you are enough

Today was a little bittersweet. My co-worker, and good friend, Jen came to visit work...and also to announce that she will not be returning after her maternity leave.

The only thing about this that disappoints me is that I won't get to see her just about every day. Mostly I am so happy that she gets to stay home with her boys (who are adorable, by the way) for however long she is able, and that she has an opportunity to find work that she truly loves. Everyone should have that chance - and if anyone has a chance at that, its Jen.

 

You guys may not know who she is, but Jen is seriously a super-woman full of so much girl power she could probably blast the Spice Girls right out of their foot-high platforms. She's a woman who has had her own struggles but who has come out the better for it, and I idolize her for that. You can tell just by this little note she gave me today (sorry, Jen, its such a beautiful message that I just have to share!):

So, you see, I'm not losing a co-worker, really (or a friend!), the world (and her kids) are gaining a beautiful, strong, and amazing woman who could (and will, if she has her way!) change the world, just by being in it, doing what she loves instead of sitting behind a computer, looking out a window, and wishing she were out in the world making it a better place for everyone. 

Love you, Jen!

(and I WILL be visiting you ;))

If you are interested in girl power and making women's rights a priority, then you should check these out: 

UniteWomen.org (Jennifer is the National Director of Development - follow them on facebook!)

45 Million Voices (Supporting and empowering women and eliminating stigma one story at a time)

 

get your healthy on

Over the past week and weekend, as I was creating our meal plan for this week and making the grocery list, I was thinking about how sick I am of oatmeal. I'm the kind of person that can only eat the same thing every day for a limited time, then I need to switch it up or I will just stare at the damn oatmeal and starve myself rather than make it and force myself to eat it. 

Starving yourself is kinda frowned upon when you're pregnant, so I needed another option.

 I've been seeing different recipes for healthy breakfast muffins floating around the net and figured I should try one out. I do love me some muffins! You guys, there are so many different recipes out there. So I just picked one. Based on nothing else but the fact that I had most of the ingredients in my fridge and pantry already. And by most ingredients, I mean that I didn't have the most important ingredient (er, supply, tool, item?): a muffin tray. 

Yeah, I know. 

Who lives on their own for 3 years and doesn't have a stinkin' muffin tray? Well, that would be me. You see, I had always thought of getting one so that I could make muffins and cupcakes and such...but I never did. And when I would find a box of cupcake mix in my pantry, I would end up just making the batter with fake eggs (leftover from my Vegan wannabe days) and eat the batter itself. 

So I needed a muffin tray - and I didn't buy one. But how did you make muffins, Heather? Well, I went to my parent's house, is what I did (this is my solution to just about everything)! Plus, my mom had all of the other ingredients that I would have had to pick up at the store myself (hey, these are budget-friendly muffins too if you use someone else's stuff!). 

 I actually made these myself though, instead of employing my poor mom...so there's that. 

Hella Healthy Breakfast Muffins

(recipe from Hello Giggles) 

1/2 cup oatmeal

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

1/4 cup vanilla protein powder

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup chopped nuts (I used sunflower seeds instead)

1/2 cup raisins (dried cranberries would be lovely too!)

(optional: sprinkle of dry chia seeds - I didn't use these - Kroger never seems to have them!)

(optional: 1/2 cup sugar - I did use this - the muffins are not very sweet even with the sugar)

1 banana, mashed

1/2 cup applesauce

1 egg

1 apple, diced

1 tsp. cinnamon (this was not in the original recipe...I added it and was so happy I did!)

 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Combine dry ingredients in large mixing bowl and stir it up!  

 

3. Combine wet ingredients (including the apples) in a separate bowl and stir until well mixed.

  

    

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until everything is coated.

 

  5. Pour the batter into a greased muffin tray and bake for about 20 minutes or until the muffins are just starting to brown on top (this is where I effed up a bit, in my usual fashion: I used muffin paper cups - don't do this unless you like to eat paper...the paper sticks to the muffins, but they are still edible so it's ok, I just wouldn't do it again. Just do what the recipe says, ok?).

 

These muffins are the perfect compliment to my morning grapefruit and are actually pretty dense and filling! You should get 12 muffins from this recipe - which is the perfect supply for 2 weeks worth of breakfasts. And did I mention they are yummy and make me feel super healthy? Cuz they are and they do. 

friday faves

Please excuse this post. I didn't post it on the right day, it didn't post correctly, the blogger app effed up my presentation. All in all - a shitty post. I'm sorry. But read for a basic idea of what I was getting at - without pictures, without all the links - sad face.


