Category Archives: Simplify

UPLEVELING the Meal Planning

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Life has a good way of reminding us that we are never in control. This year has brought on new challenges that we never thought we’d be dealing with. When faced with an unexpected health challenger or diagnosis there are 2 choices: fight and do what you can to help your body heal, or give up and resign to let it eventually beat you down. I wholeheartedly believe that food is medicine, so when we found out this year that my husband’s twenty year career as a Marine left him with some long term traumatic brain injuries that are just now starting to present, a “no brainer” move has been to tweak our diets to give him the best possible nutrition to boost brain health and regeneration.

Part of his developing condition was the onset of focal seizures, which are not the typical seizure that people think of, but incredibly debilitating and damaging nonetheless. The Ketogenic diet was originally created as a therapy diet to deal with brain conditions like seizures. We are DEFINITELY not newbies to food restrictions and special diets with all the food allergies and chronic issues that we have been through with our kids, so going Dairy Free Keto was a fairly simple tweak to the diet we already had. It mostly meant taking back out some of the carbs and sugars that we had slacked and let come back in even though we eat a very real food diet already.

For me, the biggest step in making a diet change for our family is the MEAL PLANNING! This is such a foundational part of our week anyway since without the meal plan my days and meals turn into chaos.

1) IMG_2098I have been using the app Plan To Eat for several months now, and highly recommend this for anyone wanting to organize or start their meal planning. I absolutely LOVE this app for scheduling, tweaking recipe changes, saving new found recipes and putting together a shopping list of the week’s meal plan ingredients. This makes a weekly shopping trip a breeze and ensures I have all the items stocked and ready to go for what we plan to eat each week.

2) Once I’ve dropped in both a breakfast and dinner meal plan each day of the week, I transfer them to our Meal Planning Menu board  that is front and center in our dining/kitchen area so the whole family knows what to expect each day.

3) Adding breakfast to our weekly meal planning has made a WORLD of difference in our homeschooling routine. I refuse to let the kids eat sugary cereal each morning and call it breakfast, so putting in some variety lets them know what they can expect and what they are only allowed to eat that in the morning, even if they wake up before anyone else. Let me tell you – this has been a GAME CHANGER!

Do you have a meal planning system that you love? Share it with us below! Stay tuned for some of our weekly KETO meal plans and compilation of recipes.

Travel tip {doTERRA supplements}

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This is so simple, but oh so much cuter than other labels you can find. Many of you have these supplement travel cases that you can find at www.oillife.com or www.aromatools.com, but here is my tip of the day…

1) Gently peel back the label on an empty or almost empty bottle and cut just past the cute dotted border to make a square

2) Place your new little sticker on one of your vinyl zip pouches from the case

3) you now have your travel stash and do not have to sort by days (because SURELY I am not the only one that forgets and then gets all confused and stressed about what I needed to take when)

4) you can cut the ingredients label in the same way and put it on the back of the pouch in case you want to share with a friend and get questions about what specifically is included!

5) happy and HEALTHY traveling!

Pismo Beach – CA Central Coast

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There is nothing as wonderful as waking up to the sound of the ocean, a cool breeze with overcast skies and nothing on the agenda for the day.


 Last night we rolled into our campsite at Oceano Dunes – Pismo Beach State Park!


This morning we set out on the trail from the camp to the beach with no idea what we would find. Thankfully after a pretty little walk through some wooded areas we came through the clearing to these awesome sand dunes for miles. 


So the shoes came off and hours of running, sliding, jumping fun in the softest, finest sand we have found in this country ensued.


Thankfully they wore out for a short bit and I had a few minutes to snap some pics against this perfect coastal dunes backdrop.


We also discovered Pismo recreational vehicle area is the only place on the CA coast that you can drive your vehicles right onto the beach (at your own risk of getting stuck, of course). Thankfully the beach was still open and beautiful with the occasional horseback rider in the distance.


Pismo is a nice change from the crowded beaches of LA or the rugged coastline further south, and we LOVE the cooler climate of central coast!!

free essential oils in August!

