Homemade Corn Tortillas

I love food. I don't just like it, I LOVE it. I love gloriously yummy things to eat when I'm doing something fun and relaxing. RA, I could SO relate to your post when you wrote that all you wanted to do was eat something deliciously yummy from your pantry when you were reading your book.

I just need to steer that love for food in the right direction.

Cuz, corndogs are not the right direction. Apple fritters are most definitely not the right direction.

My current health plan is for 95% plant based - no meat, no dairy, no processed food, and no sugar.

Mexican food falls nicely into that category, and I love mexican! On Monday I made a big pot of "refried" beans with pinto beans, onions, garlic, tomato paste, cumin, and coriander. They're pretty darn good!

Yesterday I bought some Masa Harina (corn flour) and today, attempted my first corn tortillas! Wow, are they ever EASY. I didn't even have a tortilla "press" like is often talked about. In fact, I don't even have a rolling pin either. LOL

I just used the roll of plastic wrap. Took me 3 tortillas to actually get the hang of it, how to roll it in such a way that it is semi-round when I am done with it.

They take 50 seconds to cook on each side, then wa-lah! Warm, moist, really yummy corn tortillas. I can't wait to have some for dinner with my beans, salsa, corn, avocado, lemon wedge, tomatoes, and cilantro.

Will not get overwhelmed, will not get overwhelmed...

...repeat...repeat...repeat until...um...I don't know, I'm not overwhelmed? LOL. At least I'm not chanting "I can't do this!!!!!! I can't do this!!!!!!!" because obviously that has a more negative affect because it is focusing on the negative.

Some deep thoughts here today. Hee hee

Well my friends, if you could see my house today you would look around and then give me a knowing, "Ah...I see" response. Every single room needs help. Even the hallway, which is wear our washer/dryer doors open into, and it is calling me to do laundry as well.

BUT - I just pressure washed the front porch, watered the hanging baskets, and sprayed off the pretty fake tree that lives on our porch. Does that count?

Why is it so much easier to do THAT than clean my bathroom? Ha ha....gotta' run, maybe I'll post on here later that I got my whole house sparkling clean!!

PS Small victories - I did NOT eat that handful of chips I was thinking would taste mighty good this morning! I'm really working on eating healthy so that I will feel good both inside & out during conference coming up.....2 weeks of camp with the fam! Woohoo!

Now if I could just leave right now and forget about the mess....hee hee

Soooo tired....and Thrift Store finds

This morning DS2 woke me up at 5:30. It took me 2 times of his crying to figure out that he was wet through so I did the whole changing sheets, diaper, and jammies thing. Then DD4 who sleeps in the same room drowsily sat up and said she was hungry and wanted cereal....it was barely light outside but enough so that she probably thought it was morning.

I told her no, to go back to sleep and she started crying LOUDLY. Errrrr.....I promptly took her out of bed so she wouldn't wake the other 2 sleeping kids, and she slept in my room on the floor for the next 3 hours. DH had to wake up at 6:30 to get up and pack for his trip, and then I remembered how the bills still needed to be paid and they were overdue......and how it'd be nice just to get my workout done early in the morning before the kids got up.

By then unfortunately, my head was buzzing with thoughts so I just got up and did my workout. I ROCKED it - that was fun - did better than ever, enjoyed it more than ever, and was sore afterwards and out of breath...felt good.

A friend of mine, Janice H, came over to babysit and I spent a relaxing, fun afternoon at Value Village digging up all sorts of school clothing goodies for my kiddos.

I love that store!!!!!!!!! I had a 30% off coupon and STILL spent $179.00. But you should have seen the mountain of clothing I got. I was able to buy six pairs of jeans EACH for my boys who are 7 & 9 - you know how often boys THAT age go through jeans?? I was lamenting the fact when adding it up, that I was spending $50 JUST on jeans, and then realized that if bought brand new, that would be the equivalent of MAYBE 3 pairs of jeans in the store.

So - let someone ELSE pay big money to walk their jeans out of the brand new store, only to have their son wear them a few times, and then donate them....so I can buy them, lol.

