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jemsmom

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Everything posted by jemsmom

  1. We used Thumbtack to find our cleaners and have been very happy with them.
  2. My adult children who live at home make a $500 a month contribution to the household. We're in a high cost of living area, rentals are high and hard to come by. They are still able to save a TON of money, so I'm hoping they'll never have to pay rent to someone else and just purchase their own homes eventually.
  3. I keep a calendar on the wall near the fridge and record what we ate for dinner on it every night. If we ate out/had carryout, I write the name of the restaurant and draw a box around it. This aids in meal planning, budgeting (I can see at a glance how many times we've eaten out in a given month), and helps me 'remember' to serve/eat the leftovers before they get old since I know exactly how long that leftover casserole has been hanging out in the fridge. For cooks who follow recipes and measure ingredients (like me!), get a digital scale and convert your recipe measurements to grams. It's faster, easier and creates fewer dirty dishes/utensils/measuring cups and spoons to wash. Plus it makes halving or doubling a recipe super easy.
  4. You'll feel hungry at first. After awhile (it was ~4-5 days for me), your body will figure out there's no food coming in the morning anymore and will stop sending out those hunger signals. I assume you're on winter break, so now's a great time to start. Your body should have adjusted by the time school starts back up. Also, drink water and stay active during your morning fast, to keep yourself distracted.
  5. Something I found helpful when I began trying to meal plan is to write down what we actually had for dinner every night. I record this the old-fashioned way on a paper calendar next to the fridge. I write the name of the restaurant and draw a box around it if we ate out/got take out. This gave me something to go off of for future meal plans, and it also helps me to use up any leftovers before they go bad. I can see with a glance at the calendar what might be lurking in my fridge and exactly how long it's been there. Doing that enabled me to establish a six-week rolling menu plan.
  6. My 'dry skin' problem turned out instead to be an 'excessive dead skin' problem-- dead skin that needed to be sloughed off. I've found that if I exfoliate thoroughly in a bath every other week, I don't need body lotion anymore.
  7. Is getting some mid-day sunshine an option for you? If you know approximately how long it takes for your skin to burn, a rule of thumb I've seen before is to spend half of that amount of time in mid-day (11:00-3:00) sunshine with as much skin exposed as possible. So for example, if you know you burn in 30 minutes, you would spend 15 minutes outside in the sun, several times per week.
  8. 'Recipe' for Kombucha: 3 quarts filtered water, I cup white sugar, 4 black tea bags, 1 scoby plus its 'juice', and 1/4 cup of extra kombucha. Bring the water to a boil, turn off heat, add sugar and 4 tea bags. Cover. Let steep until the pot is room temperature, or just slightly warmer. Then pour into fermenting vessel (glass or ceramic -- no metal. I use a gallon size glass jar that once contained olives which I obtained from a local restaurant). Plop in scoby, pour extra kombucha on top and cover with a coffee filter secured by a rubber band. Let it sit, away from direct sunlight for 10-14 days. After that time, decant into glass bottles with lids (I use recycled vinegar bottles). If you're not immediately brewing another batch, leave some liquid in the bottom of the fermenting vessel so that your scobies don't dry out, cover the jar with plastic wrap and store in your fridge. Leave your bottled kombucha on the counter for 3 days for the second ferment (I've never added anything to flavor it, but if you wanted to, this is when you'd do that) so it gets fizzy. Then it's done and you put it in your fridge. Voila!
  9. I cover my fermenting jar with a coffee filter secured with a rubber band.
  10. I don't pat mine dry, but we like saucy wings. I've never tried to make them crispy. But to do so, I'd probably pat dry, brush with oil and then shake on the seasoning. I think broiling would still be your best bet for crispiness. I forgot to mention that I put the wings on a wire rack on a sheet pan to broil.
  11. For a 4 lb bag of frozen wings, place your trivet, 1 cup of water and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Pile in the frozen wings (they all fit in my 6 quart IP), manual 10 min, quick release. Coat the wings in sauce (or shake on some seasoned salt) and broil for 5-10 minutes. A bonus-- the liquid left in your IP is now a lovely chicken stock so be sure to save it.
  12. As in, learn the word 'renege' so you don't have to resort to using an offensive phrase such as 'indian giver'.
  13. So you're saying gf processed foods are less nutritious than "normal" processed foods? Gf spaghetti is less nutritious than regular spaghetti? Gf sandwich bread more deficient than regular sandwich bread? A gf chocolate sandwich cookie is more lacking nutritionally than an oreo? Really? Now if you were saying the gf substitutes were less tasty and more expensive, you'd have no argument from me! I've seen this in other places as well. One pushback against non-celiac people going gluten free is that the diet is somehow nutritionally *less*. As far as I can see, that position has no basis in fact. Actually, if switching to a gf diet causes people to eschew more processed foods because the gf subs don't taste very good and are more expensive, then I'd say that's quite beneficial.
  14. Really? The vast majority of whole foods ARE gf. I've never considered glutinous grains to be nutritional powerhouses. Subsistence staples, yes, but not nutrition-packed foods.
  15. I absolutely adore my IP and use it constantly. But honestly, you sound pretty opposite of me. I hated cooking, have meat at nearly every meal and would never describe kitchen equipment or food I made as "lovely". I like my veggies roasted in the oven or sauteed on the stove, never steamed or boiled. For me the IP was a game changer. It totally took away the drudgery of fixing dinner Every. Single. Night.
