Kindle Fire HD Giveaway.. Coming Soon!

If you're looking to grow your blog or social media following, we have a great and FREE opportunity for you!  I love free! Don't you?

Isabelle from Le Chateau des Fleurs recently released a new Android app called Smartphone DNA, and to promote it she is giving away a Kindle Fire HD-which she is sponsoring entirely.  The giveaway will be hosted by My So-Called Chaos, but what we need are other bloggers to share the giveaway on their blogs in order to spread the word! In return, you'll get two of your links in the Rafflecopter to get extra promotion for you in return for posting.  This is entirely free, there is NO buy in, we just need two posts from you.

1. Post this announcement on your blog (code will be given after you request to join) to ensure your readers/followers have the opportunity to be a part of this giveaway too! 
2. Post the actual giveaway (full Rafflecopter and all! People will be able to enter directly from your blog!) 

If you are interested in participating in this FREE promotional opportunity, please email Miss Angie and once accepted into the giveaway you will be given all the information you need for your posts.

Giveaway is set to run from 4/10/13 to 4/30/13.

All requests to join required by 4/5/13!

Days 2 and 3: Detox Diet

So I didn't post Day 2 before it was over. But here I am, on Day 3, with 2 hours to spare! (Not if you are on the East Coast, sorry!)

Day 2, March 19th, 2013:

Breakfast: 
Figure 8 Chocolate Protein Shake with Fiber Booster
Lunch:
Awesome beans made by Shawn! I couldn't finish them.

Dinner: 
I totally cheated on dinner. I was desperate. I was working until 9:30 away from home. So about 7 pm, I walked next door the R&N. I looked at the produce. Nothing sounded good. I was ravenous. I considered buying a rotisserie chicken, and decided that was a bit excessive. Instead I bought a pork rib from the deli.  It was awesome. I felt really guilty, because we aren't supposed to eat pork on this diet, but I think I made a better choice than if I went straight for the salty, sugary stuff. Really, I was just craving meat.  I don't think that has ever happened before. Probably means I don't have enough iron or something. I will have to up my intake.
I regret the rib in that I wanted to wait until my cheat day/meal to cheat, but it tasted so good. And hey, I'm only human.

Day 3: March 20, 2013

Breakfast:
Figure 8 Protein Shake with 1 scoop of vanilla, 1 scoop of chocolate, 2 handfuls of spinach, and 1 tablespoon of almond butter . I was reading the diet packet the night before and saw that they had shake recipes! And all I have been doing is adding water! I feel cheated. It's my own fault, really. They had a note to add spinach because you can't even taste it. And it was true! I mixed this up in my blender. It didn't totally get rid of the spinach, but you couldn't even taste it. I definitely felt fuller than I did with the regular shakes. I felt full most of the day. I took lunch to work but I didn't eat it. I mostly snacked on my chews and 2 rice cakes with almond butter.

Dinner:
I made an easy recipe for Lemon Herb Chicken with some organic chicken I got this morning. It was really good. I was going to add garlic to the oil before I cooked the chicken, but I was hungry. So I forgot. I am proud of myself for successfully cooking chicken on the stove! I can cook a whole turkey, but give me chicken and I get stressed. And I made a steamer bag of broccoli. I also heated up my leftover beans, but I didn't have room to even tough them.

Posting these makes me feel more accountable. It didn't help when I bought the rib, but hungry Jessica is a force to be reckoned with. Logic fails her. But I am going to try and do this every day and be accountable. Even if no one reads this.  25 days to go!

Day One of the Detox Diet

So here I am, halfway through Day 2 of the Detox Diet and barely writing about day one. But I am going to try and write about today before the day is over!
For breakfast I had:
Figure 8 Vanilla Protien Shake with Fiber Brown Rice cake with Maple Almond Butter (this stuff is amazing! They also have a chocolate hazelnut one that kind of tastes like Nutella, but it is almost too chocolate-y to me. Strange)

