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Not trying to bemoan the “poor man”, but I’ve needed heat before and didn’t have a hot water bottle, a heating pad, or one of those microwavable thingies (I don’t even have a microwave!).

I learned about this method when I was pregnant and had the flu. I read that heat on the abdomen would help reduce stomach spasms and, in turn, reduce vomiting. I tried it. It worked!

More recently, I went to the chiropractor for some terrible back pain I was having. He was so helpful and recommended heat on my lower back. Of course, my mind went through my “medicine cabinet” and I knew I didn’t have anything for heat until I remembered this trick and even found my original supplies!

Take a small pot and pour rice in it. (I don’t use my organic brown basmati rice, though. I grab an old bag of white sushi rice that I hardly ever use.) Turn the burner to medium and shake the pan several times. When the rice is hot, pour it into an old pillow case, fold it over a few times and press it to the area needing heat. As the heat begins to dissipate, unfold the pillow case so there are less layers between it and you.

Surprisingly, the heat lasts for quite awhile and is super easy to reheat, by simply dumping the rice back into the pot and reheating. There is now always a pillowcase filled with rice in my medicine cabinet and I’m grateful for the cheap and easy heating pad I always have on hand.

Remember:

The rice is dry and so is the pot – we’re not cooking rice here, just heating the dry grain.

Electric heating pads emit EMF’s and may not be a great choice.

Microwavable heating pads use a microwave, which emits electromagnetic radiation. It wouldn’t be my first choice, even if I had one.

Rice + pot + pillowcase = quick, non-toxic, and practically free!

For the week of May 19th, 2014 – we are basking in the spring time beauty and enjoying a lot of time outside! I’m still enjoying my clean, updated kitchen and have some fun meals to share with you!

Enjoy your week!

Monday: Baked swordfish, asparagus and quinoa

Tuesday: My husband’s favorite baked chicken thighs (Nature’s Promise thighs are on sale at Martin’s this week!), corn (tis the season!), potatoes

Wednesday: Beef tacos with tomatoes, avocados, yogurt in lieu of sour cream, shredded yogurt cheese and salad

Thursday: Pizza – this new GF recipe I made a few weeks ago was a big hit – but wasn’t enough food (they’re small pizzas), so I’ll double it this time. One more note about this recipe – I didn’t use all the recommended flours but opted for my favorite “all purpose bread flour” by Jules. Unfortunately, Jules Gluten Free flours are no longer made by Jules. I’m patiently waiting for her new web page to be up and running so I can continue buying her flour blends and not supporting her old company, which is producing flour with her name on it without her permission.

I did it! I did it! I redid my kitchen cabinets, with the help of my “sister” and some really long, physically demanding days. (Please view the Slideshow below!) Sanding, sanding, sanding, staining, staining, and polyurethane. New door and drawer pulls and spray painted hinges (saved a lot of money that way!) – that’s how I got it done. This isn’t a step-by-step of how to redo your kitchen, though. You’ll find that all over the internet. This is a play-by-play of how I worked 16+ hours a day on this huge project, while caring for my children, providing meals, comfort and attention. And how we all fell apart.

It got me thinking: I don’t get much time alone. I don’t get much time for me. I guess you could count nap time, but I’m still “on”, always listening for a cry or a whimper, looking at the clock, seeing what I can get done while they’re resting. Then there’s bedtime, but I’m so tired by then, how can I do much of anything? I barely check my e-mail, maybe cuddle with my husband and then 9 o’clock rolls around and I’m more than ready to go to sleep. At 5:45 a.m. the next day, it all begins again.

This project was as much for my family, my husband and my home as it was for me. I like finishing things. I like transforming things and creating things. I really wanted this. But how?

So, here’s what I’ve learned about making time for Mommy:

1. Find things you love to do and do them. PERIOD.

2. When your kids interrupt you while doing something you love, explain to them what you’re doing and ask them if they’d like to help.

3. If what you love to do involves sitting down (reading, writing, crocheting or being on the computer), forget it. Seriously, my kids are angels when I’m busy, but if I stand or sit in one place for too long, I’m fair game.

4. Remember: they look to you for everything and even when you can’t be everything or do everything, you’re still their everything. Allow that realization to be an honor and a privilege instead of a burden.

5. Forgive yourself. For not being enough. For being selfish. For wanting peace and quiet once in a while. For arguing with a 3-year-old. For wishing a 12-hour day with your children on your husband (complete with chores, tantrums, laundry and dinner). For being human.

6. Forgive your children. They’re little people. They’re crazy little people (sometimes). They’re awesome little people (most of the time). They’re in uncharted territory and don’t have a clue what’s going on in their lives, let alone yours.

