Category Archives: Uncategorized

Whole30 – Week 3

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone….

Friday April 15, 2016

Breakfast – Two eggs cracked, with peppers & onions and baked till done
Lunch – Final batch of left over chili
Dinner – The most amazing Spicy Thai Zoodle Salad

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I absolutely adore Pad Thai! The flavors and umami involved tantalize my taste buds, so when I found this recipe from Nom Nom Paleo I was very eager to try it! Since I’m now half way thru I treated myself to… the Nom Nom Paleo cookbook written by Michelle Tam & Henry Fong!

 

Saturday April 16, 2016

Breakfast – Adele Sausage over some Kale, onions & salsa
Lunch – Trail Snacks
Dinner – Pan Seared Salmon

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I’ve never really liked salmon, but a trip to Whole Foods to find dried porchini mushrooms had me passing by some yummy looking salmon so I decided to give it a final try! I’ve tried salmon on several occasions, but never really LOVED it. Today I found a yummy marinade involving balsamic vinegar, and rosemary. First I noticed the skin was still on the one side, so I decided to filet that off! I know some people cook with it on, but I was creeped out by it. My daughter wanted me to save the scales and sew her a mermaid costume, but I told her that wasn’t going to happen! HA. I pan seared it in some ghee to get a nice crust! I also whipped up a nice kale salad and some roasted tomatoes. It was fairly good, but I think my [short stayed] love affair with salmon has come to a close. There are so many other species of fish that I enjoy so much more!

 

Sunday April 17, 2016

Breakfast – Sweet Potato, Apple & Sausage skillet
Lunch – Salad
Dinner – Cracklin’ Chicken

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After subscribing to the Nom Nom Paleo podcast (do you see a trend here folks?) and hearing that Lil’ O started out not wanting to eat paleo I needed to find a POW WOW dinner to get my daughter on board! (She is for sure a sugar addict and I’m trying to help her quit that!) So I made Lil’ O’s favorite Cracklin’ Chicken! It is now also Lil’ K’s favorite as well! My daughter exclaimed, “Mom, I want you to make this again soon! But not regular soon – VERY VERY soon!” She also demanded that I pack it for her lunch the next day! I call that a win.

I also was so excited to eat this – that I forgot to snap a photo until after my meal was over, but I found this hilarious e-card which has described my relationship with Whole30 so far!

 

Monday April 18, 2016

Breakfast – Left over Sweet Potato, Apple & Sausage skillet
Lunch – Left over Cracklin’ Chicken
Dinner – Egg Drop Soup

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Tonight I had a meeting that would go from 6pm-8 or 9pm, so I threw a Lara Bar in my bag knowing I was going to make the ever so quick Egg Drop Soup. Last summer I was going through our freezer chest and found 5 chicken backs. For those of you who are new to my blog, our friends raise our chickens for us, and we help process them. They are humanely raised, and humanely processed, abx free {ranging} chickens! So what to do with chicken backs? They don’t really provide a lot of meat, so I took 5 days, my crockpot and lots of yummy herbs and veggies from my garden and made bone broth! Froze them into little batch bags, and forgot about them until today!

I ran down stairs, thawed a bag out real quick, whipped up some eggs, sliced a scallion, and jalapeno to crank up the heat, and topped with a little cilantro for a Thai tasting Egg Drop Soup! From start to finish I think it took me 10 minutes to whip this up. That’s what I call a week night or emergency dinner!

 

Tuesday April 19, 2016

Breakfast – Left over Sweet Potato, Apple & Sausage skillet
Lunch – Left over Egg Drop Soup
Dinner – Taco Tuesday of course on Romaine Boats

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Wednesday April 20, 2016

Breakfast – Two Eggs baked with peppers and scallions
Lunch – Taco Salad
Dinner –  Tacos

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Thursday April 21, 2016

Breakfast – Two Eggs baked with peppers and scallions
Lunch –  Two Eggs baked with peppers and scallions
Dinner – Cauliflower Pizza Bites & then Sausage in Marinara

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How I feel!

Mind – My mind is pretty clear. Gone away is the brain fog that plagued me. I used to joke [shame on me] around pretty heavily that I probably had early onset Alzheimer’s because I could be in the middle of a conversation and completely forget what I was talking about. Or I would forget to do stuff that was pretty routine stuff.

 

Body – Do you know the muffin man? Well – for a long while (since my mid 20s at least) I’ve slowly been developing the dreaded “muffin top”! I’m noticing finally this week that ever so slowly that is trimming itself up! Its true what they say, “Abs are made in the kitchen”. Recent studies show that nutrition is nearly 90% important when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight vs. 10% exercise! While I don’t plan to be a strict “WholeLifer” I do plan (as of now) to maintain a fairly strict Paleo diet as my body seems to really like being treated this way. 

