Tips For Maintaining Healthy Eating While Traveling
Years ago, I would have never even begun to think about trying to eat healthy on vacations. They’re vacations! Why on earth did I want to limit myself to a strict meal plan (or the dreaded word, “diet”), while enjoying my time away with my loved ones? Over time though, I began to learn more about how healthy eating truly affects the entirety of those trips, and how I have made significant changes up until now and ongoing so that I can feel my best if I’m just laying on the beach or conquering the next best mountain on foot. How do you eat while you travel? Do you realize that it adjusts how you feel overall? Let’s discuss the best options to choose for healthy eating while traveling when your options are limited. Staying Nourished While on the Go I used to hate healthy eating. Like literally, loathe it. I ate fried chicken tenders before softball games and indulged in Dairy Queen to refuel after. Sure, most teenagers will do this. It’s fun, it tastes awesome, and we’re able to bond over delicious cheese-covered food with our family and friends. But some days while I soak in my homemade smoothies, I think back and wonder how much better I could have performed if I’d only known how to fuel my body properly? Although this is just something that most of us learn over time, I’d like to point out that Gen Z is doing a much better job at this than us Millennials. It seems that everyday I notice more and more teens opting for healthy snacks or smoothies and green juice over milkshakes and burgers. Of course, there is more available knowledge out there with the internet at their fingertips, so I am pleased to say that those such as my 17 year old sister are one of them who are learning what’s best to put on their plates early in the game of life. She even makes “nice cream!” Check out the recipe below if you’re wanting a frozen, healthy treat after a long morning run. (She runs 7 miles EVERY MORNING….gulp.) Healthy Chocolate Ice Cream Unfortunately for us ladies in our 30s and 40s, we are now just learning about all the benefits of eating healthy and maintaining a well-balanced diet. Of course we learned some things along the way through health class and other methods, but I’ve found much more valuable information on my own, not to mention that finding the right meal plan that works for you is the absolute hardest part! These days, I don’t try to force myself into making things I’m just kind of “meh” about. My husband has a different meal plan than me now, and it took me a long time to be okay with that. For years I would fight it and feel inadequate about not cooking for us both, but today, I embrace that we have different diets, because we are in fact different people. And that is okayyyy my friend. Something I also noticed yesterday even is that I really love eating big breakfasts and lunches, then snack or just have a small dinner in the late afternoon or early evening. He’s the total opposite. He likes to have big dinners and if I didn’t heat something up for him for breakfast, he probably wouldn’t have it at all! Fortunately though, we’ve managed to find some meals that work best for us both on the weekends, but when we’re traveling, those diets that we’re used to can be hard to balance. Finding Healthy Food Options While Traveling It all depends what the trip we’re going on entails. Will there be an REI for dehydrated options? Or will we have to suffer and choose from the limited options that are at the nearest Wal-Mart? (That’s what we had to do during our Kauai trip, before finding Pitch-A-Tent on Google!) Sometimes we look for Whole Foods, or out west there’s a similar store named Natural Grocers (found this gem in Saint George, Utah before hitting up Angels Landing in Zion!) I just read that Sprouts Farmers Markets have also opened up in some areas. Speaking of which, farmers markets are a great place to stop for fresh fruits and veggies during your trips, with an added bonus of them typically being a TON less expensive than your regular grocery store! Three cheers for supporting small businesses! <3 (Psst, like this one!) When we’re on the trails, I pack completely different. I have however adopted a few dehydrated meals to keep in the pantry at home when I’m feeling hungry but not up to cooking a whole meal. My favorite healthy eating while traveling go-to’s are: Strawberries & Granola by Peak Refuel Chicken & Rice by Mountain House Chicken Alfredo Pasta by Peak Refuel I now purchase two 6-packs every other week of the granola to take with me to work. That and my Quantum Energy Squares fill me up for a few hours until I need to recharge with some sourdough toast or a Nuun electrolytes/caffeine tablet. It’s also pretty great that Mountain House offers canned options, which means that you can buy those meals in bulk instead of individual bags! Yay for savings! So I always keep a serving of the chicken and rice on me when I’m at work or running errands since all I need is hot water to make it ready to eat! Healthy Eating at Airports But what about airports?? Ah yes, the dreaded airport cafeteria food… No lie, that’s what most of it used to remind me of. Blah looking options, meh tasting meals, and just okay “healthy” juices. BUT NOW?! Guyzzzzzz. They have SO many options to choose from! At least in most of your larger airports. My two favorite to travel through is Pittsburgh and Phoenix. I love both of these locations and their airports have provided the best experiences for setup, and
Healthy Hacks, Delicious Smoothies, and the Secret to Eating More to Weigh Less!
