Grilling Machine

I have been looking for a BBQ grill for the last few weeks. It is summertime afterall and I would much rather be outside cooking my food then slaving away inside my kitchen. Not to mention we don't have air conditioning so if we have to turn on the stovetop or the oven for any reason, it immediately heats up the entire house. It's awful and has lead to me not cooking as much as I should be. 

Well last Sunday we happened to be at the ARC and found this grill there for $30!!!!!! The only downside was that we didn't actually know if it worked when we purchased it. They had no way of hooking it up and testing it before they put it out for sale. So we were taking a risk. But they told us if it didn't work that we could return it within 7 days for store credit. So we bought it.

We got it home and opened it up a bit more. Everything seemed to be there except for the ignition switch. But those always seem to be the first thing that breaks on any grill and I know from experience that you can still light it without one. Little bit more dangerous for your eyebrows and lashes, but it can be done. And I can get a replacement switch for around $10. And of course the inside was pretty dirty, but I knew that I could get it all cleaned up. 

The following Monday I grabbed an extra propane tank from my Brother's house, brought it home and hooked it up to the grill. We turned the propane on and then turned the grill on and lit it with a stick lighter and it immediately lit up! I was so excited. It actually worked. I was feeling amazing about this $30 purchase. 

I didn't have much time to clean it up during the week, so we were putting foil down to cook on it, but I got tired of that real quick. So this past weekend I spent a good few hours scrubbing and hosing down all of the grates and racks and got it cleaned up as best as I could. It looked really good actually. I was very proud of the hard work I put into cleaning it. 

I was so excited to cook on it once I had everything cleaned. We decided to try something we have never made before. We made chicken kabobs! And the best part was that we got to use some of the yellow squash and peppers that came out of our garden, which is kicking ass by the way. These kabobs were super simple and easy to make and they turned out delicious! They cooked perfectly on the grill and will definitely be a new favorite in this house.

I am in love with my new grill and completely in love with the fact that I only spent $30 on it! Something similar brand new would have cost me anywhere from $200-$300. I love finding a great deal and this grill was exactly that! And now I can go buy a sweet Denver Broncos grill cover to put on it! Football is after all right around the corner!

What is one of the best bargains or deals that you have found?

Weigh-In-Wednesday

This past week has been up and down. I finally got on the scale yesterday morning for the first time since the end of June. To be real, I have been so scared to step on that scale. And honestly, I think that is why it showed what it did yesterday morning. 174.8. Almost 20 lbs up from my lowest weight of 155. Cue me having a minor meltdown/panic attack/ freak out yesterday morning. Tears and all. 

It wasn't pretty. But it was a wake up call and a slap in the face all at the same time. I am the only person that is responsible for me putting weight back on. No one else. Just me. So I need to be responsible for getting it back off too. 

Although I have been struggling to stay motivated, I know that I can do it because I did it once before. I need to buckle down and get serious. Serious about what I am fueling my body with. And serious about my workouts. That is all there is to it. 

I can do this! And I will! 

Blog Ideas

Hello Blog World! Happy Monday! 

I have really been wanting to blog more and more lately. Small problem though. I sit down to blog and I can not come up with anything to write about. Not a single thing. Writers block I guess is what you would call that. Whatever the name for it, it is frustrating. 

I am here to ask for some help. What do you guys do to get ideas for your blog? I want to know how you guys get so creative with posts and what to talk about. Do they just come to you in the middle of the night or day? Do you use a website that gives you some ideas? Do you use a planner and plan every blog post out? Or do you just write down a general idea? 

I really want to keep up with blogging. It is something I really enjoy and is very therapeutic at times for me. Even though I don't think I have a lot of readers, which shouldn't matter. If I am happy doing it, then that is enough for me. But having some awesome post ideas might just help keep me going. 

So, how do you get your creative juices flowing? Teach me your ways! 

