This recipe is from Mostly Homemade Mom too. My kids love them and I love that I can make them low carb by using a low carb tortilla. Here is the recipe, I hope you enjoy!
Archives
My Goals For 2016: Week Four
- Workout 3x per week. Fail. With Monday’s holiday, a snow day, and the threat of a big snow, I only got two days in. Oh well. I’ll try to do better this week.
- Read something religious. Pass. I am really enjoying some quiet time each night for this!
- Attend Mass on Tuesday morning when available. No mass this Tuesday, so an easy pass.
- Update Mint. Pass! I am following our spending very carefully. We are actually seeing where the money is going. Hint: 7 kids, their education, and activities 🙂
- Follow the written budget. I am following as best as I can, but there have been some hiccups. Dave Ramsey says it takes 90 days to figure this out. He’s a smart guy, so I’m going to trust him. I’m calling this a pass.
- Follow THM and lose 12 pounds in order to be at my goal weight. I lost another tiny bit and I now have lost 1.2 pounds. Only 10.8 to go.
How about you, how are your goals going? I’m all ears.
Ann
The Highlights Of Our Week
- We had a birthday party for my mom! She was very sick and we weren’t sure she would make it. She had 2 surgeries and was in the hospital for 13 weeks, but she is getting better every day. Praise God!!!
- S won the 5th grade Spelling Bee. He placed 4th in the spell off between the 5th through 8th graders. He advanced to the Regional Spelling Bee being held in March. We are so proud of him! He works very hard with his school work.
- We had a snow day. I love them as I always feel like we have a free day. We got M and R’s room cleaned from top to bottom. No small feat.
- Went to a local flea market and got household supplies for $1-$2 for each item and Atkins bars for $2 per box. They are$7-$8 per box at Walmart. I’m stocked up for February!
- We had an indoor church picnic. It was so much fun!
- We have tons of birds eating at our feeders. I find it fun and relaxing to watch them.
How about you, what are your highlights? I’d love to hear.
Ann
More Month Than Money
This is what always happens. I start out so well and then there’s trouble. The unexpected things that come up and I don’t have a plan of what to do. I end up throwing the budget out and forgetting that I was ever trying to get it together.
Let me first say, we have savings, but if you’re like me, it is so much easier to take it out than put it back. I have this very bad track record of taking it out and not putting it back. There should be enough money, but all too often I cave and take the easy way out and put it on the credit card to worry about at a later date and don’t really change my behavior. Most times it isn’t an emergency that I am talking about, it’s more like a school project, a date-night not planned for, or a bill comes unexpectedly. For example, our propane company gives a discount for being a customer who will take a delivery when they are in the area. We have have had the same company for 9 or 10 years. The deliveries have always been in February and July. They delivered today. It will be due in February, not March when I have it budgeted.
Is it the end of the world? No, but I am determined not to take the money from savings. I’ll be reworking the February budget over and over if necessary to make the money and the month even out without having a negative balance.
How about you, do you have a budget for February? I’d love to hear?
Ann
Chicken Chili Recipe
I made an awesome chicken chili that I wanted to share. It isn’t my recipe, but I love Mostly Homemade Mom’s recipes so much, I thought you might like them too. It is called crock pot Chicken Chili. Here is the direct link to the recipe. My husband who will eat anything, but isn’t very complimentary about my meals, commented on how tasty it was! Be sure to check her out, her recipes are awesome!
Back Into Writing, Training For A Full Marathon
I’ve totally fallen off of the bandwagon with writing. It takes a lot of time and I’ve been feeling pulled in all directions. I will have to back and re-read my last posts so I can catch you up on my progress or lack-thereof.
One positive is that I am on track for running the full marathon! This was one of my 2014 goals. I ran 20 miles this past Saturday! It was sooo hard, but I managed to get through it. I signed up for the Columbus marathon last night. It was a hard thing to do. I really cannot imagine going any further than I did. As you get farther into the run, each mile seems farther and farther. I am hoping that the racing atmosphere will help me to “dig deep”. I still have 7 weeks until the race, so I’m hoping that being signed up will motivate me to keep training. There’s no backing out now!
How about you, are you meeting your goals? Have you fallen off of the bandwagon?
Ann
2014 Half-Marathon
Been in a little funk lately. Sorry for not posting much. I need to update my April totals. I’m trying to get back into the groove.
Anyway, one of my goals for 2014 was to run a half-marathon. My goals are here if you have forgotten or care :).
Well, I have completed it. I did the Capital City Half Marathon on Saturday May 3, 2014! I had my best time ever of 2:29:54. My goal was to get a 2:30:00. So, I beat my goal by 6 seconds.
To tell you the truth, I was nervous about it. I just didn’t feel like we had trained the longer distances enough. When we first started running, about 4 years ago, we kind of over trained with our coach, just so that we were sure we could go the whole distance. This time, I almost felt like we under trained but we did have a plan and we executed it, but it was different, if you know what I mean.
If you are into running, here is my analysis: We started too fast. We did a 10:17 first mile. We realized we started too fast and slowed down a little but it was hard because we were both feeling really good. I kept an eye on my Garmin for our average pace. I kept being surprised every mile that went by that we were below 11:00 until we got to the 10th mile. There we slowed and were above the 11 min. average pace. Our 13th mile and the .35 (according to my Garmin)were the slowest at 12:08 and 12:17 pace respectively.