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Want some free essential oils in August? A new month = new promos on essential oils and this is a GOOD one! Any 160 PV (appx $160 in oils) will get a FREE 15 ml lavender, lemon and peppermint oil this month with their order!!! This is amazing! We use these 3 oils non-stop and even combine them for daily season support (my husband swears by them)! Lavender is a must-have for sunny summer days to calm and soothe the skin, but can also relax your mind after a busy day and help with restful sleep! Lemon is a staple in our baking and cooking, but also works as a gentle cleanse and even removes sticky residue or paint safely and naturally! Peppermint is a natural pick-me-up for sluggish afternoons or mornings and is excellent to provide not only flavor, but a cooling sensation on hot summer days when spritzed on the skin. Peppermint is also a must-have for relief of temporary head tension or muscle soreness after a busy day!

In Tune is also 10% off this month and is a must-have homework/focus helper for back-to-school! Known as the ‘focus blend’ it’s one that we use every day in our family to help us keep on task and have good listening ears 🙂

For those who already have doTERRA accounts, order all of these before the 15th on your loyalty rewards program and any order over 125PV will also get a 5ml bottle of our Breathe Respiratory Blend! It’s fantastic to help open up airways and promote clear and healthy breathing!

If you don’t have oils for your family yet, message me ASAP and I can help you get your hands on these. They have been game changers for our family and are something that we use every day in our home to get and stay well naturally!

lessons from the sea

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Our favorite beach has changed a lot over the years…

Each time we come there are more and more rocks on the shore, making parts of it almost impossible to navigate or pass to reach the water. We had a particularly rough day with the airstream renovation, and each time we go to ‘fix’ or start a project to make this place more liveable, the mess and chaos just grows. I reached my tipping point with it tonight and had to get out and get some fresh air. What better place than this beach! So the boys went down with me and my 6 year old decided that he wanted to clear a path to the water. While the rest of us were sitting there watching the waves across the wide span of rocks, he set out to make his path….one rock at a time. At first I wondered what he was up to this time. He’s always building or tinkering with something, but then I started to really watch him and saw a path start to emerge the longer he kept at it.

He was determined and just kept throwing those rocks out his way left and right, left and right. I’m not entirely sure he thought about what a huge task he was attempting to take on or what it would fully entail. He just knew he had a plan and what it would take to get there, and kept working.

As I watched him I saw a major lesson being illustrated right in front of my eyes. Take our challenges one rock at a time and before we know it, we have moved mountains. I was so inspired by his perseverance and from where I sat I could see the path clearing, so it motivated me to get up and join him. Pretty soon my other son wanted in on the action and quickly after that we had a fully cleared path all the way to the water. To look at the task before starting and asses the work would have been overwhelming, but just jumping in and doing it one rock at a time made it totally doable.


Even more, I love how God puts things in front of us to teach and illustrate the exact thing we need to be reminded of at the time. I also loved how when we returned the next day, that particular spot of the beach was now filled with people playing in the surf – a spot that they could not access before his path was there. His vision quickly became a benefit and useful path everyone else around him.

first stop: San Onofre beach

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Our go-to favorite beach camping spot in Southern California has always been San Onofre Beach, so when we thought about starting out we figured it is smart to start somewhere familiar that we love. We drove out of the 112 degree desert and have arrived at our ‘camping beach’ safely with the airstream!

We were saying our prayers all the way down the hill after finally pulling through the weigh station ? Turns out with all of our things loaded up + propane + water we are just out of the ‘safe’ towing capacity of our Toyota Sequoia ? We LOVE our sequoia and are racking our brains as to what we could take out of the airstream to lighten up. Thankfully we will be here working on some things in the area, so we have some time to figure out a plan before we have to drive again.

Talk about stress. We are FINALLY all moved in and managed to weed through everything we own and get rid of a LOT. We packed up the rest and had the movers take it to my family in SC to store, but kept all our favorite or essential things just to realize we are in a bad spot with the weight. Anyway, we have arrived in San Onofre and set up camp, unloading all of our tools and construction materials that we had to bring with us to finish up. The boys ❤️ their ‘camping beach’ so we have not had any issues with the transition for them so far. It just feels like we are in a weekend vacation. So weird.


We have water and electricity hookups here, but no sewer. We figured for our first night living in it we won’t know any different, so just pretending we are camping with some extra perks. ? We looked like the total amateurs that we are trying to back in and level it the first time, but we managed!


