School has started back!

For so many school has started back and even here with Jazz we have started back our version! Jazz is too little to actually NEED school but she wanted to start so we tried to enroll her but sadly she didn't make the age requirement for Pre-k and she is too smart for head start so we are doing our own homeschooling again this year. We love doing this and it helps with our life style. We can do things around the garden and still make sure she gets the nutritional needs that we want her to have. For here school started yesterday so of course our classroom started too!

She was very excited and so far she is loving all of it. Her first theme she chose for us to work on was the ocean so we are learning as much as possible about that as well as all the basics like reading, writing, math and all the other important things.

We hope everyone has a great school year and learns many great things!

Where have we been for the past several months?

Some know what has been going on and many don't but our healthy lifestyle was a blessing in disguise! Mike got sick late February of this year and that is why I have been doing so much gardening and homesteading now. It was already in our plans but now it is even more important but it is also something comforting and something that has helped me a lot along the way. It has kept me more sane than I thought it would honestly just to have a place to go to get away from everyday struggles and listen to nature has been great.

What have we all been up to? Jazz and me garden a lot! This year so far we have learned how to water bath can and have done at least 76 cans!! I know it's a lot! And we have put several bags of things in the freezer as well. It has been awesome to preserve our food for the winter and we have given several things away to family and friends.

Mike has seen plenty of doctors since everything started in February. We found out he has a heart condition and we are taking steps to get it all figured out. At least it wasn't a heart attack like we all thought that very first scary day. And he is doing a lot better and getting around a lot more than he was.

Jazz has learned how to be an excellent gardener, animal activist and doctor. She cares for everything and everyone. And has helped everyone out so much this year. I wish I could bundle up that side of her to have 24/7. Honestly without her I don't know if the garden would have kept going this spring and we would have gotten as much as we did. Her cousin thought she was picking things wrong one day when I told him nope, she was picking them right before the bugs did.


What is next? The fall garden and of course Jazz's 4th birthday and the holiday season is upon us. We are looking forward to finishing out this year that got off to a very rocky start. We have all learned so much about ourselves that we didn't know and about each other. Me and Mike got to celebrate 10 amazing years together just a few weeks back and we are so grateful we got to.


The garden is dying off and ready for a new chapter and were ready as well. So for the first time I am going full force. We are planting; lettuce, spinach, broccoli, beets, carrots, bok choy, cauliflower and I am not sure if I am finished with that list or not. I know at the moment I still have watermelon growing, cantaloupe, pumpkins that will do better in the fall of course, okra and peppers.

That is where we were, what we have done and how things went. I will post new ones and where we are now shortly.

Happy SPRING!

It's been a while since I last posted but we are going strong! Our eating habits are going GREAT! We did have to finally bring in some box food this week because I messed up my back but I picked out the best mac and cheese I could find at the store for us and little miss. Even Mike did say it was not as good as home made but sadly I did not have any stored in the freezer at this time. Now that I am doing much better I plan on doing my meal prepping for the week and for the freezer in case something comes up again.

But today I wanted to share with you an awesome lemonade recipe for these nice days we have been having. Jazz has been loving making home made lemonade for everyone to drink and is now addicted to making it. I keep running out of lemons, I can't keep them in the house.

1 to 1 1/2 cup of lemon juice deeps on how tangy you want it.
1 1/2 cups of sugar
total of 9 cups of water

boil the sugar with one cup of sugar in a pot so it disolves for about 5 minutes or so and then add that to the lemon juice in a pitcher along with the other 8 cups of water. Let chill and then it is ready to serve!

Of course Jazz never waits for it to chill so we have to serve it over lots of ice. But it is a big hit!



We have made it with the 1 cup and the 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice. I like the 1 cup mike likes it with more so it was more tangy. It's super easy and super fun for the kiddos to help with. And a perfect drink for a Spring day!

Woohoo we did it!

Yesterday we hit one month! And what an exciting month it has been. To kick it off we had grilled bbq chicken, seafood and coleslaw with the in-laws and mikes best friend. It was a wonderful dinner. And today we had leftover spaghetti from the night before thankfully since I had a trip to the dentist to fix some old fillings. Now you might be wondering what have we had this past month and I am going to tell you everything! We have had home made spaghetti from scratch! All except the noodles, remember I drew the line at making my own noodles, maybe one day but not right now. Lol. But I cut up all the tomatoes, used fresh mushrooms, garlic, some seasonings, it turned out amazing! Then we have done meatloaf with onions and bell pepper, home made mashed potatoes. Sweet potatoes, home made Mac and cheese. The cauliflower fritters I have mentioned, salads, my town house crackers I have also mentioned, different types of asparagus cooked, and so much more. Nothing from boxes, frozen bags, or cans. And I have made my own chocolate milk mix for the baby and our own mayo. We no longer need to buy Hershey’s syrup or mayo at this point. Hoping to add more items to that list soon. Meal prepping has become a breeze and a natural part of the week. And I start meal prepping in advance more often. Tonight I even browsed for more new ideas we haven’t tried out just yet and am excited to try them and share them with you all.