My summary is that we just ran out of gas at the end. Our average pace was a 11:17. I’m thrilled!!!! I’m glad to have it finished. I haven’t run a half marathon for 3 years. 2 years ago I found out I was pregnant and changed my half marathon down to a 10k and I walked it, just to be on the safe side because of my age (44 at the time).
Saturday, I beat my best ever time after I had my 7th kid. Go me!!!
How about you, are you reaching your goals?
Ann
Happy Belated Easter
We had a fabulous weekend. My parents were here, and on Saturday we colored eggs, we chatted, we took a tour around our house and checked all of the plants coming up this spring. We ate and ate and ate, it was wonderful. On Sunday morning we did church and then the kids found their Easter baskets, we had an egg hunt (with $ in the eggs), and we had our feast at 1pm. It was a very busy, but wonderful day. Sometimes it works out like this, and other times it doesn’t. I’m really glad this was an up year, it seems as if they have been mediocre lately.
Here are some photos of our weekend.
L’s first time coloring eggs. She loved it!
T is getting too big to color a lot of eggs, but he did dip a couple 🙂
S with his favorite egg.
A with her favorite colored egg.
L with her colored hands. I just love the green and yellow hands !
My husband and me on Easter Sunday.
Me, my mom, and the girls.
Easter Day with 2 beautiful girls.
The kids enjoying some Easter candy after finding their baskets.
My mother-in-law enjoying a cup of coffee after dinner.
My father-in-law eating Easter dinner.
I hope you all had a glorious Easter, we did!
CrossFit Is Going Really Well
I haven’t posted much about CrossFit lately. I am still faithfully going, but we haven’t been doing any maximum lift workouts lately that I can post about.
We have been doing insane workouts as usual. The good news is that I am doing really well (for me). I have been working really hard. I am pretty much in a constant state of soreness. It varies from day-to-day, but I am pretty much sore all.of.the.time. And that is a good thing!
I can tell that I am stronger both mentally and physically. Like, I don’t break down anymore when I hear the word burpee. I am much better at goblet squats than I used to be. I really like rowing and jumping rope. When I first started I couldn’t jump more than 5 jumps in a row. Now I can do about 100 in a row without missing (on a good day).
I guess what I wanted to say is it isn’t all about the amount of weight that you lift, it is about the whole workout, the whole person, the whole package!
I am becoming mentally stronger. I’m not as easily intimidated as I used to be. I know I can make it through the workout, no matter what!
The best part for me is that these workouts are really helping me to run better, faster, and stronger than I have in the past. I’m really running well for me. CrossFit is the one thing that I have been consistent with for the past year (other than running) and the strength that I have built is making me a stronger runner! I didn’t notice it much before we started increasing our distance in preparation for the half-marathon in May. Now our group of runners who are doing CrossFit are definitely outshining the ones who are just doing the running. Strength really is important in running!
How about you, are you challenging yourself as an athlete, as a mom, as a person?
Ann
Cruise Pictures
Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship
Here are the cruise pictures I promised. My mom has the pictures that the cruise photographers took, but here are some shots from my iPhone.
It was an awesome trip and get away. We did a 7 night cruise on the Oasis of the Seas.
There were some surprises along the way. First off, I got to the airport as the plane that was to leave to Charlotte right before mine was cancelled and unloaded. Then we heard that the Charlotte airport was closed until 8 am. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7 am, but they delayed it until 8 am., and then 9 am. I was a nervous wreck. Then they announced over the PA system that there were zero seats available out of the airport for the rest of the day. Our plane finally loaded to head out about 9 am and I had a connecting flight at 9:50. Not likely to happen as it was more than an hour flight. My husband was awesome and kept me in the loop and encouraged that the connecting flight was likely to be delayed too. It was, and I finally made it to Ft. Lauderdale 3 hours later than I planned, but I made it!!!
Then later that night we ordered an $18 pizza from the hotel and they charged us $12 to bring it upstairs from the kitchen. I was ticked.
Then, the same hotel where we paid an arm and a leg to stay for one night, charged us 75 cents plus tax to make a local call. They charged that to my credit card. Ugh.
I don’t travel enough to realize that they charge you for everything!!!
We got to the ship with no problems. I knew that they charge for everything 😉
Our room was very nice. We had a balcony room overlooking “Central Park”.
It was a beautiful view.
The view from the 14th floor.
We saw all of the shows. They were great!
We had plenty to eat. They had delicious food and desserts (my weakness) They had baked Alaska, white chocolate mousse, rum cake a la mode and many more. For my mom who was stuffed after the main meal, a plate of nothing.
A plate of nothing.
We did the zip line in Labadee, Haiti. We climbed Dunn River Falls in Jamaica. That was an awesome and amazing excursion. It was a hard and long climb up the falls, but it was a really fun time. We even got “baptized” in the falls. We did the tour and shop at Cozumel Island. The ocean is such a pretty bunch of colors of blue it is amazing. It sure beats seeing the ocean in Florida.
Beautiful ocean view from Jamaica.
My Aunt heard all of the talk about the different types of Rum on our excursion and had to give the JB (Jamaican Best) a try. She said it wasn’t even that hot going down! Wow!
It was a fun trip. It was nice to get away and regroup. After being home for a week, it almost feels like I didn’t even go. My husband says believe him, I left 😉
How about you, how do you regroup and recharge? I’d love to hear.
Ann
View From My Nest 