Making My Own Food

DIY or do it yourself is a big thing right now. One of my goals in living is to reduce and hopefully eliminate processed food in my family's life. One of my problems with making my own food is that I get bored. I wish I knew more about how to make up recipes as I go that are exciting and flavorful. When I make something new or something that I haven't made in a long time, I get inspired to continue. The problem is I find myself making the same things all the time. The other night, I had a craving for lentils. I almost didn't make them because I felt like its summer and I should be making a light summer dish, not a heavy comfort food dish. I did add grilled pineapple and a caprese salad with fresh basil and fresh mozzarella which I do think lightened up the meal. What it did though, was to inspire me to make more foods that I don't usually make and to actually listen to my cravings when they are healthy cravings. I think my next goal is to learn about different spices and how they work with different foods. We, unfortunately, did have store bought canzone for food today and I bought an egg sandwich at a small local bistro today for breakfast. I am not really hungry for any other food today, but I plan to start tomorrow with making my own foods and experimenting with different foods and spices to feel more inspired to eat healthy, flavorful, inspired foods. One of the things that inspires me is to watch cooking shows as well as to go to my local farmers market. I love seeing all the different foods, some that I have never heard or cooked with and some are just inspiring even though I have eaten them many times before but maybe in a different way. What really inspires me is my friend Holly, at thesoulchef.com, who cooks every week and always inspires me to use new and different ingredients. I love trying new foods and foods that I have had, but cooked in different ways of with different flavors. Today, I promised my oldest son that we would make granola. He loves granola and yogurt and he loves to help in the kitchen. I want him to help and learn new foods that are healthy, especially since he is on the autism spectrum and I feel that he really needs to watch his diet to help with some of the symptoms of his autism. That in and of itself is enough for it's own post and more. Later tonight, after I find a good recipe, we will make our own granola so that we can add it to our yogurt which I want to become a staple grocery item in our house. Here's to some good, healthy, DIY foods to help kick the processed food habit and save money at the same time! Amy

My Latest Projects

I forget what inspired me to actually start this project, but I decided to pul out my jewelry supplies and attempt to make a wire wrapped puzzle piece.  Actually, I think that I was looking at the build-a-bear website, since I pre-ordered an autism bear, and that was what inspired me.  We had a very lazy Sunday and I played with my jewelry supplies.

I initially used my wire jig and made a large puzzle piece.  It was a little large for what I initially wanted so I set it aside and worked on making a smaller piece.  I photocopied it at 50% and it was a really good size.  At that Point, I just decided to free hand it.  It was much easier to free hand the pattern than I thought it would be.

The ultimate outcome of this idea was a wire puzzle piece pendant with blue stones dangling from it.

I thought about the larger puzzle piece that I had made with the jig and decided to put it on my wrist and bend it around a little.  I then put a pink Swarovski butterfly and Swarovski blue bead in the middle.  I had thought about putting a beaded bracelet to attach to my wrist, but I decided to use a large chain instead.  The outcome:

I put pictures on Facebook and got a lot of comments and likes.  My sister, wants a set and I have a friend who is interested and who shared the picture on her page.  Now I have to figure out how much to charge for things.  Maybe this is actually working.  Maybe I will be able to sell things I make.  I may not or I may be able to make a living at this, but maybe I'll be able to recoup some money to buy new supplies instead of just spending money!

All I know is, I have fun when I create, and if I can make a little money while I do something I love, how can that be bad?

Oh, and since my inspiration for this was the Autism symbol and since Michael has Autism, I will donate a percentage of my earnings to an Autism fund!

Amy

Being Creative

I have been trying to make a point to be creative often, almost every day if not every day.  With the weather getting nicer, I am spending more time outside with the kids.  I have been able to bring some projects outside with me, which has allowed me to create as well as allow my kids to be outside which they love.

Recently, I have been making dolls, or at least attempting to make dolls.  I remember loving dolls as a child, especially the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that my grandmother made for us.  I remember having life-size Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls as well as small ones.  I was lucky enough to have a Raggedy Ann doll for my daughter and a Raggedy Andy doll for each of my sons, made by my grandmother.  I actually have to make a Raggedy Andy outfit for my twin son's Raggedy Andy.  I am hoping to create some dolls for charity, as well as for fun.

