Bi-monthly Book Bash

"So many books, so little time" said Frank Zappa and I couldn't agree more.  Even though I haven't read a ton over the past two months, I've read some really good ones.  I'm blessed with a snow day today so I plan on finishing up a great book, finishing up my kitchen project and playing with my kids outside!

Graham, Festis, Greta and Gustaf enjoying the snow!

RECENT READS

• The Four Agreements - 2 thumbs up
• Four basic principals that if you follow can enhance the quality of your life - love this book!  I love this book so much that I will be dedicating a blog post about it sometime in February.  In fact this book is so powerful for me that I incorporated into my 7 resolutions for 2013.
• Mudbound, Hilary Jordan - 2 thumbs up
• The story of 2 families struggling on a Mississippi farm in 1946  - easy read and excellent!
• A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle - 2 thumbs up
• I've read this book 3 times and every time I learn something new.  This book helps you succeed in living in the moment without the misery of the ego messing up your day (life).
• A Christmas Jar, Jason F. Wright - 1 thumb up
• A feel-good story about a jar used for coins given away anonymously the week before Christmas. 
• When She Woke, Hilary Jordan - 2 thumbs up
• A very creative take on the world when religion and state lines are blurred.  I haven't finished this book but I can tell you that it is AMAZING.
• Apple Cider Vinegar, Miracle Health Systems, Braggs - 1 thumbs up
• Interesting read about the benefits of ACV on your entire well-being.

As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I prefer to read one fiction and then one non-fiction book.   If you would like one recommendation from this list I would recommend MUDBOUND first and then WHEN SHE WOKE - same author but completely different subjects and styles of writing.

For more book reviews, I like to check out recommendations from one of my favorite bloggers from Girl Evolving -she does some serious reading:  Girl Evolving Books.

Reading on my snow day with Chewy the cat

FUTURE BOOKS

Next on my list to read is the Twelve Tribes of Hattie recommended by both Oprah and my mom (my mom is a fierce book critic and LOVED it).

Here's a list of our next few books for book club:

• Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
• A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
• The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

What are you reading?  I'm so grateful for a snow day today so I hope to finish up When She Woke and figure out how to borrow 12 Tribes of Hattie from my mom's e-reader onto mine.  Do you like to read real books or books on an e-reader?  At this point I like a mixture of both but I've been mostly getting my books from the library.

Kristin

Project Organization - 2013

My 2013 Resolutions includes organizing our house room by room so by the end of the year I will have cleaned and organized every room, cupboard and closet.   My goal is to not only to tackle every single space in the room, but also to evaluate the paint job, fix anything that is broken, find a place for everything and my plan has kept me focused and not so overwhelmed. 

PROJECT ORGANIZATION TIMELINE:

January:  KITCHEN
February:  BATHROOM 1 and HALL CLOSET
March:  LIVING ROOM and ENTRY WAY CLOSET
April:   GRAHAM's ROOM
May:  GUS' ROOM and GUS' OFFICE
June:  GRETA's ROOM and SCREENED IN PORCH
July:  EXTRA BASEMENT BEDROOM
August:  LAUNDRY ROOM
September:  BATHROOM 2 and BASEMENT LIVING ROOM
October:  MASTER BEDROOM and BATHROOM 3
November:  HALL CLOSET IN BASEMENT
December:  For me this is the month to survive :) Lol.

JANUARY'S PROJECT:

I've been busy cleaning every single cupboard in the kitchen and I've been able to purge a ton of stuff.  In order to make the project manageable, I divided the kitchen into fours and tackled one section each weekend.  We have a few issues yet (stove has a glitch and we need a new dishwasher) and they may not be resolved until February but it's in the works.   In an attempt to eliminate plastic from our house, I've also ditched most of our Tupperware for glass quart jars which work just as well for storing almost everything.

The organized lazy susan - A before picture would've been embarrassing

UPDATE ON RESOLUTIONS

In addition to implementing the plan to organize the house,  I've successfully implemented my daily gratitude journal and our Family Meal Planning has been so extremely helpful - wow.  I forgot how much stress, money and time it saves to plan ahead!!!  Of course, I'm working on my ski goal which has been more difficult because we had a period where we lost snow and then when we got it back we had frigid temps.

OUR WEEKEND:

Our weekend consisted of skiing, skating, swimming, out to eat (Famous Dave's), skiing again and the movie Lincoln (fantastic) - in that order. 

