Like for real?

My cravings are tugging at me today! I want a loaf of bread and a cosmopolitan. Weird combo? I don't think so. Can you imagine me ordering that? Excuse me, sir. May I please have a fresh loaf of Italian bread and the strongest cosmo you can make? Ha! Protein shake it is!

I've been reading a lot of articles lately about eating without giving up all the foods that you love. If I go out to breakfast with my family on Sunday, I don't want to feel like I've taken two steps back by enjoying some french toast. I would also like to have a mimosa or two. It would probably be closer to 5, if I'm being honest. I love me some mimosas. The point is, I want to be able to enjoy these things! I am not willing to give up all the food and beverages that I love forever. I am willing, however, to work my behind off to get fit and stay healthy.

Since M and I got married, all those years ago, I have really grown to love cooking. I enjoy trying new recipes.Trying to get the boys to try something new is a little tricky. However, we've worked out a deal that they must try one bite. If they don't care for it, that's ok. Thank you for trying. M and I on the other hand, if we cooked it, we're eating it. I've been experimenting with breakfast lately and I've found that I really like scrambled eggs with a teaspoon of fresh salsa. Simple. Who would've thunk?

So, the whole point of this is food freedom! Awesome term right?!?! It's not mine. I did't come up with it. These articles that I've been reading have been from Eat to Perform. Never heard of it? The site is excellent and the articles just make sense! Their entire idea behind eating, performing, and everything in between Just. Makes. Sense. Check out this article about food freedom here: Food Freedom. One more thing I'd like to add, I've also learned from this site that I was not eating nearly as much as I need to. More on that later ;)

Speaking of eating, I wanted to share with y'all what I did with my protein shake today! It was delish and I needed a change.

1 scoop chocolate protein powder
1 cup unsweetened coconut or almond milk
1 drop of Young Living's Peppermint Essential Oil
Ice if you want
In the blender it goes! Enjoy!

Um, hello mint chocolaty goodness!

I Just Want to Eat Cake!

It's 9:42 and I am finishing my first cup of iced coffee. Guess what! I want cake, chocolate to be specific. Who doesn't want cake this early in the day?!?!

Once upon a time, I was a sophomore in college and took a nutrition class. One of the few things I remember from that class is our professor talking about the importance to keeping a food log. If we wanted to improve out eating habits, whether to lose/gain weight, we needed to take a long hard look at how we ate. After a few weeks of logging food choices, you a feel for you habits. Another thing we were asked to do is think about why we eat the things we do. Is it thought out? Is it out of convenience? Is it based off of craving? What it is?

Over the past two weeks, I have been keeping a log of what I eat on a daily basis. It's not pretty. To begin with, I don't eat enough. Did you know that not eating enough can be just a damaging to your body as eating too much? I never really put a lot of thought into that until now. Seriously, I hardly eat throughout the day, if at all. I can tell you when I do, I stuff my face. That's not pretty either. I think the worst part is, I have a TON of amazing recipes. I enjoy cooking. Yet, I'm not taking advantage of that.

Yesterday morning, I sat down and made my menu for the week. This week was all my planning. Next week, the boys will help. The boy will have the opportunity to learn how cook more than ramen noodles and mac n cheese over the course of this adventure :) I hope over time, that we establish a sold habit of meal planning and cooking together.

To give you an idea of how badly I've been eating, or not eating, here is the last few days of my log.

 Isn't this ridiculous? As you can see, coffee is the main component of my diet.  This morning, however, I stuck to my meal plan (day 1 woohoo) of oatmeal, a grapefruit, water, and coffee.

Monday morning I will begin with the fitness portion! Everything has to start on a Monday! Didn't you know?!?! I want to create and establish lifelong habits. I don't want a 30 or 90 day program that leaves me hanging at end. I don't want to "finish" and gain all my unhealthy habits back. There are lots of programs out there that work great for people, some of my close friends included. They just aren't for me. It may be that I don't have the motivation to keep up with them. Whatever the case, the advantage to having figured that out is that I have plenty of fitness dvds and protein powder to last a few months. I will be taking what I've learned from some of these programs along with what I learned in my own experiences and research to find a good fit for me. I want to eat right but also be able to enjoy the food that I love, within reason!

