I have a secret, I was over 40 pounds heavier than I am right now from just 2 years ago and I was a mess.  I also have about the same amount to lose still.  The first 20 pounds I lost because I had significant anxiety and couldn't eat because I  decided to leave my husband.  I was so overwhelmed by the emotions, it crippled me.  The emotions ranged from anger, to sadness, to happiness back to sadness, back to anger.  I was all over the map.  I couldn't sleep at night, I would fall into bed exhausted and instantly fall sleep for 2 hours only to wake up and be awake in bed staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night.  For me, divorce meant failure.  I don't like to fail.

My journey is probably not unique for others going through divorce or other difficult situations in their life but for me, it was unbelievable.  I am not weak, I always thought I was a strong, independent woman.  But over about 6-8 months, I will say it again...I was a mess.  The least little thing would send into an anxiety attack.  I spent one night standing in my closet talking to my cousin on the phone because the anxiety was so incredibly bad.

I had to find a solution for me.  It was imperative, the sleep deprivation was affecting me in so many ways.  I was constantly tired.  I couldn't concentrate at work much less at home.  I became a couch potato.  I didn't want to be around people.

I have always been an avid reader and I have read tons of self help books so I started reading again.  That started to help me focus.  But one book I read, made me stumble onto the positive affects of meditation.  So I decided to try meditation. How does one do meditation?  Argh.  You sit and don't think. So I sat on the couch and tried not to think.  Uh yeah that isn't easy, the number of thoughts that went through my head was unbelievable.  I gave up that day.  So I did some research on line and found some YouTube chants, such as So Hum.  There are some that have multiple words but I needed something simple.  So Hum spoke to me.  It means "I am".  So then I would listen to So Hum on YouTube and that helped me calm my brain down, then I would do it in bed at night.  It would help me fall asleep.  After stressful situations related to the divorce, I would come home and meditate to So Hum, I could do it without playing it in the background.  It really calmed my nerves and agitation.  I starting walking and meditating as I walked.  I found some Deepak Chopra affirmations, I would listen to those in the car or as I was walking or in bed.  I would take a lunch break at the office and sit in an empty cubicle and do affirmations or do So Hum meditation.  I started doing chakra meditation.

I believe meditation saved me, it helped me to learn to manage my anxiety.  I very seldom get it now.  I am not as dedicated as I was to meditation 2 years ago, but I know it helps me tremendously.  So one of the things I want to start doing again is to get back into the routine of meditating.

So this story is to be continued.... more to come tomorrow on the weight loss story.  More to come on my story......

Keto Prep Sunday for the Week

Every Sunday, well nearly every Sunday, I do Keto prep for the week.  I try to eat low carb, high fat, moderate protein.  For those joining this blog and my journey through life, I started a health kick almost 2 years ago.  I have tried all the traditional diets that just didn't work for me, I gained and lost, gained and lost, repeat cycle but in December 2018 I started reading about Keto and decided to give it a try.  It worked, I have lost weight and am maintaining the weight loss.  I have not lost all that I want to lose but I am on a plateau which is ok right now.  It gives me a chance to prove to myself that I can do this and maintain.   About 5 months ago I started reading Dr. Jason Fung's books on Fasting, I have integrated that with Keto.

So below I will share part of this week's prep.  I have been a bit lazy today watching TV so I haven't done as much as I normally do but at least it will give you some ideas.  During the week I eat breakfast and lunch fairly close to on another, within an hour or 2.  My goal is to only eat during that time period and fast the rest until the next day.  My "feasting" time is typically 9:30ish to 12:00, then I don't eat again until the next day.  Some days I do this easily others not.  I have struggled the last 3 weeks because I spent some time away from home on weekends and was eating not so keto-ish.  Needless to say I have struggled with the fasting.

So breakfast is bacon, lettuce, tomato's and mayonnaise.  I have made enough for 3 days.  I have this a lot.  I love bacon.

Lunch/dinner is chicken cooked with Chicken thighs, taco seasoning and salsa baked in the oven.  So instead of taco shells or tortilla's as they are not keto friendly, I use yellow or orange peppers as my shells.  I put a layer of cream cheese on the shell.  I will heat the chicken at lunch time.  This is an easy go too.  I have even made during the week as it is so easy.

This is just almond butter and celery that I eat in between breakfast and lunch.

I also have some steamed shrimp in the fridge already cooked that I bought at Costco.  That gives me another quick option one day this week.

Have a great week all!