Hey guys! Now, we have been chatting for some time together about a healthier lifestyle both mentally and physically. Anddd I promised to share with you all some of my tried and true favorite things! In today’s post, I’m going to share with you my best smoothie recipe yet, including some other tips on how I’m boosting my metabolism by actually ADDING calories to my day. Mind-blowing, I know. (Stay tuned for a future post revealing some of my go-to camping recipes!) Oh! And don’t miss the really cool interactive spreadsheet for free at the end! How I Made My Change If you’re new here, I’ll give you a little context to my current situation. I’m an active 33 year old female with a healthy lifestyle and a fatty liver. Contradictory, isn’t it? Check out a few of my recent posts to see how I figured this out and what I’ve been trying to do to reverse it. Turning Things Around At 33: Why It’s Never Too Late To Start Embracing Change With Growth When Push Comes To Shove, Remember To Not Compare Overcoming Negativity On The Scale: How I’m Learning To Be Okay With My Body So, last year when I had two trainers that specified in completely different ways of training, I thought I had it all figured out. (This was before that discovery, of course…and before I quit birth control completely!) One day after all of this new info surfaced, I realized that I’d been heavily relying on everyone else to tell me what to do and what was best for my body. Of course, trainers do know most of the time what is best for our bodies. That’s why they’re trainers, after all. But what I realized was that I needed to do some deep dives on how I wanted to approach the next several years of my life, and if I really wanted to be motivating myself through external sources. I didn’t. So, I quit them both, and proceeded to stop going to the gym for a month or more. I didn’t do much of anything, really. I was a lazy blob figuring out life. But then it happened. One day, I decided that I was going to go because I felt like it. Because I made the decision to. Because I knew that it was what my mind and body needed. I also knew that even though I kept telling myself I was eating right, I knew deep down that I could be doing better. It’s amazing what we tell ourselves on repeat just to turn our cheek to what is actually the right decision. Wanting to gain that self-motivation, I kept up with it this time. I continued to let myself ebb and flow and move with the cycles of life throughout this journey I’ve been on. I was easy with myself on days that didn’t feel right to go, and went all out on days that I felt like being in beast mode. After a while, I stopped craving crappy food, too. I began looking for new ways to slowly incorporate more healthy options into my life and less junk food to fill space or time. And that is where my favorite smoothie recipe was born! My Metabolism Boosting Smoothie Recipe It’s not all that and a bag of chips. Well, it doesn’t actually include chips at all…but it’s delicious…and not chunky…and that is something that has been hard to perfect. I also found a few ingredients that I didn’t know about before, and realized that hello, duh, I could be using greek yogurt instead of WATER to add more fuel to its power. It’s the perfect blend of smoothness, deliciousness, and balance (in my opinion) of ingredients. Check it out: 1 handful or cup of frozen blueberries 1 handful of spinach 1 scoop of your favorite protein powder 1 room temp banana 1 spoonful of NuttZo 7 nut & seed butter A serving size of your favorite vanilla bean or unflavored greek yogurt That’s all folks. 6 simple ingredients. I’ve noticed whatever flavor of protein powder I pick doesn’t make too much of a difference, but I prefer unflavored if it’s available. The peanut butter can be whatever kind you like best as well, but I opt for this brand as it packs a little more protein and a few more things than just your plain old Jif. I really like the unflavored greek yogurt as it has less sugar content than flavored, but what I usually have on hand is vanilla bean. I also like to spend 15 minutes or so per week just bagging up some of these ingredients. (I freeze sandwich bags of blueberries, spinach, and the banana. I’m sure you could add the others as well if you wanted). Doing this makes it super easy to grab and throw in my Ninja in the morning before work to make sure I can get in a hefty dose of protein and healthy options first thing. (I even got a cute glass container to travel with it in to inspire me to drink it on the way to work). Losing Weight By Adding Calories Soooo, did you know that you can actually lose weight by ADDING calories?! Because your girl had no freaking clue. It sounds like such a backwards concept that I’m sure a lot of us out there had never even heard of such a thing. It’s also super hard to do if you’ve ever tried it, especially since most of us are used to attempting to be calorie restrictive. Ugh. Since I’ve been struggling to lose weight even though I feel like I’m doing basically everything I can, I talked to my trainer again about this. He explained that since my activity level is so high, my calorie restricting is actually hurting my body because it’s not letting it repair itself properly. Basically, my body has just been on go-mode, and only offering up
Overcoming Negativity On The Scale: How I’m Learning To Be Okay With My Body