Home made condiments

Today was a big achievement on this new journey! I officially got to make our mayo. I found several to try but wanted to just try a very simple one to begin with and go from there. So I found the most simplest and that started with 3 ingredients and added a few extras.

1 egg
1.5 tsp lemon juice
1 cup oil

I also added a little bit of sea salt, and two squirts of honey dijon mustard for some extra taste.

I used a blender for all my mixing but a food processor would probably work even better. It's on my Amazon wish list.

Start with the egg, then your lemon juice then add your extra stuff and slowly pour in your oil and mix. We already used ours today in some tuna salad I made for lunch on sandwiches and Mike ate 4 of them they were so great. This wasn't over powering or anything like traditional mayo. And you can always adjust it just to your liking.

Sunday's is now the new meal prep day

Yesterday was a busy day! Sunday's in this house used to be just a great family day, lazy day and at the end of the day I would get everything together for the work week for my other half...now it has become a meal prep day! After the first weeks  exhaustion I decided yesterday to give it a go and today started off sooooo much easier and I woke up looking forward to our week!

I woke up refreshed and got a great night's sleep. I didn't have to spend an extra hour or so cooking anything just for breakfast and I even got some extra ideas to make it all last longer thanks to my younger sister.

So basically I made muffins for the week which will last up to 5 days in the fridge and longer in the freezer, I cooked my tomatoes that I use for soups, and breakfast. And got a big batch of mac and cheese made and ready to go.  That will be put in individually containers or bags in the freezer that are perfect portions for little miss and can just be thrown in the microwave when she wants her mac and cheese. I also sliced up lemons and got them in a jar ready to go for the week. As well as some hard boiled eggs in a container, some veggies washed and already sliced and ready to snack on and banana bread to eat and I made some healthy oatmeal bars to snack on throughout the week at home or on the go.

Just these few things save so much time in the week. And I am sure I will add things to my Sunday list as I go along but Sunday is also shopping day for the week till the greenhouse gets up and going.

Bring on 2019

We have kicked off 2019 with a BIG CHANGE!

OUR FOOD!

We have cut out a lot of sugar and salt.

Now let's face it we can't get rid of it completely we are Southern, but we are cutting it back as much as possible.

This means more cooking for this momma.

No more Hershey's chocolate syrup for little miss. No more instant mac and cheese cups and chicken nuggets for dinner. And no more prepackaged noodles for sides and no more canned veggies.
This means more fresh produce, more beans that have to cook way longer and more ideas and planning ahead. ALSO, being a lot more tired. But week one is almost over!

In week one we have had for dinner so far:

• baked chicken legs with some seasoning, home made mashed potatoes and some frozen corn (decided to finish up one last thing we had in the freezer)
• Spaghetti with sauce and bell pepper with a nice salad
• Stir fry with lots of veggies- cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, two types of bell peppers, zucchini all over Jasmine rice
• town house cracker coated chicken breast cut into strips baked with fried cauliflower fritters and home made mac and cheese
• Leftover cracker chicken strips on a fresh salad with lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese, shredded carrots, home made croutons, and dressing of choice

And you might be wondering how is the three year old handling it? Well her biggest thing was the chocolate milk and today we finally found a mixture that WORKS! It does have sugar but no where near as much as what she was getting. Here is her new mix for anyone who would like to give it a try. 

2/3 cup unsweetened Hershey's coco

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp sea salt

whisk in storage container

take one tbsp and put with 12 oz. milk and mix in blender and bam CHOCOLATE MILK! She has already had her two cups for today. 

And for breakfast we do fresh tomatoes, grits, wheat toast, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, omelets,yogurt with fruit. Lunch is all sorts of things like the mac and cheese, salads, fruit salads. And she has fallen in love with her home made cheerio bars with honey and peanut butter for snacks as well as her block cheese and pita crackers. 

Somethings have changed and some have stayed the same and just gotten more home made. 

Here is a before pic of what the fridge looked like before our grocery trip.

And here is after we went shopping. The drawers and bottom shelf are all just fresh produce!

This is just what we got from our first shopping trip!

Here is the empty pantry after getting rid of everything that needed to go!

And this is it now! Still not much stuff because so many things are now fresh and home made so no more crowded pantry with all the boxes and unhealthy foods. So much room that it might just be made into something else and these few things might be moved to a much smaller cabinet! 

And finally here is everything we got rid of! You never know how much bad you have till you clean out everything. And this doesn't include the half empty bottles and stuff I threw out, that filled out a trashcan full. 

And you might be wondering why we kept certain things over others but it was the less sodium, the less sugar. Might not had much in it so we figured we would just finish it off and not buy more. All in all so far this is our new adventure. We had started off 2019 with cutting back a little bit already and trying to cut little miss back on things and then just last week we had a huge discussion to really change our lifestyle and Thursday morning I emptied all the cabinets and pantry, the fridge and freezer and put everything on the table and got to work. I made out meal plans for dinner, lunch and breakfast along with some snack ideas and then we went grocery shopping and got everything we needed to get started on this adventure. And so far its made it to where in just a week I have been able to zip up a blue jean jacket I own that I couldn't before and we have more energy in this house and sleep better at night without all the sugar and caffeine we were consuming before. We were huge soda and tea fans.