New Lollibag, this, that, update, etc......

WELL!  I have been on this grain free/sugar free eating plan for almost a week. I did slip up, on purpose, yesterday.  A couple nights ago I made Pioneer Women's chocolate sheet cake for a neighbor who is going through chemo, it is so so large I sent half over and kept half for the kids, yes really the kids. 
But of course I could not resist.  Every time I had a smidgen, I would within 30 seconds get a headache and feel yucky, but did that stop me?  Heck no!  The cake is to dangerous!  So all day yesterday, I  just had little smidgen's and this morning I woke up with a migraine! 

This is promising, because I can see how sugar is affecting me, so back on the no sugar.  I am eating a yummy chicken tortilla soup I made from scratch, right now.....  That will be on a Food Friday soon.

In other news, I've been sewing.  I am in a show called bliss handmade at the end of the month.  I am sewing more Lollibag's with long straps to wear across the body.  This one has ruffles from one of my most favorite retro vintage fabrics, EVER...........

It really IS NOT neon in real life, my camera, bless it's heart, is getting wierd on me.  I love this 60's fabric, I found it at a thrift shop a few years back.  I also love the big vintage orange button. 

Good news:  I had Sophie tested for tree nuts and she is NOT allergic to them!  YEA!!  But at the end of the testing, I looked at the allergist and said  "I'm scared".  And she nodded, yes.  She says, it's up to me, but she would not allow Sophie to have tree nuts just yet, not for a few more years, till she is old enough to tell me how she is feeling after eating certain foods.  I am going to follow that advice.

But the good news is I can have almond butter and stuff like that in the house.  AND, we can now buy products made in a factory that processes tree nuts.  It opens up a huge new range of foods. 

Thank you Jesus!

Sad news, I think Sophie is showing signs of tourettes, but I'm not gonna stress over it.  I love that little girl, as is.

House update:  the interested party is no longer interested.  BIG SIGH....  I have a strange sense of calm though.  I can only attribute that to God.  But I will tell you I am oh so excited by what I  *think* my future holds, but my lips have to remain sealed for now, after all, God may not agree with those plans of mine!

Is that it?  Are we all caught up now?  How about you, what's been going on in your life lately?

Found

Yesterday morning the sun came out!  I said to Sophie.... should we go out today?  She agreed.  We went to the thrift shop and here is what we found....

I love vintage 100% cotton sheets.  Not the synthetic cotton, these are the real deal, crisp, clean, 100% cotton.  I found this stack of them!  And a couple of pink towels, yes I washed them on the sanitary cycle.

I also found a couple 2010 House Beautiful magazines for .50 each and a vintage coloring book for Sophie.  A new sundress for Portia too, for only $2.47.

So in my quest for a sugar free, grain free, dairy free (sort of), caffine free life..............I found this herbal coffee.  No caffine, no acid, it's really yummy!  And LOOK, coconut milk coffee creamer!!  It's so yummy I can't even believe I'm sacrificing real coffee and creamer!  It's also a good way to get off caffine, you just add in more and more herbal coffee everyday till that all your drinking.  Make it in your regular coffee maker.

Look at these luscious cupcakes.  Ok these are full of all things bad, would you like the recipe?  Maybe on Friday!

I found these pictures on my camera.............

That was my favorite find of the day.  The weather has turned against me, I woke up today to a forcast of SNOW for tomorrow!  Oh I hope it's not true, it's maddening. Lord, please send spring.

GIVEAWAY!!!

I love to enter giveaways!

Here is a good one.

You may enter the giveaway at Tammy's blog,  She Wears Flowers .

What you are entering for is.........

An adorable felt playhouse, valued at up to $200!

Aren't they sweet?

There are boy designs too, but my little ones are girls, so these are my favorites.

Check out Julie's other designs at Miss Pretty Pretty.

Love this pink one!

Hurry on over to enter!

She Wears Flowers

Love this....