Keeping my kids well stocked in clothing is a daunting task sometimes - not just any clothing, but nice looking, you know? It's hard to figure out what is the most frugal, yet necessary way to keep them clothed. I've tried buying a whole wardrobe brand new (clearance prices) at the beginning of the season, and almost every time it seems like the clothes shrink and get all ratty halfway through the season.

It does depend on the store, though. It seems like department store clothing isn't as good as The Children's Place or Gap/Old Navy, for instance. And I love the fact that preworn clothing has already withstood the test of time - there are PLENTY of shrunk and faded clothing on the racks so I am able to see which ones will and won't do that.

Our Family has been....Sugar Free for 9 days!

Weekend before last, I took DD11 to the beach for a Mother-Daughter trip. We both ate a LOT of sugar and alot of junk foods - chips, pop, donuts, pizza, chocolate, ice cream....ugh, it hurts to even write out the words! It was the worst we had both eaten in a really long time. We DID have fun, though, and eating fun things did make it more of a memorable weekend. So - mission accomplished.

When we got home I mentioned to DH how much sugar we'd had, and then we talked about the effects of sugar especialy on our oldest daughter. Many times I've wondered if her attitude and seemingly complete abandon of concern over hurting people's feelings is attributed to sugar.

Anyway, we decided that ALL sugar (except natural forms - honey, Stevia, dates, obviously fruit) was going out of our house. Now, I'm the type that loves to make things fun for my kids - I love having a little stash of sprinkles to put on their pbhoney sandwiches sometimes, or in their oatmeal. To pull out a candy for them during special times. Often times in our home, each child has their own collection of sweets that they are allowed to choose from, usually one per day.

I grew up like this, and it was so fun for me! DH did NOT, and was not even allowed to have pop until he was way older, even as old as 10 maybe. He shared with me that it is hard for him to see his children having so much candy.

Being the health queen (uh...at times, at my non-binging times, lol!) I am, I was all for that. So we threw out everything including syrup, a big tub of licorice I had just bought was given away, even a big bag of dried fruit I took away from Rachel because of the sugar they add to the fruit. (hey Jen, do you want it? It's the Costco brand)

I am absolutely SHOCKED at how often I turn to giving them sweets! We go to the grocery store, and I want to get them a free cookie. We have dinner, and I want to make something yummy for them for dessert. We have a movie night and I want to pull out the sweets to make it a fun time. DH is gone so I wanted to get some cones & ice cream to make it fun for them. Is it really necessary to pull out the sugar in order to make it fun?

Geez! So it's been really enlightening to figure out how to give them special things without sugar. I even threw out the semi-sweet bag of chocolate chips we had. But mostly for MY sake because I can't stop eating them. LOL

So for movie night on Friday I made them parmesan popcorn and gave them fruit rollups. I know those are not like 100% sugar free, but I figure it's a much better alternative than the candybag from Candy Thyme I had reserved for movie nights, lol.

I've told the kids that we are going to not be giving them ANY sugar until we leave for family week at our church. But even then it's not going to be much - I am really liking this!

Trip to Costco, Value Village, & Lunch at the School

Today is my fasting day, which I fast until dinner - total of about 20-24 hours twice a week. I woke up totally craving a watermelon, and the ones at Costco are SO SO SO good, big and round (the hotdog type shape doesn't work for me the way I eat it, cutting it in half and spooning it out like a bowl), and only $4.99 each.

It's just kind of a big trip to go to Costco with ALL the kids - but it was worth it for me today. Since DH is going to be gone pretty much the entire week (he might drive home tonight, but will be leaving early in the morning for another stay somewhere else for the rest of the week) I decided on the spur of the moment to feed my kids totally crappy dinners this week. Ha ha!

Not really, I mean I didn't purposely DECIDE to do that, but I bought a box of corndogs, a 2-pack of beef hotdogs, and a big bag of Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets. Also a 2-pack of spaghetti sauce since my attempt at making it myself with tomato sauce and seasonings kind of flopped the other night. So I figure that should take care of most of the dinners.