A while ago, more specifically last Fall (2023), my doctor told me I’d need to lose 15-18 pounds to reverse my fatty liver and get back on track with my health. Mind you, I am a (beginner level) mountain climbing, BJJ lady that hikes 10 miles for fun on a regular basis. I eat well most of the time (or so I kept telling myself), and I frequent the gym several days a week. Which leads me to believe that A LOT of us humans out there have health issues we’d never know existed if it wasn’t for accidentally finding out. How scary is that? I have put in a ton of work on myself since then, but I’ve only dropped 7-9 pounds. Since I’ve been hovering around the same weight for a few months now, I did an experiment this week. Let me tell you about it. My Experiment For awhile I thought, there has got to be an easier way. How do the girls on Instagram and YouTube do so well? How do they ALWAYS look good and never have to worry about their weight fluctuating through daily life, let alone during hormone spikes, pregnancies, postpartum, and difficult times. …And then I remember that I’m just seeing what they want me to see. I’m here on this blog to be real with you. To be real with myself. I’m telling you flat out how I feel about everything in this universe not only so that you can know it’s not just you, but also to hold myself accountable. I’m not here to spend time highlighting the good and casting a shadow on the bad. I’m here to talk. So, let’s talk. Before my most recent trip out west, I did great with eating habits and exercise. (My version of great, of course. Remember to try not to compare yourself to others, as long as you’re one step ahead of yourself from yesterday, you are growing). I had cut out Red Bulls, (seriously, I’ve tried EVERY other brand. I hate them all.), I increased my protein, ate more salads and spent time consistently in the gym. In my opinion, a barrier was crossed. I had finally made it to the mindset of “I’ve got this.” When we returned, I was a little surprised but pleased to find out that my weight had stayed exactly the same. Even though we did a ton of hiking and activity, I still made sure to eat mindfully and space out my treats. (I may have had an occasional Red Bull and some skittles! Moderation, friends!) So, this past week, I ran an experiment. I indulged in what I was craving and didn’t hold back. I wanted to see just how quickly that weight could go back on. And I was grossly underestimating how fast it could happen. Related: Utilizing Garden Veggies To Save Money While Meal Prepping What I Learned and What My Body Told Me Monday, I had a cheesesteak. Half for lunch and half for dinner. I had soda multiple times throughout the week, a few energy drinks and an ice cream cone. I relished in having pizza for many meals, and focused less on balance and more what my body was saying it wanted instead of listening to my mind. I’ve averaged the same weight for around 3 months. In just 5 days, I gained SIX pounds back. Yes, 6. My mind was blown. I didn’t feel like I looked any different in the mirror, but I did feel significantly more fatigued and lethargic. And those feelings came BEFORE I weighed myself this morning. The whole reason I’m going through these points with you today is to say that I’m going to start focusing more on what my mind and body needs to stay healthy and less on indulging in whatever is easy. It’s easy to order pizza every night. It’s easy to swipe through the dinner options on DoorDash. But it’s hard to plan and shop and meal prep healthy breakfasts, lunches and dinners every week. It’s hard to keep up with finding healthy alternatives to your favorite snacks or recipes that don’t actually suck with newly found ingredients. Finding those alternatives have taken me literal years. One by one I’ve begun to replace my favorite meals and snacks with healthier options and more and more I began to realize that if I hadn’t started doing that when I did, that I may be having an even harder time losing the necessary weight. Why are the options so hard to find? Sure, there are a ton of replacement items stocking the shelves and coolers these days as opposed to 10 or even just 5 years ago. The hard thing for me though is that only a small percentage of those things have any flavor or nutrition to them. Learning nutrition and how to properly and mindfully indulge is still to this day something I struggle with. So, moving forward, I’m going to return to thinking before I eat and start accepting that this weight is okay. It’s my new normal. I have plans for change though and I want to bring you with me through that change. 5 Snack Ideas and 5 Exercise Options to Help You Be More Comfortable With Your Body Have you ever heard of “body recomposition?” This is when you focus more on a tape measure and less on a scale to provide proof of your efforts making the cut. Body recomposition focuses on implementing more strength training and less on counting calories. When I say this body is “my new normal,” I don’t mean I’m giving up on my goals. I’m simply readjusting how I focus on them, so that I can lean into a healthier mindset and eating habits. Even though I feel that I use the 80/20 rule effectively, there is always room for improvement. I want to begin emphasizing more on protein intake and less on removing certain foods. Although
Utilizing Garden Veggies To Save Money While Meal Prepping
Hello there and happy summer my friends of the internet! The time has come where we are midway through the gardening season in this neck of the woods which means a few things. Canning is upon us, green beans are full speed ahead, and I have more lettuce than I can fit in 3 salad spinners at once. How is your summer panning out? Did you decide on a garden this year? Or are you still in the research and planning stages for the year to come? Let’s talk about meal prepping with garden produce! Balancing Canning, Harvesting, and Garden Upkeep Gardening has always been a passion of mine, but the upkeep is a giant chore in itself. Hence why I huffed and puffed to my husband last week when we were canning because it is SO time consuming!!! I’m typically a few batches in when I start to lose patience on waiting to basically burn my fingers again and heat up the house unnecessarily. HOWEVER. Once the heat of summer and the overflow of veggies is gone for the season, I relish in the canned goods that we’d completed in the summer and am always eager to go to my canning cupboard instead of strolling the aisles at the grocery store. Homegrown goods are so much better for us and also gives us that sense of accomplishment, not to mention the fresh air and peace of mind you get from harvesting, weeding, and just being in the garden to begin with. I loathe weeding, but once I’m in the mix of it, I could literally be there for hours until my hands cramp up. It’s refreshing to not stare at a screen the entire day or to hear birds chirping instead of people talking. Weird, isn’t it? It’s still noise…just different. We talked earlier in the year about how we stuck