Time to Be Real

It's time for me to be real. With myself more than anyone. I worked so hard for months to lose all of the weight I wanted to. And I accomplished that. And I am still really proud of that fact. But it is time for me to admit to myself and everyone else that I have been struggling lately. 

I have gained some of that weight back. Not a ton. But probably about 15 lbs. Now I know that some of you are thinking that 15 lbs isn't really that bad. But for me, it is enough to make me feel uncomfortable with myself again that I know that I need to step up and do something. And it scares me. I worked so hard to get to where I was. And I can't go back to that person. I won't go back to that person I was before. That person was miserable and hated how she looked and felt. 

That is hopefully where this blog comes in. I need a way to hold myself accountable again. I need something that I can come to on a daily or weekly basis to put it all out there. My struggles, my triumphs, all of it. If I don't get this under control now, I feel like I may end up exactly back where I started. And that is not an option in my book. 

I can say that I have kept up with some of the good habits that I fell into during my journey. I am still working out. I haven't been working out as hard though.That right there is an area for improvement. I need to up the intensity of my workouts again. I need to make sure that I am hitting my calorie burn every day. No more days of not hitting or even being close. I need to get off my ass and make it happen. 

One area of my workouts that I have been struggling with is that I have had a hard time finding something to fill that void for the days that I did Zumba. It took me a while, but I have a new workout love, and that love is TRX. If you aren't sure what it is, it is essentially suspension training. All body weight type exercises. It is amazing! There is a TRX class at my gym on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and I am addicted. And it just so happens that it is filling that same time slot and void that was so vacant after I quit teaching Zumba. Bonus! 

My biggest struggle has been my eating. I do great some days, and then horrible the next. I need to get back to eating clean and loving it. There for about a year, I didn't crave the junk. I found healthy alternatives to things that I used to eat all the time. And somehow over the last year, I have kind of gone away from that a bit. I need to quit making excuses and just do it. So starting today, no more sugary coffees (I will miss you Dutch Bros), no more eating out at junk places. No more junk food. No more ice cream and chocolate. It all has to go. Will I allow myself to cheat every now and then? Absolutely. I have to. Or I will eventually go insane. But a cheat meal needs to quit turning into a cheat day(s) or cheat weeks and months. 

I'm determined and focused to get this weight back off. I know that I can do it. I have done it before and I will do it again. I want to be leaner and have more muscle definition again. I want to be the healthiest version of me. And guess what? I will. Today is a new day. And it is always a great day to get better! 

Gardening and My Not So Green Thumb

In the past I have always been horrible with keeping any type of plant alive. Didn't matter what it was. Flowers, office plants, you name it, I killed it. My track record isn't the greatest. I always have the best intentions when it comes to keeping them alive, but for some reason something always happens and they don't make it. 

When Jeremy and I moved into our new place back in December, there was a raised garden bed already in the back yard, so we started talking about putting a garden in. Spoke to our landlord about it and they actually encouraged it, which I thought was pretty cool. But in the back of my mind I just kept thinking about all the plants I had previously killed. I was worried I would do the same with our garden. 

Well thankfully Jeremy has an amazing green thumb. I helped plant everything, but really he is the one keeping them alive. He makes sure everything gets watered and is in there pulling weeds all the time. And everything we planted has actually started coming up!!! It is so cool to see. We planted baking pumpkins, yellow squash, cucumbers, small watermelons, carrots, beets, green beans, snap peas and we bought pepper plants that were already started. 

Pumpkins

Carrots

Yellow Squash

Cucumbers (sorry, not the best pic)

Watermelons

Green Beans

Pepper Plants

I can not wait until everything is ready to harvest and eat. It will be so nice to be able to walk out to the garden and pick fresh produce. I'm especially excited for the watermelons! 

After we got the garden all ready to go and planted, I got a little gardening bug. I suddenly wanted to buy a bunch of flowers for all these flower beds that were already on the property. I figured why not. The worst that would happen is that I would kill them. Not like it hasn't happened before. We headed out to a green house one weekend and bought of bunch of different annuals and planted them. They look great and they are all still alive. It has been three weeks people! That has to be a record for me! 

