Egg Night

One of the biggest challenges I face as a mom is figuring out a decent, inexpensive and quick meal to prepare when my husband is out of town. Usually these meals consist of pizza, cheese tortellinis with sauce, or frozen store bought foods. Being that I'm on a diet of late- that carby, carb, carb stuff is NOT what I need to be eating. So, while we still do it once a week usually, I learned a new meal trick thanks to one of my friends from church.

Many of you know my struggle with the Incredible Edible Egg. Ever since I started my lifestyle change in January, I have struggled with forcing down the recommended protein provided by eggs. I can honestly say, I've not been a fan since I was about five. Thanks to my husband's tutelage, I've been able to learn to cook a decent omelet, and I find that if I throw enough interesting stuff in there with the egg, I can handle it.

So, my friend said that she occasionally uses eggs as her "go to" meal. She serves her family a scrambled egg, with steamed organic frozen broccoli and frozen mango pieces on the side. I tried this, and it was actually a hit in my house. The fact that it took about 10 minutes (with minimal clean up) to prepare was a hit with me. Ever since then, I've added egg night to our menu about once a week when Martin is out of town. Sometimes we'll make egg tacos- basically scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese on a tortilla, other times it's just omelets.

Tonight, I decided to use this go to meal with a little variation based on what I had on hand in the fridge.

Here's what I used:
2 cukes from the garden
Homemade dressing (cider vinegar, honey, and oil with herbs)
feta cheese
3 eggs
leftover cooked sausage (you don't have to have a ton of it- I just used about 1-2 Tbsp per omelet)
1/3 bunch of kale, washed and torn
olive oil, salt, pepper
Parmesan cheese
Grapes

I sliced up the cukes from the garden, and added the leftover salad dressing I had made a while back, along with a shake of feta cheese. Meanwhile, I grabbed the kale that I had leftover that was washed, and torn into bite size pieces, coated it with Olive oil from my Misto sprayer, sprinkled it with pepper and parmesan cheese, and popped it in the oven at 375 degrees for 14 minutes. Then I made the boys omelets out of the sausage and cheese we have left over from breakfast the other day (I made my omelet sans sausage). Forget 30 minute meals- this was about a 15 minute meal. I have a pan, a bowl, and a cookie sheet to clean up.

My kids gobbled it down, because they love it all (they adore kale chips). Not pictured- we added some grapes for fruit, and topped the meal off with a scoop of low calorie vanilla ice cream on a cone (Coen had a home-made smoothie pop instead- more on that later) for dessert.

So, I didn't actually write down the prices on everything here because I didn't know I'd be writing this blog, but by my estimation, I fed the three of us tonight for approximately $2.50-3.00 at most (not including dessert). That would be less than $1.00 per person in less time than it would probably take me to run through the drive thru.

I'm full, they're full, and I don't feel really guilty for what we ate. For my money, this rocks. And the egg's not half bad either.

Doin' the washin'

A little over a year ago, my best friend, Alicia mentioned that she makes her own laundry detergent. I remember looking at her skeptically as if she was kidding. She wasn't. I couldn't imagine doing that- giving up the freshly laundered smell of Tide or Gain in my clothes- somehow that smell just makes the world seem in order.

But still in the weeks that followed, I started to ruminate on the home-made laundry detergent scenario. It makes sense. We pay around $15 every couple of weeks for a box of powdered gold. Apparently, there's a whole black market out there for Tide- as people are stealing truckloads of the stuff and selling it off for profit. Who knew? Reminds me of the days when the kids were still on formula and I had to go to the guest service desk at the grocery store to buy formula because people were stealing it off the shelves. To me, baby formula would be on my list of things to steal- but laundry detergent? I'm not sure that's worth hard time. I joke. I totally joke.

Anyway, I kept thinking about it, and finally had the nerve to mention it to Martin. You should have seen his face. Now, I have had my fair share of hair brained ideas (in his defense), but I could tell he thought that this was one of them. Little did he know that with the advent of Pinterest, there is a whole wide world out there now, of home-made stuff that can save us money and trips to the store (and in some cases, even cut out harmful chemicals and toxins). Nevertheless, he was a good sport, but still replied, "I don't think I'm ready for home-made laundry detergent". Okay, that's fair. I will bide my time.

Cut to about 2 weeks ago, and Martin was out of town. I ran out of laundry detergent. The stars had finally aligned, and I could try out my experiment with little resistance. Muhahaha. I texted Alicia and got the recipe she uses and the ingredient/supply list.

