A Few Of My Favorite [Pescatarian] Things

Hey!  How’s Monday treatin’ ya??  I hope your week is starting off wonderfully:-)

We have yet another full one here with baseball games, tball games, an orthodontist appointment, and a class field trip.  Whew.  I think I got it all…hopefully nothing will slip through the cracks!  I can’t believe the school year is almost over.  I am SOOOO ready for summer vacation!

So I mentioned briefly in my last post that I have been eating a pescatarian diet for a little while now…my kids still call it vegetarian, and that’s fine, probably better.  I mean, can you see Katie announcing to her Kindergarten class, “My mom’s a pescatarian.”  I would imagine I would get more than a few questions and possibly a few phone calls.  Not in a negative way mind you, just in a what-the-heck-are-you-talking-about way.  Being that we live on the border of the Midwest and the South, we are predominantly meat and potato eaters ‘round here.  And that’s great, it’s the way I was raised!  But I have come to prefer food that look like the colors of the rainbow.  Now, doesn’t that sound happy?  :-)

Foods that look like this:And this:   And my favorite use for the spinach (which I normally buy organic spinach but I ran out and had to settle) is the Green Monster.  And yes, it’s capitalized because it actually has it’s own website, hehe;-)  I tried making a GM a year ago and almost gagged!  And my hubby made quite a bit of fun of me for trying to drink it.  But NOW for some reason it’s completely different.  For my Green Monster, I blend in the blender:

1 cup organic fat-free milk

1/2 organic frozen banana

2 cups spinach

1 scoop Chocolate Amazing Grass Superfood

1 cup crushed ice

There are a TON of different  combinations to make your own GM, you are only limited by your imagination…well, and your taste buds.  But I have been drinking one a day for the last 3 weeks or so and I have gone through a butt load of spinach noticed my energy levels have increased, my complexion is glowy, and my cravings for anything processed and icky are completely gone.  Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I had a cookie, cake, any kind of processed food.  It’s incredible, really.  And oh the antioxidants I’m getting!  Yessss!

Another fave thing: Nutritional Yeast Powder.  I first read about the benefits of NYP on Gina’s blog over at The Fitnessista, and how it is beneficial for vegetarians especially because of it’s great source of B vitamins and protein.  It’s tastes cheesy and is good sprinkled on top of many things, but my favorite is air popped popcorn…it’s tastes like parmesan cheese, ooooh so goooood!Something else that I used to not be a fan of: hummus.  Seriously, I just used to wonk on the texture of the stuff, now it’s my fave veggie dip and sandwich spread.  Who am I??  This spicy version is my current love.  That stuff in the middle, yeah, it will set your mouth on fi-yah!  So delish!!

And what is the common link between: the bottom of my purse, my glove box in my car, my kitchen and overnight bags?  If you guessed the Larabar you’re right!  I L-O-V-E these all natural fruit and nut bars.  They come in many flavors, and my favorite (but not pictured) is Peanut Butter & Jelly!  OMGosh.  Tastes just like a PB&J sammie…well, almost.  So good!  I must remember to stock up on my next trip to STL!  Nowhere close has the PB&J flavah I crave:-(

So have I completely weirded you out?!  For those of you who have known me forever, are you wondering who I am?!  LOL~  Don’t be alarmed…it’s all good.  I am just improving my diet to be the healthiest “ME” I can be.  I am doing a lot of reading and research and trying to make the best use of my nutrition.  After surgery, chemo, and radiation I feel “clean.”  And I want to do everything in my power to stay that way. 

I could go on for pages about this and I will touch more on it in bits and pieces, as new products and such come up.  But I wanted to share with you a powerful statement that I read in a devotional this weekend about FAITH:

“Genuine faith puts a letter in the mailbox and lets go.  Distrust, however, holds on to a corner of the envelope and then wonders why the answer never arrives.” –from Streams In The Desert 

W-O-W.  Love it!  We MUST trust God to handle it all.  We can’t give it to Him and expect Him to deal with it while we are still hanging on to it and carrying it around.