My 2 favorite 2nd Graders LOVE Famous Dave's Corn Muffins

How was your weekend?  And how are you tackling your goals for 2013?

Thanks for reading,

Kristin

Remembering Your Cloth Bags

One simple way to eliminate plastic from our landfills is to carry your own cloth bag.  Because I've been seriously contemplating my impact on Global Warming, I felt the need to share my tips on remembering the bags when you go to the store (the hardest part, right?).

HOW TO REMEMBER YOUR BAGS?

• hang them on your door
• immediately bring your bags to the car after you unload your groceries
• stockpile bags so you have plenty in the trunk of each vehicle
• put your cloth bags by your purse
• fold up your bags and put them in your purse
• if you forget them as you are checking out, force yourself to stop what you are doing and run out to the car.  I forced myself to do this about 5 times before I finally remembered to bring them in the store
• write "CLOTH BAGS" on the top of your grocery list
• If you forget as you are checking out, buy another bag.  Bags are usually .50 to $1.00 and I force myself to buy one even if I have 50 at home because I know I can pass them on.

My bags hanging on the front door - ready for the car

WHERE TO GET CLOTH BAGS

Of course cloth bags everywhere, but if you need a few more, Thrift Shoppes now have them in abundance for pretty dang cheap.

How do you remember your cloth bags? 

Thanks for reading,

Kristin

Reducing Our Carbon Footprint

The recent warm weather, rain, and loss of snow has forced me to contemplate my negative impact on the environment.  Recognizing that 2012 was the warmest year on record and noticing the reduction in precipitation over the past few years makes me believe that we all need to take small steps to slow down global warming. 

While I feel overwhelmed thinking about the huge negative impact we are all making on our environment, I also know that I can be the change I want to see in the world and hope that others will also consider taking personal responsibility. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Here's some of the things we are trying to do in our family to reduce our omissions and I'm hoping you have some other ideas to share or will consider making a small change. 

FOOD & DIET:

• Buy your eggs, meal and milk from your local farmer
• Grow your own food, join a CSA or visit your local food markets
• Preserve as much food as you can via canning, freezing or drying
• Eliminate some meat.  Consider meatless Mondays
• Buy organic food when you can
• Instead of storing food in plastic Tupperware, consider glass Pyrex storage containers or use canning glass jars.  You can find glass jars by the hundreds at thrift shops for cheap.

Eggs from my neighbors Brad and Barb Harvey in my Grandma's bowl

RECYCLE:

• Recycle everything you can locally (plastic, paper products, glass, etc.)
• Compost your green materials - read my compost blog here:  compost happens. 
• Use a cloth bag at the grocery store - because I feel so strongly about this I will blog about this entirely in a blog later this week
• Visit thrift stores - seriously, you will be THRILLED at what you can find and it's a great way to recycle

Here I am at our compost pile in late Fall

HOME ENERGY:

• Use an energy efficient heating system.  We use an energy efficient wood stove which does not contribute as much to the air pollution (albeit we contribute some).
• Use an energy efficient air conditioner and do not keep it below 72.  We do not have air conditioner and we like it that way except for about 2 days per year.
• Consider energy star appliances.  As our appliances have bit the dust we've replaced them all with energy start appliances - they do not seem to be any more expensive either.
• Replace light bulbs with the energy efficient light bulbs - as our light bulbs have burnt out we've transitioned over, but I do not use them in the kids room because if they break mercury is released and that is the most frequent place for us to break light bulbs.
• Unplug all your appliances when not in use
• Hang your clothes out to dry on your clothesline - below you will see Gus hanging up clothes

Here's Gustaf helping me hang up clothes this summer

TRAVEL:

• Ride your bike to work when you can.  I live 12 miles from work and I ride my bike in when I can and so can you!
• Check your air filter and tire pressure once a month to make sure you are not wasting fuel
• Consider a vehicle with better gas mileage

MY PERSONAL GOALS:

When I was talking to Chad about what I could do to improve our impact on the environment he gave me some constructive feedback.  He said I'm really bad at turning off lights when I leave the room (guilty) and I almost always keep my computer on (guilty as charged).  So, moving forward I'm going to continue to recycle, compost, eat organic AND turn off the lights and my computer.

So, tell me I'm not the only freaked out about this weird weather?  What are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?  I've been bummed out about our snow loss all weekend long, and I'm wondering what else I can do?  What do you think?

One last thing, if you missed my green olive blog here you go Green Olive Recipes , and I've since added a new delicious olive pasta recipe since yesterday too.

