New Things 4

So for months now, I have said that I wanted to learn and start making home made fruit smoothies. However, like I usually do, I put it off and just kept going to smoothie king when I craved one or found another things to fulfill that want. But... Today I actually took the step to start making them in effort to being more healthy and eating less and hopefully loosing weight! I found an awesome smoothie blender at Wal-mart that was pretty decently priced. The most expensive thing ( more bang for your buck speaking ) was the frozen fruit and juice. However, I chose a great value brand of frozen mixed fruit that should last me a week for about $8 and decided on the frozen cans of juice, which were around $1.50 a piece. Around $9 vs. spending around $20 or more a week is a pretty good deal. Once I got home I decided to go ahead and try it out... Lets see how well it turned out...

The bag of mixed fruit. The only downside to this particular bag is that you get a random mix of the fruits. You kinda have to pick out what you want unless you dont care. However, it is cheaper.

I bought small chip ice for easier blending. 16lbs of this was a dollar at our local "Cold Iceer Ice Machine"

Frozen Orange juice... wayyyy cheaper than a bottle of OJ

Fruit and Ice... Ready to add OJ

This was my first attempt at the right amount... after blending I ended up adding a little more OJ to give it a smoother texture.

Completed Project

It tasted pretty good but it lacked in sweetness just a little bit. So, I remembered what I saw watching the people at "smoothie king" using to sweeten smoothies...Honey. Humm, so next time, I will try to add a little of that instead of sugar. Its a little more healthy and not as many calories as straight sugar.

New Things 3

Once again I have tried new things! I have really gotten into blogging and writing about life experiences, but just recently, I have really gotten into "Pinterest". I have gotten so many ideas from there and have been able to collect my ideas, likes, wants...etc into pin board that I can keep forever. I think most any woman would like this site. www.pinterest.com/lem4god That is my link. Also, I am trying to eat healthy... Not easy on a tight budget. However, I have been trying my hardest. A lot of the ideas I am getting for being healthy come from Pinterest too. I made whole green beans and veggie rolls for dinner the other night. It came out pretty good, I wish I could have made the green beans a little more tasty, but hey, I'm learning. haha.

It looks appealing though!!  I have also been collecting ideas that I want to try around the house and all. I love looking at new home ideas and new recipes... etc. I can not wait until I have my own home/apartment or just "my place" so that I can try some of these ideas out. I love the "do it yourself" things. I like taking old things and making some cool and neat out of them. Here are some ideas that I like...

Love the organization for cleaning stuff

When I have a baby...this is A CERTAIN for the nursery. Its a fabric tree with a few pics LOVE IT!

Cute Idea for wall art- family made

Very neat planner. Picture frame from walmart, put different fabric behind the glass and use a dry erase marker to write on the glass. 

Ups and Downs...Baking and Cranking

Yesterday the kitchen was full of more baking smells for the holidays! For the first time I finally made one of my fav's... Banana bread!! It turned out delicious! The cookies were really just extras for other people and family. I am learning that I love baking more and more. I don't really like eating sweets, however, making them and giving them away gives me a certain satisfaction. Ha...

I also had Tasha here to help bake with her baby boy, Michael. He was a doll and I think she enjoyed baking...hehe.

So after all the baking and spending time with a friend and a little one... I was pretty tired. I got back home after dropping them off at their house and had the whole house to myself and was trying to relax... and ended up having a very long and emotional night. I can't really go into why... I dont know if I will ever go into why, but more than EVER right now I wish Chris was here to love on me. No, he is not the reason for my sadness... lol. I mean, I am sad he is not here right now because he is such a wonderful support system and he shows his love so well, but my sadness comes from the unmentionable. I laid flat on my face crying for hours and praying that God would give me some peace and just let me sleep. I finally got it at 5 in the morning, and then turned around to get up for church at 730...whew. I can not wait to get a move on with my life. I am ready to have my gastric bypass, move, get a good job somewhere else other than Mobile, being with Chris, and making a new and better life. Leaving my fears behind and leaving generational curses behind. I refuse to live with them. I refuse to be a person molded by another human... but rather I will live as a person molded by God. I hate having so much stress... it sits in my chest and its hard to breath. I carry all my stress in my upper body. Maybe I need to work out tonight! Humm...sounds like a good idea. I need to take time and do for me!! :) Gonna go make some green beans now. **Hungry late at night and trying to stay healthy!..haha**

Today's Daily Doings

I love having the time to get "festive"! Today I finished little home made Christmas gifts for some friends and family, which I will post all about once they are all given out...(don't wanna give them away just yet). Then I went to the store to get tissue wrapping paper and ingredients for cheesecake! I got home and made strawberry cheesecake cupcakes. They look so yummy! Hopefully someone will enjoy them when they finish cooling!
I love baking and making new things...

I was also, like I said above, able to finish wrapping gifts for some people. I still have a few more things to get, and Christmas is just right around the corner, literally. This year just doesn't seem like normal...most of the past years I have had the feeling of "can't wait until Christmas morning", and this year I'm almost like "hold off a bit"...Lol. However, I am making the most out of this Christmas as I can.