It's Friday, and I couldn't be more thankful for that. All week I feel like I've been living life like a sloth: slow, tired and nodding off every 5 minutes (um, I haven't been hanging upside-down though, so I guess not exactly like a sloth). I'm hoping this weekend will bring me a little more energy to work on all the projects that I need to get done. 

I'm not only thankful for it being Friday, I'm also thankful that I have a job where I can write a blog post all morning and no one gives a shit. So there's that.

This week has actually been productive (considering how sluggish I've been): I have finished some details on the baby shower invitations and addressed all the envelopes (other details and envelope stuffing will be done tonight, and a trip to the post office tomorrow), meal planning and preparing was successful, and I kept up on the blog (and, at least for this week, met my goal if a different topic each day).

It was also productive in that I have been able to gather some of my fave things from this week to show you!

1. IKEA magnetic spice storage.

Have you seen these?? I mean, I need them. Like, I really, actually legitimately need them. With our teeny house and a new baby on the way, I need to clear as much space as possible up for baby stuff and organize our shit that's lying around.

These magnetic spice jars would be perfect for the side of the fridge that I've been meaning to unclutter and would help clear out at least half of a cabinet for baby bottles!

IKEA trip soon, anyone?

2. Office Max Printing Station.

I don't think I mentioned this in my post about the baby shower invitations, but we had them printed at Office Max. This was my second time working with them (our wedding programs were printed there as well) and the experience was just as easy and stress free as the first time!

Now, I realize that they have this handy dandy thing on their website where you can upload the item you want to print then just pick it up at the store: if you can figure it out, go for it. If you're like me, just go into the damn store. The staff (at our store at least) was extremely helpful and got the job done right. Once we had picked our paper, it only took 15 minutes to format, print and cut the invitations!

You have to bring or purchase your own paper (which was the most expensive part for us), but after that its $.09 per page if you print in black and white, and like $1 to cut!

We spent $47 in total, but keep in mind that we bought our paper there and I had like 5 different parts of the invitations to print. It's all worth it though, they look awesome!

3. Family Command Center.

Ever since we moved our desk into the breezeway/laundry room area of the house, I've been dying to create a family command center where we can organize mail, post meal plans, grocery lists and have a calendar.

I know this may be a repeat if yesterday's post, but here are my fave inspirations:

I can't wait to get this started and be on our way to a more organized home!

4. Raising Natural Kids

I've been following this website on Facebook for a few months now, and have found it extremely informative and helpful (especially if you like to work towards a more nature-based home). On the Facebook page people pretty much just post questions and other readers comment with advice: I've found a lot of helpful tips and tricks from this that I can't wait to try when Avery gets here.

Not only is the site about raising natural kids, but there is also advice about adults, pets, and a bunch of other stuff!

5. Moose antler dog chews.

This fave is inspired by my 2 favorite doggies, Auto and Oscar (who is with us again for a long weekend).

These moose antler chews are lifesavers, I swear. The dogs will chew on them all day, which keeps them out of my way for the most part. A bit on the expensive side ($12-40), but they seriously last so long. And they are safe for your pup! When chewing on them, the antler just wears down, as opposed to breaking off in chunks or becoming soggy (like raw hide). Auto and Oscar are both in love with theirs ( we got Oscar one for Christmas, as he was staying with us at the time...and no pup should go without a gift from Santa)!

We get ours at The Urban Dog in Rochester Hills - seriously the best place for whole and healthy dog and cat foods and other products. We love their selection of natural treats and toys...we even buy Auto's food there.

As I'm always finding something else I love, need or want, I'm sure there will be another great list coming your way next Friday!

Have a great weekend!

meal planning: a beginner's guide

The title of this post indicates that this is a beginner's guide. Well, it is...but not in the way you might think. This is a guide to meal planning made by a beginner...so, a beginner's guide, if you will. 

Ever since the new year started, we have been trying really hard to follow some of our resolutions - to be healthier and to save more money. So far, we have began planning our meals (which is surprisingly easy, considering how picky of an eater Seth is). Our general rules for meal planning (so far) are: 

