LADIES NIGHT

Last night was food to my soul! I went out to eat with my girlfriends to a GREAT French Restaurant, Django. It was Fabulous!!! I had what I always get... Beet Salad. I love beets could eat them everyday! This particular beet entree was...

bed of field greens
topped with a TON of beets
sprinkling of goat cheese
walnuts
and a wonderful vinaigrette on the side

It was Amazing!

The company was more than AMAZING... No matter how much I love my husband and family... their is nothing like an evening with girls. We already have another night planned! We have decided to tour restaurants in Des Moines

If you dont have ladies that you can enjoy fun with step out and make some! It could be a very hard task but I encourage you that it is well worth the effort. Here are some ideas on how to...

1. Join a Bible Study
2. Go to group exercise classes
3. Ask one person to dinner and tell her to bring others
4. host a party and invite anyone acquaintance you know

GOOD MORNING!!!!

Its a BEAUTIFUL morning here in Des Moines! Some might not think so, the air is cool and crisp and you can taste fall in the Air! If makes me happy and excited to wear jeans again!

Today I have some questions for you!

1. How do you grow in your faith?
2. What do you do when all you crave is the yummy LORD?

Today I am craving God time! So thats what I am going to feed myself with today!

On the Fitness/Food front! Well this morning what my regular morning breakfast!

1/4 cup Oatmeal
1/2 Banana
1/4 cup skim milk
1 generous tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp of Natural Nut butter!

and

COFFEE!

I am going to try and lift upper body over lunch today! My knee has been bugging me so I am going to rest it!

Love Love

Its a Lifestyle

Question of the Day?

What do you think about Diets? Not just weightloss diets, but about... perhaps a financial diet... or really any major change you want to make in your life? My bestfriend (my husband) helped me see the "light bulb" last night. We were talking about diets and how I often feel like I need to change something or be more strict then feel like I am being too strict... the yo yo affect or what I referred to last week finding BALENCE!!! A hard thing! But if there is something that we want to change for the long hall... I decided to look at it as a Lifestyle... not a diet. When we look at a lifestyle... there are ups and downs, room for dessert, room for a new shirt, room for a splurge. Its not an all or nothing. I find with all or nothings, we restrict restrict restrict... then boom BINGE!!!!

So next question....

What do you want your LIFESTYLE to look like? Look at all INGREDIENTS OF LIFE!

1. Faith
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Fun
5. Fitness
6. Food
7. Finances

Finances

My husband and I are in the process of completely renovating a condo downtown Des Moines. In the mean time we are staying at a friends house about 25 minutes away from where we work. It has been a huge blessing to stay there rent free. During this time we are having to be extremely budget conscious... which to me sounds like NO FUN! But this is the really cool thing I have learned when completely surrendering and relying on God through this time.

1. I am not any less happy!
2. God Provides!

God has provided for Travis and I in so many different ways and is allowing us to create a home that we dream of! For example

1. We were given 2 free Iowa State Fair tickets ($10) each, $5 coupons for food to ISF, and free parking! That was a huge savings for us. The ISF is very expensive and it is a tradition of our to go with our family each year!
2. God doesn't stop providing the perfect coupons for groceries, allowing us to save a ton of money to put towards our home.
3. Travis and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to go out to eat, it is our primary source of entertainment. God has been so faithful to show us new fun cheap hole in the wall restaurants allowing us to spend about 10% of our normal dining experience. God also blessed us with many gift cards to our favorite local restaurants, allowing us to have date nights.

When your on a budget what do you do for fun?

One other wonderful budget friendly idea... REDBOX and cooking a fun meal at home!

Balance...thats the goal

Yesterday I said I would blog more on balance... it is always a hard skill to master! I own personal struggle with balance is between food fitness and fun, like I blogged yesterday. Well I have been on one extreme of obsessing WAY too much about what I would eating then I decided that I needed to not allow food to become such a focus! After all I feel if you are thinking more about something than about God then its too much! I seem to go in extremes right before I do find some balance.... for example I went to dinner with my Sisters and Mom lastnight for GIRLS NIGHT!!! It was a BLAST! But I ate so much I felt sick! So there you have it I went the other way.... Here is what I do after over indulging...

1. Dont feel guilty!
2. Exercise alittle longer the next day
3. Eat a good healthy next meal to get you back on track
4. DONT OBSESS over it or allow it to derail you!

With that said. How do we find balance and know that we are taking care of our bodies? We do need to be concious of what we eat and I believe we need to be physically and mentally fit. God calls us to take care of our temple (which is our body) I believe we can achieve this with out loosing out on Faith and Fun!

1. Fix your eyes on the Lord first
2. Set a goal of how God wants you to care for your body
3. Accountability... no matter what way you struggle. Eat too much, too little, exercise too much, too little.
4. Allow nothing to come between you and your relationship with the Lord

Lastly I have to tell you... schedule FUN!!!! Seriously it will destress you and help you stay balanced!

Worry Worry... Go AWAY!

I come from a long line of worry warts! Unfortanetly I recieved the gene! My ladest worry has been 2 things... 1. my BODY (food, fitness, fun) finding a balance...you know! I struggle with that balance daily. I always am working to put healthy whole foods in my mouth but sometimes because a little over obsessive about it... that usually follows the trend of obsessing over my work outs as well. This week I am trying to focus on the fun aspect of life and not worry so much... explain you might say....

Well I do want to be healthy but as my husband says "stop comparing yourself to perfect looking women on magazine covers" he is right its not practical! So I am going to try to focus on the fun and know that God is in control of my body as long as I continue to make wise choices... its finding the balance.... I am going to continue to pray and research on what balance should look like.

I know that we shouldnt be worry as much as I have been and we shouldnt allow anything to be a higher priority than God... Stay tune to more...

PS... the Fair was sooo fun last night. I forgot to take pictures :-( Sad Day!

Back on...

Hi Again....

It has been awhile... sorry to say! Life has been full of MAIN INGREDIENTS keeping me away. I got married to my bestfriend Travs in May! It was the most beautiful wedding filled with our favorite things... from food to friends and family. We ate and chatted till our hearts were content!



Since being married we have been in the process of building and designing our new condo downtown Des Moines! We are about 4 weeks out and couldnt be more excited about it! I recent design inspiration is taking an antique chair and making it modern! We bought the chair for $30 at an Estate Sale and found the fabric to recover it all this weekend! Now that is working on saving $$$. I am proud of myself for making it fun! Plus we have added value to the chair in the memories alone! It will surely be a Main Ingredient in our house!

On the FOOD front... we are going to the IOWA STATE FAIR tonight... cant wait to blog about all the food on a stick we consume tonight. I am debating if I want to eat before hand in order to not eat as much fried food while I am there... we will see...