8:00 Shut-Down

I just came across an interesting concept over at The Small Things Blog. She is going to try to shut down her Internet connectivity at 6:00 pm most nights. She's not going to worry about messages and whatnot after that point.

I think that's an interesting concept. I don't think I could handle 6:00 as my shut-off point. Mainly because I often don't get home until 6:00 during the school year. I think I may try to do 8:00 pm. I think I will make this a rule for blogging (which actually doesn't take up all that much time), Facebook, and e-mail. I already have a rule that I don't check work e-mail at home unless absolutely necessary because it stresses me out too much.

I'll allow researching and Pinterest after 8:00 because that helps me learn and complete projects. I may make exceptions if I know that I have to find out something about scheduling or activities for the next day. Other than that, I think I need to reserve the last few hours of my evening for reading and spending time with my husband. Maybe I'll make a rule that all grading needs to be done by 8:00 as well (unless I get seriously behind or something).

I often let my outside world barge into my sacred little home. I would like to keep it at bay if at all possible. Home is where I don't have to have a pleasant look on my face and make meaningless small talk. Home is where I can be exactly who I want to be without worrying what others think. Home is where I can stare into space without people looking at me funny.

All social media does is distract me from reality. It's time to get back on track!

My Gluten-Free "Journey"

Well, today was the day that I finally caved and intentionally ate gluten. I lasted 3 weeks. I was hoping to go a whole month. The idea was to go gluten-free for a month and then slowly add gluten back to my diet to see how it made me feel.

I have IBS, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I know, I know... it's icky-sounding. Sorry if you know me and you have to now think about this every time you see me. According to justibs.com (which I have no clue of its reliability), about 10-20% of the world's population suffer from some sort of this disorder. I won't go into all the grisly details of how it works, but just know that it causes me to feel unwell in some way just about every day of my life. I usually push the discomfort to the back of my mind and just carry on with life as usual.

I read in a some food-related magazine a while back that cutting out gluten can really improve the symptoms of this incurable syndrome. I used to take a prescribed medicine for it back in college when I had little control over my diet and stress levels. I didn't like being dependent on medicine for something that I could control with diet and a healthier lifestyle. So, I weaned myself off the medication and haven't taken any prescription medicine for it since. After my 25th birthday hit earlier this summer, I decided that my body will not tolerate my unhealthy lifestyle for much longer. So, I decided to start out by seeing what gluten might be doing to my system.

A lot of my friends and family members were a little wary of me trying this. They told me all sorts of horror stories about it. Everyone I told about it seemed a little hesitant.

I went ahead and cut gluten from my diet. At first it was fun. I went to Whole Foods and perused the gluten-free sections of my local grocery stores. It's amazing how easy it is to live gluten-free in this day and age. I also tried many different popular chain restaurants to see if I could still go and eat gluten-free. I even went to Panera! I'm sure I ingested gluten through cross-contamination (especially at Panera), but I was remarkably surprised at how many restaurants either have a gluten-free menu or have multiple items that are naturally gluten-free. For the most part, I have felt really well during this three week period. I also cut out coffee and cut back on soda.

I'm heading home to Illinois in less than a week to see family. Whenever we go home to see family, we eat and eat and eat. I figured I should probably ease my way back into eating gluten before I go home, so I don't shock my system. So, today I went to my favorite local pizzeria for a delicious, gluten-filled stromboli. We'll see how I feel tonight.

For now, I'm thinking that I can tolerate gluten. I do think, however, that I need to cut back significantly on my intake. I'm thinking about eating gluten only during one meal per day.

As soon as I come back from vacation, I'm embarking on a new diet which simply involves counting calories. My dad has lost 25 lbs. and my brother has lost 15 lbs. in the past month using this tried and true method. I think I need to jump on the bandwagon and get myself healthy again. I ordered a book off of Amazon that includes the calories in 1000s of common foods. My dad has been using this book and is singing its praises.

I'm tired of being so overweight and lethargic. I need to kick it in high gear before the school year starts and life gets crazy. Here goes!

The Muppet Theory

I recently came across this blog post which referenced this article. The original article proposed that all humans fall under two categories: Chaos Muppets and Order Muppets. If you never, watched the Muppets or Sesame Street as a child (or as an adult for that matter), this will make little to no sense to you.