“Faith is being…certain of what we do not see.”  Hebrews 11:1

xoxo 

Run For A Reason

Hello everybody!

I have been wanting to post for the past few days but have been lacking the pictures I need to post! My dad has been a little slow in the emailing pics department;-) He has been a little busy hunting the elusive turkey with my hubby since Monday. Yes, turkey season has started so that means coffee (and plenty of it) at 430am and long hikes through the woods to chase down their birds. However, this week has been less than successful in the hunting department. Oh well, another bird lives to see another day...

Now would seem to be the time to tell you that I'm currently eating a vegetarian diet, huh? Makes sense to me! But I guess the proper term for me would be pescatarian. If you have a confused look on your face right now, it's ok...I'll define it for you. A “pescatarian” is occasionally used to describe those who abstain from eating all meat and animal flesh with the exception of fish. Although the word is not commonly used, more and more people are adopting this kind of diet, usually for health reasons or as a stepping stone to a fully vegetarian diet.

I will elaborate more on this and how much I am LOVING how I feel but before I stray too far I must get on to the real reason for this post:

The Lending A Hand Fund held our 1st Annual River Run this past Saturday! We had a 5K Run and a 1 Mile Run/Walk. There was about 165 people that participated, not to mention all the friends and family that gathered at the park to watch and cheer on the runners and walkers. We had medals for the top two finishers male/female in each race. And the winner of the women's 5K was........

ME!!!!!!!!!!

OMGosh, I was so excited y'all, let me tell you!! My time was 23:50, which is a PR for me! It was an amazing experience! There were tears all around from my mom and sisters and almost from me, just from the sheer exhiliaration of winning a race, especially one that I helped set up, and one with such a worthy cause as our Lending A Hand Fund. It was an experience I'll never forget! Our family represented well as all 3 kids ran today, my brother-in law and sister-in-law ran their FIRST 5K, and our nephew ran as well!

Our committee for the Lending A Hand Fund: Tiffany, Della, Me:

Tyler finishing strong! His 5K time was 22:09:

Zachary finishing the 5K! His time was 25:02:Katie and I finishing the 1 mile! Her time was 11:00! WOW!! Tyler getting his medal for taking 2nd place in the 1 mile:

Ethan looking like his Aunt Erica by going and finding one of my sister's old medals from hs so we would match. Awwwwe, he is so sweet!!

So it was an amazing day and an amazing success. We ended up raising over $10,000 for cancer patients in our community!!! Far and beyond our expectations...we are amazed and so thankful. We are already thinking about next year!

xoxo

Bring The Rain

Good Morning;-) I just wanted to share with you a new favorite of mine and I think it's a beautiful way to start your day. I know from personal experience (Thank you, Jesus) that sometimes it takes a little rain for Him to be truly experienced and appreciated.

If you are experiencing some rain in your life right now, just know that the Lord uses trials in order to bless us and to draw us closer to Him. Through trials we lean on God and learn to trust Him and fully appreciate His love for us.

"I trust in Your word." Psalm 119:42

Have a great one!

xoxo

B-E-A-U-TIFUL!!!!

Hello friends!~ Long time no see! Er, read?!

I'm just dropping in to say "HI!!" and that I am still alive and kickin'! My absence is only due to the following wonderful things:

• My sister, Layne, and her boys are here for a couple of weeks and my sister Jessica has been over with little Brayden, so I have been loving soaking up all the sister and nephew time I possibly can! We've had lots of family time and I've loved every single minute.
• The weather has been AMAZING!! So much so, that I've been able to do my running OUTSIDE! Ahhh, if you could see the views and natural beauty I wake up to every morning with the sun filtering through, it would totally knock your socks off. Springtime is here, folks;-) Oh, and for my run yesterday morning, I discovered that I can put my hair in two tiny little pigtails!!!!! With some bobby pins to help, of course. But they are pigtails nonetheless! Yay!
• SPORTS! Zachary's basketball season ended last Friday night so he is finished for the year, just in time for Tyler's baseball season to get into full swing this week. Ty has 3 games this week alone. And Katie's t-ball also started this week and she is loving it! She was so excited for her first practice on Monday night. She went to practice all psyched up with her little pink mitt with a breast cancer ribbon and the word "hope" on it...she loves it;-)

When the weather is THIS beautiful, I feel amazing. Like I could conquer the world. I feel so healthy and blessed!