I think I'm going to be making some Spinach and Potato Curry that goes over rice, for my dinners this week. We got some microwave meals from the food bank a while back and they are just so good! But I would way rather make my own since that would eliminate the preservatives, sodium, salt, etc. I found a good recipe to try here - and I'm going to make it tonight. It falls within the guidelines of my plant based food that I eat so...looks good!

So anyway, it was fun to see you at Costco, Jen! I can very much relate to having all 3 kids sitting like sardines in the cart while sporting a very pregnant belly, lol. I had two kids sitting in front, and four kids hanging onto the four corners of the cart, then 2 of the biggest ones trailing behind me. I always like to have them attach themselves to the cart so that we're not like this huge crowd moving through the aisles and getting in people's way. They just kind of stand there crowding all around me when I'm getting food and don't see that other people are trying to get by.

After that we zipped over to Value Village, one of my favorite stores in the whole world, it was hard not to go to all my fave racks and check them out. Ooooooh I wanted to, especially since I have a little extra money to spend.

I got them each one thing $3 or under, and it was cute to see them picking it out and deciding, and then ALSO not asking for more things and being happy with what I got them.

We rushed to the First Methodist church to get some lunch and arrived there at 12:15 - they started serving at noon. I got them all out of the car, hungry and tired for naps and the guys at the door told me they had run out of food.

So back into the car we went, with me trying not to get stressed out - I really didn't want to have to go home and get everyone lunch, it saves us so much grocery money being able to eat out at the school or church (whichever one we go to) every day. Thankfully I grabbed the list of all the schools in the area and saw there was one right down the road. We ran down there and arrived just in time. They only had one chicken nuggets left so DS2 got that one, and the rest of them had meat/cheese sandwiches, graham crackers, baby carrots, apples, and chocolate or regular milk.

I didn't do my workout this morning, enjoyed sleeping in too much after getting up at 6:30 for the past 3 mornings. So now I have to do it, grr. Oh well, it's only 18 minutes of yoga stretching and I DO enjoy it once I get started.

Yeah, so....

...we only made $20 today at our garage sale. ROFL! But to be honest, I did close up at 1pm and we actually were getting some more traffic - I think people tend to drop by on their way home from church, OR maybe they've slept in and eaten breakfast and THEN mosy on out the door.

Who knows. Regardless, it worked out SO perfectly I can't even believe it! I plucked out those various things from my inventory that I didn't want to give away, things that the kids were selling and also some things my MIL wanted to keep if they didn't sell.

Then I posted a big fat listing on Craigslist "GARAGE SALE - EVERYTHING LEFT IS FREE as of 1pm!!" Ha ha - I knew that would get their attention.

Sure enough, they started showing up pretty quickly. But before they came, right AFTER I posted, some people showed up and I told them nonchalantly that everything was free. LOL they whipped their heads around and were like, what?!! Seriously?? Everything? Are you SURE? It was fun, I felt a bit like the good samaritan, or maybe even Santa Clause!

Everything was nice, really - and it was fun to watch THEM having fun. Shoot, if someone said that to me at a garage sale I'd have been in heaven!

Anyways, about 20 min. after I posted it, a big burly man walked up with his wife and said they wanted to take all of it. Wow! ALL of it? Yep, they were having a garage sale next weekend in their HUGE yard and wanted all of it!

You know those scenes in The Grinch That Stole Christmas where he goes into the houses and puts everything into a huge bag, and lastly even takes the Christmas tree? There is maybe one small Christmas ball left behind, if that. (Sorry Annalise, I got your email about an hour after that - but I didn't have that much in those sizes and no exercise stuff).

Yep, that was my yard! It was awesome! I was so thrilled - very little cleanup, I had my $270 to show for the weekend, and DH doesn't have to haul anything to Goodwill.

BEST of all, there was a meeting at church at 4pm and DH was due to arrive home at 3:30 with my two older boys - he's been gone since Wednesday. My SIL came over to babysit and we went there together, just the two of us. HEAVEN, I tell you, heaven! Both to be with the love of my life and also to sit in the 2nd row and listen without one single distraction the entire time. Very encouraging.

