7AM Grocery Trip

I have found a new way to buy groceries. This is a big deal people! Grocery shopping is the single hardest part of my week. Ava is no longer napping in public, so taking her on a grocery trip means sacrificing a nap and having to shlep her and bags of groceries in the house. It's a nightmare. If you've been there, you either know exactly what I mean or think I'm being a total drama queen.

My MIL comes by once a week to let me run errands, but I can never finish all my shopping in that one trip. Yesterday she stayed with Ava while I did Costco and made some returns. Costco's produce has been sub-par (as in rotten) lately, so I still had all my produce left to get.

This morning I planned on sleeping an extra hour while Brian ate breakfast and hung out with Ava (Brian gets Ava up and keeps her with him for his morning routine every morning that he doesn't have church meetings at 6am), but while he was in the shower I heard Ava's congested breathing and knew if I ignored her any longer I'd feel like a child abuser. So, I got up and de-congested her nose. I won't go into detail about the decongesting procedure- it's far too glamourous. You'll just be jealous. 

And then I had a crazy thought, "If I throw on some sweat pants and brush my teeth I can have a full hour to grocery shop before Brian goes to work ... and maybe I can grab a latte while I'm out." The last part of that thought is what got me out the door. 

I had a full glorious hour to drive around praying, drinking my latte and getting my shop on. Now I don't have to find someone to stay with Ava or risk throwing off her nap schedule! I'm doing this every week. 

Anyone else found creative ways to get errands or shopping done?

Beans

I made crockpot refried beans without the refry this week. I wish I had pictures, but I ate them so fast I couldn't snap one in time. Just kidding, I'm super lazy when it comes to taking pictures of anything but Ava.

I recommend the crockpot refried beans. I bought a huge bag of dry pintos a while back, so instead of buying refried beans this week I figured I could actually act on the frugality I had in mind when I purchased them and make my own. Here's how I did it:

3 cups dry beans, rinsed

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

1 red onion, chopped

4 whole cloves of garlic, peeled

2 T fat (I used butter, but you could use olive oil)

2 t salt (I used 1 T and 1 t and it was too much salt)

1 t pepper

big dash of cumin (I didn't measure)

9 cups water

I cooked these on high for 10 hours. At about hour 8, I pulled enough beans out for dinner and let the rest keep cooking. When they were tender, I pulled out the whole garlic cloves (some of them had broken apart and I left those in). Then I drained the juice and set it aside to add back in as needed. I used my immersion blender to blend them into a refried consistency and added the juice as needed. You could use a potato masher if you don't have an immersion blender (that's what the recipe I adapted this from called for). 

I separated them into small containers for lunches this week and a large container to freeze for dinner next week. I'll be making these again soon, but I'll probably double my batch so I can freeze more. I make beans and brown rice (with a salad on the side of course!) for dinner often. It's really affordable since I buy the beans and rice in bulk bags and easy to prepare as long as I give myself enough time. It's been a great way to save on groceries and have leftovers for lunches. 

The end.

P.S. I ended the detox last week when Brian brought home my ice cream cake. I did "cheat" a few times during the detox. But each time, the sugar was too much for me since I had kind of gotten it out of my system. Even my beloved Baskin Robbins Ice cream cake made me feel yucky. I'm not as drawn to refined sugars now as I was, so I feel like I accomplished my goal.

Having a Small Town Heart

Yesterday I actually wrote something of substance. Something not about refined sugars, cleaning products, or baby gear ;)

But right before I posted it on here I thought It would be better to post it on my church's blog which I contribute to when the urge strikes. You can check out my post, Having a Small Town Heart in the City over at the GrassRoots Blog. 

Another Crazy Homemade Product

Brian is out of town today which means I am double sleep deprived and bored out of my mind. One can only clean a 900 square ft. apartment so much. I need another adult to talk to like I needed a double shot latte this morning. I do silly things when I'm alone and bored. Like rinsing my hair with vinegar. 

Yes, I did it. I read on Pioneer Woman that it saved her hair. And I'm here to tell ya, I think it saved mine too. You can read her explanation of it here. Basically, she says it removes build up from your hair the same way it cleans your coffee pot. And I must agree. My hair feels great and it looks pretty good too. See?

And while I'm waxing on about hair, I want to let you know that washing your hair with baking soda is not all I said it was a couple posts ago. It was full and clean feeling on day one, but on day two it felt nasty, just nasty. I know no other way to describe it. 

While I've gotcha here let me update you on the detox. I'm no longer offering to give up my first born for a cookie after dinner. The intense dessert cravings have passed. And just to be on the up and up, Brian and I did have birthday dessert at our brother-in-law's birthday party last week. We agreed ahead of time that it was okay. 