Chaos Muppets include Animal, Miss Piggy, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Gonzo, and Grover. Order Muppets include Kermit, Bert, and Scooter. Chaos Muppets leave all sorts of chaos in their wake and are constantly messing up something or causing some sort of trouble or having an emotional meltdown. Order Muppets love schedules and perfection and stability and cleanliness. The author of this article basically lumps all of humankind into these two broad categories.

Now a lot of the article is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but it does bring up some interesting ideas. The author touches a little on the idea that Order Muppets tend to attract Chaos Muppets. The blog where I originally found the link to the article develops this idea further. I tend to agree with this statement.

My husband and I fit this general mold...to a point. I think I would fall under the category of Order Muppet and my husband would probably fall under the category of Chaos Muppet. Just look at the insides of our cars, and you can see how different we are. My husband's car is a death trap, while mine stays relatively clean.

However, I can be really messy when I get lazy. My messiness infuriates me. I get depressed and anxious whenever my house/personal space gets untidy. Somehow, I do a really good job of suppressing my anger over my messiness because I let it stay like that for far too long. My idea of total relaxation involves cleaning my entire house and then stretching out on my couch with some tea and a book while wrapped in my Snuggie. My husband's idea of relaxation is pushing aside his books and papers so he can sit down to play video games with no clue as to his surroundings.

Ben balances me out. I prevent him from descending into utter ruin. I think our differences allow us to live harmoniously. God put us together to help us build one another up. I say all the time that it's a good thing I'm not single, or I would be a total wreck of a human. No one would want to be near me. I need my Ben (as given to me by God) to help me work through my issues to keep me from becoming a total control freak.

Magnetic Menu Planning Board

Ever since I got married 3 years ago, I've been planning out my meals in advance. Every once in a while I get lazy and just try to wander into the grocery store without a clue as to what I'm going to buy. That usually results in two weeks worth of fast food.

My mom is one of those people who can walk into a grocery store and just KNOW what she needs without writing it down. She rarely has to go back to the grocery store to get extra supplies for her recipes because she just has it all figured out. I'm not that way. I must have a plan.

For the past three years, I would come up with something like this:

 Then I would create a shopping list based on the meal plan. It worked, but was pretty sloppy, hard to read, and disorganized. As usual, I started perusing Pinterest for some ideas. Here are some that I found:

Source: splitcoaststampers.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Or this:

Source: bhg.com via Melissa on Pinterest

This:

Source: littlebiggirlstudio.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Or This:

Source: positivelysplendid.com via Melissa on Pinterest

This one is INSANITY at its finest and can be yours for the low, low price of $140:

Source: robbygurlscreations.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

This is what I ended up going with:

Source: thehomesihavemade.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

I also grabbed some ideas from this lovely site as well.

Here's a list of the materials I used:

• Magnetic dry erase calendar
• Printable Magnetic sheets
• Small, clear plastic tackle box
• Scissors
• Color printer
• Microsoft Word

I purchased all of these supplies (except for the color printer, scissors, and MW) at Office Depot and Target.

Here's the procedure:

I measured the boxes on my calendar to see how wide I needed to make the magnet strips. I wanted to make sure the magnet strips were exactly the same width as the calendar boxes. For my calendar, this was about 3". I then measured the height of the calendar boxes. I didn't want my strips to take up more than half of the box. They ended up being a little over a 1/2".

After measuring, I created boxes in Microsoft  Word that fit these dimensions. I chose the color of the boxes based on the colors of my kitchen. I have a sunflower theme. It's actually called Evening Sun from Pfaltzgraff. I also have a little cornflower blue tucked in there as well. I agonized over my colors. Unfortunately, they printed out much brighter than I wanted them to. So, my color scheme is a little more rainbow-colorish. Oh well, I love bright colors too. Nobody will care if my menu matches my dinnerware.

I then typed up the names of the recipes I actually use using a text box overlay over the colored boxes. This was a painstaking process. I'm sure there is an easier way to do it. I'm notorious for doing things the hard way because that's the only way I know. I used different colors for each type of meat to ensure that I don't eat chicken every day of the week. I'm also going to try to incorporate meatless meals into my meal plan, so I made a color for meatless meals. (I called them "vegetarian.")

I then printed out the strips on the magnet paper. Check to make sure your magnet paper is facing the correct direction in your printer. I just bought my printer from a friend who moved to Guam, so I didn't realize the paper got turned around somehow in the printing process. I thought I could just put the paper side up in the printer, and all would be fine. Turns out I printed my first batch of labels on the actual magnet part of the magnet paper. What was even worse was I did it again at the end of the project! Grrrrr....