Love Love Love

It smells so so good.



Target deals what I hate about Target

I really do HEART Target and I am starting to learn the coupon ropes.

I'm not up to top secret special forces level, but I'm getting there.

Listen closely girls, today at Target I spotted quite on accident the Annie's Macaroni and Cheese sale of the century!  It is only $1 a box! Then I saw the Annie's canned Cheese Ravioli for only $1 a can!

What a deal, what a deal, if you guys have purchased Annie's at any point in your life, you know what a deal that was!  I literally cleaned the shelves.  I bought a total of 40 boxes and cans of Annie's!

Another thing I love at Target is their "buy 2 items get a $5 gift card" deals.

Every time I go, I shop these deals and there is always a coupon for those items in the paper or online to be printed.  Target.com has great online coupons you can print.

So does http://www.couponmom.com/.

Also at http://www.target.com/ you can print a Neutrogena coupon for $1 off and at the store the Neutrogena natural line?  Have you seen the new line?  If you buy a cleanser you get a lip balm free!  Plus I had the coupon.

Plus I used my $6 coupon from the pharmacy mishap last week, so I saved a total of $65.64 in coupons at Target today!

Now what I HATE about Target.  They are becoming more like Walmart every week.  The workers at Target could care less about customers.  I always, always go to Target on Sunday morning, and it NEVER EVER FAILS, they are redoing or restocking shelves in the toiletries/makeup/pharmacy section.

And they are rude, rude, rude.

  They have their big red carts full of product blocking all the aisles , there is LITERALLY no way in or out, and if you need something down one of those aisles, your screwed.

Today however, one Target worker said can I help you find something?  In the midst of the chaos of red product carts and about as many workers, I said  "A clear pathway would be nice".

  I didn't get much response.  I had to push my cart down an aisle that had a two tiered red stocking cart with a huge garbage bag hanging off the top pole, filled.  My cart pushed the garbage bag out of the way, I'm lucky it didn't hit me in the face.  Two workers in the aisle I was trying to access, didn't bat an eye, didn't turn to look, didn't move to help.  So I manuevered around one worker on the right, only to be met by another worker on the left and behind her was another stocking cart, so the end of the aisle was completely blocked.  I needed something in the blocked area.. I sat there for about 5 seconds, worker bee did not look, move, nothing. 

I finally said "could you please move your cart?"  She did so without looking at me, without a word.

Like I was the one bothering her.  There was no, Oh I'm sorry, let me help you... nothing.

Let me tell you something Target worker, without customers, there are no shelves to stock!

And your out of a job.

Target, get it together!

Food Friday~ Orange Juice Plus

Happy April Fool's Day.

The only April fool I get a kick out of is making my husband think we've had another SUPRISE!!

But I've done that joke so many times, he ain't falling for it anymore.

Otherwise I'm really not into jokes, I mean cruel jokes that make someone look stupid.

I had been pining away for a VitaMix FOREVER... they just seemed healthy, ya know?

So anyway I got one a long time ago and when I finally purchased it I went to the VitaMix website and bought one of their refurbished ones. 

It is so much cheaper than the new ones and I also did that when I purchased my Kitchen Aid mixer.

Refurbished means it was a return and they put a new whatever on and slapped on a full warranty and sell them cheap!

So a cookbook  came with my VitaMix and I just love it, one of my favorite recipes is:

Orange Juice Plus

2 medium navel oranges, peeled and quartered

1/4 C water

3/4 C ice cubes

1/4 t vanilla

1 T sugar or other sweetener to taste (optional)

Place all ingredients in VitaMix (or your blender) container in order listed.  Secure lid (duh).

Then it goes on to tell you how to do the speeds on the VitaMix, but you get it, turn your blender on and blend away!

Serve immediately.

There is supposed to be 2 1/2 servings in this recipe at 1 C each. 

And it only has 52 calories!!