Phew! My kitchen is done! (pictures to come) This means a few things: it’s beautiful, I love it, it’s clean and organized again and I want to cook! I actually can’t wait to cook again, like really cook. Here’s the plan:

Monday: Tilapia (#9 with mayo – we use Vegenaise – cheese and spices), steamed broccoli and rice

Tuesday: Chicken, kale and chickpea soup with rosemary croutons (new recipe!)

Wednesday: Beef roast with Ceasar Salad

Thursday: Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (a favorite comfort dinner)

Good morning! I’m sorry I didn’t post this yesterday! Monday slipped by me, between trying to put my kitchen back together, missing my “sister” after a week together, getting my kids out of the house and on and on I could go.

It’s a “normal” week, with the exception of not having my kitchen back together yet. I tried to choose some simple recipes, since anything too complicated might require gadgets, appliances or pans I haven’t yet found!

Monday: Baked cod, steamed broccoli, rice

Tuesday: Easy roast chicken, potatoes, green beans

Wednesday: Southwestern ground beef casserole – adding spinach

Thursday: Corn tortilla quesadillas with veggies

I may be really busy with my impending DIY kitchen remodel, but I still have to feed my family! Sorry the blog and Facebook posts have been sparse – I’ll post pictures after it’s finished!

Here’s our menu for the week. What’s yours?

If you shop at Martin’s, please note that this week the scallops, asparagus, organic broccoli and organic spinach are on sale!




Monday: Scallops, asparagus and quinoa

Tuesday: Chicken, broccoli and rice – probably a curry type like this

Wednesday: Crockpot roast with potatoes and green beans (like this one but without the onion soup packet)

Thursday: GF man n (goat) cheese with spinach

We had the most wonderful weekend! I hope you did too! Meal-planning was a little sketchy this weekend because of our company AND the grocery store we were going to go to was closed for Easter. We ended up elsewhere and I chose fairly simple menu ideas dependent upon what was on sale.

The great thing about buying food when it’s on sale is that you can pull from that storage in the freezer when there’s not much on sale at the grocery store. We bought a 1/4 of a cow last fall and are still using that beef for our meals. We only buy from the store when there’s a great sale. I also purchase extra chicken when there’s a good sale and freeze it.

Here’s our meal plan for the week – hopefully it’s inspirational for you! Feel free to let me know what you’re having

Monday: Asian Cod, rice and broccoli (the cod is a new recipe and I’m looking forward to it)

Tuesday: Chicken sauteed with cauliflower and spinach, served with quinoa

Wednesday: Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and salad

Thursday: GF Pizza with spinach

I am not a hands free mom. I have to admit that.

I love the Hands Free Mama Revolution. It warms my heart and reminds me how much attention matters. This movement has opened my eyes to how impersonal technology has made us. Pictures of people at dinner staring at their phones and not each other make me think twice about my own phone usage and make changes accordingly. The articles posted have given me a needed boost some days to really look at my children and really connect with them. Of course, I was reading the articles on my phone, but that’s kind of my point….

Despite all I’ve read and all that has moved me, I’m just not a hands free mom. And when I think about it or try to be more like that, it feels like a diet and we all know how I feel about that. When I feel like something is labeled as “bad” and I “shouldn’t” do it, my brain panics. It goes into diet mode, restriction, bingeing, punishing and not loving. At. All. I want to reach out to the moms who are not “hands free” or to those who try, but fail to keep their phone away from their fingertips while parenting.

My phone has kept me connected during some of the loneliest moments of motherhood. Hours spent on a yoga ball bouncing my baby in a wrap, trying to get her to sleep – I texted with friends and read articles. Hours spent rocking and nursing or patting a baby late in the night – I played Words with Friends and Solitaire. Whether texts, research, Facebook, Pinterest, games or FaceTime, my phone has kept me connected during a fairly disconnected time of my life.

My phone has provided a window out of my tiny little world into the worlds of others. As I grew into my role as mother, I made incredible friends that I know I will have for life. Some of these have moved away and some are right down the street. I have group text messages that run all day, every day. I can be sure that when I wake up I will have a handful of messages from friends near and far as we share bits and pieces of our lives. We are each other’s witness to what many would describe as mundane, monotonous or just plain TMI (too much information). We get to share the tantrums, the kisses, the diapers and the disasters with each other and really be heard, really be seen, and even through a phone, really be comforted by each other. That’s a gift!

My phone has a CAMERA. Need I say more? Keeping my phone near me has enabled me to capture amazing moments of my kids’ lives. I absolutely love taking pictures and videos of them and sending them off to family and friends. It brings me (and others) so much joy. In some ways, having my phone ready to record or snap a picture, keeps me more in the moment and more connected to my children because I can freeze a second of their history, their growth and their personalities.