While watching TV, I carefully cut out the labels with regular scissors. My husband recommended I use a paper cutter (you know the kind that chop off fingers too), but my boxes weren't lined up evenly and I was too impatient to drive all the way into work to use one. Regular scissors work just fine for this project and make a great excuse for catching up on Netflix episodes of Out of the Wild: Venezuela.

I also made tiny little squares with little codes on them. These are about the same size as the date box on my calendar. The red little codes are for sides. I'm really bad at actually having sides for regular/non-company meals. Here are the codes:

R- rice
Cc- couscous
V- vegetables
Br- bread
Q- quinoa
Po- potatoes
Pa- pasta

I then made codes that help me know how to prepare the meals more efficiently:

M- me (These are very helpful in helping me know what days my husband is working through dinner and I'm alone.)
CP- crockpot (These are to remind me to get my crockpot ready to go before work or before bed. I have a really nice programmable crockpot that automatically goes to warm when it's done cooking.)
Fr- freeze (This is to remind me to freeze the leftovers so I don't have to worry about eating them before they go bad.)
G- grill (This is to remind me to ask Ben to grill since he's the designated grillmaster.)

I also have a few other recipe-sized labels that are as follows:

New- this is so I can indulge my habit of trying new recipes.
Out- this is so I don't plan a meal when we have a comittment or want to go out to eat
Frozen- this is for me when I'm home alone and don't have time to cook
Leftovers- this is for when we eat leftovers instead of a new meal

After cutting up all of these labels, I then stored them in a small, plastic tackle box insert that has the right number of compartments. You could also use a craft storage box as well.

I also laminated a template I found here to help me keep track of the new recipes I wanted to try. I used self-laminating paper that I bought at Office Max. I'm planning to write on it with a wet-erase overhead project marker, which will stay on better than a dry-erase marker.

I'm still working on getting all of my recipes in one binder. I think I'll type them up as I use them because I'm too lazy to do it all at once! This website has great templates for that as well.

I attached this menu board to my wall using interlocking command strips. We aren't allowed to use nails, so command strips work really well for me. Plus, I can rearrange with little to no problem. Here's the final product:

It's really been useful so far. I will really see how useful it is when the school year starts. I hope you can find a way to organize your meals that works for you!

Salsa Fresca

This is a post from my old blog on some really good salsa I made. Sorry about the poor picture quality! This was originally posted by me on 7/19/11.

On Sunday I finally made fresh salsa for the first time. It was on my summer to-do list. I went to the local farm market (my husband said it can't be called a farmer's market since it was produce from only one farm) on Saturday to get some fresh tomatoes. Then, I found a recipe on Allrecipes.com. You can find the link here.

 Ingredients

• 6 roma tomatoes, diced
• 3 fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 2 cloves cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 small jicama, peeled and chopped
• 1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chilies, drained
• salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Mix together the tomato, jalapeno pepper, red onion, green onion, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, lemon juice, cumin, jicama, and the diced tomatoes with chilies in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Allow to sit at least 1 hour before serving.

It worked out pretty well. I had never even heard of a jicama before and neither did the check-out boy at the grocery store. It's considered to be a root/tuber and can be used as either a vegetable or a fruit. My husband and I tried a raw piece. It reminded me of a grainy, unsweetened apple. It's not bad. I have to figure out what to do with the rest of it now.

The salsa tasted good the first day. I haven't tried it again since then because I had a queasy stomach yesterday from some bad Mexican food the night before. I might try it today to see if it flavored anymore. My husband LOVED it and says it's the best salsa he's ever tasted. He is a bit biased, though.

**Update 7/15/12: I did eat more of the salsa. It was really good! The jicama ended up going to waste though. I will have to make this again this summer!

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I mentioned earlier that I was contemplating going on a gluten-free diet for a month to see if it helps me with some of my digestive ailments. It's been a little over a week, and it's been great so far. Even if this diet doesn't result in a complete lifestyle change, I'm hoping it helps me think about food a little differently.

Almost every time I look at a menu in a restaurant, I search for a dish that has some sort of bread involved. I usually end up getting a sandwich because I know for sure that the combination of bread, meat, and french fries will stuff me to the gills often resulting in miserable indigestion. This diet has forced me to re-think what I order.