Thank for reading,

Kristin

Family Meal Planning

MEAL PLANNING

Part of my 2013 New Years Resolutions included becoming more organized which means family meal planning again.   Last year, we were successful with planning meals all year but once I started cooking with only seasonally available ingredients we stopped planning.  So, this week we started up again and I forgot about how it simplifies my life.  Instead of grocery shopping every other day I can stop at the story every fourth day.  I don't know about you, but the more I stop at the store the more likely I am to purchase random crap.

Every person in the family is required to pick a meal for one day of the week.  "I don't know" is not an acceptable pick and if someone is having difficulty deciding on a meal we look through cookbooks for inspiration.

Since I've been getting home late one day a week because of my yoga class, I'm considering that day my crockpot challenge.  So far I've made pork chops and beef stroganoff  in the slow cooker which were both very well-received by the family.  I'm hoping to find some easy slow cooker recipes and I will continue with that at least until the end of the school year.

THIS WEEK'S PLAN

Sunday:  Chad's stuffed manicotti

Monday:  Gus' French toast and sausage

Tuesday:  Mom's spaghetti

Wednesday:  Greta's Olive Soup

Thursday:  Graham's Tacos

Friday:  Mom's Crockpot Challenge (tbd)

Saturday:  FFY (fend for yourself)

We've been color coding the meals on a dry erase board on our fridge (thanks Erinn Letts for the tip) and it's working out great! 

Greta displaying the PLAN for the week

THE FAVORITE RECIPE OF THE WEEK

This manicotti recipe is very popular with everyone and I stuff mine with the same ingredients only tofu instead of the meat and it's delicious!

Manicotti Stuffed Shells
Adapted from Rachel Ray


1 box frozen chopped spinach
1 box jumbo pasta shells (you will have leftover shells but my kids also like plain pasta)
1 1/2 lb lean ground beef
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed and halved
1 onion, finely chopped
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup Italian style bread crumbs
olive oil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese or mozza
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 15oz can tomato sauce
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425 and defrost Frozen spinach in microwave or in colander with hot running water. Wring dry in paper towel. Set aside.

Boil water for shells and cook according to package directions (6-7 minutes). Drizzle with olive oil. Set aside.

Brown meat with chopped garlic and onions. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and cook 5 minutes more.

Mix meat and spinach in a bowl. Add bread crumbs, egg and half the cheese.

Fill the shells with the meat mixture and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 11-12 minutes.

While the shells bake, heat halved garlic in one tbsp olive oil in small pot over low heat. Cook for 3-4 minutes, then remove garlic. Add red pepper flakes and cook one minute more. Stir in tomato sauce and let simmer until shells are done. Pour desired amount of sauce on top and serve.

I had the perfect weekend:  a massage, ice skating, a great ski with a friend, a Packer win, ice fishing, a good book by the fire, and a nap (in that order).  What did you do this weekend?

Do you do menu planning?

Thanks for reading,

Kristin

P.S. - In case you missed it, here's my video blog of the emotional freedom technique.  Something that has helped me live with less anxiety and stress:  tapping to release anxiety and stress.

Tapping Away Your Troubles (EFT)

A few years ago Susan Bauer taught me how to use the Emotional Freedom Technique (aka tapping) to erase my anxieties, stresses and fears and I can honestly say it changed my life.  She taught me how to tap one morning at Ski and Tea and within a week I had tapped away all of the issues that had been weighing me down from my childhood all the way on up to my current problems.   EFT helped me reach a state of self-acceptance and to let go of baggage that had been weighing me down. 


STEP ONE:

Identify the problem and focus on one issue at a time.  If you are trying to focus on problem A and problem B pops into your head then you probably need to focus on problem B first.

STEP TWO:

Take your right hand (or vice versa) and tap the meaty part of your left hand by your pinkie repeatedly as you state your problem, followed by "I accept myself fully, and completely with love and compassion" or any affirmation that makes you feel good.

Here's a video of me showing step one and step two of the tapping process:

 

 

STEP THREE

Next you will want to tap on pressure points while focusing on the issue.  You may need to tap on those pressure points up to 3 times until you feel the issue release from your body (it's a strange sensation). 

Within a few minutes of tapping you should be able to successfully eliminate any issue.  I'd be happy to show anyone in person how to do this, but the real expert in this area is Susan Bauer, certified EFT trainer.   Message me if you'd like more details on how to contact Susan or I'd be happy to show you.