with more root veggies this time around instead of more tomatoes and peppers, although we’ve had quite the batch of volunteers that I so hate to remove. Seriously, I feel bad about way too many things including plants. It’s a problem. Don’t be like me, thin your seedlings and let those babies breathe!! What’s your favorite thing to plant? Do you prefer harvesting more or maybe you actually enjoy canning (weirdo). I’ve come to realize that gardening overall takes a ton of patience and learning when to lean into what tasks should be spent more time on and what could be let go a little. Let’s talk about that next, shall we? Dive Into Our Autumn Gardening Like a Pile of Scattered Leaves Streamlined Gardening: Meal Prepping with Garden Produce I used to spend SO much time on every task. It would takes hours just to plant, then weed, then tend to, tie up, harvest, wash, can, label, date, organize, and repeat. Then, I realized, why am I doing all these things? Of course it would be different if I spent every day just spending time on my garden, but that’s just not realistic in todays world. We all have other things to accomplish in the day including a full time job, a side gig, a blog all about your journey through life, pets to take care of, a spouse or kids, parents to help, you get my point. Ain’t nobody got time for that. So, nowadays, I simply spend time on the things that matter most (in my opinion of course), and less on those that I deem well, not worthy of my magnificent minutes. Sure, you may disagree and that’s okay. Spending time on things you feel are most important will work for you, just as these things work for me and my family. Some of the things I’ve changed throughout the years include the following: Investing in an electric fence because fixing holes in a normal fence 10x per season gets REALLY old. Letting my tomatoes thrive in their natural state. AKA, foregoing the tying up. Mine are growing beautifully so far and it’s WAY easier to harvest them when I’m not trying to squish my hand in between old tomatoes and 20 inches of vines. I used to spend a lot of money on pretty labels and taking time to write nicely on the jars once canning was finished. This may not seem like that much time but trust me, it adds up. Add your date and move on friends. Thinning. I know it’s proper gardening to thin your plants when they’re small, they grow better, bigger, etc. However I am not trying out for the Guinness World Record so I’m cool with letting them take up more space and harvesting when they’re smaller. When it comes to weeding, we put black plastic down this year and it’s been doing a great job. We also experimented with another section where we just use grass clippings. It takes way longer to weed that tiny section than the rest of the garden. Definitely not doing that again! Next year though, we’d like to try something more natural so that we’re not adding plastic to our garden that doesn’t need to be there. Washing has become easier since dishwashers included a cycle for such, although I don’t have one of those, I do find that a quick rinse with vinegar water has done us just fine. I’ll fill up the sink and dip everything in, instead of washing them individually. Oh, and get yourself a MEGA salad spinner so you don’t spend oodles of time on one veggie. Meal Prepping with Garden Goodies One thing I started doing this year was adding meal prepping into our lives. I’ve attempted a million times but finally it’s starting to stick. Woo! I usually stick to meals that I can use my freshly picked veggies in, so I’m saving doll hairs from shopping at the market. AND guess what. When you’re waiting for eons to water bath those beautiful beans,
Beauty and Beginnings, Rooted in Health: Starting Your Garden With Root Vegetables
Hello friends from all over! Have you started your garden yet this year? Do you have any plans that you’d like to share? Today we will talk about how our garden differs this year from others and what we’re doing to keep a little more for when everything is done growing. Let’s grow! Shifting to Root Vegetables: Our Decade-Long Garden Evolution and Techniques for a Bountiful Harvest We’ve had a substantial garden now for nearly a decade. Each year it’s been adjusted slightly and reorganized, but mostly it stays the same with the exception of moving around the veggies. This year though, we’re looking to harvest more crops and store more as well, which means we’re trying out some different ways of organizing and growing. Usually, we have a large portion of tomatoes and peppers, (shout out to the nightshades fam!), but this time we’re more into the root veggies and stocking up. Since we have realized that we never tend to use all of the tomatoes or peppers, we’re going to save room in both the garden and storage area for other goodies this time around. Starting us off in the root veggie arena, we have beets, as well as carrots, onions, potatoes and sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes were a challenge (and still are) since the last time we failed to produce anything but tiny inedible potatoes. Boo to that! This year, we started some slips in a container, so that they had some time to produce roots before adding them to their soil. We purchased a bag from a local farmers market, added some soil to a large plastic container, and placed them on top. After a few weeks, roots were forming and leaves were beginning to grow! (The purple ones worked MUCH better than the orange ones for us). Each slip should produce approximately 10 potatoes each! Fingers crossed! Related: How Gardening Is Good For Your Soul Mastering Beets, Carrots, Onions, and Potatoes: Tips and Tricks for a Successful Harvest Beets have been something we’ve grown for years, each time getting a little better. We love to juice these (with their leaves) and store the juice in mason jars in the freezer to add to smoothies! However, this year we’re going to can them so that we can keep that healthy fiber inside! (Make sure to thin your seedlings so that you can grow hearty bulbs!) Carrots have been tricky, but we finally made sure to add some sand this year to the soil! (Adding sand can help to create a better well-drained soil). I’ll keep you