Messy Wire Beaded Jewelry

I've been making jewelry for a LOOOOONG time!

 I love to experiment and come up with new funky things.

 This was a really easy and fun project I came up with this weekend.

Messy Wire And Bead Bead Necklace

 Sorry, these pictures are not very good. I was in too much of a hurry to get them taken to put up on my blog today.

I decided to try something I saw not too long ago, a messy wire and bead bead. I have some cheap wire I use whenever I am experimenting, and decided to use it for this project since I really did not know how it would turn out. It was very easy to do.

I think it turned out pretty good. I've to got to run to a wedding here in a bit, but maybe this week, I'll try to do another one in better wire. I actually like it. It's pretty rustic looking, but I like that look. I'm going to wear it to the wedding, so let's see what everyone says about it...

How Can You Resist That Face?

"Look into my eyes...."

"nom, nom, nom...sure looks good!"

"See how sweet I am?"

"Pleeeeze..."

Arizona, Tempe Mission!

So, yesterday, Friday the 13th (June) was a great day! 

Our middle son got his mission call!

Tempe, Arizona!

Nice and warm...quite a difference from the hot humid climate of Louisiana he is use to, lol

He enters the MTC on July 30, just around the corner. Got lots of stuff to do....

Ongoing Saga of Selling The House...

I love my family and love to hang pictures of them, but when selling a house....

They must come down. I was told not to take them down by my first realtor, and was happy not to have to do that...due to having to paint a two story wall.

BUT....

Realtor #2, said it needs to be done, so we spent yet some more $$$ to paint.

Another issue we had was this stupid wallpaper. Have I ever told you I HATE wallpaper? Originally, when we bought this house, I was going to take this dining room wallpaper down. But, it grew on me. It wasn't bad, and so it stayed.

Like I said, not my choice, but it looks good...except that light fixture. That was on the chopping block, but I didn't have time to mess with it before we had a for sale sign in the yard...oh well, whoever buys it can put what they like there.

 We usually like to do our own painting and fixing up, but since we had to hire someone with a tall ladder for the entry, we decided to go ahead and have him take the wallpaper down and paint the dining room.

Looks nice...looks pretty bare too. But it is a blank canvas for the new owners.

Now send me some buyers! :)

Vegan? Vegetarian? or What?

How much protein does one need each day?  Well, according to Dr Oz, it depends on how much you weigh and how active you are, BUT (Dr Oz says), on average one needs about 25 grams each meal, so that means about 75 grams each day. This is on the high side because...

Dr Oz also recommended that a 130 lb woman only needs about 48 grams. If you do the math then it would be .37 grams of protein per pound of weight. So, if you took my daughter who weighs about 110 pounds, she only needs 40.7 grams. But she probably needs a little more since she is an athlete (teaches 22 or more dance and yoga classes a week. She is also on a dance company and does take yoga classes too). That is still far from the 75 grams mentioned above.

Today, Americans get way too much protein. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the average American male gets about 102 grams of protein a day and the average female gets 70 grams. That is almost double what the Food and Nutrition Board say one should have. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends, if you are a hard core athlete, then you only need .5 to .8 grams of protein per pound. For my daughter that would be about 55 grams. 

Most people think you have to eat a lot of meat or dairy to get your protein, but even Dr Oz says there are a lot of vegetarian ways to get it.

If you don't get enough protein, you could suffer from muscle loss and fatigue. Your metabolism will slow down and put you at a higher risk for gaining weight. Not enough protein can also weaken your immune system. So we all need to get adequate protein.

My daughter and her husband started being vegetarian over a year ago, and eventually they became vegan. I was a bit concerned whether they would get enough nutritional elements, particularly protein. I didn't say much thinking I could gather info from her as she discussed their journey. My husband and I visited them on occasion and ate "vegan" with them. I'll have to say, I was impressed. It was a lot of work, but it was very healthy, and very delicious too!

So, how can you get your protein? Well, of course you can get it by eating meat, dairy and eggs, but none of that is vegan. Here is a site that gives some ideas of what they eat.

What did my daughter and her husband typically eat?
One thing they like to have for breakfast is this yummy cooked cereal that has about 8 grams of protein. 
1/2 mashed banana
1 tablespoon flax seed with 3 tablespoon of water (egg substitute)
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 tablespoon vegan choc chips
1 tablespoon pecans
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
small amount of vanilla
grease glass dish with coconut oil. mix ingredients and put into the dish and cook in 350 oven for about 25 to 30 minutes. let rest one minute before devouring. this makes one serving....and it is YUMMY!!!