Sometimes I use milk and lately I use coconut milk in place of the water and I put honey in place of the sugar, you could use stevia too.

It is so yummy!

I promise I won't bore you to death with updates about my grain/sugar free experiment, but I did good today!

No sugar.

I really struggle around 3pm and I have been having one slice of

 Ezekiel sprouted grain bread (I know, I know....GRAIN)..... but it is a flourless bread.

Anyway I toast it and put butter on it and that gets me to dinner and I am struggling with no dessert after a meal, but somehow I am abstaining!!

I'm already miserable

I have a headache, a stomach ache, crabby, the day is looking dismal.

Pretty bland without my latte with milk in the morning, or a cookie.

I can make it till about 3pm and then what to snack on.... a carrot stick?

For some reason my beloved coconut milk ice cream and coconut flakes are giving me tummy aches.

What is that?

Coconut milk ice cream literally has coconut milk and agave nectar.

You can pry that from my cold dead hands.

Can I do this for 3 weeks?

Not looking promising but you can rest assured I won't lie to ya, I'll let you know if I screw up.



Health and the food you eat

Remember when I went to the dr. and to make a long story short she said I have PCOS?

And then I just wasn't sure if I should believe her?  Well I have been researching and reading tons of information online.

I receive Dr. Mercola's newsletters through e-mail daily and I usually read at least one article.

Today I read this article...

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/07/14/insulin-part-one.aspx

It's long but well worth the read and it's actually by Dr. Rosedale.  It was so eye opening on insulin, insulin resistance, and the role that plays in disease and the foods you eat.

I just kept thinking....HOLY COW!

Anyway all the websites I read and articles and snippets and pages and blogs agree and the common factor is.... grains and sugar, bad bad bad.

If you are like me your panicking right now and getting angry, there is no way your giving up sugar and grains.  But that is the one thing I have never been able to do and everything else I've tried , has never worked.

Once I did do the, only once slice of bread a day and veggies and fruit and protein only, and you know what I felt good, but I didn't keep up with it and I never thought treating myself to a few cookies a day , ok make that a dozen cookies a day, what harm could that do?

I'm getting off track.  I just had my cholesterol level checked again and it is way up from last year.  I just could not figure out what the heck???

Again, research has shown me that high cholesterol is not the problem, why do I have high cholesterol?  High cholesterol is caused by inflammation in your body, and your body is putting out more cholesterol to try and reduce inflammation...I'm just paraphrasing what I've read, so don't quote me, look it up for yourself :)

Anyway what kinds of foods cause inflammation?? You guessed it, sugar and grains.  What happens when your body is in a constant state of inflammation?

Just to name a few:

headaches

migraines

acne

skin tags

insulin resistance

diabetes

heart disease

cancer

fatigue

the list goes on and on.

So I searched for anti-inflammation foods and diets online and found this site.

http://www.level1diet.com/

I have been reading there a while and it is really quite interesting.

I have nothing to lose but some weight and hopefully my migraines and cholesterol. 

I'm gonna give it a go, so if I'm a tad grouchy and negative, please don't take it personal!

It's just that I am not going to be eating sugar and grains.

Another intesting tidbit from that article, when you eat sugar your body cannot store it and so it needs to burn it right away.  (again I'm paraphrasing).... So if you are constantly putting sugar into your body, your body never burns the fat you have stored!

And when people say sugar I usually think, donuts, hard candy, pop, twinkies and I say to myself, whew!  I'm in the clear I don't eat any of that......hardly...

Well here's some things sugar is in:

flavored yogurt

honey

ketchup

salad dressings

bbq sauce

crackers

potatoes turn to glucose (sugar)

protein bars

granola bars

jelly

etc...

I'm not trying to sound negative but, really I'm talking to people who like me, are struggling with an issue that you can't seem to get rid of, like migraines or whatever it may be.

SO WHOSE WITH ME???  I need a buddy!

Lollibag's for Spring

I just listed 3 new Lollibag's in my etsy shop!