You can live gluten-free (as long as you don't have severe Celiac disease) and still enjoy eating out. I have ordered off of the gluten-free menu, but for the most part have ordered off the regular menu with little to no problem. Most restaurants are now advertising their gluten-free options online. Uno's Chicago Grill even has an entire gluten-free menu. Some gluten-free dieters are concerned with cross-contamination (ie, flour getting into their food accidentally). I try not to think about this too much since I don't have Celiac disease. I don't mind if I ingest a tiny amount of gluten on accident. My goal is to keep my body from having too much. If you are concerned with cross-contamination, you might want to avoid most restaurants or else consult directly with the kitchen staff. My husband, who is receiving Serv-Safe training in conjunction with McDonald's says that the kitchen staff is supposed to thoroughly wash all utensils and dishes when an individual with a gluten intolerance mentions they are trying to live gluten-free. Who knows how often that actually happens though.

Anyways, in my quest to live "normally" during my gluten-free diet I decided that I had to have chocolate chip cookies. I have one recipe that I absolutely love, so I decided to make it gluten-free. I don't know if everything I used is 100% gluten-free. I think it is, but I could be wrong. All I did was substitute regular all-purpose flour with all-purpose gluten-free flour. I also ran out of vanilla, so I dumped in two teaspoons of agave nectar to make up for it. I don't know if it made much of a difference, but it still tasted okay. These are in no way healthy, in case you were wondering. Here's the recipe:

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 c. margarine
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

• I used 2 tsps. agave nectar instead because I ran out of vanilla. This can be found in the sweetener aisle at your regular grocery store.

1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
2 3/4 c. all-purpose gluten-free flour

• I found this both at my regular grocery store in the gluten-free aisle and at Whole Foods.

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

• Some might have gluten in them, so check first. Mine didn't, and they were just the store brand.

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine butter and sugars.
3. Add in eggs and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients.
5. Gradually add dry ingredients to butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
6. Once all ingredients have been mixed together, mix in chocolate chips by hand. If you don't like chocolate very much, don't use the entire bag.
7. Using a spoon, drop 1 inch balls of dough on a cookie sheet about two inches apart.
8. Bake cookies at 350 for 12 minutes or until golden brown. This time may vary depending on what type of cookie sheet you use and your oven.
9. Cool on wire rack.
10. Yield: depends on how much dough you eat. Probably between 24 and 36 cookies.

Knitting Tutorials for Beginners

Back when I was in high school, I took this class called Advanced Project Exploration. The purpose of the class was to help gifted students use their giftedness to explore areas in which they were interested. My dad was in charge of creating this class as curriculum director. So, I'm not really sure if I was actually gifted or if I had to be in the class because my dad created it. We'll go with me being gifted. Anyways, I chose to teach myself how to knit as one of my projects.

My grandma is an avid knitter and crocheter. So, I wanted learn how to knit just like my grandma. The problem was, she lived 5 hours away, and we were never there long enough for her to teach me. So, I bought a "Teach Yourself to Knit" kit at Wal-Mart. It was WORTHLESS...mostly. My teacher for this class knew a little bit about knitting, so she helped me along with some of the basics. This was before You Tube was anything other than a place for idiots to showcase themselves. So, I tried to knit, and did a pretty miserable job of it.

This past spring, thanks to Pinterest, I found a knitting tutorial page on Hurray! It's Megan. All of my supplies for knitting were sitting in my closet at my parents' house, so I went out to Michael's and stocked up on some basic knitting supplies. After watching the tutorials I found on You Tube( thanks to Megan's blog), I was able to master the basics.

Here are some materials you'll need:

• Regular, worsted weight yarn. This is found at any craft store or even Wal-Mart.
• Two straight knitting needles. You will want some that are about a foot long and about the width of a pencil. You'll want to use something between a 6 and a 10. I prefer size 8. There are metal, bamboo, and plastic needles. I prefer metal because that's what my grandma used, and they make cool clicking sounds. Girls who knit to be cool usually use wooden needles. ; )
• Blunt-end tapestry needle. I couldn't find metal ones when I was looking, so I have plastic needles. Either works fine.
• Scissors. Any type will do.
• Patience (I always need extra dosages of this). : )

Don't Buy (at least until you have serious knitting skillz):

• Super huge or super tiny needles
• Fancy novelty yarn. My first scarf in high school was on boa yarn.  I made soooooo many mistakes because I couldn't see my stitches to count them. It was a nightmare and a half!
• Cheap-o "Teach Yourself to Knit" books. It's a big waste of money, trust me!