A New Home's Excitement

The last 2 years of my life have had enormous changes.  Good and bad. Easy and difficult.  Sadness and happiness.  But what it introduced is a new chapter.  I moved from Virginia to Delaware almost a year ago to where the Bank has a core site.  I have fallen in love with the area.  It is an hour from Baltimore and Philadelphia, 2 hours from Washington DC, 3 hours from New York and close to a lot of other exciting places.  What I love is the history, the parks and the people are friendly.  I have decided I am definitely an east coast girl!

The big news is I bought a home, a townhouse!  I haven't closed on it yet, but that is scheduled to happen November 19th.  What an exciting time!  A new beginning in a new home.  It has a red front door!  My hope is to be into it before Christmas....I am excited to decorate for Christmas this year!

Here are exterior pictures of my townhouse.  I am saving to share the interior pics as the days progress.  I am excited to put my stamp on this new home.  I want to decorate it with yard sale, thrift store and antique shop items.  One of my focuses on decorating is going to need to be storage, the kitchen is nice sized by doesn't have a lot of cabinet space, so getting creative is going to be key.  I will blog about my ideas in the coming days.

I can see greenery for Xmas on the railing outside with maybe some white and green lights this year and a new wreath!  I have started looking but the right one hasn't grabbed me yet.












I can envision chairs, maybe a glider, a grill and a table with chairs and people.  I also want to put a privacy fence up on the deck so that both my neighbors and I have some privacy.   Will need a new paint job and what you can't see in these pictures is the work the prior owner did on the deck.  When I get in, I will take pics of the changes he made.

I will have a SHE SHED!  I am thinking it will become a place for projects and of course a push lawn mower.  That is the one thing I am not looking forward to...mowing and weed eating!  But I am looking forward to planting bushes and flowers.  Hydrangea's and Peonies will be the first in the ground come spring

Doing a To DO!

Working a full time job, raising a daughter, doing bills, keeping house and yes the list goes on and on of to do's. Trying to find time and oh yes have the energy to do a craft project or any kind of project becomes a struggle. So my cuz Eva said just do 10 minutes of something whether a fun project or a to do that needs being completed. So that 10 minutes evolves into 20 or 30 which is great cause it gets you moving or if you only do the 10' so be it! So I started something that doesn't take a lot of brain cells or I can work it in when I am watching TV. I started crocheting again!

365 Days of a New Year

Today is a new day but yet life continues on as it did yesterday, yet my thoughts and feelings are a bit different today.  December 2017 I made a huge decision to make a very significant leap into the unknown and all of 2018 was a journey of change in my thoughts and feelings.  I acknowledged them and listened to them. There was alot of anquish, anxiety, tears but there was also laughter and smiles and reconnection's with friendships I let slide to the side for so long.  So often in life, we don't pay attention to what is really going on in our heart, our mind, our dreams, or with our friends because we are too caught up in our own or others pain but now it is time to pay attention to all that is around us and find the joy.

So for the next 364 days, my goal is to journal my new journey into a new state and to a new way of thinking and yes in some ways, to a new life.  Come along for the ride and lets see what happens.

Dreaming..........

What do I want out of life?  Many things....  Dreaming big and dreaming small...regardless of which one you do, dreaming and aspiring is so important.  Is it a bucket list or is it just a want list?  Is it tied up in who I am?  Does it give you joy to dream or does it make you melancholy for what you don't have now?  Do I have the gumption to think big and to not just assume it is outside my reach?  Do you just settle for what is there or do you keep reaching or pushing yourself to the next step?  Do the everyday stresses of life, spill over into your dreams and prevent you from pursuing them?  How do you find the balance and the reality to make your dreams come true? 

In my opinion, dreams keep us engaged in life and keep us looking for the next step.  Till the day I die, I want to be dreaming and thinking about what I can do next.  I don't want to have a bucket list that isn't continously full.   But the difficulty is finding the balance to live your everyday the way you need to and weaving the dreams and the steps to make those dreams come true into your everyday life.  

This blog was one of those wants, it has been slow to progress, but thats ok, its ultimately for me and anyone that wants to join this journey. 