in the loop on how they turn out! Red onions are my personal favorite, although sweet are the most popular. We were lucky enough to be gifted some walking onions last year however, so those have been fun to watch grow! Check them out if you’re not sure what a “walking onion” is! If you’ve ever grown regular potatoes, you’ll know that a little can go a long way! We try to keep some of what we grew from last year that have grown eyes to plant again, but if you run out that’s okay! You can grab a bag from your local market just like the sweet potatoes and cut them up before planting in mounded rows. We’ve always had great luck with regular potatoes, I love that they’re more of a “set it and forget it” type of veggie! Why We Are Switching It Up This Year Why are we switching it up this year? Not only are we shying away from more peppers and tomatoes, but we also want to get a higher dose in our diets of additional vitamins that may not be as prevalent in other veggies. Did you know? Root vegetables have….”high nutritional value due to their richness in dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals.” And guess what?! Garlic and onions have great benefits as well when it comes to being anti-inflammatory. (If you’ve been keeping up with these posts, you’ll know that I can use all the anti-inflammatory I can get these days! Not to mention that the Standard American Diet also plays a huge role in causing the inflammation in the first place.) By growing, harvesting and ingesting more root veggies, we’re doing our bodies a solid in dumping in some more vitamins that we would otherwise be missing out on. Related: 5 Steps to Achieving Your 2024 Goals Efficient Garden Organization and Canning We’ve organized our garden a little differently, so that we can keep things separated and have more space to walk around to harvest them. We’ve also created a little screened table next to the garden so that we can easily wash these veggies right away instead of in the tiny kitchen sink. Effective and efficient! Yay for that! Because we don’t have a lot of freezer space like we did in the past, we’ll be canning many more veggies than we ever have before this year. Not only because our lack of space however, but each time the power flickered our freezer would reset and therefore give us anxiety about everything in it getting freezer burn! To lose those veggies that were time consuming to preserve was a huge let down and we’re trying to avoid that happening again. Whether you pressure can or water bath, (I prefer the water bath method like my mother-in-law, but my sister-in-law likes pressure canning instead, both are okay!), I suggest doing them in small batches so you don’t get overwhelmed. I’ve noticed in the past that I would wait too long to can a bigger batch, and then be upset that it would take the entire day. Enlist the help of your significant other and work together to move quickly through small batches so that you can not only can right after harvesting (the sooner, the better!), but also so that you don’t feel stress about it being all on your shoulders. Gardening can be a huge task if you’re in it
Fall Into New Crops For Your Garden
Hey ladies and gents! If you’re wondering how to implement more in-season veggies into your life, I’d like to give you a hand! As we move into Fall and out of the Summer heat here in the Northeast, fewer things become available to harvest. There is still a lot of options for you though! Let’s check some of them out, shall we? What Are Cole Crops Again? We talked a little bit about “cole crops” in the last post, but I’ll provide a quick refresher if you missed it! Cole crops are perfect to plant when the Summer growing season is winding down and the cool, crisp air is picking up. They provide a great option to keep your gardening hands busy and to embrace some serious sweater weather! Cole crop are those which are in the Cruciferous family, such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, brussel sprouts, kolhrabi, and kale. When I first started gardening several years ago, I didn’t like most of these. I “icked” at them as a teen and a child, and definitely didn’t feel like going anywhere near them as an adult. But then as I found out how fun they were to grow, (especially during my favorite time of year!), and how little work they required unlike other crops, I began to fall in love with tending to them and with finding new recipes to make them delicious. Even though I’ve gone through a ton of recipes over the years however with adjusting tastes and trying new cooking methods with these veggies, one thing has stuck true. They’re best, in my opinion, with plain old extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper, baked in the oven. Try it sometime! It’s super easy to throw them in a baking dish, toss some oil on them and pop them in. Less is more, people! Related: How Gardening Is Good For Your Soul What Garden Zone Do You Fall In? Of course your location will play a big part in knowing when is best to plant these crops. Check out which Zone you’re in to determine a best date! This website will let you simply plug in your zip code and find out within seconds! Hooray for the internet! Once you find out which Zone you’re in, you can then determine which seeds or seedlings, or starter plants to invest in. I recommend going to local farmer markets to find some quality ones or if you’d like to stay home and enjoy your newest crocheted sweater indoors, then check out this top list of 2023 online to have them shipped to your door! After you have what you need from shopping online or locally, you can dig in. Literally! You can head outdoors with your gardening tools and your new plants or seeds and get ready. From our experience, we’ve had the best luck with rototilling in the Fall again, before planting our new cold season crops. This allows the ground to be broken up a little more after pulling all of the old crops out, and also gets anything leftover mixed into the soil again. (Here’s where we find our free tomatoes the year after! From mixing up the garden, many seeds that dropped along the way will find their way back upwards next season. Replant those suckers! Save their little plant lives