I also purchased a rose bush and some hydrangeas from Lowe's. My roses are doing amazing! I love them. They look so great. My hydrangeas on the other hand, whomp whomp whomp. I had bought hydrangeas once before and they didn't last more than two weeks. These made it about three. I am not really sure what happened. I honestly think they just don't do well in the Colorado climate. I think it is too hot for them. Oh well. Can't win them all. 

I am absolutely loving how our yard and our garden turned out. We are still working on it a bit, but for the most part we are done. Jeremy has done such a great job with keeping everything alive that it has made me want to do a better job with it as well. Maybe his green thumb will rub off on me a bit. I can only hope, right?!

Sunday Hike

Sunday. One of my favorite days. Usually because of Football, but when the weather is nice and Football isn't in season, we try to always take Sunday as our day to get out in the sunshine and get away from everything else going on in the world. 

Yesterday morning we packed up a backpack with some food and water, loaded Bentley and Ringo into the car and headed to the mountains. We took a trail that we had been on once before but didn't get very far. We decided to try it again and see if we could actually get to the end of the trail and up to the reservoir that it leads to. 

It was a lot longer of a hike than we expected, but it was absolutely beautiful. 

And we actually didn't get to the reservoir, but we did get to the end of the trail. What we didn't know is that the trail ends and then you have to take another trail to get to the reservoir. We wanted to keep going, but it looked like a storm was moving over the mountains and in the summer in Colorado, the mountains is the last place that you want to be when a thunderstorm rolls over.

We decided to head back down the trail and try to get ahead of the storm. And to be honest I was already pretty tired at this point. By the time we got back to the car I was exhausted. And so were Jeremy and the boys. The storm ended up not even hitting where we were, but better to be safe than sorry.

With our boys. They were exhausted after the long hike too!

It was a long hike. We were out there for around three hours and considering how much of that was uphill, it was an intense workout. No wonder we were so exhausted. But as exhausting as it was, it was beautiful and we are already planning on heading back up another Sunday to try and get to the reservoir. I really want to see it because it sits at the base of a beautiful mountain and all of the pictures I have seen look absolutely gorgeous. Something to look forward to for another day. 

Homemade Dog Treats

I have been baking up a storm lately. I have been obsessed with finding new recipes to make and especially new low carb recipes. While I was going through my ridiculous folder of recipes that I have printed and yet to try, I came across a recipe for dog treats called Woofies that I had printed years ago. After looking at the ingredients list, I realized that I already had all of the ingredients sitting in my house. I figured why not. If they suck, I won't know and the dogs probably won't care either way. 

Woofies Recipe 

Source

The recipe was really easy. Add all of the  ingredients in a bowl and mix together. It makes a thick orange looking dough. I pulled all of the dough out of the bowl and rolled it out flat and then rolled it into a long roll like you would if you were making cinnamon rolls. I ended up cutting the roll in half long ways because it seemed too thick. So I actually had two long rolls. I rolled these out a little bit more even just to make sure that they weren't too thick. Wish I would have taken pics of this. Would have made explaining this part much easier. 

Once I had the two rolls to the thickness that I wanted, I cut them into the 1/2 inch pieces like the recipe called for. Each roll made about 32 pieces. I packed all 32 pieces from one roll onto one cookie sheet. I placed them in the oven and baked them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The recipe called for 40 minutes, but after 20 they were already pretty hard, so I took them out. (**EDIT** Since posting this I realized why they said 40 minutes. Although they were hard after 20 minutes, a few days later we noticed some mold spots on a few of them. So make sure you cook them the 40 minutes so that you don't run into this issue**)

I let them cool for a while before I fed them to the dogs, but I am happy to say that they loved them! I mean just look at these faces!!!