 My attempt at a Waldorf doll

Baby Bows Doll in the outfits that my twins came home from the hospital in. I still need to make one for my oldest!

A sleepytime doll that I made for my niece for her Christening

The more I create, the more I realize that I love doing it.  I know that I need to make time to have this as part of my life.  I am hoping to make being creative a major part of my life, and not just something that I do when I find the time. I know that I need to start spending time actually getting good at a craft before I move on to something else. There are many times that I think that I have ADD, seriously, and the creative arena is o different. I flit from one project to another, never committing to fully learning and fully succeeding at the one I am working on. I want to stop being average at the things I create and start being proficient at it.

 I also want to start getting more creative in my cooking.  The farmer's market in town is starting in a couple of weeks and I hope to start buying more local foods and start being more creative with it.  Between my BRCA2 gene mutation (I think I have decided against surgery, at least for now) and my son recently being diagnosed with PDD NOS, I really need to watch what we are eating.  My goal is again to eat more local and to eat way more fruits and veggies (little to no animal protein for me due to the BRCA2 mutation), and decrease, maybe even totally eliminate gluten and dairy (we again have greatly reduced it, but not totally eliminated it, both my oldest and I are sensitive to it).  Part of my problem with cooking lately, is that I am bored and not feeling very creative with my cooking.  I am hoping to get inspired by going to local farmer's markets and even just walking around.  I am hoping to find some good cookbooks and some good online sites that can help to inspire me.

I am hoping to find a job at the end of the summer that will be able to take into account my love of creating.  I am under no illusion that there may not be anything out there like that, but I would love to try to find something.  I still have a few more years before I go back to work full time.  I hope by then, I can figure out how I can do work that I love instead of just working for a paycheck.  I do like being a social worker, but I don't love it.  My husband thinks that it is just because of fear of doing 1:1 counseling, but that is not it.  I don't know that I want to do 1:1 counseling! I'm not really sure I know what I want to do, but I really want to wake up and want to go to work.  Hopefully I can figure out a way for that to happen.

Amy

Getting Back Our Health

I always have these goals, dreams, desires, wants and never seem to actually follow through.  My goal of being healthy and having a healthy family is not something that I can afford to not follow through on!  I need to get back to buying healthy foods, cooking healthy meals and snacks, and not giving into temptation.  I need to not give into the kids' wants for unhealthy foods.  I need to make sure that we have healthy snacks that can take care of certain cravings that we have i.e., salt or sugar.  I need to have healthy juices and mostly give the kids water.

My health, my husband's health, and my oldest son's health depend on me, my shopping, and my cooking. My twins health also depends on me to, but they are healthy and I just need to keep them that way.  My husband has high blood pressure, I have had issues with pregnancy induced and stress induced blood pressure as well as food sensitivities, and my BRCA2 positive status, and my oldest son has food sensitivities that seem to cause him to have spacey, behavior issues as well as sleep issues, skin issues and others.  Sometimes, I think I may have spacey issues related to food.  I want to make sure that my twins have a good foundation with food so that as they get older and have more temptations, they will have a good foundation to know what choices to make.

My goal is to start to research what food does to all of us.  I know that we need to have gluten out of the house, sugar out of the house, and dairy out of the house.  I am fearful that my oldest son has signs and symptoms of autism and I really want to make sure that what we eat is not contributing to those signs and symptoms.  I want to teach my children how to make healthy choices as well as re-teach myself and teach myself some new ideas on health.

This is not going to be easy on any of us, but it is something I need to do.  One of the hard things is going to be to allow my kids to refuse meals because they want to eat unhealthy foods.  My biggest issue with this is that they are all on the low end of the weight scale.  I don't want them to lose weight, but I don't want that to be a reason that they have poor eating habits.  They say that kids will eat and will not starve.  I just need to remember that I need to stay strong and offer healthy foods for all of us and deal with some of the potential withdrawal symptoms so that we get to the healthy place that I want us to be and crave healthy foods, not foods that are bad for us.  I want to be able to listen to my body and give it what it needs.  I want my kids to be able to learn this too.  Day by day and even moment by moment, is how I need to look at this.  I need to get us all on track so that we can move forward and be healthy!

Amy