Take It All In

Life can change in but a second... oh how true this statement is and oh how often we forget it.

A week ago today as I was preparing for my favorite day of summer - hosting the summer interns for dinner - a freak accident happened. The oven was on preheating, I had sorbet base warming on the oven, MJ was helping prep vegetables and we were getting ready to roll out some pizza crust.

I noticed that I had moved the large can of cooking spray over to the top of the oven. Realizing that it shouldn't be there I picked it up to move the can. The can was hot to the touch and as soon as I placed the can on the counter it exploded.

The rest is somewhat of a blur but MJ and I ran to the door - yelling for Lane. She ran to the door, I turned and looked into the kitchen and saw the fireball above the refrigerator. I screamed for Micah who was outside with Grant and Tate. Micah ran in the house - we are blessed that Micah was off that day, he ran inside and put out the fire and called the medic at camp. We are blessed to have a doctor and medics on staff during the summer. MJ ran barefoot up the hill toward our neighbors house screaming for her to come help - we are blessed that she is a retired nurse. I remember knowing I was burnt, but not sure how bad. I took off my shirt (didn't know if it was on fire), my watch and rings and began to pace around the yard. Before I knew it there were 2 fire trucks and an ambulance at my house and a helicopter was on the way. Even though we live an hour from the nearest town we are blessed to have an amazing volunteer fire department. I remember the medics working on me and our neighbor taking our 4 precious kiddos up to her house. The ambulance hooked me up to all kinds of things, ran an IV, gave me pain medication and took me to the helicopter. The helicopter landing site is in the big field at Woodleaf, we are blessed that the helicopter lands where we live. At this point I was more nervous about flying in a helicopter than going to the hospital. Had a front row seat in the helicopter and it was a beautiful flight - but I was scared.

I was flown to UC Davis Hospital in Sacramento and was seen by the Burn Unit doctor. He told me I had 2nd degree burns to my arms and face. A chest X Ray was taken and an exam done making sure I didn't ingest any of the oil that had exploded. The doctor couldn't believe that I didn't have any damage to my left eye and repeatedly asked me if my eye was ok, if I was seeing double, if it felt like I had something in my eye. I'm blessed to have vision, to have some eye brows and eye lashes left.  I'm blessed to have hearing in my left ear. Micah arrived to the ER and apparently I was a "Jane Doe - my hospital band actually said "Winsloe Doe", they identified me by the fact that I had a kitchen burn with a can of cooking spray. We are blessed that Micah was driven to the hospital by our friend. The doctor proceeded to clean my burns and I was moved to the trauma floor - fun fact I get car sick in hospital beds. Rested over night, as much as you can in the hospital, and in the morning the nurses came in and taught Micah and I how to do my burn care at home. Then they told me I could go home!  While waiting to be discharged Brett, Julie and Evelyn came to visit us, we are blessed they only live 45 minutes from the hospital. We drove home and I'm pretty sure I slept most of the way.

My parents had driven over, we are blessed that they live 3 hours away, and picked up the kids. Friends brought us dinner our first night home, and all I remember is trying to sleep and visiting with the kiddos one at a time. Sweet Tate would walk into my room and peak over the foot of the bed and say "mom, mom, mom". It took him a while to be ok with how different I looked those first couple of days. The doctors instructed me to clean my burns (I won't go into detail here) every 12 hours for my arms and every 6 hours for my face. Micah had to help me with this and y'all - it was hard. I would turn on worship music and we would talk and laugh and I would cry. Through the pain the Lord reminds me of all the blessings: I have vision, I have hearing, I have hands... it could have been so much worse.

We had our follow up appointment yesterday - it went well and I was told to resume all regular activities and that my left arm was swollen and hurting because I hadn't been using it. Still in shock a little but as I exercise my arm and do more and more the better it feels. In the next 7 days they said I can expect to be healed - all new skin growth should be complete and I won't have any scaring. The new skin will be pink and that will take time to fade. What an amazing report!

A week later I'm feeling all kinds of emotions - mostly just an overwhelming sense of thankfulness for how much the Lord protected and provided.

