I had a very vivid dream the other night and it came up during my therapy session today. Things are going really well for me right now and my therapist was asking me about whether or not I think my dreams mean something. I told her I sure hope so because the other night this is what I remember from my dream:

Ellen was my mentor/life coach. She was helping me get to the next level (from what, I don’t know) and part of her strategy was for me to go to Magic Mountain and ride the roller coasters with Ryan Gosling.

Oh, let’s make that come true.

On Saturday, our family made the trip down to Kansas City to visit the new Kansas City LDS temple. They are having an open house right now and the public is allowed to go inside and see it.

The kids were super excited to go inside. They were a bit rambunctious but were mostly under control inside. It could have been so much worse! Caleb had a few outbursts of inappropriate speaking–like when he asked our tour guide what was in his big belly or when he told everyone in our group that I’m 37 and the oldest one in our family because daddy is only 35.

The kids’ favorite room was the sealing room. They liked looking in the mirrors and knowing that they were sealed to us in a room just like that when they were babies.

We were going to spend some time hanging around Kansas City on Saturday but the weather forecast was bleak. Instead we had a quick lunch with Tiffany (my best friend for the last 25 years or so) and her family that came up to see the temple from Oklahoma and then got the heck out of there. The weather was pretty good for us until we got to Nebraska. We then had heavy rain and about 20 miles away from Lincoln, we got in zero visibility rain with hail so we pulled over for a bit until it passed. I was grateful to be home. Turns out that there were over 100 tornadoes in OK, KS, IA, and NE that night and I was happy we were home safe and sound.

I had a bit of fun reorganizing our entryway this week. As you can see from the before, there wasn’t much organization going on. Everything was piled on a coffee table and spilling off the sides. I decided to go and get some pre-fab furniture pieces from Target and reclaim my coffee table for in front of our couch.

I ended up spending about $45 on the 4 pieces (2 shoe racks-stacked and the 2 three shelf cubbies. I also had 2 red bins to place on top and a basket I found in a closet. I left the mirror with the pegs. The after picture isn’t quite accurate because I took this while the kids are gone. When they are here, their backpacks are hanging up there. I put the extra jackets, hats, etc… in the coat closet upstairs for the warm season. I like having a specific spot for the church bags, gym bag, and shoes. It makes coming home feel better knowing that there isn’t a pile of junk right as you enter the door. Bonus: the shelves are slimmer than the coffee table so now we can open our front door all the way.

Well, I’ve done it. I started my new website and I’m ready to show it off to the world. It’s called Real Food Really Good and it is full of recipes that are WAIT FOR IT…… real food that’s really good! I’m also going to tell you how you might win a $100 gift card to Amazon.com!

You can read a little more in depth about why I started this site on the about page, but suffice it to say, I needed to get real with my food. I’ve spent too many of my years eating junk and feeding junk to my family. I wanted to do better. So I am.

I’m still working on getting a lot of the “bad stuff” out of my diet. It’s a work in progress. I just hope you all enjoy the recipes I put out there and will try them with your own families!

To kick off my new site, I’m giving away a $100 gift card to Amazon.com. I’ll be choosing someone randomly from my FB fans and newsletter subscribers.

If you want to be my FB fan, click here.

To subscribe to my newsletter, click here. The newsletter will be sent out once a month and will include a special not-yet published recipe and some deals.

If you do both, you have double the entries!

I will still be updating this site at times but I will be posting more regularly over there. I hope you’ll come over and join me!  The drawing will be held on my birthday, April 11th! You have just over one week to be eligible for the drawing.

I’d really like to get the word out about my site. If you find it useful and worthwhile, would you mind sharing it with others?  A tweet? Some pins on pinterest? A blog post? Anything will help and I certainly appreciate it!

I took this picture a few weeks ago when I was in a doctor’s office with my daughter. She was diagnosed with pneumonia that day. February was a long, long month for us filled with illnesses and other unfortunate events. I’m glad it’s over.

So, want to know why I think these shoes make me prettier?