I have some other changes that I promise that I'm going to fill you in on soon...as soon as we have a partly cloudy day I will let you in on some NEW things. Hint: Am I a vegetarian?? Hmmmmm.......;-)

Be blessed!

xoxo

Extraordinary Easter

Hey guys!  How is your week starting off?  Good?  I hope so;-)  Mine is fantastic!  We are having the most beautiful weather here and today the sun is shining making me wish school was out so we could have a river day!  Soon enough, though.

I had every intention of posting Easter pics yesterday but got home and plugged up my camera and realized that I had taken my sister’s camera instead of mine.  Oops!  So after a quick swap yesterday afternoon I am finally getting around to an Easter recap.

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday!  We woke up celebrating the fact that Jesus is not dead, but He is risen!  Even the kids were not so much focused on Easter baskets or the goodies inside it (well, maybe the candy!) but were talking about the REAL reason we celebrate.  It made my heart smile:-)  Something else that never ceases to make me smile is doing something our pastor told us to do with John 3:16:

“For God so loved (insert your name here), that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Can I get an “AMEN!”  I love it, and it makes it so personal to plug my name into that verse.  But that’s what God is…He.Is.Personal.  He created us, knowing how many hairs we have on our head, forming our personalities, our likes and dislikes, He made us for His pleasure and for His amazing and extraordinary love for us.  FOR YOU!  Yes, YOU!  I am talking to you reading this who may say, “But you don’t know what I’ve done.  There is no way God can love me.” 

Listen when I tell you:  GOD CAN, AND GOD DOES.  UNCONDITIONALLY.    And He so desperately wants you to accept His free gift of salvation so your sins (ALL of them) will be washed away and when it comes your time to leave this world, you will live in Heaven forever.  Amazing love.  Thank you, Lord.

EASTER EGG HUNT AT CHURCH:

  

EASTER AFTERNOON AT MOM & DAD’S.  DINNER, FINDING EGGS (and baskets – my dad gets a kick out of hiding the kids’ baskets and making them go on a search;-)

xoxo

Why Today Is A Good Day

Hello Thursday...but it totally feels like Friday! WooHoo!!

Here is why today is a good day:

• My sister Layne and her boys are coming in today!
• No school tomorrow, so no rush-rush homework and bedtime routine tonight!
• Zachary's basketball game tonight! At home!! (no traveling)
• Glorious 5 mile run outside this morning!
• B-E-A-UTIFUL weather!
• New episode of Survivor tonight! Don't judge, we have always watched together as a family and we love the show! Go Russell!! (he's ornery but ya gotta love him!)
• We get to sleep in tomorrow then go have cousin and sister fun day!

See? What'd I tell ya?! Good day goin on right here!

Oh, before I forget, my run splits:

MILE 1: 8:40

MILE 2: 8:45

MILE 3: 9:19

MILE 4: 10:04

MILE 5: 10:23

TOTAL DISTANCE: 5 miles

TOTAL TIME: 47:14

PACE: 9:26/mi

Have a wonderful day, y'all! Find a reason why today is a good day for YOU!

xoxo

Lovin The Sun!

Helloooooooo Humpday;-)

Do YOU have Good Friday off? If so, you only have one more full day to get through before it's the weekend! If not...sorry :-(

We have been ballgamin' it up this week. Unfortunately neither game has resulted in a win for Zachary and his team. Bummer. They've played really well, but there's not a whole lot you can do when one team has clearly had an extra dose of their Wheaties, therefore resulting in a serious growth spurt, and our team, well, hasn't...yet;-) But it's comin! That we know. Give us another year or two and our voices will be crackin', toes comin' out the ends of our shoes every month, and jeans too short when it seems we've just bought them. Yep. Give us time.