On the way back from school, Dakota had me get him Taco Bell. And it sounded really good. I told him so. I told him I really wanted a cheesy roll up. I guess I talked about it too much because he had to get one! I was sad, but I am determined to make it through this diet. Taco bell be damned.  
For lunch, I had: The Artichoke Lemon Pesto Chicken Pasta that I made on Sunday. I don't think it was as good reheated as it looked the day I made it. But I made it through. The spaghetti squash was actually pretty good. It has a more citrus-y taste than regular spaghetti, but I liked it.
I ate this right as I got back to work, about 11 am. I waited a few hours before eating the rest of the food I brought. I also had a few of the chews from Arbonne while I was waiting.
I also tried one of the fizzy water things, but I didn't really care for it. I prefer regular water. But I may try the other flavor (citrus) today.
I waited until about 3 pm and ate the roasted vegetables. I liked these better than the pasta, but I still picked around the bell peppers. I'm hoping that my tastes will change while on this diet.
For dinner, I felt hopeless. 
Nothing in the fridge sounded good. I really just wanted a cheeseburger (kinda still do!). And I just wanted to lay in bed and not do anything. My awesome boyfriend was asking me if we had anything I could make for dinner that would be in the diet. And I thought! An omelet. So I had a spinach omelet. It perked up my mood.  
And then we went to the movies to see Oz The Great and Powerful, and I resisted popcorn and candy. So I would call the day a success.

Literary Junkies Link Up 5

Literary Junkies unite! I actually read the the book this month, and Abigail did too. And we both loved it. If you are a literary junkie too, answer the questions and link up!

1. What are you currently reading? Tell us about it.

Jessica:

I just finished reading Gone Girl. That book was a trip. It is about a woman who disappears on her fifth anniversary. Every chapter alternates between her husband, who is dealing with her having disappeared, and her diary entries from the past 7 years. Next on my list is The Paris Wife, after Abigail reads it, or I could go through the hundreds of ebooks I have, haha.

Abigail:

Well currently I'm in between books, but I just finished Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It was a wonderfully descriptive book. It's about the spiritual and physical journey of a young Piscine Molitor Patel, otherwise known as Pi. The book takes you through his childhood and his religious and spiritual discoveries. Then takes you through his journey on a life boat with a Bengal Tiger. It is a great story and I recommend that everyone should read this book. Next up on my list is The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.

2. Recommend a book that has changed your perspective on life.

Jessica:

This is a difficult question, because all books make you rethink things in your life. I think The Five People You Meet in Heaven was a perspective changer for me. It made me realize that you make an impact on everyone you come into contact with in your life, not just the ones you mean to. So from then on, I try to be a nicer person. An honest person. Because you never know who I could be making an impact on.

Abigail:

It might be because it is so fresh in my mind, but Question 1 pretty much answers that. Read Life of Pi!!! You won't regret it.

3. What book do you recommend the most to people?

Jessica:

This is a very hard question. Usually I recommend the book I read most recently when I am asked. But I also recommend A Child Called It quite a bit. I think everyone should read it. And The Silence of the Lambs, because it is one of my favorite books. 

Abigail:

Hmmm. It really depends on what they are looking for. If its a lighthearted comedy they are looking for then Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. A mystery would definitely be Gone Girl or The Monster of Florence. Just an overall good trilogy would be Hunger Games or The Looking Glass Wars. There are too many great books out there to only recommend one.

4. What are the top 3 books on your "to-read" list?

Jessica:

The Paris Wife is our next book club book, so I will be reading that. But also, in looking at my kindle, I still want to read The Dead Zone by Stephen King. I may also read Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal to help me not crave fast food as much!

Abigail:

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain is up first. Then it's a toss up between Pure by Julianna Baggott, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, and The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks.

5. What do you "do" while reading? (i.e. listen to music, eat) Any weird reading habits?

Jessica:

I personally can't really do much else while I'm reading. I shut the door to my bedroom to drown out the noise (my house is constantly full of people), cuddle up on my man's side of the bed (who else does this? or am I weird that I love laying on his side of the bed) and submerge myself into a great book. I think that is why it is hard for me every time I finish a book, because its like, "What do I do with my life now?" because I submerge myself very completely. Also, if I let my cat in the room, he will attack the pages of a real book. So I have to be careful about that.

Abigail:

I like it to be quiet while I'm reading. As I mentioned in a previous link up, I love to drive my truck somewhere quiet and sit and read for hours. However, when I get really into a book, I will read any chance I get. Even just on my 10 min breaks at work or on commercials during my shows. That is the sign that I'm reading a really intriguing book.

Detox Diet: The Preperations

So today is the first day of my 28 day detox diet.

I am going to try and keep track of what I eat and post it here, so that if you are interested you can see, but mostly because I want to stay accountable.

