Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Halsa Mat

I saw a rerun of Dr. Oz the other day and he spoke about the benefits of the Halsa Mat.

My boyfriend has a bad back so I decided to order it for him in hopes that it would relieve his pain.

It came in the mail yesterday and already he feels like it is working.  It relaxes him and makes his back pain feel better.

I ordered it off amazon.com for $29.95 with free shipping.

Have any of you tried the Halsa Mat?  Do you have any suggestions for how to relieve back pain naturally?

Homeopathic Medicine

I returned to work on Monday after being on disability for the past 6 weeks because I broke both of my elbows.  I had a lot of anxiety about coming back to work and everything I had to catch up on and a lot of changes were going on in my office too.

I was at Wegmans, the best grocery store by my house and I was looking in their organic section for something that would calm me down and stop me from worrying and stressing.

A couple of weeks before I came across a homeopathic brand called Boiron, and bought some pills that were labeled as helping with bone trauma.  I do think they helped heal my elbows so I went straight to that brand to look for medicine to help with my anixety.

Sure enough they had medicine labeled to help with "nervousness due to everyday stress."  The ingredient in it is ignatia amara.  I took the medicine and it immediatly calm me down and got my mind off of my stresses so I could relax the night before I had to go back.  The next morning I also took some right before I go to work - it calmed me right down.  My heart wasn't racing and I didn't feel as nervous and anxious as I had before.

It comes in a little blue tube and it has a very cool way of twisting it so you only get out the amount of pills you need.  This is the product that I took for my stress:

http://www.boironusa.com/products/single/ignatia-amara.php

I gave it to a co-worker who was having a bad day and super stressed - she said that she calmed right down and it really made her day a whole lot better.

I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a natural way to help deal with their stress.

Of course these two little ones help calm me down too!

Oragnic Wine

Lately I have trying to eat a lot more organic than I used to.  I would say that half of the things in my fridge right now are organic (eggs, milk, string cheese, carrots, lettuce, celery, salsa, orange juice, lemonade, ketchup, jelly, marinara sauce, etc)  in my pantry I have organic soups (Amy's brand), cereal, oatmeal, granola bars, trail mix, peanut butter, taco seasoning, beans, mac and cheese, etc) and in my freezer i have Amy's meals and burritos, morning star black bean burgers, chix patties, mushroom burgers, etc.

A couple of weeks ago I tried some organic wine from the liquor store by my house..and they were both really good.  If you are looking to get into organic wines I recommend starting off with these two.


My Garden!

My Garden this year did pretty well..considering my tomatoes took over everything and I over crowded it!

Here are some picks of how my garden started, what I harvested and how it is looking today.





I probably harvested around 14 zucchini, 6 yellow summer squash, hundreds of cherry tomatoes, over 30 regular sized tomatoes, 5 acorn squash, only one butternut squash, 10 banana peppers, 3 bell peppers and around 10 other kinds of 10 peppers.  The tomatoes were in the same garden bed as the peppers and they took over - I do have a lot of peppers still growing.  Next year I will put tomatoes in their own raised bed.

Pepper Suprise!

I was out in my garden picking tomatoes and I came across this pepper!  It must have been hiding because I most likely would have picked it when it was green.

A red pepper is just a green pepper that ripens on the plant longer. That is why they are more expensive then green peppers in the store...because it takes longer for them to come to fruition.

Red peppers are also better for you and have disease fighting antioxidants!



Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Fast and Easy Breakfast

Egg sandwich with laughing cow cheese and tomatoes and a side of strawberries!


Are you in need of a new recipe to use up all those tomatoes from your garden?


If your garden is anything like mine you should have more tomatoes than you know what to do with - this recipe is delicious and uses up a ton of them...plus it has bacon in it...everyone loves bacon.

This is what you will need:
Mushrooms (you can leave these out if your not a fan), bow tie pasta, 1/4 cup red wine (I used yellow tail pino noir - don't make fun of my cheap wine!), 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, 1/3 cup Pecarino Romano cheese, BACON (I used a low sodium center cut), onion, 4 garlic cloves, and tomatoes (I use a combination of cherry and regular)!  Simple!  Now listen people...I don't really follow recipes.  I used what I have in my fridge, cupboards and garden.  If you don't have something I am sure you can substitute.  Whole wheat pasta would be a great healthy alternative...adding spinach would also be great.  This makes a ton of food - is perfect for a dinner party and would be great with a salad and garlic bread.

Now here is what you do:
Dice and Cook Bacon

While the Bacon is cooking dice onions, garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms:


 Take Bacon out of the pan and drain out most of the bacon grease...leave about one tablespoon in the pan and put the onions and garlic in..cook until the onions are translucent.
Now you should start your water boiling to cook your pasta.  I highly encourage you to be drinking wine through out all of this and every once and a while eat a little piece of bacon...because bacon is delicious.
 Now add in all of the tomatoes and mushrooms:
This will have to cook down - it takes about 10 minutes...Then add in the wine...
Cook it down for 5-10 more minutes...now I know it looks very watery...its all of the lovely juices from the tomatoes...I have a trick for this..as soon as your pasta is al dente - drain it and put it in the sauce so it soaks up all of the juices!  Don't worry those arn't my man hands...my boyfriend is helping - it is still hard for me to cook with my broken  elbows!  Then add the bacon and cheese:



Stir all together and let simmer for a couple of minutes and then you have this delicousness!
By this time your house smells amazing and everyone in it is starving....so now time to eat!
Enjoy!  My boyfriend sure did, he had three huge plates...and we still had a ton of left overs!