Meals have been brought to us and are still coming and that is such a huge help! One less thing to think about when my brain is trying to process so much and by the end of the day I'm pretty worn out.

Thank you to all of you who knew and have been praying, God is good and He answers prayers!
Thank you to all of you who have provided meals, or picked up groceries.
Thank you for the cards, flowers, texts and calls.

May the Lord open our eyes to the see that Everything - big, small, loud, quiet, life changing, or even mundane is a gift from Him. He is in control and our life is for His glory and our good. Romans 8:28

PSA: Don't put cooking spray - or any oil on the stove top... ever... for any reason. :)

Blackened Fish Tacos

Focusing on healthy recipes lately, here is one of our family favorites. 

The rub for the fish came from JoCooks. 

The rice and salsa recipes are something I threw together. 

Would love to hear from you if you make them! 

Created these super cute recipe cards on Canva.

Life Changing

Healthy living - you could say my healthy living journey began a few years ago. When I think back on how it began I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with being far away from civilization and having to make all meals. Plus being home full time I slowly realized that it is my "job" to feed my family.

Like many things education is key - watching Food Inc. and other food documentaries  really fueled me for a while, but somehow my brain had been wired to think we couldn't afford to eat organic - whole foods.

Emotions have a lot to do with this journey as well... a roller coaster of emotions are reflected in my weight gain. Our first year away from what I knew as home equaled 12 pounds of emotions. Getting pregnant and then losing our baby fueled me again to exercise and count calories (the counting of calories is exhausting) but I got back to what I thought was healthy.

Thankfully the Lord has blessed us with two healthy babies since and now I am fueled by the little people in our house. In order to do my best at taking care of them I have to take care of myself, I also need to set an example for them.

Wanting to be healthy I continued to investigate what healthy is and what I found was that there are all of the competing voices out there telling us what is healthy and what isn't... who are we supposed to listen to?? To say I am a skeptic of things, might be an understatement, I rarely jump in to things with both feet without trying to educate myself. Education in healthy living is vast and there are opinions and studies on every side of the argument. Wheat - No Wheat... Gluten - No Gluten... Dairy - No Dairy... Meat - Organic Meat... GMO (this one is huge).

We are also bombarded with every kind of "healthy" system to help us lose weight, the problem is we don't JUST need to lose weight, we need a RESTART on our bodies!

Recently (3 days ago) I completed 30 Days of Healthy Living and Beyond with Arbonne. During the 30 days I removed Wheat/Gluten, Dairy and Processed Food, Avoided Refined Sugar (all sugar really) and your plate should be 1/2 Veggies, 1/4 Lean Protein, 1/8 Complex Carbs, 1/8 Good Fat. I also added a supplement of probiotic, prebiotic and digestive enzymes.

The 30 Days looked something like this:

WATER, WATER, WATER - we are supposed to drink half of our body weight in ounces of water each day!

Breakfast - Eggs with spinach, mushroom, tomato, avocado. OR Meal Replacement Shake: Arbonne Protein Powder, Arbonne Fiber, Spinach, Blueberries, Coconut Oil and Almond Milk.

Lunch - Salad: Any Variety just making sure to follow the above recommendations.

Dinner - Made dinner for my family and adapted to fit above recommendations. Example: Spaghetti - I would make mine with spaghetti squash instead of noodles and have salad.

Snacks - because I am nursing our littlest I am hungry... so I had a protein bar or green apple or hummus with veggies or almonds... or another meal replacement shake.

The hardest part for me was giving up coffee in the morning and SUGAR! By day 3 I was craving sugar... like I had to have it... but mind over matter right. I also had supplements that helped me succeed - fizz sticks and herbal tea to replace coffee/coke and fit chews replaced sweets.

The end result, I feel great and I'm not just saying that... I have 4 kids at home, one of them is a newborn... I have every reason to be tired. My energy is back, I don't have cravings (don't get me wrong there are days when my 3 year old drives me to wanting a brownie - but the brownie WON'T FIX my feelings).