 Here are some links to video tutorials that really helped me:

• Long Tail Cast-On
• This is how you get the yarn on your needle
• Knit Stitch and Purl Stitch
• These two stitches are the basis for almost all types of knitting
• Stockinette Stitch
• This is actually a combination of the knit stitch and the purl stitch. (Sorry about the sound quality of the video, if you can ignore it, it's really helpful!)
• Binding Off
• I had a really hard time with binding off until I found this video. If you don't use this stitch, your work will unravel resulting in extreme sadness and/or anger. : (
• Weaving in the Ends
•  After binding off, you will have ends left over that need to be woven into the fabric.

Knitting Abbreviations:

• Here's a good site that lists the abbreviations and what they mean. It also has links to some videos to go along with the abbreviations.
• I still have a hard time with reading patterns. I usually do a You Tube or Google search when I get stuck. Works every time!

Basic Beginner Project- Dishcloths

• One of the main reasons I wanted to take up knitting again was my grandma "retired" from knitting dishcloths. My mom has used nothing but knitted dishcloths for almost her entire adult life. When my grandma turned over her knitting stuff to my mom because she wasn't going to knit anymore, my mom panicked (well, was concerned anyways). She had no desire to figure out how to knit, so passed on the stuff to me.
• When I took one look at this pattern (see photo at right) that my grandma had been using since 1985, I couldn't figure it out. So, I Googled "knitted dishcloth patterns for beginners" and this lovely tutorial popped up. This woman is a certified Level 1 Master Knitter (which I think sounds incredibly cool). She writes her own patterns and posts them on Ravelry and her own website/blog. She has a very calm and matter-of-fact manner about her. I learned how to knit dishcloths in no time. My first one took 7 hours, but I've really shaved off a lot of time since then. It's great TV knitting.
• When knitting dishcloths, you will also need to purchase some cotton yarn. One of the most common brands of cotton yarn is called Sugar 'n Cream. My grandma has been using this yarn since 1985.
• Also, the video tutorial for dishcloths doesn't tell you how to end the dishcloth. When you have four stitches left on your needle after decreasing, knit a row of four stitches, then bind off the four stitches, then weave in the ends like the video says.

I hope this post helps you in your endeavors as a knitter! Let me know if you have questions, and I can use Google try to answer your questions as best I can.

Fried Brain

I don't have a whole lot of anything creative worthwhile to say. I think it's a combination of no gluten, no Diet Coke, and no coffee. I'm trying to eat better to control some digestive problems I've been fighting since college. I've also had a lot of thoughts on my mind lately. I've recently read some articles/blog posts that have really helped me round out my thinking in some areas. Here they are:

• I've really been frustrated with the hypocrisy behind Christian women reading Fifty Shades of Grey and watching Magic Mike. Most women don't want their husbands looking at porn, so why do they think it's okay for women to read or watch these?


• A Christian's view on both
• A Plugged-In review of Magic Mike from Focus on the Family
• Caution: this review is not suitable for children.
• A liberal, non-Christian view of Fifty Shades of Grey
• Please excuse her language. I think it's really valuable to read a non-Christian perspective. She's actually against the book as well! 

• I've also been frustrated with many Christians panicking over the recent Obamacare ruling. Sure, it's a really bad idea. Sure, it's going to mess up our country further. Sure, Obama is arguably the worst president we've ever had. (Well, maybe some of the lesser known old dudes could've been worse, idk.) However, God will take care of us. He takes care of the sparrows, right? Here's a great radio interview/transcript on how new American immigrants view America. It's humbling to hear them speak of the glory of our country. We really do have a lot to be thankful for.
• Click here for the link


•  On a more positive note, I've been eating gluten-free this week. It's been okay so far. Here are some helpful links I've found:
•  Gluten-Free Goddess
• This isn't a gluten-free blog, but I found a great recipe for Quinoa Mac N' Cheese.
• This is a link to my gluten-free Pinterest board that I'm "constantly" updating.

Sorry for the complete randomness of  this post. I hope some of the reviews are helpful. Hopefully no one stumbled on my blog after researching recipes for fried brain. ; ) Sorry if you did!