I’ve also been sleeping like a ROCK! Gone is my nighttime sugar rush rollercoaster which would ALWAYS wake me up nearly every night around 2-3 a.m. I now sleep soundly into the morning. I do still wake up tired, but that’s because I’m an infotainment addict, and love reading, and catching up on my social media outlets. I’m slowly getting better at that as well! My new bedtime is usually around 10:30pm!

 

Soul – My soul is refreshed right now! Nearly 10 days ago I attended Outcry a Christian Worship concert that renewed the Holy Spirit in me and refreshed any parts of me that were growing dull, or complacent. My annual trip into the BWCA is coming up soon, and I’m looking forward to attending that as well! Obviously I know that God exists outside of the BWCA but something about really getting out into the wilderness amps up His energy in my life. When I tune out the static I can actually hear from Him! Funny how that works!

 

Overall things are good. Life is good! Its now coming into the last week on Whole30! I will wait to post until the 30th instead of next Thursday/Friday and close out this series. I will continue to post my journey, and I’m already thinking about how I want to carry these new healthy behaviors into my daily lifestyle. Towards the beginning I mentioned something to my husband about, “Well once this is over I can have xyz… “ and he says, “Wait a minute… after 30 days you’re just going to go back to what you used to do?…”

Even if I don’t have any yucky reactions to certain foods I think I’m going to carry most of this lifestyle on.  After all if I’m feeling this good on the program, why go back to unhealthy behaviors if I’m thriving without?

Until nextime.

A Few of My Favorite Things! #1

Happy Monday! I hope you are all having an amazing start to spring! I realize that the first day of spring isn’t until March 20th, but the weather is in the 60’s, humming birds have returned to the office near my building, and running OUTSIDE has re-ensued.

In this first addition of “A Few of My Favorite Things!” I wanted to share a few things that are some of my favorites! Perhaps it will be a restaurant or store review, a favorite recipe I found on Pinterest, or new fun ideas that I’d love to have if all the cards were stacked right.

1.) Trader Joe’s – Went full on grocery (& wine) shopping at Trader Joe’s last Friday! I’ve been in there before, but never really got meals for a whole week or needed assistance. Well let me tell you! The employees there are the most amazing people in customer service! When asking someone where something was, they weren’t annoyed that they had to walk me half way over the store to help me find something, but acted as if it were their mission to make me feel like the most important person in the store. I was impressed so much that I may call the store tomorrow and ask to speak to the manager to rave about the Friday PM crew! Plus their $5 wine is actually really quite amazing! (coming from a “wine snob”)

2.) Sauna time – If all of the cards are stacked right, I’m crossing my fingers that my husband can build us a sauna this summer! Health benefits aside I’ve enjoyed drooling over photos of saunas on Pinterest, but realize there has to be a bit of practicality as well!

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3.) Taco Tuesday – We have full on implemented this on Tuesdays in our family! The three of us absolutely LOVE Tacos, and with the many variations of taco we felt we would never get bored!  Besides shaking it up in the protein department (e.g. Venison, Beef or Chicken) we generally stick to the tired and true taco!

4.) Homemade Tortilla Chips – In addition to Taco Tuesday – I may or may not have a full blown obsession with tortilla chips. We almost always have various salsa laying around, but inevitably we run out of chips.  Now – I do prefer my brand of chips, but when I’m running low, I was blown away  by how unbelievably easy it was to whip up some! The good news, though this particular chip I linked to is thicker (I prefer the thinner chips) it is very sturdy when making nachos! (A great meal for left over taco fixin’s)

5.) A Lent to repent printables by Ann Voskamp. I absolutely love these printables that Ann Voskamp made available to her viewers. You do have to sign up on her website, but it’s pretty easy, and you can choose if you want to be mailed each day, or less often. Its like a little fortune cookie of faith each day with some amazing, and practical ways to move closer to God this Lenten season.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Buy me a Boat

According to my amazing co-worker Autumn – today’s $1.5 Billion lottery – if taken the cash option will still yield you $960 Million Dollars.

So of course I bought a ticket.

In fact – I went in with my co-workers and bought 80 tickets!

Powerball Jackpot

Purchased Powerball lottery tickets are shown Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, in Miami. The Powerball jackpot has grown to over $1 billion dollars for the next drawing on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

The entire way to work I listened to Chris Janson’s Buy me a Boat.