If there’s one thing the Hands Free Movement has done for me that I don’t enjoy is this essence of judgment. Whenever a mom chooses a certain path and talks about it, there’s this inevitable line drawn in the sand by those who are perhaps “more evolved”. I don’t think less of the mom who’s on her phone while pushing her kid in a swing at the park. How can I? Maybe she’s texting  her husband about dinner that night. Maybe she’s corresponding with friends about a hard day and a wounded spirit. Maybe she’s looking up where to take her kid to lunch. Maybe she’s checking her bank balance and worrying about how they’ll make ends meet this month. Maybe she’s me. I don’t think the judgment is inevitable or intentional, but I do think it happens. I know it happens.

I’m not choosing a side in the hands free movement. I think it’s eye opening, life-changing and incredibly beautiful. I just want to speak for those “on the other side”. And I’m choosing mindfulness. Mindfulness is one of those goals that always seems slightly out of reach. Trying to remain mindful about the things we do each day will bring us greater joy in the small things and shed light on areas that perhaps need a little change. So, I practice mindfulness with my phone usage. I leave it in the kitchen while I sit with my family for dinner. I silence it when I’m spending one-on-one time with one of my children. I don’t respond to non-urgent texts if I’m listening to my daughter speaking to me. I do pay attention to a text from a friend in need. I do stay active with Facebook groups and respond to moms who are asking for help. I do keep it near me and it does keep me sane.

I think phones, tablets and other technologies are only going to become more prevalent. They’re going to be a huge part of our children’s lives and I’m not going to pretend they don’t exist. I am going to practice polite and thoughtful phone usage, the kind I hope my daughters will practice when they have their own phones and people are speaking to them.

When my daughter says, “Don’t you want to put your phone down?” I feel like a failure. I can admit that. I can learn from that. I can give my family my undivided attention and then return to my “phone world” later, when I am feeling out of touch with adults and friends, when I’m needing to research a behavior or illness, when I’m trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, or when I just need to give my brain a break.

Parenting is hard work. Sometimes it’s the technology that keeps us grounded as opposed to segregating us from what’s happening around us. Sometimes it serves as a distraction in a boring waiting room for my child or a needed break on a long drive. I’m not going to knock my iPhone and I’m not going to beat myself up for using it every day. I’m going to dig deep for grace for myself and understanding of my reasons, while being mindful that my phone is not taking the place of the life I’m living right here. In fact, it puts me in touch with articles and movements like the Hands Free Revolution, that inspire me to be a better mom, a more focused and attentive mom, while continuing to take care of myself.

Spring has sprung! And then it left… I don’t know where you are at, but here in Virginia, we’ve gone from 80 degrees to potentially 30 degrees and rain this week. Sigh. It was a nice tease, though.

Whatever you have planned this week, I hope it includes some good meals!

Monday: Broiled salmon (all fish is on sale at Martin’s this week), latkes and roasted Brussels sprouts

Tuesday: Spaghetti and meatballs with spinach in the sauce

Wednesday: Easy roast chicken and a big salad

Thursday: Fried rice (I really need to write this recipe up for you – it’s one of my go-to, easy vegetarian meals)

Have you used the Search box on the blog, yet? Try typing in an ingredient or a dish and you might find a recipe or a link to one of my favorite recipes this way!

I’ve worked hard to get where I am: intuitive eating, not counting calories, eating what I crave, stopping when I’m full, appreciating and loving my body, moving my body because I want to, not because I “need to” (and certainly not because I have calories to burn). Because I’ve worked hard, I’m reticent to let anything creep in and mess with my heart and mind in this area. Still, it happens and I don’t want it to happen to you.

I’m not going to play semantics about whether you ever fully recover or fully heal from an eating disorder. That would be presumptuous. I am going to say that wherever you are on your journey of starving, bingeing, exercise purging, crash dieting, dieting in general, or eating intuitively, it’s yours, and yours alone. I will make no assumptions about you. Promise. What I share with you comes from my experience and the experience of clients. I hope it encourages you, educates you and helps you along your path.

Let’s face it: If you’re on this journey alongside me, you know there are some things you have to say “NO!” to and others you have to say “YES!” to if you’re going to survive the brainwashing, manipulative, subversive messages out there. No one is going to protect you like you.

No More Weight. Scales in your home, be gone! Scales at the doctors’ offices? Kindly ask them to not share the number with you. (If they laugh, tell them you’re serious. If they ask if you’re serious, gently tell them you used to have an eating disorder and the number is not important to you.) Protect your mind. Those numbers get in there and they screw with you. Somehow they have power over you. How good you are. How healthy you are. How good you’ve been eating. Whether you should do more or not. These numbers are NOTHING. They are meaningless and they don’t deserve a place in your head. Once they get into your head, they find a way into your heart too. Not worth it.