Tuesday, September 4, 2012

My first critic

So....I had my boyfriend read my blog (we have been dating for over 6 1/2 years...we live together..he knows me better than almost any person on this planet.  He is one of the smartest people I know...he reads...............EVERYTHING..............and he has a masters in English...soo I was dying a little when he was the first person I told about the 4 posts I made on my first day.  I nervously waited in the other room and I heard him giggling...yesssss..I came across kinda funny online!  Woo hoo!  I looked at him from around the corner and he says "you need pictures of Olive and Pickle on every post!"  Then I asked how my grammar was..he said "there are a couple of mistakes but they are cute!"  Awww!  What a sweetheart...!  So for all of your viewing pleasure...
And if you are wondering why Pickle's eyes look a little funny..she is blind in her right eye...but in this pic I guess the left one looks a little funky..welp...she is my baby and I love her!


Lunch Time

I have been debating whether or not to post pictures of what I eat on here...however I know that when I look at other people's blog's I love to see what they eat.

So here it is..Turkey Sandwich with provolone cheese and tomatoes from the garden along with goldfish crackers and low fat cottage cheese with water to drink..I love water!


I ate clay over my labor day weekend..waht did you do?

I went to go visit some friends in Rochester over the weekend and I ate clay...twice.  I also put some on my face.  It is now my new obsession...

 

Here is a great article about the benefits of clay (don't worry you can enjoy the benefits with out eating it).

http://www.redmondclay.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/we-eat-clay.pdf

With all of the x-rays I have been getting since I broke my elbow I thought this would be a great way to detox!  I ate about 1/2 a teaspoon of the clay on Saturday and Sunday - It was powder but as soon as it went in my mouth it started to solidify so I had to drink a ton of water...but it actually wasn't that bad! 

Here is a link if you are interested in purchasing some of your own!

http://www.redmondtrading.com/product/redmond-clay/redmond-clay-powder/

Mums and Pumpkins...Fall is coming!

I have to say that I LOVE fall.  I am lucky enough to live in the Buffalo, New York area and we get to experience all four seasons.  Pumpkins, gourds, mums, leaves changing colors, apple picking, bon fires and the start of the cold weather are all things I look forward to.

Over the weekend I picked up some mums from the store to spruce up the outside of my house.  We have had a very hot and dry summer and with that mostly all of my summer flowers have died.  :(

Here are a couple of pictures of the flowers I just got!

Yikes I need to trim my front bushes and weed!  The tiny mums are in a window box on my garage - hopefully they will get a bit bigger!

I am also growing my pumpkins in my garden...this is one that climbed all over the place and decided to grow with the tomatoes!
Look at the little baby pumpkin starting to grow!!
Here is a picture of my raised garden beds...the one on the left had summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers and lettuce in it but it has seen better days...the acorn squash and butternut is doing ok.  The bed on the right has a bunch of different kinds of tomatoes and peppers..my tomatoes are out of control this year!


My sunflowers did well!


Here is what I picked yesterday from the garden...
I have an excellent recipe that I am cooking tonight to help use up the delicious tomatoes from the garden.  I will post the recipe and pictures later!






Its strange what a person resorts to out of boredom.

I have been an avid reader of blogs for about 4 years now and I have always wanted to start one.  Recently, something major happened in my life, which has led me to start blogging.   Even though this is my first post and you hardly know me, I know what your thinking...did she get engaged?  pregnant? loose weight?  win the lottery?  get a new job?  Well let me relieve the suspense for you....I broke my elbows.  Yes...that is elbowS....as in both of them.  In a sense it was really a blessing in disguise.  I was able to take time off of work to heal and after the major pain I was in subsided I was able to fill my time during the day (in between answering work emails) with playing with my dogs (Olive and Pickle), cooking, gardening, spending time with family and friends and of course reading blogs and obsessively looking at pinterest.  There are still a lot of things that I have a hard time with (opening doors, string things, turning things, using a can opener, lifting things, etc...) but after your in such pain and not able to move your arms for a month you really start to appreciate the little things again.  I have realized that I have quite a nice life and I would like to share it with all of you out there!

I just got done getting more x-rays and seeing the doctor and they tell me that I can go back to work on Monday, which is good and bad.  I love my job, I am good at it and it allows me to live in my amazing cozy house and have some money to have fun on the weekends....que in background music "everybody's working for the weekend" or if you prefer I can quote Billy Joel..."Drank a lot of take home pay" (Keeping the Faith is a great song)!  But honestly I have been spoiled!  I have had almost the entire summer off - granted most of it I spend on the couch with ice on my arms and elbows and in a ton of pain...but I really tried to take advantage of relaxing and reconnecting with family and friends.

So I promise this blog will be full of pictures of my amazing dogs, my new house, my garden, cooking, outfits, shopping and all of that good stuff!

So now I leave you with a picture that will hopefully bring a smile to your face..Olive (my 7 year old Boston Terrier sitting on the chair) and Pickle (my 1 year old Boston Puggle).