I used to wear tennis shoes all of the time. Jeans or more likely, sweats and tennis shoes. I didn’t really have any nice casual shoes. Last September I went to visit Deb (from Dose of Happy) in Minneapolis. We went to the Mall of America and on my list of things to do was take advantage of Deb’s sense of style and get some casual shoes. These certainly aren’t the most stylish shoes in the world but they are exactly what I needed (and comfortable!).

When I wear these shoes I take more of an effort to put myself together. I wear jewelry again. I put on make up. I’m not wearing them with my sweats. For someone that works from home, putting effort into appearance doesn’t really need to be a top priority. But, it makes me feel better! I’m less depressed (could it be the shoes?).

I was at Target today and I felt like I really had it together. I had on a new cardigan. I wore my silver bracelet I got in Mexico. I had on makeup. I saw all the moms there that were in their sweatpants and had two or three little kids clinging to them. I remember those days and thanks to my shoes (and my school-aged kids), I don’t ever have to go back to that. I feel pretty again.

*I bought a similar pair in black. Now the only time I have to wear my tennis shoes is when I go to the gym.

I had my last training session today. I’m down 8 lbs but more importantly, I have big muscle bumps in my arms. I like that.

My middle is still flabby flab and sore from lots of crazy exercises including the crunch machine (which I loathe).

I will continue to go to the gym but I’m really going to miss my trainer. It’s just not in the cards right now (unless our tax return is magical). Caleb starts a behavioral school on Monday that costs MORE than our monthly mortgage payment. Yikes!

So, here’s to muscles, weight loss, and a school that will help my family be more functional!

Just today I was saying that things are going well in my life. I have a new project I’m working on (details here soon!), my kids are being pretty good (for them), and I just feel like I’m kind of getting my act together.

Then, today after school one of my kids hit me with a screwdriver*. On purpose.

That sucked.

*I’m okay even though it hurt like crazy. The child that hit me with the screwdriver is also okay. I practiced great restraint and used none of my ninja kickboxing skills. We’re all very lucky.

It’s pretty difficult to take a picture of yourself wearing a necklace when there is nobody else around to help. Here is my best effort. I made this necklace over the break and it didn’t take me too long at all to complete. It is basically just a few crochet chains hooked together with a flower added on the side. I sewed a button on the flower and one for the closure and that took me about as long as it did to crochet the whole thing. ]

I’ve been getting compliments on it all day.

What do you think? Would you wear a crocheted flower necklace? I’m thinking of making some more and having them available in my shop.

I spray painted a canvas over the break.  This is hanging in our bathroom. We can all use a little reminder of this now and then.

The canvas is 16 x 20 and I used my cricut to cut out the letters in vinyl. Once the spraypaint was dry, I peeled off the vinyl letters and it was done!

I love to read books about food. I just finished one yesterday called, “The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry”. It’s about the author’s desire to graduate from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She gets laid off her corporate job, uses all her savings, and pursues her life’s passion. I love books like this! You could probably put this book in the same category as Julie & Julia but I enjoyed this one so much more (less whiny & more cooking).

This book made me want to drop out of life for a while and go study cooking abroad.  Actually, it would only be a week and I would probably want to go HERE (better start saving the $1800 + airfare).

Have I mentioned that I’ve been working with a trainer and have been strictly counting calories for a few weeks now?

And now I’m reading about how to make the most perfect puff pastry and onion soup gratineed with about a pound of luscious cheese?

It’s a bit dangerous but so far, I’ve managed to stay within my allotted calories each day but one (I went over by 140 calories on Christmas but that was it!). It’s been doable, I’m not starving, and technically I can eat whatever I want (like the 160 calories I took in of candy from the Jelly Belly Factory). It helps to have my trainer monitor all of my food. If I eat 400 calories in licorice, he’s going to call me out on it (ahem, Christmas).

So, for now, I’ll just read about the decadent, butter-rich food from France and dream about spending a week in Mexico learning how to cook some traditional dishes.

Pass the carrot sticks.