Here's a summary of the acupuncture points of the body:

Emotional Freedom Technique

When my kids see me tap on my hand they immediately say, "mom, what's wrong?" because they know it's my coping technique and I hope to teach them the technique some day. 

Thanks to Graham for video taping me without laughing or judgement (hey, he is 14 after all) and to Susan Bauer for teaching me this technique and re-affirming this practice again this morning.

What do you think?

Kristin

Training for 50 Kilometers in 50 Days

MY BASIC WEEKLY PLAN

Let me start by saying that I am a citizen, casual skier with a goal of simply finishing the 50 kilometer ski challenge the American Birkebeiner..  I really have no expertise - this is just my personal plan for trying to finish the biggest challenge of my life.

My winter workout plan originally included SPIN class, strength class and skiing, but some changes at my local fitness center has lead me to plan B.  So, I'm following the basic plan below while adding in long slow distance each week.   Below you will find my training schedule for the week:

Monday:          Rest day
Tuesday:         1 hour ski after work around the lit loops
Wednesday:    1 1/2 half yoga class with sauna afterwards (score!)
Thursday:        Snowshoe practice (volunteering for Special Olympics) - aka rest
Friday:             Ski at Ski and Tea for 1 1/2 hour with technique work
Saturday:         Long Slow Distance Ski  **This distance will change each week, see below
Sunday:           Easy ski with the kids

So, I'll continue with this schedule with the distances varying for my long slow distance.  For me, the most important piece of this is gutting out the distance.

MY 50 DAY PLAN

My plan is to follow the schedule above only with varying distances listed below:

1/5 Ski from Bodecker to Mosquito Brook with Colleen - 15 kilometers
1/11 Ski from North End to Gravel Pit with Kristin Frietag - 25 kilometers
1/19 Ski the Birkie Tour from Hatchery to Telemark with my brother - 35 kilometers
1/26 Ski from Bodecker to Hatchery - 27 kilometers
2/1 Ski from North End to Mosquito Brook - 40 kilometers
2/8 Ski from North End to Hatchery - 45 kilometers

50K in 50 Days - map from Birkie Website

Will this schedule be difficult?  Not a doubt.  But is it possible?  Absolutely.

Out for a ski

Do you have a goal for 2013?

In case you missed it, here's my New Year's Resolutions:  Goals for 2013 - don't worry it's short.  Happy New Year!!!

Kristin

P.S. - if you are smart you would probably start training at the 90 day mark, not at the 50 mark but that's life, right?

P.S.S.  Here's my ski technique tips starting from head to toe:

Head:  Neutral position or looking up a hill
Shoulders:  rounded in (your core should look like the letter C) and relaxed.  Do not extend your arms too high or too far out or you will lose power and possibly hurt your shoulders
Arms:  Dominant arm should look like you are answering the phone, back arm right behind
Do not jam poles into the ground - ouch - this will hurt your shoulders
Pelvis:  Tilted up and in - again think C shape.  You should look like you are ready to hump not    dump.
Hips:  Keep level but use the hip flexors to get you up the hill.  Just like you are screwing the hill.
Butt:  Tucked in towards your belly button like you are humping not dumping.  This is key.
Knees:  Keep bent
Ankles:  Bend at the ankles to keep your whole body low to the ground
Feet:  Keep your feet level and fully add weight to each ski as you move back and forth.  As you move from foot to foot push down you are squashing a bug for power.

Going up the hill use V1, V2, V alternate, herring bone, and single stick or a combination of all (which I frequently use).

New Years Resolutions

Happy New Year!!

I believe it's important to make goals.  For me, it's important to keep my goals simple and realistic.
In addition to my personal goals, I make work goals on my first day back in January to help guide me through the year.

Below you will find my 7 personal goals:

1.  Drink more water (8 glasses) and less coffee (from 4 cups to 2 cups) and drink a kombucha or raw apple cider vinegar every single day.

2.  Eat less sweets (once per week) - I'm seriously addicted to sugar at the moment

3.  Complete one ski race (Birkie), one bike race (tbd) and one running race (tbd).

4.  Read the Four Agreements again and incorporate them into my daily life.

5.  Resume the daily gratitude journal (seriously, I have so much to be grateful for and I need to write it down daily).

6.  Start some financial planning.  Chad and I still have student loan debt and I do not want my kids with the same burden so we need to start planning. 

7.  Organize every room in the house over the next year.  And, implement our meal planning again. 


Do you have a New Year's Resolution? 

Thanks for reading,

Kristin