All this busy-ness is resulting in a very tired Katie. By the time we get home around 8 and she gets a bath and a snack, it's 9 before she gets into bed. And she is SO not a morning person anyway. So this morning it was extra rough to get her out of bed. I used every trick in the book to make her happy before I sent her off to school, but she still had a scowl on her face when she got out of the car. I hope her day perked up.

Tonight's routine is still up in the air. Tyler has baseball practice but he's not sure what time (typical boy...this drives me CRAZY!) and Youth after that, and Zachary and Katie have Power Up at church. However, this is all dependent on Katie and Zachary and their need for a night at home. The next few days provide little chance for rest. Layne and the boys come in tomorrow, we have basketball games tomorrow night, and then the holiday weekend with family. So we'll just see how everybody's doing after school. Speaking of Youth, here's a pic of some of Tyler's Youth Group from church that attended Young Christians' Weekend at Silver Dollar City in Branson last weekend. They had a great time!!

This morning I took advantage of the absolutely beeea-utiful weather we are having and headed outside for a run. It was a glorious run and I'm so glad I took advantage of the opportunity.

Here's my stats:

MILE 1: 8:24

MILE 2: 8:27

MILE 3: 9:12

MILE 4: 10:20 <----- Getting winded! 2 min. run/1 min. walk intervals

MILE 5: 9:46

MILE 6: 11:19 <----- Run/walk intervals again;-)

TOTAL: 57:29

DISTANCE: 6 miles

AVG PACE: 9:34/mi

Enjoy the rest of your day! I hope it's beautiful where you are!

xoxo

Blessed and Busy!

Hey!

How's Monday treating ya? Hopefully you are coming off a fabulous weekend! Things are bright and sunny here:-) It looks we are in store for some seriously beautiful weather this week. YAY! I need some consistent sunshine! It seems like we have a day or two of pretty weather, then a day or two of clouds and rain but this week is breaking that pattern. And perfect for the week before Easter, dontcha think?!

This is an absolutely crazy week here. But good crazy, of course!

• Today is my studly hubby's birthday which, by the way, he says he's skipping;-) Well that's good because I don't know when we'd find the time to have a bash anyway! Then tonight Tyler has a baseball game away and Zachary has a basketball game away...so yep we are splitting up for the evening with Jack going to Ty's game and Katie and I will head to Zac's. I don't prefer it like this :-(


• Tomorrow is a home game for Zac, yay! I'm not sure about the rest of the week for Ty's baseball. yet.


• Wednesday Ty has an orthodontist appt right after school, then to get back home so I can get the kids to Wednesday night church.


• Thursday THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK! My sister, Layne, and her boys are coming to visit for the Easter holiday!!!!!! Yippee!!! Layne, Jess, and I need some sister-time:-) And she will also be here for Zac's game that night! Oh, I can't wait to see what Ethan thinks of his "ZAC!" playing ball. Ethan and Zac are B-E-S-T B-U-D-D-I-E-S.


• Friday is a sleep in day, hopefully. There is no school on Friday and no ballgames, so hopefully this will be the day of hang out time for the sisters and the cousins;-) And this leads into the Easter weekend, with lots of candy, eggs, and new church clothes (this is what Katie is looking forward to most).

Yesterday we had our Easter program at church, performed by our choir and several others. It was absolutely amazing. They did such a great job and put on quite a production. I can't imagine how anyone could leave there yesterday morning without their heart being touched and so full of joy and thankfulness for the gift of salvation that is given to us by God who loves us so much. It was so great.

One thing our pastor has kept reminding us during this Easter season is that God is not mad AT us, He is mad ABOUT us! He is so crazy in love with us, that He sacrificed His one and only Son to pay the price for our sins so that we wouldn't have to.

From your grateful daughter, Lord, THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU!