So we hooked up our water and have running water!!! Yay! Unfortunately we did not have time to hook up the propane tanks and hot water heater before leaving so we have no hot water ? we are just so happy to be out of the 112 degrees and the desert …..and this is our new backyard view, so we don’t even care!

simplify:: my closet

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with less than 4 months to go until we hopefully hit the road, i am getting a new urgency to get rid of as much stuff as possible. i’m actually carving time into my week (thanks to my improved time blocking skills and my new Erin Condren planner) to tackle an area of crazy in this house in hopes to take small chunks out of this mountain sized project of moving from excess to minimalism.
today’s project: my clothes. this is one i’ve been putting off, but i made a good dent today! i don’t know if it would have been easier or harder had i actually FIT into all the clothes i’ve been toting around for the past 10 years. nope, pretty sure the jeans i wore out of college before life with three babies aren’t going to fit the same way again….ever. time to let go. though i have NOT been successful following the KonMari method, i did find it useful today to realize these clothes have served their purpose and it is ok to let them go. crazy the memories that we can attach to clothing, right? like the sweater I was wearing the day we brought our puppy home and i had him hiding out in the pocket!

Needless to say all this stuff is now OUT and I am one step closer to creating a capsule wardrobe that will work for our life on the road! 

Who here has done a capsule wardrobe? Tips? I’ll be updating when I get mine down to that and all set!

 

this is the year

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truck_family_hit_roadThis is going to be a BIG year. I know, everyone says that come January 1, but for us, this really is going to be a BIG year. We’ve been waiting for 2016 for a LONG time, though we didn’t always know it was 2016 we were waiting for. Now it’s here, and now we know!

I’d be lying if I said we weren’t scared. There’s a comfort in the familiar, but something deep inside us is not happy with staying there. We know life is more than the routine, than the familiar, than sitting at a desk day in and out while the kids grow up when we’re not looking – while we’re off at work and engrossed in the habits that so easily suck our time away from what really matters.

Just two years ago we had no idea 2016 was the year. It seemed like a distant dream of ‘one day’ that may never be attainable. Funny how God works when we don’t even know what is going on. I have found a passion in helping others discover ways to use natural options for better wellness that we never imagined would also become a lifestyle and calling for us. Circumstances beyond our control kept leading us to the next thing and the next thing, God has worked out all kinds of details that were in the way before, and now here we are!

There are SO many unknowns {that is where fear creeps in}, but we are trusting that the God who got us this far will light the path when needed. Ok, enough with the vagueness:: here are some of the things going down in 2016 and to say we are excited is an understatement!

  • E is retiring from a 20 year career in AUGUST and we will be free to move where we choose for the first time in our life together!
  • We are renovating a 1973 31′ airstream that will be our next home {yes, for all FIVE of us}, and have to have it ready by the time we leave!
  • We will finally escape the desert —-> destination unknown!
  • We will travel around seeing parts of the country we haven’t yet been able to explore, visit friends and family across the country, get to share our love of essential oils while we travel, and visit many of you who are a part of our amazing team!
  • We are homeschooling our oldest child and will take that to the road. No better way to learn than to get out and see the world!

The next 8 months are going to be the ‘prepare to launch’ phase for us. The ‘simple’ life we’ve been longing for does not come easily. We have a lot of STUFF to get rid of. Hard decisions to make. Time to put the action behind our dreams.FRESHSO many details to still work out, but we hope you guys follow along with our journey and adventures. Life with these 3 amazing littles is never boring, and mobilizing it to a 2 room camper will guarantee plenty of ‘adventure.’ Having my husband join us 24/7 is a blessing I could never have imagined, but for anyone who is married, you know that will come with a whole new round of challenges as we figure out new roles and hopefully master time management.

We know a lot of you have done similar things – thanks for the inspiration! We know it can be done, so we’ll see where the roads lead us! Here’s to a crazy ride in 2016!