Here is a good recipe for lunch, which will give you about 23+ grams of protein. It will serve about four.
1 can black beans 
1 cup uncooked (you cook it like rice and add it later) quinoa
1 can corn
1 avocado
1 tomato
1 onion
1/4 cup cilantro
Cayenne pepper to taste, or not if you don't like

Okay,  you have 31 grams of protein so far. They like to eat a lot of kale chips, and that adds another 5 or so grams depending on how much you eat. So now it's up to 36 grams, and we have not had any dinner yet. So, she needs another 19 grams for the day.

One thing they like to make is "cheese." When I first heard about this, I thought they were crazy, but they make it out of cashews and serve it over whole wheat pasta. Here is a recipe for it. So at a dinner where they would have the "cheese" over the whole wheat pasta, which they might add some cooked spinach too, and have a salad, they are now up to 53 grams of protein. A lot of times, they will have a dessert and instead of sugar, they use dates. This  will up the protein count too. They like to add nutritional yeast to a lot of their meals which is very delicious and has about three grams of protein per serving. 

It is a lot of work to be vegan, but if you do it right, it is very healthy. Not sure I could be vegan, as I love my cheese, ice cream and eggs for breakfast too much. I'm not much of a meat fan, so I could easily be vegetarian. 

My daughter has had some health issues, and this is why she has done some experimenting on the vegan diet. They have been vegan for about a year, and she has seen a lot of improvement with her health. That being said, she is not sure that she will continue once they start a family. I have read somewhere where pregnant women need as much as 75 grams of protein a day...wow! MUCH more research and investigating needs to be done about that. 

Once Ashley gets pregnant and after the baby is born, they may or may not go back to vegan or vegetarian...if you think about it though, babies are vegan...except for mother's milk, but that is what it is for, and natural. A baby is on mother's milk for several months before they start food, and then they start with the rice cereal, then veggies and fruits. Meat is not added until they have teeth (that baby food jar meat is gross!). I think this will be a life long journey for their family. If being vegan is healthy for my daughter, then she needs to stick with that. I know they will do the right thing for their family, and if they feel that their family needs meat, then they will have it, but if their kids have health issues like my daughter, they may not have meat in their home. 

Personally, I feel that "everything in moderation" is the way to go. Most of us do NOT do that. I see people eating platefulls of bacon...that...is not in moderation; and this is typical! I also feel our food is not longer truly food. So much of it is processed and fake. This is why so many of us are unhealthy...but that is another blog post.












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Grocery Shopping With Thirty One

This is the Fresh Market Thermal in the new Sunny Strip. Don't you love it? 

Here is my old one in the Pink Pop Medallion. I bought that a while back and use it A LOT. I was able to get it for half price because I had a party. This was before I started selling Thirty One. 

The Sunny Stripe one I got for free because I had a very successful month not too long ago. I also got the new Essential Storage Tote (in the picture below--center). I wondered if I'd use two Fresh Market Thermals...yes, they both come in handy.

 One of my son's just got back from college, and he is wanting to drop a few pounds, so he is eating Paleo. Yes, I know, I'm not a meat fan myself, but I am going to try to help him out a little. So, we went grocery shopping, and I brought these bags.  The lady at the check out LOVED them. She said they were so easy to pack!

I was able to get all of this into my three bags and have TONS of room left. One of the fresh markets only had the eggs, so, like I said I had a lot of room left.

We spend about $110, and mostly got meat and veggies. I'm not use to buying meat, as what little meat we eat is venison from my husband's hunting or fish from his fishing trips. There was a bit of a sticker shock, lol. I bought a huge thing of tilapia, two big things of boneless/skinless chicken breasts, green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes,

 onions, broccoli, sausage, cheese, lettuce, spinach, garlic

vitamin C, fish oil, calcium, bananas, a spray bottle and 36 eggs. All of this fit into two of the three bags. I was afraid my eggs would break, so I decided to put them into one of my Fresh Market Thermal by themselves.

If you are interested in any of these or other Thirty One bags, just let me know.

mythirtyone.com/terryjeanettecarter