be using my cookbooks more and going back to good ol' cookbook recipes for my menus.

These two have been trying to spend as much time together as possible.  They haven't always had the best of relationships which is understandable when you have a daughter growing up and wanting to assert her independence, and a father who is struggling with that concept and wanting very much to keep her as a little girl.

But as time goes by and it gets closer to her moving out in a few months, they've both decided that it's more important to spend time together and enjoy each other, than fight and complain and continue their power struggle.  Warms my heart to see them.

And finally here's my latest project off the hooks.  The Pondoland Square which I'm turning into a cushion.

I went completely out of my comfort zone with this one, color wise.  I stay very true to pastel, soft colors, but I have this beautiful flowery blouse that I love and it inspired me to go with those same colors.  I took a huge gamble, and right until about halfway through it I was still questioning my choices and wondering if it would be better to just pull it all apart and go back to my usual color choices.

But, I pushed through and I am so glad I did.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  I just have to block it and find the right pillow and it's done.

I am planning on starting another today but in my usual softer color choices.

If you want to try the pattern for yourself, go on over to Hooks n' Tales.  I love Jen's blog, not just for the gorgeous crochet she does but she's a fellow South African living in Cape Town and I enjoy reading her stories and reminiscing about that beautiful country.

Well it's almost 8:30 and I need to get ready for my Zumba.  I haven't done it since last year and I've put on 5 pounds, which is not a bad thing, I'm still well within my normal weight, but I don't feel well, my clothes feel tighter and I feel sluggish, so I need to get back on track with exercise.

I just need to do Zumba for an hour, two days a week.  That's what I was doing back in Idaho and was in the best shape of my life and feeling so good.

Aside from the Zumba this morning, I also have dishes to do, some laundry to put away and our bedding to wash.

We have homeschool to get through, and of course I want to read a little more of The 5 Love Languages and my book for review, as well as watch my shows.  A full day, packed with a lot of things, but it thrills me to be able to be at home and continue on my path as a homemaker.

I'll leave you with a closer look at my day and I'll see you all hopefully tomorrow, hugs and kisses friends.
xoxoxoxo

11 years ago today - Treasure Tuesday

After my Zumba I'll be having a smoothie, that will be my breakfast/lunch.  For dinner I'm making my Ham and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Mashed Potatoes and Salad.

General Hospital
Dr Phil
Right now I'm catching up on some shows on the DVR list from ID Discovery.
Once Upon a Time

Zumba
Homeschooling
Paying bills
Housework

{ Happy Homemaker Monday - 05/01/2017 }

Good morning everyone and Happy May!!!

Oh this is crazy, so here we are, May of 2017.  School is ending on the 19th, my daughter is graduating on the 20th, my husband is celebrating a birthday on the 22nd.  It's a month full of exciting, big milestones for our family.  Also a month full of bittersweet moments, but that's life right?

I am sorry this is going up a little later than usual, but I just got done paying bills, which you know is never a fun thing.

So without further ado, let's jump right in......

The weather:::
Insane, is pretty much the only way to describe it.  Woke up this morning to 35 degrees and I'm absolutely freezing.  I don't get it, it's May, come on now Texas get with the program and give me the beautiful warm weather I need.


On my reading pile:::
Diana Gabaldon's Lord John Series.  Been also getting a ton of books in.  One I'm currently reading at the moment  is The 5 Love Languages and oh am I loving it.  Have any of you read it yet?
Also have been receiving a steady influx of books for review, have 4 in so far and I believe there are at least 10 coming in.  Great summer reading, so I'm eager to get school finished and behind us so I can start enjoying them.


Movies or Shows I watched this weekend:::
I am almost done catching up with Once Upon a Time, am on the last episode of Season 5 and then it's on to the current season.  After that I will jump right into Game of Thrones.

