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Showing posts from 2018

Happiness is the Way.

My sweet husband sent this to me today, I have been struggling with “home sickness” lately (we moved from CO to TX about 2 years ago), and my plate is currently full in all the best ways but my attitude and demeanor just isn’t the same and he has clearly noticed. I thought this was a really sweet and gentle reminder about happiness. I wish I know who to give the credit to but it came to me with “author unknown”. If you know please let me know and Ill be honored to give credit where it’s due. Thought for The Day HAPPINESS We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go...

Uncomplicated Housekeeping - The Laundry

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Uncomplicated living didn’t come easy, Ill be honest, I still very much have to work at it on a nearly daily basis. However, along my journey to un-complicate life, I have stumbled upon, created, invented, and developed a very UNCOMPLICATED routine for day to day housekeeping, my nemesis. I mean, who wouldn’t rather take their kiddos to the zoo or sit on the floor for hours playing cars or baby dolls with their “only this little once” human beings, over daily chores!? I personally have had my fair share of guilt over choosing to do things with them instead of getting chores done and vice-versa, only the guilt of doing chores over spending time with them is much more intense. Either way, chores need to get done and our babes always want us to play with them (for now anyway) so finding the best most uncomplicated housekeeping routine was absolutely necessary for this momma. I had to go through a lot of trial and error, so I’ll only offer the tricks that been the most susta...

Uncomplicated Housekeeping- The Kitchen

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Uncomplicated living didn’t come easy, Ill be honest, I still very much have to work at it on a nearly daily basis. However, along my journey to un-complicate life, I have stumbled upon, created, invented, and developed a very UNCOMPLICATED routine for day to day housekeeping, my nemesis. I mean, who wouldn’t rather take their kiddos to the zoo or sit on the floor for hours playing cars or baby dolls with their “only this little once” human beings, over daily chores!? I personally have had my fair share of guilt over choosing to do things with them instead of getting chores done and vice-versa, only the guilt of doing chores over spending time with them is much more intense. Either way, chores need to get done and our babes always want us to play with them (for now anyway) so finding the best most uncomplicated housekeeping routine was absolutely necessary for this momma. I had to go through a lot of trial and error, so I’ll only offer the tricks that been the most susta...

Gluten Free Living-

Being Gluten Free isn’t my first choice of lifestyle if I’m being honest. I’m a carbaholic/sugar addict and that’s putting in gently. I love all things Italian, (good bread, great pasta, decedent pastries, gelato, etc etc etc) I should really be living in Italy if I want to live my best life but that’s not really realistic. A girl can dream. In the meantime, I have been Gluten Free since 2009 with a 5 year break in between from 2013-2018. It all started with a conversation at work a day after I was released from the hostpital from yet again another MIGRAINE.  I am a longtime migraine sufferer, like my mama. They started about the time I matured into a young woman, if you know what I mean.  Progressively through the years they got worse, lasted longer, and were more easily triggered. I was at a point of desperation when the conversation at work happened. My co-worker, also a migraine sufferer, had recently been diagnosed Celiac. She noticed that since going gluten free her m...

The Forgotten “Gym”

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SUMMER TIME!!!!!! Especially here in Texas means lots of water activities. The first part of summer was pretty busy for us this year but I try to get to our neighborhood pool with the babes at least once a week. Of course the pool is a ton of fun and the kids love it, but you can also get some serious low impact exercise in at the same time.  Additionally, you are able to do things that normally hurt outside of the water.  My husband is a military veteran who suffered several orthopedic injuries resulting in back surgery and multiple knee surgeries.  For him personally, water exercise allows him to work on flexibility and full range of motion without the pain of high impact exercises.  There is no better place to get in a quick workout than the water.  Don’t just soak either, you need to get moving around. Stretch, relax, swim, repeat. As much and as often as you can.  Some days this is our workout, other days it’s an opportunity to put in more work...

Heart Health

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In most cases if you’re not born with or predisposed to a hereditary condition, you have full control of your heart health. How powerful is that?  You control the primary organ that supports your life.  Wow!  You lose control, you may lose your primary lifeline. Prevention is simple. Pack your diet full of heart healthy foods like fish, berries, nuts (preferably almonds and walnuts), flaxseeds, spinach, red wine, & dark chocolate (>70%). And be more physically active, if you are able to and do nothing else for hearts sakes, take the stairs. They are safe(ish), super efficient at getting that heart pumping, and convenient. Find them at home, at work, gyms, department stores, and hotels for instance. For my fellow HIIT lovers- find a set of stairs about 10-20 stairs with or without landings, and run them for 20 min. Make sure you stretch the heck out of your legs, especially your calves, before and after and follow up with a good quality BCAA.  Whats your f...

I’m eat mostly healthy but ... Brownies

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I love to bake, unfortunately baking doesn’t love me back. I am rarely successful when it comes to baking, but because I never give up, and I don’t give in to the baking Gods who clearly hate me, I always figure out a way to make it edible. Ok “always” may be a stretch, but at least sometimes. Case in point, a time that was successful, here we have a box of King Arthur GF Brownie mix for a quick and uncomplicated dessert for company coming over. “Hard to mess up a box of brownie mix!” you proclaim... well leave it to me- I messed it up. Still not sure how, but the brownies came out over-cooked on the outside and under-cooked in the middle. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cut any shape out of them to make them look even half presentable. Nor did I trust I would be serving a fully cooked brownie. So here is what I did and here is the result: 1 package King Arthur GF (or your preferred brand) brownie mix Made as directed except I used coconut oil in place of butter Cook as dire...

Why “Uncomplicated”?

Why use the word “uncomplicated”... ?  Uncomplicated is necessary right now regarding many things but for the sake of this blog, let’s talk fitness and nutrition first. In an over saturated industry of fitness and nutrition, with all of the advice, guidance, workout and nutrition fads, it can be pretty hard to navigate and sustain any form of a healthy lifestyle.    After personally changing my diet, lifestyle, habits, and fitness regimens MANY times over the years, to fit mainstream guidance, I failed time and time again. Recently, I stopped. I stopped and evaluated what WAS working, and I stopped doing what wasn’t working, and voila! I started seeing results.  For example, my food choices and meals most satisfying, delicious, and convenient were the most simple ones. My fitness regimen went from complicated and time consuming to short sweaty and to the point. I found what works for MY body and I continue to see results. I have veered away at times and ...

The Complicated version:

WARNING: this post isn’t simple, short, or uncomplicated. But it’s necessary so bear with me.   My name is Becca. I am an over analyzer, an over thinker, and I complicate just about everything. In an effort not to over think this post (who are we kidding, I’ve deleted and rewritten this 27 times in 40 minutes), I’ll get to my point...   I had an Ah-Ha moment five or so years back. My moment was simple (ironically)- every time I stopped trying to make something work, every time I stopped thinking about how perfect something needed to be, every time I stopped and stepped back, everything or the thing that was causing stress and frustration in my life was already just as it was supposed to be; simple and uncomplicated. Please note, in most cases I was FORCED to stop complicating things due to exhaustion, risk, or frustration which in hindsight was a large part of any stress I was under. Since I’ve become AWARE, it’s been a slow process, but I’m finally becoming an “expert” on u...