Afterwards we rescued a ball from the pool that DS2 had left there yesterday and was pining after, then headed out to McGrath's for a wonderful date dinner. We sat outside and were the only ones out there for a long time, with flowers all over. It was a balmy evening and I was kind of feeling on cloud 9 due to the fact that I had been with the kids 24-7 for the past 5 days and bam, I was wisked away and in the company of my prince charming. JUST him. So so so nice.

After that we walked around downtown and had a yummy drink at one of the cool places there - it was really, really nice.

I don't know if I'll keep on blogging every single day but for now it's fun! Especially when you guys leave comments so I know you are reading it, thanks!!! I was getting a bit lonely on my diet blog, but I'm still not ready to open it up to the public again, I don't know if I ever will - that's OK, though.

And Jen, super nice to know you're out there and reading too - sorry you didn't get to go tonight. =( But Mommy-hood is the best place because it's where God has us. He sees us!

G'night - looking forward to seeing Jen & Tereza this weekend, hopefully!

Well....it's 8:33 and...

..not even ONE garage sale person yet! I feel kind of dumb sitting there all dressed, showered, freshly exercised and ready for the big onslaught of people and nobody is even coming. ha ha!

The kids are still sleeping, believe it or not! Lots of sun and playing yesterday has them exhausted, I suppose. Today at 12pm I am going to pull all the good stuff that I can sell elsewhere, and announce that everything is free. I HATE doing that - I have enjoyed my garage sale times this summer so much! And there is so much good, sellable stuff left - it just takes the right person!

Like a friend gave me a LOT of really nice baby boys things in sizes 0-2T. The winter stuff is already folded and ready to take to the consignment store, but the summer stuff is so adorable and just sitting out there, at 50 cents a piece! Lots of like new onesies for a quarter each....aaaagh! I wished I could find a garage sale like this when I was pregnant with Jack and didn't want to go pay like $6 per pack for 3 brand new onesies.

Since I'm "bored" (OMG did I just say that?!! Is it even legal for a Mommy of 7 young children to breath that word? Ha ha) I'm going to take a picture of my sale so you can see exactly HOW MUCH is left. Good Lord, isn't it alot???

Here are all the clothes - I also have alot of cute baby girl things from Harmony last summer in that same size, 0-12 months.

And here, what do you think of my handy dandy homemade rack for hanging clothes? I got this idea from my sister Angela who is super creative and thinks of things I could never come up with in a million years.

I took two of my dining room chairs and turned them away from each other, then took a sturdy rake and put a plastic bag around the chair, then taped it over & over until it was pretty strong. Cool, eh?

My first customers, gotta run!

Day 2 of Garage Sale Crazy-ness!

Today started once again with a rise & shine time of 6:30 - why does that seem SO early?? I routinely got up at 6:45 when the kids were going to school, lol. I had a snuggly little 4 year old visitor in the middle of the night with her pink blanket. It was so cute - usually I don't let her stay in my bed because 1) I can't sleep and 2) there is no room with DH and I and 3) she'll repeat it every night and it'll become a habit. But last night there was no DH so she cozied up to me for a while, then I scooted her over onto his side. Precious moments....

My workout was hard today, it's a 4-day cycle that begins with no intensity, then the next day is low intensity, the next moderate, and today it was high. Tomorrow is low again and only 18 minutes as opposed to 35 or so - nice! I plan to get up at around 7am to do it.

Today my garage sale totally tanked. I mean not TOTALLY, but we made MAYBE $40 - and people were really scarce and scattered. Lots and lots of little 25 cent purchases. It was insanely hot today, though, and that's probably why. 97 degrees when we closed at 4:20pm. My sign says 8-5 but I couldn't hold out when we were getting like 1-2 people per 15 minutes as it was! People are CRAZY to be garage sailing in that kind of weather!

It was kind of a neat day, though, in that my 2 boys 7 & 9 were with DH on their trip, and daughters 6 & 11 were at our church for a kids games day. So I just had three little ones here at home - kind of like school days! Those days are nice. =)

After we closed the garage sale, I piled them in the car and we went to our church to swim. Did that for an hour, and then I realized I was getting tired and still had to go pick up DD11 at my mom's house, drop off my niece who was swimming with us, and get all the kids in bed, etc.