Powdered Borax
Arm and Hammer Washing Powder
Ivory Soap
Coffee scoop (I used the one with the slotted bottom for closing a coffee bag- found it at Target)
Jar or container with lid
Grater
large bowl
Twine
Stain remover (such as Spray on OxyClean)

Seriously? That's it. I couldn't believe how few ingredients it had- and all in all I think that totaled maybe $10 or so including the bottle of OxyClean (which I will use as needed). I had no problem finding the Ivory Soap or Borax at Target, but I did have to jump over to Walmart to find the Arm and Hammer Washing Powder. Now, I've since seen recipes on Pinterest that include Powdered Oxyclean and powdered Fabric Softener Crystals. I still have some of my original batch left, so I'll probably stick with this for now, as it's cheaper, and also, does not contain all the chemicals- and I'm starting to like that idea.

Now, I'm no allergist, but I would guess this is a great recipe for someone who's washing baby clothes or individuals with sensitive skin.

Here are the instructions:

1 bar Ivory Soap
1 c. Borax
1 c. Arm and Hammer Washing Powder

1. Grate one bar of Ivory Soap into a large bowl. I bought a special grater just for this, but I did notice that since it's soap it cleaned right up in the dishwasher so I really don't think it would matter- you could probably also use your food processor.

2. Add one cup Borax.

3. Add one cup Washing Powder.

4. Mix and pour into your jar or container.

5. Label jar and attach coffee spoon to the side. Done!

You only need 1 Tbsp. of detergent per load. It does not suds up the way other detergents do, and if I have a particularly smelly or dirty load, I will add 2 scoops for my peace of mind, but I don't think that's necessary. I did print instructions with my label maker and attach them on the side, so Martin would not be afraid to use it. He tends to over think these things. Please note- there is not a stain remover in this mix, so you will need to pre-treat stains with a stain remover, and use bleach on your whites, if you normally do.

Of course, I couldn't wait to sniff my first load of laundry. It doesn't have the heavy fragranced smell, but my clothes do, indeed, smell clean. If the fruity and flowery smells are really that important to you, I would suggest looking up the recipe using fabric softener on Pinterest. I have also pinned it onto my "Home Remedies" board for future use.

When Martin returned home, I immediately stuck the laundry in his face and said, "Smell! It's home-made detergent!!!" He is fine with it! No complaints from the hubby, and yes, he's even helping me wash with it. Two weeks later, I still have about half of my jar of detergent (I do about 8-10 loads of laundry a week), plus a ton of leftover supplies to make more- I'm probably set for 6 months to a year...

....which leads me to wonder how much I can get on the black market for the home-made stuff. Guess I'll just settle for sharing with y'all instead.

Trimming the fat....

Well, it's been a little over 6 months since I decided to pull back from my job as a sales rep (working from home) and allow myself to focus on the things in life that should've been my priorities to begin with. My family, my home and my health.

With Martin's work responsibilities keeping him away more and more often, I knew that the stress of balancing the home responsibilities and taking care of the kiddos was really taking a toll on my health, and happiness. I had gained 20 lbs.- probably due to stress, lifestyle and some medical issues, and was also struggling with acid reflux, which my Dr. was chalking up to "life stress". Plus, the hours I put in did not balance with the happy income I had hoped for last year. So Martin and I took a look at the budget and decided that I would pull back from the job. Instead of networking, knocking on doors and trying to gain new clients, I would maintain a select few accounts and work less while working smarter. Best. Decision. Ever.

I've since lost 20 lbs, and am working toward my goal of 15-20 more. While I've been a bit lax this summer, I'm in the best shape of my life, and can now run 2-3 miles- a feat which I never in my wildest dreams thought I could achieve. I'm enjoying the summer months, and have taken my boys to the zoo, the library, the park, on bike rides, to the pool, and to the splash park; gone to Six Flags as a family, taken a family trip to Schlitterbahn and sent them to some pretty awesome camps- and the summer's not even halfway over yet. All of that with little to no guilt or anxiety about neglecting my job in the meantime. It is exhilarating to finally be able to enjoy my kids with minimal distractions. When I was working before, I felt guilty for not being with or enjoying time with the kids; while at the same time feeling guilty for neglecting work while with the kids. Some of you can pull off both, but I can tell you that for this mom, at this phase of my life- I could not- not without mass amounts of anxiety, guilt and the start of an ulcer from being pulled in so many directions. I am so much happier (and pleasant to be around- I think).

While it's been great, we're finally starting to feel the loss of the little income I did have coming in. Like every true American, we have amassed some debt, and that has started to wear on us. And with that, I find myself with a new guilt (it's what I'm best at)- the guilt for not contributing enough monetarily.

Martin and I have been discussing our big money plan, and with a desire to get our eternal goals and contributions more in line- how we can save some money, eliminate debt, etc. We had some scary conversations about cutting out things we love... and of course, we have to start with the glaringly obvious.

So, I'm redirecting where I'm going with the blog, and will be writing about our experiences in this "trimming the fat" at this stage of our lives. I will share our melt downs, our kids melt downs, some of my money saving tricks I've learned, and light bulb moments. Hopefully, it will encourage and perhaps inspire someone out there in our scenario.

My hope is that if I can trim 20 pounds of fat from my body, we can do the same in our budget. Happy reading y'all!