This is a good sense of accomplishment! Ha. I am easily amused! Now... I was unloading the dishes today and I started to realize and think about things I would "like" in my kitchen one day when I am married. I have discovered I like organization. Especially of plastic wear. However, I also had a realization of how much we use "jars" for glasses and what great drinking glasses they make. My family uses them all the time! In fact, they have almost become our main "drinking wear". But, to me, I started thinking of how cool a kitchen would be with things like these... I have lately been getting ideas and keeping note of them of things I like and would like to have as inspiration to me and how I do my house one day... I can't wait for that day!

If you are one who throws away jars... I strongly suggest trying them out for cups! They work great!!!

Last 2 Days With My Bestie

As a lot of you know, the girl in the picture with me is my best friend, Rachel. :) We have been through SO MUCH together! I would have not traded all the ups, downs, silly times, and serious times with her for the world. About a year ago, she got engaged to Lony Dorce from Haiti. So throughout this past year wedding plans have been in the making. Well...This upcoming Saturday, Dec. 17 is the day! Unfortunately due to finances and my dad's health, I can not be with her on her wedding day. I am extremely sad about it to. No "sister" wants to miss her sisters wedding. I was going to be the maid of honor, I had my dress, and was so excited to go... But God works out things for his Glory, and we have to just trust that there is a reason for why I am not with her. And I just support her from home. So since I couldn't go to Haiti with her, I decided that I would spend her last two days in America with her, helping her pack and get the last min things in place for when she left. It was good bonding time for us, and I think the extra help went a long way with getting the carry-on's, luggage, and wedding crates packed and all. Let me tell you... It was interesting packing those crate things. I am so proud of her, she has had to leave a lot behind and I know going through all the things you have gotten from friends and family and things that are personal to you to decide what to leave behind is hard. Sadly, she had to leave A LOT behind. Poor thing. There has been a lot that has happened that she has had to push through, but God has made the way! So, Monday morning, I got up and was at her house by 9:30 in the morning. We started out by running errands and picking up some more things that she would need for the trip. Then came home and started packing one of the crate things of stuff for her house that she could take. We went through and made piles of "have to takes", "maybe", and "do not take"... That part wasn't to bad. She did great with choosing. Then we had to get all of it in one of these gray crates...

Okay... so out of all the "have to take" pile...this is HALF. lol. So needless to say, we had to go buy another one. Even then we couldn't get all her towels and stuff in the second one so they ended up going into everyones suit cases a little at a time. Lol. After working on this a while, we had to stop and go to her grandmothers to help her pack... This was kinda fun. I enjoyed seeing her pull all this stuff out of her closet and making little comments like " I just have way to many clothes". It reminded me of my grandmother. We packed her a little bag...(which later turned into a larger bag so rach could put more of her stuff in there).

So after having her packed, got passport info and all of that, we headed out to make one more stop at her aunts house for a few mins and then back to pack up some more. After packing most of everything in the crates, we packed them in the truck and then stopped by the airport to weigh her large suitcase and the two heaviest crates out of 4 just to see where we were weight wise...

Let me tell you... These may look small in the picture... but they are HEAVY and BIG lol. Also the drop off part at the airport was closed so we had to park and lug these things all the way up to the entrance... a good little walk. The whole time we were both saying we wish we had a luggage cart...didn't see any so we just kept going.

SURPRISE! Your overweight... Lol. By 8 pounds...not good. In all with the three pieces we were a total of 16lbs. over. Soo... this means repacking and redoing some things, or just taking some out. We sat there and took out little things of each one to see what we would have to take out when we got home to get it to 50lbs even.

Poor Rachel trying to zip back up. Somehow when you pack something one time, you can never get it back that way again. So we load everything out to put back in the car and guess what we see in the corner tucked away...

  It was like..."are you kidding me"...lol. So after this...we got home and both of us needed a break. Prob shouldnt have taken one...but we did. We decided to play one of our fav games "monopoly" and made a salsa to eat with chips. We mixed sour cream and this authentic salsa that she got from her aunt and it turned out so good! A great evening snack.

 Looks nasty but it was actually really, really good. Lol. We played a game and did a few other things and then I decided that I would go home and try to get some rest. I was back up the next morning and met her at her storage unit to sell her couch set and stuff. After that it was back to running errands. We ran around to several places all morning. By the time we had picked up more suit cases, gone to order suits, and some other stuff, it was like 2 when we got back to the house. Now it was time to re-pack and pack some more and clean.

Now... she is at this very time actually 1:25, boarding her last flight from Miami to Haiti with her parents and grandmother. We thankfully didnt have a "sappy" goodbye... I know that may sound horrible because TRUST me...we really do miss each other and love each other a lot, but we were both so exhausted. I'm sure it'll hit soon... it started to hit home when she called me for the last time before getting married a little while ago this morning. She and her family have had a emotional and crazy experience themselves to...including getting to pensacola last night since they had to be up at 3 to get at the airport, and thankfully going to check the luggage one more time and finding out that Haiti wouldnt accept the crates and that they were still over weight... talk about a nightmare! They had to go spend MORE money on duffel bags and repack and reagrrange... It was terrible. Took them 3 hours... finally got to bed around 12 and was up again at 3...

I wish I could experience this exciting event with her... but I wish her well as she goes about his new adventure! I hope to see her within the year!!! I love you so much Rachel... Thank you for being a best friend and for all of the fun times!!!!

MEMORIES... <3