My ultimate goal wasn't weight loss - even though it is an added bonus - I wanted to know what my body could feel like. Would I really feel "that different" based on what I put in my body? Fortunately with will power and encouragement from those around me after 30 days my life has been changed. I don't want to go back, healthy feels better than the brownie tastes.

What Next: there is nothing I would like more than to walk alongside others as they see their lives change. Contact me for encouragement or more information in the 30 Healthy Living and Beyond program.

Happy Friday

Well life is a little crazy these days with four kiddos at home, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Being so busy with homeschooling, nursing a new born and keeping up with a toddler can leave little time for taking care of me. One thing I have learned over the years is that if I'm not taking care of myself I can't take care of others very well.

Fortunately I have found a few things that make taking care of myself a little easier. A few months ago my mom became an Arbonne independent consultant and she shared a few of the products with me and I was hooked. Arbonne is a thirty five year old company with nutrition and skin care products that are botanically based. All of their products are guaranteed to be Safe. Pure. and Beneficial.

My favorite nutrition product is the protein powder and recently I made up some meal replacement shake kits to keep in the freezer so that I could grab one, add water, blend it up and have a meal while I 'm taking care of others.

Arbonne Chocolate Protein Powder, Arbonne Fiber Boost, Frozen Blueberries,
Organic Spinach and Organic Coconut Oil

I made 7 bags to put in the freezer and 1 cup for blending when I was done. 

I added 2 scoops of protein powder, 1 scoop of fiber, 1 cup of blueberries,
a handful of spinach and a Tbs. of coconut oil.
I like to keep my protein powder in Tupperware for easy storage. 

Here are all my bags ready to go in the freezer, I made most of this while
holding a 2 month old. 

When ready to enjoy I put a bag into my blending cup and add water. 

A meal in a cup and the deep purple is so pretty!

If you would like any information about Arbonne or their products let me know - I just became an independent consultant, you can check out my web site here. 
Have a happy and healthy Friday!

Hello Again

Wow!

It has been several months... way too many months since I have posted anything.

Life has been a little crazy around here... new puppy... new pregnancy (yep Baby #4 due Christmas Eve)... visits from friends.... visits from family.... Summer (summer living at a summer camp doesn't feel like "summer").... school starting... doctors appointments.... and the list could go on and on!

It feels good to be back though.

This space has always felt like a safe space to share life so here goes: this might even have to become a section on the blog...

Real Life ~ We have been potty training for a little while now with good days and not so good days. I thought we were really close and then poor thing had diarrhea for almost 2 weeks (sorry if that is TMI). So here we are are trying to figure out what is messing up her belly and trying to learn that the potty is the only place to go.

This morning sweet girl went potty, put on clothes and went to get her shoes. Next thing I know she comes running down the hall with poop filled underwear in hand yelling she needs to potty. I clean up her legs and throw away poop filled underwear (I know very wasteful) I go to the hall to check for any other messes. So there is poop on the floor in a couple of spots and as I stand I notice something on the hall cabinet door. Yep, more poop! Thank goodness it landed on the cabinet which is smooth unlike the textured walls all over this house. So there is something to be thankful for in the crazy real life from this morning, that the poop from my morning landed on a smooth easy to clean surface.

Hopefully if your morning is filled with "poop" literal or not that it lands on a smooth and easy to clean place, more so than that though, that you would be able to find thanksgiving amongst the crap of the day.

Big Foot

Our boys are really into the show Finding Bigfoot. There have been sightings reported in this area, but where in the woods haven't there been bigfoot sightings.

They get so excited for Sunday night when the new episodes come on. I have even caught them in the back yard practicing their bigfoot calls.

I love the adventure that this gives them, I hope they will always go on adventures together.

N I N E

This little man is 9 today! 
He was 5 when we moved and today he is N I N E. 

His heart is bigger than any one I know. 
He never meets a stranger and has taught me so many things. 

He loves his family in a big way. 
He is smart, fun and so thoughtful. 

Happy Birthday MJ!
We love you!!!