Like I said before, this is going to be a long process. Probably an ugly one too ;) I'll be sure to post any amazing recipes that I come across along with cool fitness video that I may like. While I finish me coffee, I'll be dreaming of the chocolate cake I may treat myself to in the next few days.

Homeschool?!?!

I have Peppermint & Lavender in the diffuser and have applied GeneYus to N's wrists and back of neck. Why you ask? Because this task require a calm environment and focused children. Add a calm and focused mom to that too! GeneYus is like a miracle blend. N goes from bouncing off the walls to only bouncing in place in a matter of minutes. The awesome thing is, when I grab the bottle, he knows to grab his pencil because it's time to work. He even asks for it when knows he needs to focus on one thing. It's really cool that he so aware of how his brain and body work and knows what he needs to do to get his tasks done.

We're doing it. I am homeschooling my children. The decision was not an easy one but necessary. We made our first move for the year and are quickly approaching the next one. It could be in 3 months or in 5. Either way, it's coming. For this reason, I felt it would be best to have the minions home with me. Two schools in less that a year is a lot for anyone to handle, especially when tiny h e double hockey sticks, aka middle school, is in the equation. Those are the exact words my son used back in April to describe his 6th grade year. All I could respond with was "I know, it's terrible".

When I first mentioned it to my other half, he just stared at me. I mentioned it again a few days later an he grumbled "Babe! All the kids I knew growing up that were homeschooled were so weird." Well, most of the people we know as adults are really weird. I don't understand what people's natural weirdness has to do with me wanting to homeschool our children. Again, he just stared at me.

After chatting with several amazing teachers, that I miss and love so much, and with a dear friend that has been homeschooling for a few years, I felt comfortable with decision to do it! My hubbs, on the other hand, was going to take some convincing. Once I started really researching curricula and telling him about how cool all the stuff was, he slowly started to come around. One year is the plan for now but I have a feeling it's going to be a bit longer than that! Baby steps.

We started out this school year with U.S. History. I will add a new subject every two weeks until we have all that we need. Science is next! B jumped right in and quickly discovered that his study skill are lacking. N is going to take some time to figure out what is going to work best. I am going to purchase a small exercise ball for him to sit on while we read. This way he can bounce and fidget while we do what needs to be done. Between our essential oils and this, I think we are headed in the right direction. For now, allowing him to wiggle around on the floor seems to be working fine. I am excited to see all the the boys learn and accomplish this year!

Guess what I did! Again!

Remember way back when, when I told y'all I going to do the whole lifestyle change thing? It was because I had gained some of my weight back after my surgery, which was to be expected. Well, in true Colleen fashion, I gained ALL of my weight back. ALL! Every. Single. Pound. *Face Palm* Seriously! Guess what! I feel AWFUL. Not like, ugh I look gross awful, more like sick awful. It's terrible. I feel sluggish, my skin is breaking out, stomach bothers me often. My cravings for everything and anything sweet and/or fried is off the charts! My body has changed in a way that I am not liking one bit. To top it off, my thyroid is out of whack again. I'll give you one guess as to why. My bad choices regarding my not so good diet!

Soooooo! It's looks like it's truly time for me to suck it up and get this show on the road! My family has weight issues and I don't want this to something I have to battle every few months for the rest of my life. I don't want to deal with the yo yo weight anymore. It's one things to have to deal with the symptoms of hypothyroidism. It's a whole other thing to deal with this on top of it.

I've been following a lot of great pages on FB and people on Instagram. As I start this new journey, I'll be sure to share about these pages and people with y'all along the way. I've learned a great deal about food and what your body really needs to perform properly in these last few months. Follow me for the journey or join me! Either way, I hope you learn something. It may only be what kind of foods and exercises I don't like! You may also come to the conclusion that I'm slightly bonkers! Who knows! Either way, it's all good. I promise, you'll be seeing and hearing about the good, the bad, and the ugly!


