Bad Blogger!!!

My last post was on October 30th. That makes it nearly two and a half months since I last blogged! I'm sorry. *hangs head in shame*

I have an excuse. His name is E. He's nearly 11 months old and he keeps me BUSY! That and Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years also happened. It's a busy time of year, folks. What can I say?

So what's going on in the G household these days? Now that the holidays are passed and life has returned to normal we are back to organizing our home. We would like to sell as soon as we have saved enough for a down payment on a new home. With that in mind, we are starting to steadily pluck away at our "To Do" list of minor home repairs. I'm also working on decluttering and organizing. In order to help us save for the new house, we've also made the decision to cut our cable. After tonight (or sometime tomorrow, depending on when Verizon shuts us off) we will be cable free. It is a very freeing feeling to know that we will no longer be ruled by our desire to watch our recorded shows on the DVR! I imagine that we will be more productive and spend more time together as a family doing "family" things. Josh and I can play games after E has gone to bed and before bedtime we can all play together. E loves it when both Josh and I get down on the floor and play with him. I'm also hoping that I'll be better at getting housework done without television here to distract me.

Back in November I made the decision to start selling PD jewelry. It has been going well, although, not as well as I had hoped. I really wanted to have six home shows completed before 1/22/10 in order to win a $200 certificate for free jewelry from the company. I can use this jewelry on my display table so that I have more samples to show customers at home shows. Right now, I need one more show. If you are reading this (I don't know how many people actually do read my blog...) I'd love to do a home show for you! Partly, because I need the extra show (I'm being honest) and also because I think doing home shows is fun and I love getting an evening or afternoon away from home!

Well, it's late and I need to get some sleep. I've been burning the candle at both ends lately and really need to be better at getting to bed before midnight so that I can get some good quality sleep before E wakes up at 7am. Before midnight won't be happening tonight, but just because I've gone past my goal doesn't mean I have to stay up any later.

With that, goodnight!

Pedoodles Giveaway

I've done it again. I've entered another giveaway, this time for a pair of Pedoodles baby shoes. I figure that I've been having some awesome luck with giveaways lately and that it doesn't hurt to enter. I'd really like to win these shoes too! If you'd like to enter, although I hope you don't because it will reduce my odds of winning, please go to this post at Mama Needs This and follow the instructions for entering.

So what are you favorite styles of Pedoodles shoes? I really like the Blue Bumper Cars style in their current line. However, they have some new styles coming out soon and I would LOVE to have a pair of their brown, tan and olive suede shoes for E's cute little feet!

For more giveaways on other cute items you should bookmark Mama Needs This or have the blog update to an RSS feed. She has had some really nice products up for giveaways on her blog!

Pray for Stellan!

Stellan is the son of a Twitter user and blog writer that I follow. She goes by MckMama. Stellan is just over 11 months old and has been having an issue with his heart since he was in utero. He has periods where his heart beats VERY fast and there is danger of heart failure if the fast beating cannot be stopped. Usually it is controlled by various prescription drugs, but occasionally some SVT (the name for the fast beating) breaks through. He can have a procedure done when he is older (around 4 years old) to try to correct the problem with his heart. His parents and older siblings are just waiting for him to grow and praying that his little heart can hold out until then. (This is my layperson description of his condition, MckMama explains it very well on her blog.) Stellan was just admitted to the hospital tonight with SVT that managed to break through the drugs holding it back. MckMama sounds like she is staying strong, but I can imagine that going through this is not easy. Can you please pray for healing, strength, more time for Stellan to grow and for peace for the entire family? If you have time and wish to leave MckMama a comment on her blog I'm sure she would love the encouragement.

Thanks for praying!

Won ANOTHER Giveaway!

I guess I'm on a roll! I won another giveaway! This one is from Mama Needs This and is a Toofeze Teether. I'm so excited! I guess all the entering of different giveaways I've been doing is really paying off. This teething toy is well timed too. E just got his first two teeth and I'm beginning to see signs that the next tooth is on it's way shortly. He should really enjoy having something new on which to chew.

Sugar, Dairy, Wheat FREE (!!!!) Apple Pie AND It's Delicious!

As some of you might know I'm doing a diet that has some pretty strict eating rules. I can eat ONLY the following: fruits of any kind (except oranges), vegetables of any kind, meat of any kind (except pork), potatoes, brown rice and eggs. For beverages I'm allowed water, black coffee and black tea. That's it. It's really a lot of food and gives me tons of options, but I can't have anything processed or frozen or with any additives, etc.

Lately I've had a craving for a good dessert, but since I can't have sugar I wasn't sure how I was going to get that craving satisfied. Yesterday I started thinking... sweet potatoes are almost sweet enough on their own that they taste like candy, and so are fresh dates. What if I pureed them in a food processor, mixed them together and used them as a sweetener in an apple pie? I bought all the ingredients yesterday and this afternoon I made the pie. Josh and I just finished a whole HALF of the pie between the two of us! That's how delicious it is! I'm so excited! I love the fact that I now have a dessert option that is tasty, healthy and diet friendly, but, even more, I'm loving that I came up with an original recipe that is totally delicious!