My attitude when I picked up DD actually surprised me - I was pretty short with her and just kind of annoyed at life this evening. I pinpointed the reason why it it came out that I was getting tired of being without DH and I have basically been going like a million miles an hour for 2 days straight. I also have been struggling with eating for the past 2 weeks - and being at the pool, I could tell the difference. My stomach is bloated and I felt kind of ucky wearing a suit.

I actually considered not going to the pool because I was embarrassed! This coming from a girl who is AT her goal weight....so see, people? In my opinion it doesn't even matter what you weigh, it's all about the mindset. And, I suppose, whether you've been doing something about it or not, if you do want to lose weight and/or get toned. I find I'm not so down about myself when I know I'm actively doing something to fix it. If I am eating pizza and ice cream then....that's not so fun.

Thank thank thank thanksssss to the person who invented portable window air conditioners cuz, we are very much thankful for them tonight. I'm off to take a shower and put the last of my girlies to bed, who are currently watching "Toothless".

Day 1 of Garage Sale Crazy-ness!

I was QUITE proud of myself for getting up at 6:30 this morning to my workout, despite THREE of the kids (not one of them was the baby, either!) waking me up at least 5 times in the night.

Our sale did really well, though! There were a few panicky moments on my part when certain things happened, like DS2 walked up to me holding up fingers full of something that looked like peanut butter....only wasn't. Thankfully we were not slammed at that moment and DD11 was able to sit and be in charge of the money while I dashed into the house to change an ucky diaper and thoroughly wash some equally as ucky fingers.

Tereza, to answer your question (and I'm glad I made your day by my post, lol!) - no, we're not moving. DD11 and I had a garage sale in early June to pay for a beach trip that she and I were taking together over the weekend, just the two of us. We solicited things from our friends & family and got quite a nice assortment of things.

We made enough for our trip, but still had a bunch of stuff left over! So I decided to have it again the next weekend - and it rained...waah! Rained after setting it all up and we were only able to have it for one day before I had to take everything down again. THEN my parents called to say they had bought a storage unit (long story) of my aunt's and had kept everything they wanted but there was still a TON left. Did I want it for my garage sale?

I couldn't resist that. (smile) So anyway, it's all been stored in my garage for a month and now I'm happily having my 3-days-in-a-row garage sale and then will be just as happily giving everything away on the last day. I LOVE doing garage sales - we made $170 today on the first day! Wooot!

I had TONS of energy today. Like wow, I did so so so so much! I was basically on my feet the entire day doing the garage sale from 8-5, with small snatches of sitting down here and there. In the midst of that busy-ness, I managed to clean alot of the garage and sweep it, as well as setting up ALOT of garage sale things, organizing, etc.

Then I came in to the house to face a big fat mess, which is what happens when you leave 7 children to fend for themselves (not REALLY, but you know what I mean) while you're out "playing" garage sale. =) I had lots of fun, I loved it, but I didn't so much love the mess.

But I still had energy to clean the main part of the house - vacuumed, did the dishes/cleaned the kitchen, put away 2 baskets of laundry and folded a load of towels. I sorted a bunch of clothes to sell tomorrow. Now the house looks wonderful, as does the garage. Love that!

G'night all!

Just feel like talking...

...not about anything in particular, probably more because I don't want to go to bed, lol!

DH is gone until Sunday where he'll briefly appear and then leave again to be gone until at least Monday night. We're having problems with DD11 keeping DD6 up until the late night hours by playing in their room, even sometimes waking up the baby who just turned 1.

Ah, the joys of small home living. But that's totally fine, we deal with it - lessons are always learned, regardless of whether you have a big home with a nice bedroom for each child, or a small home where they all have to sleep in one bedroom. Right?

Anyway, so due to her statements of "I am NOT going to go to sleep no matter what you do..." type of thing, DH and I decided that for a short amount of time she is going to go to bed EARLY and go to bed in our room, on the floor.

