Fun and Mental Changes

***CLICK HERE TO ENTER MY FAVORITE THINGS BIRTHDAY GIVE AWAY!!!***   Ok.... so here is part two.  I actually did a quick car tour video for you guys so you can see how INCREDIBLY organized my car is now.  As I said yesterday... the "before" is just too gross, but the after is SO GREAT (click HERE to check out yesterday's post and my super organized glove box)!!!!  I actually feel like I can breathe in my car.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! After I watched that viral Florida road rage video yesterday, I had to wonder how messy that dude's truck was.  Is the timing of this incident MERELY a coincidence.... I mean, a messy car leads to stress and stress leads to road rage.  I'm just sayin, maybe there is more than meets the eye to this inexplicable spring clean of my car.  For those of you who haven't seen the video (because you are living under a rock.... but I'm not judging), here ya go.  It's titled Instant ...

***CLICK HERE TO ENTER MY FAVORITE THINGS BIRTHDAY GIVE AWAY!!!***   I have no idea WHAT has gotten into me as of late, but I have had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to get stuff in order.  My house... well, that is still a work in progress.  My car.... THAT is finished I'm proud to say.  It took me a couple of days, but I'm all done.  And I'll "show you around" my car over the next post.  The reason I'm splitting this into parts is because I don't want to make this too long and tackling a big project like this is always made easier by breaking it up into smaller bits.  That is how I took on this project, and that is how I'll present it to you.  I'll start from the front and work my way to the back. Spring cleaning is not really describing this project accurately.  While I did give my car a good scrub inside and out, the most important piece to this project really was the organization.  The inside being a mess of "stuf...

***CLICK THE LINK AT THE BOTTOM TO ENTER MY FAVORITE THINGS BIRTHDAY GIVE AWAY!!!***   I've looked EVERYWHERE for table settings that would match my tea set...the tea set that I got for my birthday some years back (see below), the tea set that not only inspired my love of tea but inspired the colors/decor of my entire home.  You really wouldn't expect that black and gold would be such a rare color combination, but apparently it is since I only JUST NOW found THE PERFECT 4-place setting...and of all places,  TARGET!  So these gorgeous place settings cost me all of about $40!  And that could have been lower if I would have gotten the stemware at the dollar store (seriously kicking myself for forgetting to check for the glass there first).  But regardless, 4 place settings for under $50 is a steal! And you really can't see how beautiful that tea set is from this pic.... so at the end, I'll post the original pic that Teavana originally had in thei...

It is not unusual for the Phoenix weather to be heating up right about now but the weather is actually downright gorgeous, so enjoying a healthful and delicious green juice on my back patio, soakin up some vitamin D this morning, is JUST what the doctor ordered so soon after my cleanse!  And WOW was it delicious with the sweet apples and kiwi... here's where I got the recipe:   Tattooed Martha . The smell of this wonderful juice mixed with the smell of the fruit tree blossoms and sunshine made for a WAY MORE RELAXED me before entering morning traffic to head to work.  Dare I say that if I'm not careful, I could make a habit of this and my morning road rage might disappear altogether!!!  NAH....this is Arizona!  It will be blistering hot by next month.  Road rage is still on! ***DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE BIG "FAVORITE THINGS" BIRTHDAY GIVE AWAY!!!  CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

Yesterday I got an early birthday present..... YAY!!!  You all know I ALWAYS do.  This gift I begged for after filling in for a girl at work who stashes hand weights under her desk.  Who wants to lug around hand weights???  The challenge for me has ALWAYS been, "What to do when I'm not at home?"  And, at the new house, my beloved Curves is nowhere to be found.  Coincidentally, that is where I first read about resistance band training... the Curves book. The workout in the book utilizes resistance bands to get the 1/2 hour Curves workout at home (BTW I'm totally needing right now), which I never did because I had my Curves close by.  But then we moved and my husband had surgery and has been using resistance bands three times a week at his physical therapy appointments and swears by the workout he gets with them.  SOLD!  I HAD to have these for my birthday! WOW.... no kidding these babies are INCREDIBLE an...

Welp today's the day.... Day 15 ended with broth from this YUMMY vegetable soup.  Tomorrow morning will be orange juice for breakfast and soup for lunch.  Is that weird that I'm BEYOND excited for this soup???  Typically I end my fasts abruptly giving in to some ravenous craving totally skipping the vegetable soup that is meant to ease you back into eating after going so long without food.  This time the vegetable soup is what I am craving.  Well, that is certainly convenient and MUCH better than the HUGE bowl of guacamole I consumed at the end of my last Master Cleanse.  WOW... THAT craving was something else!  I literally ate 5 bowls (entire bowls) of guacamole that week.  And I'm all set for the breakfast casserole I will be making for Wednesday's breakfast.  Now the fun begins..... PORTION control. The beauty of this fast is that my stomach has shrunk.  Portion control when you first get off a fasting cleanse is always supe...

I'M ON DAY 12 OF THE MASTER CLEANSE!!!!! For anyone who has ever done a fasting cleanse, you know that it is a big deal to get to day 10.  Anytime I can make it to the 10 day marker is a HUGE triumph for me (if you really knew me, you'd know that getting to day 3 is like a small miracle and I've only made it to day 10 a few times in the years that I've been cleansing), but this time around I discovered a little trick that seems to be making this whole process SOOOOO much easier.... and it was given to me by non other than Matthew McConaughey!  That's right, the actor... Alright, so he didn't DIRECTLY give me this trick, but I came about it after watching The Dallas Buyer's Club.  I googled (that's a real word now right?) interviews with him discussing his weight loss and I picked up on a little something he said about his transformation:  he said that he spent a lot of time reading and writing.  In other words, he occupied his mind!  BRILLIANT!!...

GLUTEN FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE to celebrate the inspiration to do it again.  To cleanse and clean my body, mind and spirit with another Master Cleanse.  If anyone's kept count, I DID NOT complete my February cleanse and also missed my cleanse back in August.  But it is time.... better late than never.  So tomorrow I get to spend the day with an amazing person who inspires me.  She's been through "stuff" and has come out the other side BETTER for it.  So to thank her for that inspiration and to kick off my MARCH MASTER CLEANSE (that sort of has a ring to it), I baked her a cake made from raw cacao powder, coconut flour, coconut oil, coconut nectar, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coffee and eggs.  The frosting is cream cheese, maple syrup, vanilla extract, cacao powder and coconut nectar.  This is an all-natural chocolate cake and completely gluten free.  Click HERE for the full recipe.  I'm gonna be eating lig...