With my life full of boxes and my head full of organizational details, I'm wishing for fast, healthy food. And let's be honest with ourselves, such a thing is pretty much an oxymoron.
My friend, Bethanie, of Green & Grateful, has come to my rescue with breakfast recipes like THESE super-quick banana pancakes.
And THESE gluten-free chicken fingers, that I plan to make a bunch of this week with most of it heading to my freezer.
Plus, I'm making a huge batch of a lime and black bean quinoa salad from a recipe a friend gave me that is almost identical to THIS.
We've also been enjoying quick, healthy, dairy-free soft-serve ice cream for a potassium power treat. That recipe you can find HERE.
But I'm begging asking you, my readers, what is your favorite quick, healthy foods? Leave me a comment and let me know, because I am truly all ears!!
Right now, more and more of my house looks like this...
And my movers are going to "love" me for adding to their work with some recent thrift/antique store purchases like this...
They'll be even more happy about a bunch of reclaimed wood on my balcony! I have lofty visions of making a new headboard with said wood. And that darling antique window (minus the blue painter's tape) is going to add some fab character to our master bedroom.
Now don't forget my above request! What should I be making in my currently sparse kitchen!?!
We're officially moving. Financing, inspections, and appraisals are done. My hand already hurts from signing my names so many times, and it hasn't even had the workout of the closings yet. My girlfriend told me that Dave Ramsey says that when it comes to finances, most marriages have a nerd and free spirit. Let's just say I'm not the nerd. My husband has been a paperwork angel, so very much in his element, taking care of ins and outs of all the numbers and forms that go into selling and buying. I've spent long Realtor visits suppressing my free spirit that wanted to simply shake hands, call it a deal, and head my booty off to yoga class.
Now it's time for packing for which the responsibility falls mostly to me. And packing with four little people, all with different needs and with a desire to climb inside every box, keeps things interesting. Most days I can literally feel my blood pressure rising. I kneel by my bed every morning asking God for strength and patience because this mommy is so prone to a short temper when there's a to-do list.
I've found that stopping everything to go outside or to go do something with the kids helps keep everyone sane.
So here's to boxes, bubble wrap, packaging tape, and an occasional glass of wine.
I knew the day would come; and frankly, I'm surprised it took ten years.
It was the day a child of mine was put into glasses.
I was only six when I got my first pair, and my adult eyesight is terrible to say the least. It's so bad that the last time I was at the eye doctor and had taken my contacts out, I noted some kids were leaning on a wall about three feet away. And until they spoke, I didn't even know they were my own children.
Then I married a handsome man who had beautiful eyes that also don't work so well; and yep, I knew that procreating meant that we would be helping to keep a local optometrist in business.
Me in glasses as a kid was not a pretty thing. My mother tells me to blame it on the eighties and not on her. I was going to humble myself and scan a photo for your viewing laughter pleasure; but alas, the photo albums are currently in a moving box. So I shall humble myself even further by putting up a photo that a friend, oh-so-kindly, posted on my Facebook wall which shows me in horrid glassesand a bathing suit.
Now you can see how much better my eldest looks in his new glasses...
We ended our "new glasses" week with a visit from my cousin. She and her fiancee came to have their engagement photos done. (A preview will be on my photo blog later this week.) And Sunday was a big treat as only the adults in the family got to go into D.C. If were in the city and happened to miss thirteen people walking in a group and talking loudly (we're Polish, remember), then maybe you noticed the conspicuous group dancing in Liberty Plaza...
There's something about slushies that appeals to me during the summer. I know it's not the large amounts of dye or the overload of sugar; so maybe it's the idea of an icy treat during the heat. I recently was playing around with making a healthy version, and my lime slushie creation was quite a hit with the kids. A treat that has no sugar, lots of vitamin C, and leaves you feeling refreshed- that's definitely something worth craving.
Sugar-free Lime Slushies
juice of 4 limes
2 cups of ice
3 pinches of pure Stevia
mint for garnish
Blend the first three ingredients in a high-powered blender until the constancy of a slushie is achieved. Garnish with mint and enjoy. (Do this when you need your kid's attention; because as soon as you sit back, relax, and look comfortable, you'll have them all over you like flies to garbage.)
Braving a heat index of 246° (give or take a couple degrees) for a bit of family fun and a chance to beat my husband at a lawn game...
If you notice that one member of our family is missing, it's because a certain six-year-old decided after one turn that croquet was simply not her game and that walking on roller blades in the grass was much better use of her time. I'm learning not to ask why.
First I'll rewind. Remember how we were hoping to buy a new home so that we can start the process of adding to our family? Well, Steven and I have been on the lookout for houses in our price range for awhile now. Three days before we found out about a start-date for Steven's job, I was browsing through homes for sale. My heart sank a bit when I saw a home that had come on the market. It was so perfect for us; and with still no idea when Steven would start his job, it felt depressing. I showed my sister the home.
"It's like it was made for you," she remarked.
It was like it was made for us, but I also figured it would sell quickly. I found myself checking online every couple of days to see if it was still there. Each time I held my breath, and yet there it was. Fast forward two weeks later, Steven had a job and we went to check it out in person. Both of us expected to find something wrong with the home since it had been on the market for two weeks. But even in person, it seemed to be the perfect match for our family. We decided to put our condo on the market that next weekend in hopes of buying the home we'd found. We were warned by our Realtor that doing this on the weekend before July 4th could cause some slow traffic. Within an hour of putting it on the market we had our first viewing. Over that weekend, it was one viewing after another.