Around the Bend

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When I go too long without posting I get about a million things going through my head that just want to explode on the page. I’ll spare you my chaos and try and organize my thoughts, but one thing that I am SUPER excited about is that we have some BIG changes coming up in this next year. More details to come, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this article that gives you a peek into what we have in the works behind the scenes right now.

http://www.theplaidzebra.com/this-family-sold-everything-they-own-to-visit-400-national-parks-in-an-airstream-bus/road_curve

God has opened up doors and opportunities for us that I literally never would have asked for or imagined. It is not all flowers, sunshine and rainbows – we are working super hard and trying to refine ourselves daily to be where and who HE wants us to be. We fail at this daily. What I can say is that the process is starting to be enjoyable as we catch glimpses of an abundant and free life ahead that lies more in our attitude and our outlook vs our situations and circumstances. Can’t wait to see where it all goes…

Simplified Parenting:: listen to the whale story

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We are on a mission to simplify, and most days are failing miserably. We get caught in the cycle of never ending to-do lists. One more message, one more call, one more errand, one more chore. Even days when I just set out do to the ‘basics’ and get us all ready, dressed, fed and put together long enough to actually go DO something, the day is 1/2 over by the time we get to that point. With three active boys 4 and under, I’m convinced there is no such thing as ‘the basics.’ Nothing can happen simply without an incident or massive event around it.

Today I put a little more effort than normal into making a ‘special’ family day since daddy was able to stay home on what otherwise would be a ‘work’ day. We had yummy GF homemade apple peach cake for breakfast, played with magnet blocks, went on scooter rides around the neighborhood and stopped at all their favorite playgrounds, let them watch their favorite show, jumped on the trampoline, etc etc….all the stuff toddler dreams are made of, right? After putting the baby to bed tonight and thinking the boys were fast asleep, my husband heard sniffling coming from under one of the covers. My 4 year old just wanted to see mommy before falling asleep, so I went in and snuggled with him for a few minutes.

While I was loving the snuggles, I desperately hoped that he would be content with a quick squeeze and tuck-in, and quietly drift off into an immediate deep sleep. My to-do list of the evening was still running through my head, and I was running out of steam quickly. He obviously was NO WHERE NEAR as tired as I was, and  immediately started in on one of his ‘stories.’ This particular one was about the robot whale that he will invent that is a thousand pounds heavy and as big as an entire ocean and lives in a cave that is larger than the ‘camping’ beach we go to. I then proceeded to get every. last. detail. that his little brain could muster up about his fantastic, amazing, brilliant robot whale and what it could do and where it would go, etc etc. My boy is NOT known for telling short stories and he has no lack of imagination. I was fighting sleep so hard my eyes were literally crossing and running with tears of exhaustion. I tried a few times to que him to wrap it up and end the story, but was met with ‘just one more thing, mom’ over and over and over until I just had to completely cut him off. “Ok now that part is done.” He said. and seemed to finally take a breath after what seemed like an eternity of whale robot adventures.

I tried to quickly change the subject as not to allow the ‘one more thing’ to jump back in. “So what was your FAVORITE thing you did today?”, I asked.

Without skipping a beat, he grinned and said “That, mommy. That was it.” “Telling you my story was my favorite thing I did ALL day.” He reached his little arms over and hugged me so tight, smooching my cheek and grabbing my hair just like he has since he was a baby. “I love you so much, mommy.” And then he was content to roll over, close his eyes and drift off to sleep.

None of the things I had filled their little day with had made his list. None of the things that I had thought so hard to try and DO for them. Just those last few moments where I (not so patiently) stopped long enough to listen. That was his favorite thing.

He taught me more right then than I learned in all my ‘busyness’ of the day. I need to remember this tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. Keep. it. simple. and just listen. Those are the moments that make their memories.

So long Starbucks….yeah right

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In my obsession to save money and be as thrifty as possible I decided there’s not much out there we can’t do ourselves or make ourselves so why not apply that to our fru-fru coffee?  I got to the bottom of my fave – the caramel macchiato.  Turns out there’s not much caramel in it.  They should probably call it a vanilla macchiato but oh well.  So here’s what I’ve found, and after a few attempts my husband even agrees the taste is spot-on.  You should try it for yourself…

Ingredients: double shot of espresso (or a really strong cup of coffee) + 4 pumps of Vanilla flavored syrup + hot frothy milk or cream + caramel sauce

Caramel macchiato recipe

Caramel macchiato recipe

Step by step method without having a big fancy machine:

1) make espresso using a french press or you can make a really strong cup of coffee

2) add 4 pumps Torani (or any other brand) vanilla syrup

3) pour about 1/4 cup of milk or cream into a separate cup and microwave it for about a minute or until hot

4) use a nifty gadget like the aerolatte to froth your milk

4) pour frothed milk on top and drizzle with caramel sauce

That’s it!