I know that y'all are just dying to know what I'm diffusing this morning in my amazing Dew Drop diffuser. The wait is over! It's Citrus Fresh! Mmmmmm! It smells delish! I really needed the extra energy when I got up morning. That's all for now y'all! Until next time!

B is for Babe

Hey y'all! It's been quite awhile! Lots of things have changed since January, including the name of my blog. It was time for a change. As I was thinking about what I could possible rename my blog, my oldest shouted out "Hey! Your babe is home". That's it! B is for Babe. M and I always call each other babe. It's like we have no other name. Just Babe. Even the boys think it's hilarious to call us Babe. I'll be posting all sort of fun and exciting things from the hot mess that is going to be homeschooling, to baking , to my fitness woes. Look out cyber world! Babe is on a mission :)

Just a boy

My youngest, N, is an active little guy. He has an imagination that puts mine to shame. He had big goals and dreams. He speaks the language of math. He loves any game he's allowed to play on an electronic device. He's also very random in the thoughts he chooses to share. They, often, have nothing to do what's going on. It's almost as if he's living in his own little world. What kiddos isn't though? ;)

Towards the end of last school year, N had some focus issues in class. He teacher and I discussed it and thought a few different things. 1. He's all boy. 2. It's the end of the school year. 3. He's an intelligent little guy and maybe he's getting bored. That was it.

Over the past summer, we noticed that N's attention span was getting shorter and shorter. Too much visual and audio stimuli throughout the day? That could be it. Maybe we need to wear him out by running around in the backyard or more trips to the park throughout the day. All of that worked for a little while. It wasn't until he began having trouble falling asleep at night that we really started to wonder what was going on.

The 2015-2015 years stated off great! N was excited about his class and his teacher! Nicholas was doing well, but again, was having some focus issues. His teacher and I discussed a few thing the we had noticed at home and she shared what she's been observing in school. Naturally, I look at N and see my child. So, what seems "normal" to me, is not going to look that way to other. To be more specific, the way he thinks. Now, I won't get into all of the details, but I am so very thankful to have this teacher in our lives. She's been a major help in figuring this out and getting started on the path to helping N and ourselves.

N told me one night before bed that he just had too much going on his head. He couldn't tell me what he wanted to because the words were "lost" in there somewhere. Bingo! He told us the most important things we needed to hear! His words were "lost". The best way it's been described to me is like playing a game of roulette. You spin, land on number/color and that's what you get. In N's mind, what he lands on is what he's sharing. Imagine being in one of those money blasters. The fan in on at full force and you are grabbing every dollar you can. That's what he's doing with his thought. They are zooming in a sea of knowledge and he is grabbing on to any thought he can.

Now we are faced with a few decisions regard the direction we go. We already adjusted his diet. He is very limited on artificial colors in foods and eating as little processed food as we can get away with. He's super picky when it comes to eating. That in itself made a noticeable difference. His time of electronic devices is limited. He gets a sold amount of physical activity throughout the day. We've incorporated essential oils into his daily life as well, duh! :) Cedarwood & Valor! Cedarwood is to help him relax and settle down at night and the valor is to help him stay focused during the school day. N has a cedarwood soap that he uses and we also diffuse cedarwood when it's time for bed. He settles down so much faster with the cedarwood going in the diffuser. In the morning, before school, we apply Valor to his wrists and back of neck or he wears his diffuser necklace or bracelet. The bracelet is a thick leather strap that we add two to three drops of Valor to. The necklace is a braided leather strap and we do the same thing with that. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! HUGE!

The main thing, right now, is figuring out how his mind is mapped out. How does N think? How does he process what he reads. hears, and sees? How can we help him get his thought out of his mouth and onto paper? We don't speak his language and he has limited understanding of our. We need to bridge that gap. It's very frustrating to him and upsetting to us, when we don't understand what point he's trying to get a cross. He recognizes what's going on and know we are aware. It's taking a lot of extra patience and explaining things from every which direction, but we are making progress. I know that we will have to make adjustments here and there with him. I am just thankful that we are doing right now, is helping. ONE STEP AT A TIME.

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