Two of them are my new size.  Kind of in between a Lollibag and a Little Lollibag and the strap is long so you can wear it across your body.  I had a custom order for a long strap on a Little Lolli and it was so cute!

I love the pink and white check material, it's so springy!

Who doesn't love Amy Butler fabric??  If I could I would have STACKS and STACKS of it in my fabric cupboard.  I know she has some new prints out, have you seen them?

I need to get sewing, as these are my ONLY new bags!

OH MY GOODNESS!!  I just took my own advice and snooped around Amy Butlers new spring 2011 collection and she has WALLPAPER!  How cute is that???

I really really hate wallpaper, but this may change my mind!



It's the little things

You may think that it's the BIG things that are grand, that leave a lasting impression, that happiness clings only to those occasions.

Maybe that tropical vacation you know will change your life, if you could ever go on it.  Or if only your husband would make a grand gesture and proclaim his undying love in a letter or daily swoon over you.  Maybe an exceptional child who becomes a doctor....... And I know those things would be terribly nice, but really,  hopes pinned to the grand things make you miss the sweetest tiny things.

I forget who was over the other day, maybe it was my "showing" that finally showed up, but I was sitting on the sofa and little Sophie was standing behind me, her arms wrapped around my neck.  She was like a sweet garland of grace.  She whispered in my ear..... oohh I lub you mom... .... and kissed my neck, all the while making affectionate noises, like you would do as you are seeing a precious little puppy.  I wanted to reach around and grab her and return the favor, but I was listening to an adult talking to me, and I knew if I did scoop up my little girl I would have shed a tear for how precious she is.  And I kick myself thinking about it, forget manners, I should have done it, who cares about an adult going on and on about themselves, my little girl was showing true love!

And then you have the day that is not going so well, you know, one thing after another, it seems to become a way of life.  I went to pick up  my migraine medicine at Target, got home, changed, got comfy, started to do my "home stuff", went to put away my medicine.....thought it felt a bit light, checked the box, only 2 of the 6 tablets were in the box!  OH no, I had to drive back.

I wasn't too happy, but I got in the car and put in one of my favorite CD's and I drove slow and listened to some  hymn's sung by Selah.  Fairest Lord Jesus, Beautiful Terrible Cross, My Jesus I Love Thee, I Have Decided.........Instead of getting madder that I had to waste time and gas money driving back to the store, I listened to words of peace and God's love and was reminded of all my Saviour has done for me. 

I rested.

Then I got to the store and they were so sorry, they gave me two $3 coupons to use off my next visit to Target.  That may not seem like something to celebrate, but to me it was!

The little things.

Who doesn't love the sunshine?  It is warm, bright, healing, it is happiness in a ray.  In Oregon after it rains all winter and your spirit is so low and hopeless that the weather will ever change, there it is, the sun will peek out and oh the JOY!

Who would have thought a tiny ray of sunshine would bring such extreme happiness.  It's the best in the springtime, when you are longing for warm, dreaming of summer, you think you will just die if a warm day doesn't show up soon.  It's like filling up your gas tank (only for free).  If only the sun would come out for a few hours you could make it till June.

Is this a secret I'm just discovering?  Or have I known it all along, only to get sidetracked with so much bad news, bad moods, bad circumstances and rain that I just cannot see clearly for a while, really till I dig myself out?  I think that must be it, I've always known it's the little things, but there are times when they are easy to see and times when I am lost and it takes a great effort to find them.

These little things are staying with me longer too, I will think of them days later.  I think of Sophie hugging me and it still makes me smile.  Last week I woke up to see my hubby going out to get the Sunday paper for me, see he never used to do that, and I complained about it and now he does that for me, every rainy Sunday.... that is what makes me feel loved.

And I am still over the moon that my little girls accepted Jesus as their Saviour last week, but that is not little that is HUGE.

I wish for you to have a little thing brighten your day!