Ya’ll- I have accomplished more and felt more in control of my life in the last few weeks but I have also been the most tired and *felt* the least productive. Anybody else feeling that way lately? Like, yeah, you’re getting stuff done and accomplishing quite a bit but still feel like your wheels are spinning in the mud? Maybe it’s just because I’m so exhausted or have big plans and goals so the every day seems insignificant. But I do know that in order to achieve my big goals, each day is in fact significant in the grand scheme of things. So everyday I’ve been super deliberate and focused and done a really good job of keeping our family on track with our new eating habits/ lifestyle, putting an emphasis on being active, and staying in a solid routine. We’ve been able to adapt and fine tune it without causing major disruptions and honestly it’s gone so smoothly that I’m quite shocked. Emmy is doing well with the different routine and she’s loving being more active. Isaac has done superbly with making sure he takes his lunches that I’ve prepped for him to take work and just taking more deliberate measures to make good choices and he’s also been more active thanks to the time change allowing for evening activities due to it still being light outside. So as a whole I’m very grateful its all going so well.
My goal for this week (starting Tuesday) is to close my exercise ring on my Apple Watch every day. Even though I’ve been getting my steps in, my workout ring hasn’t closed all the way each day so that’s my priority this week. I’m still going to shoot for around 8K steps minimum each day which I don’t think should be that bad.
Doing 10K each day was actually very achievable for me. I missed 2 days of my goal last week due to some hormonal complications and a migraine that wouldn’t go away but otherwise met or far exceeded my step goal every day! I ended up averaging almost 11K steps each day despite having two days that I didn’t quite make it. All in all I’m happy with what I achieved and throwing an almost 5 mile walk in on Sunday afternoon made me feel pretty accomplished. Considering a 5K is 3 miles, and I walked 5 miles, I considered it my own little race against myself. That counts right? I need a participation ribbon or commemorative shirt, me thinks.
One of my favorite parts about this last week was that I had so many leftovers from the previous week! And all the recipes I planned were so much easier than I anticipated. I wasn’t sure I was even going to be able to get the groceries I needed for this week, but thankfully I was able to hunt down everything- and with just 2 trips to Walmart, so super win! When I went and observed how bad the food shortage was, I went ahead and got just a little extra. For instance, I had one recipe that called for 1lb of ground beef so I grabbed the package with 5lbs and froze the extra in 1lb. increments allowing me extra options for a potential full lock down/ quarantine scenario which is becoming more and more plausible unfortunately. I did the same thing with chicken and frozen veggies so we have plenty of options and back up without having to give up our new eating routine or being ridiculous hoarders.
Out of my selected recipes for the week, there were 2 I particularly enjoyed. The first was the taco soup. It was incredible easy, flavorful, and satisfying. You can find the recipe on Brittany’s website: instantloss.com I think I might add some black beans to it next time for a little extra substance as well as to make it spread even further.
My second favorite was the frittata. What I loved about the frittata was that you can throw just about anything in there! I used Brittany’s original recipe as a base and threw some extra stuff in there. It ended up with broccoli, some cheese, ham, breakfast sausage, fresh tomato, onion, and then I did a total of 9 eggs. Unfortunately, I don’t have a baking dish small enough to fit my instant pot so I put it in a pie plate and popped it in the oven at 325F for about 50-60 minutes. The BEST part was that I made it on Saturday night then Isaac put it in the oven to bake on Sunday morning while we had a nice, chill, coffee time and it was ready just in time to eat while we tuned in for church via Facebook live. Yay!
As far as food goes for this week, I’ve still got the ingredients for a few recipes I didn’t need to make since we had so many leftovers. I’ll be making those up and posting them in my InstaStories so be sure to pop over here and gimme a follow to see what we scrounge up during quarantine.
evening for Emmy and
I to ride together since I don’t have one yet.
Emmy and I did stay really active and consistent this week, like I already mentioned. Even though I didn’t make my step goal a couple days, we still went for daily walks/ bike rides and were sure to stay active. Emmy has become a little champion on her bike and will ride or walk her bike the whole time with no breaks. She’s also conquered the hills on our route which are no joke, especially for a training-wheel free, newbie biker.
We also drug out the pool that I bought super cheap the end of last year. Since the weather has been around 80-85 degrees, it has certainly warranted some aquatic play when she goes out in the middle of the day with Poppy to let out some energy.
A favorite during school time has been this spiral bound, dry erase alphabet and numbers book. It has definitely been helping her learn to hold the marker better as well as reinforce her knowledge of the letter we’re working on. We got ours at Walmart but amazon has a bunch of options very similar like this one by Alphaprints.
In other news, we enjoyed getting to spend some time with our sweet friends, Leia and Wyatt. We started at the park then ended up migrating to my house where we ended up having lunch and therefore turned a morning playdate and coffee into almost an entire day of hanging out and just enjoying each other’s company. I’m so grateful for the friendship God has provided to me through Leia. She is an incredible woman of God and is so thoughtful and generous. She’s also such a beautiful person in general and God was so gracious to put her in my life.
Emmy loves playing with Wyatt and they’ve quickly become good little buddies. ❤
My absolute highlight of the week was my sweet, not-so-little-anymore sister, Lydia, getting engaged to the love of her life, Chad. I’ve loved seeing how they make each other better people and how their relationship has grown. They both have a great future ahead and I’m so excited about making her wedding dress, as I have been officially commissioned to do so.
Sunday was a very full day! We had a nice and relaxing time waking up and sippin’ on our coffee then ate breakfast- that awesome frittata I mentioned earlier. Once we finished breakfast, we got settled in the living room and did church via YouTube and Facebook live. I’m so glad our church put that together and made sure we still got to “attend” and worship together. It was even more special that we got to cozy up on the couch as a family and enjoy hearing God’s word. We love our church so much!
After church, we headed out to my parents’ so Isaac could pick something up and we ended up stealing them for a whole afternoon of just hanging out and talking. We got to see the fifth-wheel camper they just purchased to renovate and I’ll never turn down the opportunity to talk about remodeling. Emmy loved being able to ride on the tractor with Grandpa of course.
Something you quickly learn about my parents is that there’s always bound to be at least one or two animals around to be held and pet. We quickly fell in love with the latest litter
of kittens. They were SO cuddly! Isaac is slightly allergic to cats but we aren’t sure exactly how much they’d affect him if they lived here. We’re currently talking about getting the little kitty Emmy is holding, named Wolfgang (subject to change), for a trial run. I’ve been researching all the different ways to make it have as little affect as possible on someone with allergies. Keeping the cat bathed/ brushed, the carpets vacuumed daily and even neutering the male cats will apparently all help. So we’ll take all the proper measures to give it the best shot possible and worst case, if it just affects Isaac too much, the kitty will go back to mom and dad’s and live there. They were so sweet to say that the kitty could stay with them if it didn’t work out so it will still be Emmy’s cat just at a different house. If you think about it, say a prayer that it goes well and we can keep him here with Emmy.
I hope everyone is staying safe, taking the proper precautions, and has enough freaking toilet paper (and other general necessities) to get through this Corona Virus/ Covid-19 quarantine. Stay cool, peeps, and I’ll see you around soon!
Big Loss - Big Resolution 