No More Calories. When you want something to eat, eat it. Don’t question the calories or fat – trust your cravings! I’m a label reader, by trade, by profession, by obsession. Back in the day it was calories, fat, sugar, protein, and carbohydrates. I absorbed it all and calculated totals with the enthusiasm only an accountant could muster. Now I read labels to know ingredients only. Can I pronounce them? Are they real or synthetic? Is this going to please my body for both the short- and long-term? So, please, read the labels so you know what you’re feeding your body, but ignore the other stuff. Those numbers are for people who actually believe we are machines composed solely of calories-in-calories-out. We know better.

No More Low-Fat-No-Fat Games. Fat is good! Haven’t you heard? Whole fat milk, yogurt and cheese will bring you all the enzymes needed to break down the food and distribute the nutrients accordingly, while satisfying you sooner. Low-fat and fat-free versions are going to give you all the sugar needed to make sure you don’t get the most out of the food you’re eating (and probably crave more). You deserve better. You deserve fat. Cook with coconut oil. Drizzle foods with olive oil. Enjoy an avocado and cook your egg in a pat of butter. Do you know that your brain NEEDS fat? It’s 60% fat and thrives on fat. I’m not talking about trans-fats (deadly) or fast food fried fats (yuck). I’m talking about real, natural, healthy, wonderful fats like those that come naturally from or with foods (dairy fat, beef fat, chicken fat/skin, healthy oils like coconut, grapeseed oil, olive oil and the like). When you opt to leave out the fat, you’re only hurting your brain, not helping your figure.

Yes to Real Foods. Please tell me you don’t care how many calories are in an apple. It’s an apple for goodness sake. It’s a real, honest-to-God food grown from the ground and perfect just the way it is. Go ahead, eat it. Bananas? Same. Yes, they have more sugar, as do carrots and peas, but don’t avoid these foods the way I did. Eat them because they’re real. Eat them because they’re colorful and they taste good. Choose real foods! That means the ones that don’t have a nutrition label because there’s nothing to label. Vegetables, fruits and unadulterated nuts are real foods and I want you to enjoy them. I want your body to enjoy them too!

Yes to Positive Body Image Media. Read all the articles you can about the Health at Every Size Movement (HAES). Watch videos about Photoshopping models and air brushing famous people so they can look “perfect”. Educate yourself on the un-attainability of such perfection, so you can be FREE from it. You’ve worked hard to accept yourself and love yourself and feed yourself. You deserve to be free from the dieting commercials and media that brings you down on yourself. So, click on the uplifting articles floating around Facebook, not the “how to lose weight” advertisements. Tell me you’re over it. I’m over it, but if I catch myself looking or thinking curiously what they’re up to, I turn elsewhere, because it’s my mind and heart at stake and frankly, they don’t care about me.

Yes to Movement. Please don’t go for a run because it will burn “x” amount of calories. Don’t grab those weights because you know that muscle burns more calories than fat. Say yes to movement, not exercise. Stretch because you’ve been sitting at the computer for an hour and it would feel soooooo good. Walk around the block because the air is crisp and your lungs would love it. Play tag with your daughter because laughing and running together are memories you want to make. Sure, take the stairs instead of the elevator, park farther from your destination than you need to, and take that Zumba class you’ve been eyeing, but do it for your heart, your life and your happiness, not your weight.

There may come a time when you glimpse the scale at the doctor’s office and you can’t get the number out of your head. There may come a time when you start counting calories without even meaning to, or ban yourself from a food because you haven’t been eating “good” lately. It’s normal. You’re not alone. But beware the slippery slope; reach out to me or anyone who’s aware of your journey and don’t get sucked in. Remember: it’s YOUR journey and you control what information gets past the gates of your mind and into your heart.

One last tip: be careful who you put up on the expert pedestal. I have read and followed many nutritionists, health experts and doctors. I admire their research, tips and advice. Often times, I will repost articles and concepts I’ve learned from them and I appreciate all of it. And then, the moment comes when they start posting “lose weight” or “burn more calories”. I sigh. I “unfollow” them and I move on. I think these types of headlines are alarmist and misleading. They play into the false hope of women everywhere that there is a magic pill, diet or food that will suddenly make them lose weight and achieve everything they’ve always wanted. I can’t buy into that and I hope you won’t either.

I’m going to say this clearly: I’m not going to sell out. I may be a holistic nutritionist and I may try to build my website, my followers, my client list, and my portfolio, but I’m not going to sell out and start advertising weight loss strategies. I’m not going to promise you pounds or inches. No matter how many more “clicks” I’d get if I made those promises, I won’t do it to you or myself. Ever.

I’m going to offer you peace of mind, self-love and freedom. Always.