  16. I'm having success with this as well (8 hour eating window, 16 hour fast). I've lost 6 lbs in a little over two months, which isn't a lot, but I wasn't significantly overweight. What has me so excited is *where* the weight is coming off--mainly my belly. That's a first for me. In the past when I've lost weight, my *already thin* arms, legs and face would get even thinner, but my 4-5 months pregnant-looking pot belly wouldn't budge. Here are some things I've discovered so far from fasting. Don't go too quickly. I started off a little too eagerly in the beginning, thinking I should just jump right in and fast every morning until noon. By the third morning I was weak and shaky. So I ate breakfast. From that point I ate breakfast two out of three mornings for the span of about a week. Then every other morning for another week. Then I fasted two out of three mornings, etc, slowly working my way to where I am now, which is fasting (pretty much) every morning. If I wake up with a hungry feeling that lasts more than 20 minutes, I eat breakfast but that's rare. Hunger fades away after 5-10 minutes, for me anyway. I like to think that's when my body switches over to using its fat reserves as fuel. Maybe...who knows? Sounds good to me! Drink lots of water. Sometimes I feel dehydrated even though I feel like I'm forcing myself to drink. I've discovered sprinkling a little salt in my hand and licking it off fixes this for me. Water tastes good again and the dry mouth goes away. I like to do my yoga towards the end of my fast (in other words just before lunch) and I've found I feel stronger, more flexible and more coordinated in the fasted state than the 'fed' state. Speaking of yoga, any pose that involved having my knees up to my chest *used* to make me feel like I couldn't breathe very well. No more! I think I've burned up some of that visceral fat that was crowding my diaphragm. I feel much more focused and productive in the fasted state.
  17. 'Hands free' cell phone use is still distracted driving, and in many states it's prohibited for novice drivers.
  18. Years ago I tried to switch my two cats to a raw diet, and they wanted nothing to do with it. They LOVED their kibble (Evo). One cat died a couple years ago, and my remaining cat has started turning her nose up at the kibble, just nibbling on it as a last resort. She seemed to be losing weight so I very recently offered some raw meat, and what do you know? She likes it now! So far she likes pork stew meat and chicken wings (that I cut up with kitchen shears). Raw beef was a no go. I still need to try some organ meats, maybe chicken liver...
  19. Actually, it might be. And you won't know it's drippy until after you pull the bag out only to discover that the broken, jagged edge of a plastic take-out lid has snagged the side of the bag. Now Italian dressing from someone else's salad has dripped down your dry-clean-only pants onto your shoes. Why is it silly to have a kitchen trashcan that accommodates a week's worth of trash when the cleaning service happens once a week?
  20. It would be "silly" to have a kitchen can large enough to not overflow every week? How so? The footprint of a 30 gal is not that much bigger than a 13 gal, and I'd bet the trash on the floor around the smaller can uses up that extra floor space anyway. Also, the clothes I would wear to talk to people, tap on a keyboard and push papers around are different from the clothes I wear to wash bathroom floors, wring out dirty mops and change out the smelly, drippy kitchen trash liner. I assume when you go there to work, you're dressed for the job at hand.
  21. Another book suggestion-- 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back: Natural Posture Solutions for Pain in the Back, Neck, Shoulder, Hip, Knee, and Foot by Esther Gokhale Over a span of about 10 years I threw my back out 5 or 6 times, to the point where I could do nothing but lay on the floor with my knees bent for a day, like a beetle stranded on its back. My muscles just wouldn't work - so weird. Gradually, I'd be able to crawl on all fours and then work myself back up to full mobility, which took about a week. It always went out without warning for something silly like attempting to pick up a receiving blanket off the floor (never while picking up the baby, thank goodness!). So that hasn't happened in over 5 years now, since I began implementing the suggestions in that book.
  22. I used to use it too, thinking it was aluminum free. I thought it was great because it seemed to keep me dry, as well as odor free (eyeroll). The company doesn't exactly lie; nowhere do they claim to be aluminum free. Alcloxa contains allantoin, as they point out in the ingredients list. But they neglect to mention that it also contains aluminum chlorohydrate. They know their target customer cares about things like aluminum in deodorant, so the omission is deliberate. So shady. Give Milk of Magnesia a try. It's pretty cheap, so you're not out much if it doesn't work for you.
  23. I have my original blue bottle sitting upside down on my bathroom windowsill. It has gotten very thick and every now and then I have to add distilled water to thin it back down to a usable consistency. I like it to be a thick cream, and I just apply it with my fingers and rub it in 'til dry. I've used that same bottle for years (just checked, and my bottle expired in 2015!), and there's still a lot left. Also, I had never heard of Schmidt's deodorant, so just checked it out. Their 'sensitive' deodorant has magnesium hydroxide (the active ingredient in Milk of Magnesia)! So it seems some manufacturers are starting to catch on.
  24. You could use sheet stays. I have this kind https://www.amazon.com/Bed-Band-Assembled-Suspender-Patented/dp/B004I3VDWY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497531949&sr=8-2&keywords=sheet+stays#customerReviews and they work very well. Sounds like you already have a plan but I thought I'd throw this out there in case you'd like to save yourself some work.
  25. Well, she specifically asked for deodorants without aluminum. Alvera aloe and almonds has aluminum in it.
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