and save some moolah at the same time! Related: Working Through Self Expectations & Limitations How to Plant and Grow Garlic In-Season Another popular crop to plant in the Fall, and particularly one of my favorites, happens to be garlic from the Allium family. Garlic is one of the simplest crops to grow as a “set it and forget it” type plant. This is something we’ll be working on quite soon since our best time is to plant in the September/October time frame! If you have garlic bulbs leftover from the year before, simply break those bulbs into cloves. Someone long ago taught me that using the bottom of the palm of your hand on the head of garlic can crush it just enough to make the cloves come off way easier. I still use that trick and highly recommend it! Keep the papery covering on the garlic cloves and then follow these instructions! Make sure your cloves are planted approximately 3-4″ deep. Always ensure that the pointy end is facing upwards! You’ll want to water just enough to let the soil settle around the cloves, then simply cover them up with 4-6″ of leftover Fall leaves or straw from your Halloween haybales! There are lots of ways people go about caring for and harvesting garlic, but we like to keep it simple and usually come out on top with a pretty hefty harvest. After planting, we just wait. When the garlic is ready, it’ll tell you! Side Note! Snip of the heads when they get curly, use these as garlic as well for an extra helping! After it’s wilted and died down, feel free to bust out your shovel again to dig those new beautiful bulbs! Related: Introducing Habitual Balance Implement More In-Season Veggies This Fall Between pulling old crops, rototilling, and planting new ones again, we know we’ll have a busy next few weeks! How do you plan your Fall planting? Do you prefer to end after Summer and look forward to next year? Or do you prefer to maximize your growing season with cole crops?! Let us hear about your gardening journey in the comments below! Happy planting! Thank you for reading “Fall Into New Crops For Your Garden – Implement More In-Season Veggies”! Thank you for reading today’s post about how to implement more in-season veggies! Let me know what resonates with you or if you have a suggestions for our next post by commenting below. Don’t forget to check out our sister site Rooted Drawers.
How Gardening Is Good For Your Soul
Hello friends of the online realm! Today we’re starting out a new month in Fall and a new topic for the next few weeks! October will be all about gardening. How we got started, what we do to maintain, resources that we hold near and dear, and finally anything that you may (or may not!) need to get started! Which leaves us today to talk all about how we first got into gardening in the first place, and how far we’ve come thus far. Yay for growth! The Gardening Girl Ten years ago (or so), I met my husband. That’s when I really started taking this whole “gardening” concept seriously. Before that though, I grew up gardening and didn’t even realize it. Until of course I recently reflected on it all while writing this post for you! Back in the day, I was a hardcore bug-smooshing, garden growing teeny bopper. Today, I’m still a hardcore garden growing lady, with much less of the bug-smooshing, since any harm to mother nature now pulls those good ol’ heart strings. When I was little, I used to garden quite frequently with both of my grandfathers. They had pretty decent sized gardens, and I got to be a big *little* part of it. I picked tomatoes, weeded around them, watered what I could, and watched and learned whatever it was that my tiny brain could absorb. Funny isn’t it? How much we learn as young children that we don’t even coherently remember. We take it all in, learn each new intricacy, but never fully embrace it until one day as a thirty-something year old it hits us just how exactly it is best to tie those darned old tomatoes up properly. An “Aha” moment, if you will. Weird. Being human, is weird. Related: Developing Routines & What is Sleep Hygiene Down on the Farm In the last decade though, I’ve actually had the honor of working on a farm nearby my home. It was such a beautiful time in my life. Right before my last big job, but right after the first “green light” of my working career. I had just quit a different day job (none of them ever felt quite right), and had been dreaming of being outdoors more often and in the bright sunshine and in the not so bright office light much less. I welcomed new feelings of freedom once I stepped out onto the gravel into dirt driveways that I would drive the old trucks on and felt right back at home when getting my hands in the good smelling fresh soil. At first, it was blissful. I could do this every day, all day, I thought. But then it sank in after the second season that I wasn’t cut out to do this as a full-time job. I hated the cold, hated the hot, and needed that Goldilocks kind of “just right” feeling. So, yet another job bit the dust. Starting Gardening at Home Once I had my home that we still reside in today, it was clear to me that gardening was going to be a big part of it. I loved it and still do. We rototill when necessary, put black plastic down instead of weed til the cows come home, and have learned oodles of tips and tricks that we will dive more into as the month goes on! Before working on the farm however, I never knew that “cole crops” were a thing. Did you?! Here’s a tidbit on its meaning if you’re still unsure: “Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are known as cole crops. Several other vegetables belong to this group, including Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, and kohlrabi, but these are considered minor vegetables. Cole crops are cool season vegetables that grow best at temperatures between 60 F and 68F.” This is what we’ll be diving into soon enough during the month of October, since planting these bad boys will soon be in season for us here in western PA. They’re the coolest. See what I did there…They give you a second chance of sorts to continue eating in season, even during the Fall and Winter months of the year when the frost hits and the snow flies! What a wonderful opportunity! The best