It is important to know that I made the pie with rice flour because I'm not allowed wheat and it is dairy free as well. Keep in mind that I'm only allowed three types of oil; olive, coconut, almond. However, since my baby is allergic to nuts, any nut oils that I eat bother him when he breastfeeds, this makes the almond oil off limits for me. Here is the recipe.

Crust (I made with rice flour and coconut oil, but you can use regular flour and shortening if you don't have sensitivities to them.)

1 1/4 Cups Brown Rice Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/3 Cup Coconut Oil
4-5 Tablespoons Cold Water

In a medium bowl stir together the flour and salt. Cut in the coconut oil until the mixture is in crumbs the size of peas. Add the water ONE tablespoon at a time to sections of the flour mixture. Gently toss the flour and water with a fork and then push to the side of the bowl. Repeat this until the flour is all moistened. Form into a ball. (Normally this would be where you would roll the dough and put it into a pie pan, but rice flour doesn't make for a very pliable dough.) Press the dough into a pie pan and form it to reach up the sides and cover the bottom. Using a fork, poke the bottom and sides to provide room for steam to vent.


Apple Filling

6 Cups Apples (you can leave the skin on or peal them. I left my skins on.)
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/8 Teaspoon Ground Clove
1 Sweet Potato, Baked
5 Fresh Dates, Pitted

Pour the lemon juice over the apples and let sit while you prepare the remaining ingredients. In a large bowl stir together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Add the apples to the spiced flour mixture and toss until well coated. Dig the sweet potato "meat" out of the skin and mash, set aside. Using a food processor turn the dates into a paste by adding a small amount of water. (Approximately 1/4 cup.) Stir the dates and the mashed sweet potato together and then mix into the apple mixture. Pour into the pie pan with the prepared shell.


Crumb Topping (Again, you can use regular flour instead of rice flour if you would prefer.)

4 Fresh Dates, Pitted
3 Tablespoons Rice Flour (Appx.)

Process the dates in a food processor, dry, without water, until they are a thick paste, but not watery. Add the flour and process until dry, pea sized crumbs form. Spread over top of the pie.


Bake the entire pie in a 375 oven for approximately 1 hour. (May take a little less or more time.) You will know it is done when the topping has thickened and is bubbly. After about 20 minutes you may need to cover the top of the pie with foil to keep the crumb topping from burning.

ENJOY!

This pie underwent the very stringent "Husband Test" and passed with flying colors! Even without sugar it is incredibly delicious!

Please let me know if you try to make it and what you think of it. We love it here in the G House and will probably make it a regular in the recipe rotation!

*Note that the food processor I used is a small three cup machine that only cost about $10 dollars.

Size 10!!!

I've been dieting for 3 weeks, trying to lose my baby weight and also my careless eating weight after the baby was born. (Shame on me!) In the past 3 weeks I've lost a total of 15 pounds! FIFTEEN!!!! Today I decided to try on my size 10 jeans, just for fun! They fit! Now, granted, they aren't an easy fit, but they aren't a hard-to-get-into-stuffed-sausage fit either. So yay! One small victory on my way to getting back to my smaller size. 15 pounds down, 25 (at least) to go.

Busy Life & a Trip to Look Forward Too

Life seems to be busier than normal lately. Since the beginning of August we have been on the go (either me and E as a duo or the whole family) almost every weekend! Since August 1st I've made two trips to my parents house (a 4.5 hour drive each direction), a trip to Plymouth, MA to visit my friend Anne, two trips to Virginia Beach and one trip to Josh's parent's (a 3 hour drive). The few weekends we have been home we've had a wedding to go to, family visiting from out of town and housework to catch up on. Needless to say I feel like I rarely spend any time at home anymore! We have one more trip to visit my in-laws this weekend. Then we have a weekend at home with NOTHING scheduled. Later this month we have a visit from my sister-in-law (Which I'm REALLY looking forward to!) and then another free weekend before we make another trip to my in-laws for the weekend (Nov. 5-8).

For our November trip to the in-laws we get to do something a little different! We will get there on Thursday night, spend two nights with them, but on Saturday morning we leave our little man for the first overnight without us. (I'm a little nervous, but know he'll do fine and that my mother and father-in-law will take great care of him.) Josh and I are going to The Homestead in Hot Springs, VA to celebrate the two year anniversary of our engagement. The Homestead has always been a special place to Josh and as a young man he dreamed of someday proposing to his wife on the resort grounds. In November of 2007 Josh took me to the resort for an afternoon of strolling the grounds and dinner at one of the fancy restaurants. While we were there he proposed, I said, "yes", and the rest is wonderful history. We decided to go back this fall and spend the night and make it a delayed celebration of our wedding anniversary as well as our two year engagement anniversary. We had a three month old baby for our first wedding anniversary and didn't really do anything to celebrate so we are really looking forward to this!

I should end this post and get some things accomplished around the house before E wakes up from his morning nap. We leave later this evening for our weekend away and I have a lot I need to accomplish before then. (Shower, gym, dentist appointment, packing, cleaning... sigh...)