1. Try to incorporate items that are already in our refigerator/freezer/pantry. This way, we can make sure that we use up things that will go bad quickly as well as things that have been sitting around for a while (like that 12 pack of couscous from Costco that I just HAD to have...like a year ago).
2. Plan at least 3-4 meals per week. I say only 3-4 because with Seth's sometimes crazy work schedule, it wouldn't make sense to make a complete meal (for us, at least) when he won't be home until late (or until 2 AM on Saturday morning, which is his usual Friday night schedule - craziness).
3. Grocery shop every weekend and purchase only what we need for our planned meals during the week and our lunches that we take to work (and breakfasts too, I suppose, but Seth only really has cereal and I make do with fruit and oatmeal which I always have stocked). 
4. We plan on spending $30-75 per shopping trip, depending on what we need. This way, we can leave some leeway for stuff like paper products, toiletries, etc.
5. We will most likely do a larger shopping trip every 2-3 months to stock up on things like canned goods (I guess, we don't use many canned items), toilet paper, paper towel, cereal, oatmeal, and a few other items that will keep over time and that we use on a regular basis.
6. In a typical 4 meal week, we try to plan at least 2 lighter meals (this week it was chef salad and whole grain roasted pecan rice, and light chicken salad sandwiches) and 2 heavier (which Seth prefers), but still semi-healthy meals (steak stroganoff and tacos with ground turkey this week). Also, I've put my foot down and said that pasta is not allowed on the menu more than once per week and we must have at least one salad per week.

Here is our meal plan for the upcoming week (only 3 meals, as Seth is going out of town Tuesday evening and works late Friday): 

• Greek salad with homemade Greek dressing and couscous (breaking into our large supply finally)

• Buffalo chicken sandwiches with a side salad

• Chicken spaghetti (I saw this recipe on Pinterest and it looked intriguing, but not too healthy, so we shall see if this recipe is a keeper or a make-once-and-forgetter). 

I also plan on getting ingredients to make healthy breakfast muffins for me (Seth won't touch the things) to go with my morning grapefruit (newest obsession) at work. 

Obviously we still need to work on a few details (I'm sure there are ways we can save even more money by doing this, and I could probably look really hard and find some even healthier meals that the hubby would eat) but so far this is working and we are happy with it!

Right now, the organization of our meal planning is a little (well, a lot) less than satisfactory. I pretty much just write the meals we are planning on having on one side of a piece of paper and the grocery list on the other:

I'm going to work on this, but I have a few ideas - here is some of my inspiration (from pinterest):

I plan on making a meal planning board for our kitchen (or our family command center - which I hope to start working on soon), so hopefully a DIY post pertaining to that will be on its way soon!

Any tips or suggestions to further/better our money saving/meal planning efforts? Let me know!

sneak peek: baby shower invitations

I really wanted to post this last Thursday, like really, really bad. I actually had another post all written up and pretty-like with pictures and everything. But this m-effing website won't let me post the damn thing no matter how many times I try and my short temper + pregnancy hormones are starting to get the best of me: I may or may not have thrown multiple mini fits over this and I'm afraid that if I keep trying and failing to post it, I may have a full-out breakdown with tears and stomping feet and everything.

So because I can't post what I want to (which is complete BS), I'll just tell you a little of what I had in mind for this post:

Imagine this - "Hi! I'm so happy that I spent 4 hours on Wednesday night designing these cute and awesome baby shower invitations and I want to share with you the digital images! Hey, while we're at it, how about I remind you that I made our wedding invitations back in 2011 and they were awesome and I loved them [insert digital images of wedding invitations] and then I made a bunch of other stuff for the wedding too that was really cool as well [insert photos of the stuff I made for the wedding]! Oh and this cute and wonderful walk down memory lane leads up to the real point of the post which is that I designed our baby shower invitations too [insert digital images of baby shower invitations]!"

That's the post in a nut shell - it was way cuter and more amazing and funny and awesome in its entirety, but I'M NOT ALLOWED TO POST IT!!!!!!!!

Deep breaths.

Ok.

My latest project has been designing the invitation suite for our baby shower in March (yes, I realize that someone else should probably be doing this part, but I love doing these kinds of things). My techniques are extremely amateur - like using paint and other prehistoric programs to create my digital designs.

The theme for the shower is Alice in Wonderland - a tea party type thing...and it's at the Mad Hatter Grill! How perfect is that? Ok, so the grill is inside of a bowling alley - the one Seth works at on Friday nights - but it's been redone recently and looks great (and did I mention that the name of the bowling alley is Wonderland Lanes? Perfection again!).

So, without further ado...I present to you, the Stern baby shower invitation suite:

If you are expecting one of these beauts in the mail, this is not everything - I still have a few cute ideas to add to the invitations so you will still be surprised when you receive them!

I have so many ideas for this shower - I'm pretty much taking over decorating ideas (but only because it's so fun)! I wish I had unlimited fundage because this would be the most amazing shower ever if I did! But I don't, so I am hoping to be able to make do with what I can make/buy and hope that it still turns out as awesome as it is in my head. And don't worry, after the shower I plan on making another post with all of the DIY projects that we did to make the day special!

Not the best post. I realize this. On to other really annoying things I have to do...