On my TV:::
General Hospital
Dr Phil
Fear Thy Neighbor
See no Evil
Murder comes to Town
Reasonable Doubt
The White Princess
The Handmaid's Tale


On the menu for this week:::

Monday
Dutch Oven Enchiladas with Cornbread Topping, Salad
Tuesday
Ham and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Mashed potatoes and Green Beans  
Wednesday
Three Cheese Pork Manicotti, Garlic Bread 
Thursday
Dad's Cajun Dinner 
Friday 
Chicken Pot Pie, Green Beans  
Saturday
Savory Sandwich Ring 
Sunday
Skillet Macaroni and Beef, Salad 


On my to do list:::
Laundry......Ironing
Living rooms.... vacuuming, dusting, tidying up.
Kitchen..... dishes, empty dishwasher, clean counters, take out meat for dinner.
School..... mark attendance, work on finishing up courses, phone calls
Crochet.... finish off newest project, finish last week's 3rd square in preparation for Thursday
Household.... go through new lease agreement, sign and return


What I am sewing, crocheting, knitting or creating:::
Have one more square for last week's Nuts About Squares blanket.  Will finish it sometime today.  But I've been working on something new (I'm sure you're not surprised haha), and will finish it this morning and move on to the square above and then finally get cracking on with my Mandala Madness.  I got more white yarn so I can continue.

Looking around the house:::
We had a very relaxing, laid back weekend so it's definitely showing.  On the dining table is our game from last night, we left it set up because we didn't finish so will be doing that today.  Need to vacuum the living rooms because Mr Marley gets a little too excited when playing and literally tears up his toys, paper, napkins, whatever he can get hold of.  Silly puppy.           
 

From the camera:::
Family game day.  We played Eldritch Horror which is a mystery game where all the players work together to defeat the monster.  You have to fight monsters, get clues and so on. 

What I'm wearing today:::
Leggings, tank top and long black sweater.  I'm absolutely freezing. 


One of my simple pleasures:::
Watching farming videos on Youtube, I love farms, love seeing the animals and all the work that goes into it.  I would be thrilled to one day live on my own farm. 


Inspirational Quote, Bible verse, anything you want to share::: 

{ CFE International Saltfish Blogger Recipe Contest }

Hello everyone, I'm back with another recipe contest, this time from CFE International.

I was asked if I wanted to participate in this contest and try out some delicious salted cold, or pollock.  I immediately jumped at the chance of the salted cod.

I'm Portuguese, I grew up eating salted cod, so I couldn't pass up this chance.

The idea of the blogger recipe challenge is to come up with either a main dish or an appetizer, using the product that we chose, which for me was the Cristobal Salted Cod. 

I found this a bit challenging, not because I had no idea what to make but because growing up surrounded by this product, I have tried every way imaginable to cook this fish up, so making something I hadn't before was a little difficult.

I decided to go with a Salted Cod Fish Lasagna, combining my love for Italian and pasta with my love for the salted cod.

Salted Cod Fish Lasagna

Lasagna Noodles, cooked according to package directions
1lb Cristobal Salted Cod/Bacalau
Olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
1 garlic clove, finely diced
Mozzarella or Swiss cheese, shredded or sliced
Fresh Spinash

For the white sauce:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 and 1/4 cup milk
Dash of salt, pepper and nutmeg

Soak the cod fish in water, overnight, change the water out a few times to take most of the salt out.  You can also soak it in milk, whichever you prefer.

In a pot, add a bit of olive oil, the onion, garlic and the bay leaf.  Cook over medium heat until onion is translucent.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Flake the cod fish into bite size pieces, being careful to remove all bones.  Add to the onion and stir.  Add a tiny bit of water just so it doesn't dry up too much, stir a few times and turn off the heat.

In a smaller saucepan, melt the butter, add in the flour and stir vigorously, cook for about a minute so that you don't get that flour taste.  Start adding in the milk a little at a time, stirring well after each addition, use a whisk to remove any lumps.  Keep adding the milk and stirring until the sauce thickens, about 2 or 3 minutes.  Season with salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg.

Assemble the lasagna.  Put a few tablespoons of the white sauce on the bottom of a casserole dish.  Layer some of the lasagna noodles on top of the sauce, add a third of the cod fish mixture and spread evenly over the noodles.  Next add a layer of spinach and top with about a third of the white sauce.  Sprinkle on some shredded cheese or if you're using slices, then cover with the cheese slices.  Add another layer of noodles, cod fish, spinach and sauce.  Continue until you use everything up, making sure to end with a layer of the white sauce.  Cover the top with cheese and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes until bubbly and the cheese is melted and brown.


The grand prize for the recipe contest is $1000.  If you want to know more about the challenge or where to purchase the products, be sure to head on over to CFE International, or check out their social media links below. 

CFE International Social media links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BacalaoCFE/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bacalaoCFE

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bacalaocfe/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bacalao_cfe/