Don't worry, she's got plenty of cushion (that was her first complaint/excuse for not having to sleep in there so we took care of that right away!).

Problem is, now I'm basically banned from my room because if I go in there I have to tiptoe around and can't turn on any lights, etc. It feels like I have a newborn again! Usually I enjoy some leisure time at night reading or watching a movie or just surfing the net in my bed on my laptop.

Anyway, that's my great grand excuse for not going to bed/taking a shower at the late night hour of 10:47pm.

In the morning I am supposed to wake up at 6:30pm to do my newest and most exciting TacFit Commando workout, then shower and have all the kiddo's clothing and cereal ready for them as quickly as possible because....

....I am attempting a ginormous garage sale BY MYSELF with all 7 kids. Am I crazy?

Ha ha, guess I'll have to get back to you on that one. We'll see how it goes in the morning. Here it is in all it's splendor as it looked tonight after it was set up - and I have about 1/4 that much MORE to put out.

In the past I have experienced panic moments when I am the lone person in charge of the garage sale and it is flooded with people in the morning hours, and I have half dressed/orphan looking children coming outside crying for me to make their cereal. And/or to complain that so and so is teasing them, and/or that they got hurt, etc etc. Oh yes, or peed their pants. LOL!

I guess I'm taking a gamble this time around...but I do have DD11 here who is capable enough - she can do pretty much anything except for clean up a poop/pee mess and change and/all diapers. She doesn't "do" diapers.

My garage sale is planned for Friday, Saturday, and half of Sunday - at which point, after 12:00pm, I plan to announce that everything is free. Of course I'll bring in the things I do want to keep, but most of what I have is other people's things that they gave to me to sell, instead of taking it to the Goodwill. I definitely don't want any of it, THEY don't want any of it, and our garage does not want any of it.

Tonight I was wondering if I should get my head checked when I was trying to put up the signs around town and my kids were pretty much literally screaming in the car. They were super tired and of course, fixated on something pretty insignificant normally, but HUGELY huge in their eyes at that moment. I think they wanted to get out and play with their new ball every time *I* stopped to get out and put up a new sign.

Which was like, every 4 minutes. And each time I would have to buckle them in, etc. So I said no, and boy, they did not like that.

Tomorrow my MIL takes 2 of my boys to Seattle to be with DH and stay with some friends of ours so at least I will only have 5 children on my watch tomorrow. Granted, they're probably 4 of the hardest of my bunch, but oh well - I think if I determine to see the good in whatever comes, it will turn out okay.

Guess I better head in......g'night!

Tooth Extractions and Rockin' Article

First, I got 4 teeth extracted on Monday. It actually was completely WAY WAY better than I thought it would be. I was sedated and honestly can't really remember much about it. Everything went smoothly, DH took half the day off, and spent the last part of the day watching the kids while I slept and watched a couple shows on my laptop in my bed. Hee hee it actually was kind of heavenly, ROFL!

Fast forward to today. I think one of them is infected. It's swollen and very sore to the touch. The reason why I think this is abnormal is because 1) it's been 4 days and swelling is supposed to peak at 2 days, then go down and 2) the other 3 are perfectly peachy and have given me pretty much no problems or pain at all.

So I'm back to square one, where I have tooth pain again.....and tonight we are leaving to go stay for 9 nights at our church's retreat center in a dorm with lots of other families. It's always an adventure and I am working hard to make it a good time FOR THE CHILDREN so that I am not all mean to them because I have this tooth pain and I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NOW. Ha ha. I'm sure you know *those* thoughts. =)

I'm kind of thinking maybe we should wait until tomorrow morning to go, actually. Why not? The house is clean, all laundry is done, and all we have to do is just physically pack stuff and get it over there (15 min. drive). It's also been raining today and the back of DH's truck is our main source of transporting our things.

Why not? I'm sure my kids will have ALOT of reasons why not, LOL. I'm going to go talk to DH and see what he says. In the meantime...better get to packing, lots to be done!

So, the article I just read on eating like a normal skinny person is pretty cool. You can read it here:

Trust, Hunger and Chocolate