part about it all (in my opinion) is that there is SIGNIFICANTLY less bugs, heat, and little annoyances of such. I’m more comfortable in a sweatshirt and muck boots, not sweating buckets while breaking my back! Speaking of which, instead of bending over, I highly recommend investing in a nice kneeling mat. Don’t bother with knee pads. Those are MUCH more uncomfortable than you’d think after needing to bend up and down a zillion times in jeans. Related: Why I Chose Courage & It’s Endless Reservations What are Cole Crops? Do you know anything about cole crops? How has your summer been? Did you harvest a lot or just a little? This year we did great in the start of the season, but as life happened we began to slack off some. Our lettuce is now seeding along with most of our herbs, and the kale has basically taken over whatever it could by now. Our sunflowers are drooping and the broccoli looks more like broccolini these days. The good news is is that we’re coming to the change of season. Soon, it’ll be time to harvest the seeds and pull out the old plants to make space for new crops. The garden is ever-changing once you get the hang of it, kind of like life itself. We’re always going to go through changes and seasons in our lives, learning each day what is best to hold on to and what can be thrown to the outside of the fence. As we grow, we learn which battles are worth fighting and which tomato plants should just be pulled out before they cause a disease to travel to the rest of the plants. Keep working toward your goals and add just
Looking Internally – Rediscovering Your Why & Why It’s So Important To Growth
Greetings fellow humans! Today I’m coming at you from a quaint little spot in the heart of town. It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, it’s the old timey gives you good vibes feeling kind of place. Stumbling upon this tiny gem of a restaurant got me thinking, a lot more than what I thought I actually went in there for. Let me tell you about it…and how it’s affected my mindset behind why I do what I do, and the importance of rediscovering your why too! Related: Introducing Habitual Balance Why I Needed to Change My Mindset Today I had a doctors appointment. Just a checkup but it was frustrating nonetheless. I had to take off work, (yes, I still call it that even though I work for myself!), and drive way out of my way to get to the cold and white box of a doctors office instead of my own comfy couch with the pups. Irritated most of the way there, I decided to try and change my mindset on the way back. After all, I’d be making another stop to thrift and that was bringing some feel good vibes in itself! Side Note: If you don’t already know, we have a sister site that talks all about thrifting and how to break out into the reselling biz! Check out Rooted Drawers! On the way home though, I decided to stop and grab a bite to eat. I don’t mind eating alone. It’s become obvious to me though that over the years of meeting others, not a lot of people enjoy doing so. To me, it’s rewarding in so many ways. It gives you a chance to actually develop a relationship with yourself, and learn how to become more independent, outgoing, and attentive. I googled the restaurants on the way home that I’d pass, and discovered a Greek restaurant along the way. Now, I was actually craving some Pizza Hut, but as I’ve been trying to do better this year with my eating habits as I get older, I thought it may be best to opt for something a bit more Mediterranean. So, off I went. Related: Looking for a new side hustle? Finding Clarity in a Dim Room The parking was a hassle in itself. Everything was jam packed on the street, there was construction and detours due to an event happening that night in the city. The parking garage was my only hope. Great, I thought. Those always give me anxiety. I thought about saying never mind and going somewhere right off the road instead that would have been easier to get to. But I found a spot and backed in, (back in my friends! best to be prepared to pull out in case of emergency!) Then I found the elevator, but decided on the stairs instead. Why not get a little cardio in, eh? Little things add up, so implement them when you can! Using GPS again to find my restaurant, I walked towards the little dots on the map in that direction. I went under more construction, only to miss the place I was seeking out! I backed up, and realized it was tucked inside just a bit. The door was open and the sign said so too, so in I went! It was quiet, empty, and dim. The lights were turned down like the old Italian restaurant I worked at as a teen. It was homey, with black and white pictures all over the wall, Greek symbolism everywhere and vintage mirrors between each set of tables. The smell was wonderful, and the setting was just right. The perfect setting for rediscovering your why accidentally. I walked up to the counter and rang the bell, once…twice…three times. I was about to walk out when a man came around the corner. So, I inquired about some lunch and grabbed a menu. Just then, an older man walked out to greet me, making a great sales pitch about everything that was delicious in his restaurant. After choosing 3 more things that I originally wanted from the menu online, he sat me down at a table nearby. It was so cool. What a great experience I thought to myself. Customer service has really gone by the wayside these days, and here I was, getting top notch care in a little tiny restaurant that I never knew existed. It was so refreshing. Related: Practicing Gratitude in 2023 Rediscovering Your Why Through Outside Experiences The old man brought out his homemade red wine that he talked me into on his great grandmothers copper serving tray. It was 250 years old. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY. Then he brought my meal and set it down as well. He asked if I needed anything else then left me to be for the most part. It was great. Just enough, I thought. Being a waitress for most of my life, I really value a good customer service experience when dining out, especially alone. Since I now am one of those people that bring a laptop everywhere, I often get quick service because I’m “just another person with a laptop.” The wine was impeccable. So great in fact that I bought a bottle for my husband and I to share. The food was delicious, and made me realize that yes, I do in fact love hummus. The chocolate cake was just as good, with whipped cream and chocolate sauce topping it off. My quick stop for lunch turned into an experience. This is what moves me. What sparks the passion behind working for myself, behind writing for others, and behind understanding more of my why. Getting Lost in the Shuffle For a while now, I feel like I’ve started to lose that. I kept reaching for the stars and following the trends, finding the new niches and hopping on the bandwagon. And then I kept stumbling. Why in the world was this happening? How was it so difficult to continue on this path? Rediscovering your