So I got to thinking… what would I do with the money? My husband has other ideas, but if it were entirely up to me… this is what I would do.

 

1.) Obviously pay off any debt we had.

2.) Buy 4 houses. Yeah – I know… 4.
a. Out of Ely Minnesota so that we could have a place to stay and travel to the BWCA
b. The Shores of Lake Superior – for the times we want to go up on the Gunflint or go downhill skiing at Lutsen!
c. The Florida Keys – you know… when MN experiences a polar vortex!
d. Our actual dream house with is kind of realistically attainable – which we would build regardless in the next 10-15 years – we hope! And procure more chickens, goats and cows, so I can live my dream of being a butter seller at the Minneapolis Farmers Market!

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3.) Give $20-$50 Million to Eagle Brook Church to build more campuses in the Twin Cities!

4.) Buy an epic pontoon

5.) Travel to Bora Bora

6.) Make sure my mom was taken care of for the rest of her life.

7.) Save for my daughter to go to any school of her choice for any degree she chose

8.) Actually write books which I’ve been thinking about for years now.

9.)  Ok – maybe a Cabin on Madeline Island too!

10.) Travel semi-annually to the Napa & Sonoma Vineyards!

12.) Pay off my new Sport Ford Explorer  – oh yeah – P.s. I got a new car last November 😉 (as pictured!)16epr_pg_000_ext_full

13.) Buy a Platinum Ford Expedition for my husband

14.) Buy a Porche Carrera for date night

15.) Give $X Million dollars to Cancer Research

16.) Give $X Million dollars to Feed my Starving Children.

The rest I would put in separate accounts.  – one to invest in. one to live off of – one to save.

What would you do with $960 Million Dollars?

 

Happy Birthday Blog!

Exactly eight years to the date I birthed this blog out of my imaginings for what my precious baby would bring.

I wanted a place to put down the words that I felt while feeling a tiny being tight inside of me, and the nuanceses of parenthood.

What this blog has become and grown into has become so much more.

Just like how you see your precious newborn you have all of these hopes and ideals, and pretty soon you have something else entirely on your hands.

I look back to that very first post – exactly eight precious years ago, and in some ways cannot believe that I have been writing this long, and this consistently.

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At first it was all about pregnancy woes and how I thought I wasn’t going to have any morning sickness  – to experiencing FULL BLOWN morning sickness for [read] the entire pregnancy! To Family, fitness, Food + Wine, [sub]urban farming, and most recently faith! I’m like the Target of blogs – a one stop shop!

Thank you so much to my readers who have been with me since the first day I shared this blog – to those of you who have just found me recently! I hope that I can continue to post stuff that you find inspiring, and coming back!

THANK YOU ALL!

Click below for posts on or near the anniversary date!

2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014

2015 (so far)

❤ Linds

Welcome Home

Welcome home readers. Thank you so much for joining me here! I hope that this news isn’t too chaotic amongst the business of the season, with your endless to-do lists, and shopping lists, and honey do lists – and…

But seriously. Welcome home to my new blog home – www.littleblessedlife.com. I chose this for of course longevity, but also as the marriage between my “Minnesota/Family Life happenings, and my journey as I blog about how my fathers death has affected me this past year, and for matters of faith. I am so fortunate to live a blessed life. A life where I have a dear family to support me, wonderful friends & co-workers to lift me up each day, and passions that I have been blessed with that I could have never imagined!

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There will be more fun to come in the next month or so, but my lips are sealed for now!

You will notice along the top there is a menu! If you would like to know something specific I have tried my darndest to categorize a lot of my blog posts into a particular theme or topic!

There is:

Faith –
Where you will find posts about my journey along loosing my father, or if a particular worship song, or Sunday message at church caught special attention!

Family
Life lessons that my husband, daughter or pets give to me. Sometimes it’s just re-caping our weekend, or a little family gathering that has blessed my life.

Farming (Suburban)
This one is pretty fun for me. I love gardening, and we own 4 “backyard” chickens that are LEGAL in my city and the zone I live in. (so don’t you worry) I am
passionate about homesteading, and living life more simply.

Food + Wine
I love food, and I love wine, and sometimes I like to take pretty pictures of my food, post recipes, and reviews of wines.

Fun
We love adventure, mostly camping! This year we are planning our first trip to the BWCAW in the spring of 2015!

So please update your records for me! You may also subscribe in the upper right hand corner by entering your e-mail address and each time I post it will be like a little treasure delivered directly to your e-mail inbox! If that’s too intense for you, add me to your favorite blog management site, or update your bookmarks!

Love each and every one of you!
~ Mn Lindsey