Cloth Diapers take two

As soon as my friend Stevie found out I was expecting, she started hassling me about cloth diapering. I was adamant that there were a lot of "natural" things I was going to for Ava like breastfeed, stagger her immunization schedule, make babyfood from scatch, use natural medicines and health products, but cloth diapering was not one of those things. 

Then I watched the HUGE bag of diapers being taken out to the trash a few times a week by my Diaper-Genie-handling husband and I felt a little guilty. About the landfills. If you know me, you know that being "green" is a little lower on my list of priorities, but even my environmentally stone-cold heart was starting to twinge at all those diapers. 

So I ordered a couple cloth diapers (gdiapers to be precise). They are adorable ... and leaky. My other friends who use them say they don't leak for them so I'm sure it's a user error. Even so, I'm a little discouraged. All my efforts to save the planet and make my baby's bottom even more adorable have been met with poop, leaky poop. 

I got a Bum-genius brand diaper in the mail today so I'll give it a shot before I officially throw in the towel. I'm pretty sure I'm going back to Pampers though. They are so absorbent and soft and easy and not leaky. And I can Subscribe and Save on Amazon and get them so affordably. 

If you have any suggestions for better cloth diapering, I'd love to hear them. 

Sugar Detox Day 3-What we do instead

We're still hanging in there :)

The more I've thought about my detox, I've realized it isn't actually a sugar detox so much as a "sweets" or dessert detox. It would probably be beneficial to cut all sugars out of my diet for a period of time, but like I said yesterday I'm just not that hardcore. 

I've found that when I'm trying to stop doing something, it's not enough to just eliminate a bad or undesired behavior. I also need to put something good or better in it's place. 

The last three evenings after dinner Brian and I have gone for a long walk around our neighborhood in place of having a several cookies. We load Ava up in the stroller and take a loop that runs through the park. At the park we watch people play frisbee with their dogs and dad's teaching their kids how to ride a bike. I noticed last night that we see the same people over and over again and that really gives me a sense of community, of being connected to the people around us. 

We've even been playing on the playground a little ourselves. Is that creepy or youthful? I'm not sure. Either way, it's been a really sweet time for our little family. Last night while we played on the monkey bars (no, I'm not kidding) we reminisced about our elementary school playgrounds. It turns out we had very different playground equipment even though we were in school at the same time. 

In giving up dessert we've found more energy than we previously thought we had in the evenings, more time to make memories instead of cookies, and found out new things about each other. So far, this is a win-win. Or if you're an Office fan, a win-win-win. ;)

Sugar Detox

Every week I make a big batch of whole wheat chocolate chip cookie dough. And every evening after dinner Brian rolls six cookies into balls and puts them in the oven. I have been convincing myself that they are a "healthy" dessert since they are whole wheat and I use less sugar than the recipe calls for. And I really do believe they are relatively healthy, in moderation. Three cookies every evening is not what I would call moderation. (Not to mention my occasional afternoon cookie pick-me-up.)

One night last week when I asked Brian if he was going to make cookies, he said "we don't need cookies every night."

I was horrified. "What? Who told you that? They're a liar whoever they are!" 

So I got up and made my own batch of cookies. And you know what? He ate some. 

The next day I got to thinking about my crazy irrational reaction about the cookies. Maybe we didn't need cookies every night. The problem was that I really did. I was addicted. So I decided that as of Sunday, yesterday, I was going to go on a sugar detox so that I really wouldn't need cookies. I want to have them and enjoy them, but I don't want to need them. 

Yesterday was day 1 of the sugar detox and it was hard. I think I said "I want a cookie" 600 times. It didn't help that yesterday morning we made a huge batch of my favorite cookies for our church picnic but since we were an hour late to church (read: completely exhausted and cranky) decided not to go. So the cookies sat on our counter all day and called to me. 

I am not being hardcore about what defines sugar. I will still put honey in my muffins and if we have french toast for brunch on Saturday, I will still use maple syrup. I'm not however, putting sugar in my coffee or eating "sweets." I also will not be using any "sugar-free" products. I never do and never will knowingly put an artificial sugar substitute in my food. The calories and fat you save using these products are more than cancelled out by the health risks of using these fake substances, IMO. 

Brian is doing the detox too. He's such a team player. Any time I want to do something like this for health reasons, he's quick to join me. It would be a different story if I said I was doing this to lose my last 10 Ava pounds. He would refuse to join me, tell me that he doesn't know what 10 pounds I'm talking about and that I do not need to lose weight. Do you see why I love this man? But since this is about health and not weight, he's happy to oblige.

Today is the second day of my detox and I'm feeling pretty confident after making it through last night with those cookies on the counter. I'm planning to detox until my birthday on September 9th. Then I shall eat a big piece of Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. 

I'm posting this more for me than for your reading pleasure. If I make my detox public, I'll be more likely to stick with it. So I'll keep you updated on my progress and what strategies I'm employing to stay sugar-free.