Have a great day!

xoxo

Revelation

Hey guys;-)

It's been a bit of a busy week here. And it doesn't look like relaxation and sleeping in is in store for the weekend...it's busy too...

We were gone 2 nights this week for Zachary's basketball games, and neither one was home. We split for the week 1-1. Last night's game was a GREAT win! They played a team that was very good, and had t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e refs. I may or may not have booed them at one point;-) As a cheerleader it goes completely against my nature, but when it's bad...it's bad. Not that I'm biased or anything. Zach played great and had 8 points! He was so tired on the way home, he played the entire game. So proud of him!

Tyler has had a couple of baseball practices this week in preparation for his first game next Monday. It was supposed to be yesterday but we got rained out. So Monday we have Tyler's first baseball game, Zachary has a basketball game (away again), AND Monday is Jack's birthday...whew! Not much down time around here!

Tomorrow morning at 6am Tyler leaves with our church youth group for a Young Christians Weekend event. He will be gone until Sunday night. We had wanted to go with him, but tomorrow Zachary has a basketball tournament (thankfully here!) all day...his first game is at 945am. So no sleeping in around here! Boo.

At least Katie is still at the age where she just goes with the flow! She is happy to go to any game, anywhere, anytime, for either of her brothers. Thankfully, Power Up at church on Wednesday nights is all Katie is doing right now.

In what little downtime we've had this week, Katie and I have had some interesting discussions. Most circulating around Heaven.

Katie: "Mom, what's Heaven like?"

Me: "The most wonderful place you can imagine. Where nobody is ever sick or hurting, and we sing and worship and play all day."

Katie: "Oh. How do you die? Do you just lay down and go to sleep?"

Me: "Um, sometimes."

Katie: "Well how does God get you to Heaven when you die? Does He just pick you up and carry you there?"

Me: "Yes, Katie, that sounds perfect."

And after the week that our country has had, and all the news that circulates all around us day in and day out, doesn't that just sound PERFECT?? I don't know what prompted all the questions this week but she was completely serious, and very curious. Jack and I were just talking this morning about news-stuff and it just had me longing for the day when we who love the Lord our God and have invited Him to live in their hearts and be Lord of our lives will live in Heaven with Him. No more wars, no more accidents, no more cancer, no more anxiety and worrying, for there will be none of that in Heaven. Revelation 21:4 says that "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." How marvelous! My friends, it doesn't get any better than that.

Have a great weekend, friends!

xoxo

I Miss You!

Love this verse from my Beth Moore devotional book this morning:

"Affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope." Romans 5:3-4

On another note, can you guess who I'm missing?? It's bad...like aching. I need me some sister time desperately. Oh, and super-cute nephew cuddles too! Thank goodness Easter is coming up and I will get to spend some time with everybody!

Blessings xoxo

Pouring Out God's Spirit

What a beautiful Sunday! And NO, I'm not talking about the weather! It is completely overcast, cold, and rainy here...ick. It was seriously messin with my mood this morning when I got out of bed. I was just blah.

Katie and I were the only two up at 730am, so I got her some breakfast [at our house breakfast = cereal], made coffee for Jack, green tea for me, and settled in my recliner for my quiet time. It wasn't long before Katie ventured into the living room to see what I was doing. I told her I was reading my Bible and having some quiet time with God. Her eyes lit up and she ran up to her room and got HER Bible. She proceeded to crawl up into my lap and opened her Bible and began to read. Well, at least the words she CAN read:

"To...of...the...and...God...it...going...get..." You understand;-)

As I was sitting there wondering how on earth I was going to have any "quiet" time in my quiet time, God laid this verse full on my heart :

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6

So I embraced the moment and enjoyed our morning time, and prayed for many more just like it.

While we were at church, it was pouring down rain outside, but inside the only thing pouring was the Spirit of the Lord. I love it when you can tell at the first praise and worship song that God is present and even if you came in "blah" you certainly won't leave that way. I love our opening song so much, I just had to share it with you:



Have a blessed day, friends:-)

xoxo