Since Steven's parents had a planned visit, we relocated to my parent's home as they were already out of town (thank you, Mom & Dad!). Notwithstanding record temperature and a storm that rocked Northern Virginia and left a third of the people without power (welcome to Virginia, dear in-laws!) we had two offers on our condo by Tuesday. This happened to be Adriana's birthday (remember we're still in the middle of our birthday streak).
And that house that we had wanted, by some miracle, was still on the market. When we headed off to meet with our Realtor to put together an offer, we told Adriana,"We're trying to get you a house for your birthday!"
Note to self: always clarify with a 6 year old. I had a disappointed little girl on my hands when she realized that "a house" didn't mean a doll house. I know. What a bummer. We're only trying to buy you something lame like a real house.
Now for some pictures of the birthday girl.
First a photo with Grandpa and Grandma:
The birthday girl...
Watching a video of my sixth birthday...
To finish the housing story, we accepted an offer on our condo and then found out the next day that our offer on the house had been accepted. We're still in the throws of inspections and appraisals; but Lord willing, we'll be moving at the beginning of August. And I still can't believe it's really happening.
While most of you have probably been enjoying the beauty of the dates for awhile now, they're a more recent addition to my cupboard. I'm suppressing my urge to make a corny joke about the date fruit, and avoiding dating fruitcakes, and if you just followed this run-on sentence we should hang out in person sometime. But I sorely digress.
Where was I?
Ahhh, yes, the deliciousness of dates. I've seen dates referred to as a superfood because of the little fruits are power-packed with fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and even some much needed energy-boosters. Because of the sweetness, I'm not a huge fan of eating dates plain, but I've found them to be a yummy source of natural sweetener. I've used them in making sugar-free chocolate smoothies, but my favorite recipe to use these in is a quick, easy German Chocolate Fudge Ball recipe. I've whipped these up more than once when I had a hankering for a sweet treat.
You can take this...
(dates, pecans, unsweetened coconut, and ground raw cacao)
add a few other simple ingredients and turn it into this...
These deceptive fudge bites are one of my helpers in making "dessert time" simply a continuation of healthy eating. There's no sugar, dairy, or flour which helps in keeping all the allergy-laden people in my life happy.
You can find the recipe for themHERE. It's a blog chalk full of delicious healthy desserts; so be ready to get lost in chocolately-goodness recipes while you're there.
And Costco (of course!) has an excellent price for dates.
Now, I want to hear from any of you on your favorite way to eat this superfood fruit...
In this post I'm going to attempt to answer the questions of "why Ethiopia" and then "why a child of a different race". As I write this, I am praying that it serves you, my reader.
So why Ethiopia?
Ethiopia has approximately 5 million orphans right now. Let me try to help that hit home by giving a local example of what that looks like. Tonight, if the parents of every child in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and North Carolina died, that would still not leave as many orphans as there are in Ethiopia right now. It's staggering. And the future for these orphans is nothing like the future of an orphan here. A survey from early this year shows that 1 in 11 children die before they reach their fifth birthday. When they are grown, the future often involves poverty like we don't even understand in America. Ethiopia actually has the highest malnutrition problem in the world.
The following video was made by another family that adopted from Ethiopia, but it goes much farther into the statistics that involve Ethiopia. It's a beautiful video, so please take the time to watch it:
For some, the fact that we are diving into being an interracial family is just no big deal to you. But we realize that for others, no matter what the color of your skin is, you might have concerns about that fact that we're adopting a child of a different race.
Let me first explain that the fact that our future daughter will be black was not some afterthought once we felt a call to adopt from Ethiopia. It was completely intentional from the beginning of all our adoption talks for us to make ourselves an interracial family. We believe the Bible when it tells us that ALL people were made in God's image and are of equality. We HATE racism and are trying to teach our children to do the same. To adopt an African daughter is making a statement about our equality to her and her equality to us, about our ability to love her and her ability to love us. It's making a statement about her worth as a black child of God and my children's worth as white children of God.
Steven and I are intentionally putting ourselves right smack dab in the middle of the issue of racial harmony. And now we get the chance to commit ourselves to this issue for life. We're not fools. We know this won't be easy, but we also know that the God we serve will give our family the grace for this. Now this may lead you to wonder why we are putting this little girl in the middle of this issue as well. We trust that Gospel is bigger than the pressures of living in a interracial family. And on a side note, I think any child would rather deal with these pressures in the safety of a loving family as a opposed to growing up all alone. And we hope to celebrate her ethnicity because that is how the Perfect Designer created her.
I love the effect this opportunity of an African adoption is already having on my children. They are ecstatic that we are adopting and even more ecstatic that she won't look just like them. The other day when Adriana and I were talking about how her hair is dark and Ava's hair is light, she added, "And my next sister's skin will be dark. And it will be soooo beautiful!" Now when my kids see a black child; do you know what word comes to their mind? Sister.
And you know what? Heaven will look like this! Heaven will be the most colorful place you have ever seen.