Back a couple months ago, my family and I drove to Charlottesville, Va. which is the home of the University of Virginia.  Our intent was to leave and stay at a lake close by but the weather prevented us from getting away like we wanted to...traffic was a nightmare and when you have a husband that fishes for a living, you have to take care of boats, in our case 2 that particular day.  Anyway, so we arrived in Charlottesville late on our first vacation day and decided to skip the lake.  On our second day, we drove up to Monticello for a tour.  Oh what a glorious spot, it is so beautiful up there.  For those of you that don't know...with my following of 2..I am sure you do...anyway, Monticello was home to Thomas Jefferson.  He was a true visionary and I can only imagine what his bucket list contained until the day he died.  His home is full of inventions or ideas he took from visits overseas and he weaved them into his home.   The amount of "things" he did everyday would blow you away.  His writings alone were incredible. He had a chair he would write in and on the arms he attached candle holders so that he could see better.  He didn't have a copy machine but  he had this gadget (my word) that essentially attached 2 pencils together, one he wrote with and the other one wrote at the same time he did so that he would have 2 versions of everything he wrote.  He was so full of life and seemed to cram everything he possibly could into his life, in my opinion, no grass grew under his feet.  That's what I want to figure out how to do, cram the fun stuff into my life and let go of some of the less fun stuff that brings me down.

Now, how do I do that????

 

Blossom's Cheater Cobbler

Are you ever sitting there watching a good TV show, and someone in the family says..."I want something sweet.  What do we have?"  and you as the mom, think "Well I don't have anything because I am on a diet and have purged all sweet things from the house."....almost all sweet things. 

Well the below picture is of a dessert I have developed, redeveloped, repurposed, changed and made it from just about anything in the house.  What is it?  My cheater cobbler. 

This is the start of some blogs I will share periodically called Blossom's Cheater Recipes.  I very seldom follow a recipe...my daughter gave me a recipe the other day and said, "mom, please follow the recipe...it sounds really good".  I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't follow it...but she liked it anyway!

Sometimes my Cheater Recipes are just a solution to a need for something quick and easy but yummy or to go to someones house like my Cheater Cake that I bought at the store on the way to her house then made it in 5 minutes using her microwave.  And then there is the full fledged Cheater Meals.  Cheater recipes are always about what do I have in the house that I can make yippee skippee!  So, visit periodically for a new or old Cheater Recipe concoction.

Anyway, back to the cobbler.  How do you make it?  Simple.  Start with Bisquick.  I ALWAYS have Bisquick in the house.  If you don't know what it is, buy a box at the store and start with the recipes on the back.  I have a friend...you know who you are...who had never used Bisquick. 

Here's the recipe:   take 1 and 1/4 cup of Bisquick and 1 Cup of milk, I use 2% milk.  Whisk/Stir the 2 ingredients.  Once mixed add in some sugar, heck if I know how much to  tell you maybe 2/3 of a cup.  I don't measure the sugar.  My husband likes it sweet so I add quite a bit of sugar.  Now set that aside.

In a skillet put some butter (you got it...i don't measure) maybe 3 tablespoons, sliced apple (4 small apples that weren't ones anyone would eat) with the skin removed and fresh blueberries,  a little vanilla extract, some sugar mixed with some cinnamon.  Cook until tender and bubbly, I don't like alot of liquid, and I don't like the apples real crunchy, so I cooked it down some.  Then you dump the apple/blueberry mix into the Bisquick bowl and stir slightly, don't mix completely, you want the batter to stay a little white when it cooks.

Dump this into a glass cooking dish sprayed with Pam.   Place the dish in the oven at 350 degrees.  I would say cook for about 20 minutes then go into it with a spoon and see it is still shows alot of batter.  If it does keep it cooking until it is more like cobbler when you go to the bottom.  My husband likes it with ice cream but I very seldom have ice cream in the house. 

Options if you don't have apples and blueberries.  You could pretty much use any fresh fruit.  Might need to cook it down a little and get some of the juiciness cooked out.  I want to try peaches sometime, haven't had a chance but I bet they are good!

Another option and this one is the original recipe and really, really easy.  I had a can of cherry pie filling.  So make this slightly different.  Spray the baking dish with Pam.  Dump the can of pie filling (any kind) into the dish, then pour the same Bisquick mixture (Bisquick, milk and sugar) as above over the top of the filling.  Stick it in the oven and bake.  Easy smeasy!!!   Sometimes I add a pat of butter to the top while it is cooking and sprinkle some sugar across the top.

I have yet to try this recipe with something chocolatey like Cocoa Powder which I always have in the house...but I have an idea starting in my head that I will have to try.


Lastly, serve it in a pretty dish like I did above with some  old real silver (well silverplated).  By the way, all my silver pieces were picked up at yardsales.