Introducing Habitual Balance
Out of Balance As I sat down today to write the first blog post of Habitual Balance, I leaned back and closed my eyes. I sat there, waiting for the thought bubbles to come floating in. Nothing. I opened my eyes, sat up straight, really focused, and still…nothing. Then, I had a first time experience. It was the one and only thought bubble that floated on in. “Run,” it said. This was the first time ever that I closed my laptop, set down my phone, and put on my shoes. I didn’t think about the weather. I didn’t consider changing. Nor did I try and wrassle my dogs into harnesses or dread going because well running really isn’t all that fun. I just got up, and hit go. It was on this run that those thought bubbles started floating back in. I immediately thought about how I didn’t have paper or my phone to jot down ideas in, because we humans must always rely on technology instead of the human brain that thought up computers in the first place. Here I am now, releasing the thoughts during my run without pen and paper present, with my phone still put away, and only in the company of the furry friends next to me. Amazing, what we can actually do when we set intentions and put our minds to something, isn’t it? Intentional Accomplishment Did you know that if you only run 1.33 miles 3x per week, that equates to 208 miles per year? That’s where I’m currently at in my running journey. I used to hate it, but I’ve begun to love it for 100 other reasons other than actually running. Running isn’t beneficial to me because it’s boring and monotonous. Sure, trimming those love handles is something I’m here for, but not until I ran through the Grand Canyon did I feel a sheer sense of accomplishment and wonder of “holy shit I’m running through the Grand Canyon.” That hit hard. Now I run because it’s instilled a new love in me. Not of running, but of accomplishment. If I’m feeling down, sleepy, lacking ideas, I run. And somehow within those short 1.33 miles or approximately 10-15 minutes, I’m feeling 110% better. Why do we stare at our screens for hours upon hours before coming to the realization that we are in fact human and crave nature to recharge our batteries? Habitual Balance … we’re in this together That’s what this blog post, and Habitual Balance as a whole is all about. The simple realization that we are all humans living this life together. The realization that we need to fuel our bodies correctly with wonderful food and feed our brains with healthy information that we can grow from. Within these posts, you’ll find a hefty supply of nourishment for both your brain and body, by way of healthy and easy to understand meal ideas, recommendations to tried-and-true supplements, understandings of which time management tools work best for you, and new ways of working out that you have never considered before that work even better than your boring old run. So get ready to learn a whole lot about yourself, and how you can improve your situations and your life. You really can make these small steps to open new worlds if only you have the mindset and patience with yourself to do so. During my run, I passed an elderly couple. This couple was doing simple yard work, but I thought about if they may have been runners in their lifetime. Or maybe they still were? After doing the previous math in my head, this got me thinking on a whole other level. Were they married for decades? Were they newlyweds? Were they even married? Would my husband and I be doing the same thing 20, 30, 40 years from now, watching a young woman pass and wonder why she chose to run that day? I also passed 3 young boys that were yelling for their grandma after playing some football in the front yard. Which prompted me to realize that recently in particular, all I’ve been thinking about is my lack of time. I constantly think about how I have less and less time to grow, to think, to create, to envision, to prosper, to just be. And then I thought, I’m not ready to be a grandma. And then another thought…I’m not even a mother yet! I really do, have plenty of time to be just, me. I’m still a little amazed at how 1.33 miles every so often can add up so quickly when you look at the big picture. It’s hard to move forward. It’s hard to forge ahead, but it must be done. Whether you are putting the groceries away, doing endless dishes, working a job you don’t enjoy, you must forge ahead. From our sister site: Maintaining Mental Health is Mentally Exhausting You must keep going Each and every day, every minute counts that you put towards working on your dream. Your dream could be as little as stretching for 5 minutes once a day, or as big as conquering the presidential race of 2040. Working on something that you love even as little as 30 seconds every day can add up more than you imagined it would by the time you’re ready to spread your wings. That’s where forming habits come in Creating a new habit is substantially harder to do than to talk about. And replacing a bad habit with a good one is even harder than that. Sticking to a routine, a schedule, a planner can be daunting to go at it all at once, and chances are you’ll fail in the long run. Habitual Balance has been created to assist you in your journey to a better you. How do you get there? By creating habits that are sustainable, obtainable, and healthy. These habits can be newly formed or put in place to repurpose time slots of unhealthy habits