So before I get started telling you what I'm eating, I wanted to share the preparations, because I'm pretty proud, I never cooked that far ahead before. (Okay, so it was mostly Shawn, but I did cook! Chicken! First time ever cooking chicken on the stove!) I apologize in advance for my cell phone photography.

It started with a massive trip to the grocery store. Well, three stores. We started at Costco (I mean really, look at that bag of spinach on the left!) for mostly veggies, went to Target where I bought chicken and some other things, and then to WinCo for the few things we couldn't find at the other store, like Artichoke hearts without vinegar, and spahgetti squash. We were gone like 3 hrs. Thank goodness we don't have children. This is just to feed us.

And then I made Artichoke Lemon Pesto Chicken Pasta. It is technically a Paleo recipe, but the Paleo lifestyle and the diet that I am on are very similar. The only differences are that we can eat legumes and they can't, and they can eat vinegar, and we can't. If I can make it through this 28 days, I may try and do Paleo for a while. Anyone have any experience with it?

The pesto. It was beautiful. And smelled wonderful.

And here is the finished product, forgive the crappy picture. That is spaghetti squash rather than real pasta, but it tastes very similar.



Shawn made Lentil Soup. Shawn is a great cook. I have many bowls of this in my fridge for this week.

 Shawn also made Vegan Alfredo with Brown Rice Pasta with asparagus. The alfredo sauce, since we can't have dairy, uses Cashews to make the sauce creamy. Isn't that amazing!?

And here is an awesome snack I found at Costco that fits in our diet. The ingredients? Organic Apples. That's it! I could eat this stuff all day long. And the Maple Almond Butter. Noms. Almost better than Peanut Butter. *Almost!*

I wish I had gotten more pictures. Especially of all the filled dishes of food to get me through this week. I ended up with a huge batch of lentils that I will separate (we ran out of containers), 2 bowls of my pasta, like 2 of Shawn's pasta, and 2 cans of beans (not pictured) , and at least 3 things of roasted veggies (not pictured). So I hope this will get me through the week. Those will be mostly lunches and dinners. For breakfast, today I had a protein shake and a brown rice cake with Maple Almond Butter.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays when I have more time, I am planning on making myself omelets  I love omelets  And I have a bunch of spinach and mushrooms to put in them!
Have you ever tried a diet so restrictive? How do you meal plan? This is something I had issues with, for sure, when we went shopping.

28 Day Whole Foods / Detox Diet

I decided to tell you all about a diet I am doing starting Monday. I figure if I try and come here every day to  tell you how I am doing, I am less likely to cheat on my diet.
I'm doing a diet by Arbonne, but I'm going to do it without most of the products. I might be using the shake but I am not sure yet how that will work for me.
The basics of the diet:
No wheat gluten No dairy No wheat No processed foods - including mint and gum No sugar No foods that promote yeast - bread, crackers, alcohol, etc. No alcohol No caffiene No soy No veal and pork
I'm really nervous. I haven't done well with being restricted in the past. But my best friend Abigail is doing the diet for the 2nd month. I figure with both of us doing it it will be easier.
And now that you all know, maybe I will have an easier time doing it.
And because every post should have a picture, here is a sort of before picture of me at the range this past weekend. I am actually quite a good shot! I hope I can improve this image in the next 4 weeks. I want my body to reflect my soul. And I want to be sexy.
I'm really scared to publish this picture on the internet, so be nice :)

Balance

  I am struggling to find balance in my life. I feel like the things I care most about are suffering.I hate that my blog goes so long without a post. I hate that I haven't been creating in the way that I want to. I hate that I concentrate so hard at work daily that I come home and don't even want to look at a computer screen. But there are people who have so much more responsibility than I do and are able to handle the kind of balance that lets them be a mother, a blogger, work in some capacity, and still have enough brain power to cook? So obviously, I am missing something.   I have been reading a lot about Balance. Life Balance, actually. It all started when I was talking to Abigail on the phone while I was making pancakes. I was telling her how I wanted so bad to blog more, but I just could never find the time. She told me I just needed balance.   And that struck a chord with me. She probably didn't think much about it at the time, but it really stuck with me. My life is off balance. And has been for a while. And only now am I feeling the effects. I constantly feel like something is missing in my life, and I'm thinking that this is what I needed. To find balance in my life.  

   So how can I do it? That's kinda why I'm pouring out my heart in this way. How do you find balance?