Around the house

Aaron is currently on his Christmas break from school. While he’s been off he’s been doing lots of projects around the house and some in the garage.

Here are two fun things he’s put up for me around the house:

A wine rack! The rack provides more space in our cupboard with the regular glasses. Special thanks to my mom who bought us these glasses thru the years for Christmas.

The next project was shelves above my dresser. I have a little bit of a clutter problem on my dresser, as you can see from the picture, but I’m hoping this helps. I still need to put all my stuff on the shelf.

Also, a few weeks back Aaron put a shelf up in our kitchen nook. The empty beer bottles everywhere (that Aaron saves for when he brews beer) were driving me crazy. The shelf was a great solution.

Three years and counting

Today Aaron and I celebrate our three year wedding anniversary.

Some days it feels like we’ve been married longer, sometimes shorter. It’s been a really fun three years though.

I love our vows. We wrote them together and both recited them instead of each of us writing our own. I recently made some wall art with them and hung it in our bedroom.

Here are our marriage vows and they still hold true today:

Claire/Aaron, I promise to be faithful, supportive, and loyal and to give you my companionship and love throughout all the changes of our life. I vow to bring you happiess, and I will treasure you as a gift from God. I will celebrate the joys of life with you. I promise to support your dreams, and walk beside you offering courage and strength through all endeavors. From this day forward, I will be proud to be your husband/wife and your best friend.

I love you Aaron.

Happy anniversary.

New Toys

This week we got some new toys in the Wolf household.

They are actually early Christmas presents – Aaron got an iPod touch and we also got an iPad, which I’m using right now to post this. I’m hoping that this iPad will help me keep up with the blog better.

I guess we will see how I do in 2012!

Things I am excited about

Like everyone is saying … “I can’t believe it is November already!”

Me too – it is a little overwhelming thinking about it. I usually have half of my Christmas shopping done by now, but not a single gift has been bought yet this year! I have lots of ideas of what I’m going to get people,  but there has been no action to my thoughts.

What is most overwhelming is all the activities I have planned this month. I’m excited that my work schedule works out to where I have at least one weekday off each week, sometimes even two!

I’m excited that I get to see my most favorite all-time band ever this Friday, THRICE! Aaron and I bought our tickets in August when they first when on sale … we’ve been waiting a long time to see them play again and I’m excited to hear them play their new album Major/Minor.

I’m excited that my friend Valoria is going to have her baby this month (remember I did her maternity shots) and she still doesn’t even know if she’s having a girl or a boy! She’s crazy!!

I’m excited that this month is Thanksgiving. I’m excited to see family, but I really want to do is rest. My work is non-stop lately.

But what is so exciting that it doesn’t even seem REAL … is that I get to see Lindsay this month!!

 She left for the Peace Corps in May 2010 and I have not seen her since. She’ll be in San Diego for half of November so I’m excited about all the fun stuff she has planned … because she is a planner and I’m a planner and we love planning things together 🙂

November, please slow down so I can enjoy you!!

Saw this today and thought it was really cute. Found here.

Halloween Decor

I really like Halloween – the primary reason being that I get to showcase all my skull decor and I don’t look weird doing it.

I only have a few more days to display it all in my home, but I thought I’d share it on the blog as well!

Wolf Detox: Day 5

Day 5 … thought I would never get here!

So last night Aaron and I decided that Friday would be the last day of the detox. We’re so glad we did this, but with the weekend and me traveling – it was a little ambitious to go 8 days without meat/grains. Five days was my original goal anyways, so I’m not let down.

With our decision last night to add eggs back into the diet (not eating whole eggs, but baking with them) we made Silver Dollar Pancakes using almond flour for breakfast. We actually don’t have almond flour, but almond meal – which is a little more grainy than flour. I liked them and am willing to eat them again.

Every other Friday I have the day off so this Friday was my day off. We cleaned in the morning and then I did a little shopping while Aaron finished homework. I usually like to get a little treat (Starbucks, muffin, etc) when I’m out and about on my Fridays off, but I didn’t this time and I was just fine. I also didn’t have a headache at all today. Maybe it is my work giving me a headache?

I think another reason why we’re anxious to end this detox is that we both want to work out. Aaron worked out today and he said he felt really lethargic the whole way through. I know he’s really missing eating all the meat right now. I plan to workout Saturday morning so we’ll see how that goes.

Another benefit of having the day off means that there is more time to cook! We made pizza last night using the almond meal. We used all the regular toppings except for cheese and pepperoni. I generally eat ONLY pepperoni on my pizza for I was forced to eat bell peppers as my topping. It was good, just not what I prefer. I am a meat lovers pizza kind of girl! I also really liked the crust, but Aaron thought it was to sweet.

What I ate today:

Breakfast: Silver dollar pancakes. Coffee. Smoothie made from banana, strawberries, mango, protein powder, and coconut milk.

Snack: Banana.

Lunch: Mango “Naked” drink.

Snack: Green grapes.

Dinner: Pizza with almond flour crust, topped with Trader Joe’s pizza sauce, bell peppers, olives, onions and jalapenos (the last three were Aaron’s toppings).

Wolf Detox: Day 4

Day 4! Boy what a day! 

I’ve been waking up really tired lately, despite getting 8 hours of sleep each night. Aaron said he was a little tired yesterday too.

Today I didn’t feel too hungry throughout the day (I was eating small things every hour or two), but my mind was just on food ALL DAY. All the food that I can’t have. I was mostly thinking that I’d really like some bread.

I spent my lunch break trying to research ways to bake with almond flour. I’ve found some really great vegan and gluten-free websites that have been really helpful. Thing is, a lot of these recipes call for eggs and that’s one of the things we’re not eating right now. We’re not eating eggs because we think they’re unhealthy, we’re just trying to stick to the fruits and veggies right now – so they’re out.

I also should mention that this afternoon is the third day in a row I’ve had this mild headache that lasts about 5 hours. It has to be from something I’ve cut out because I know I’m drinking plenty of water and I’m still drinking my usual one cup of morning coffee (no cream). Occasionally when I don’t have coffee I do get a headache.

So I decided that when I got home I would ask Aaron what he thought about adding eggs back into the diet with dinner. I really wanted to make these paleo muffins and I needed two eggs to do it. I also thought this would help my headache go away?

The paleo muffins turned out great, but maybe they tasted so good because I haven’t had any bread since Sunday. Tomorrow I am going to try to make paleo pancakes for breakfast – should be fun (thanks to the eggs!).

What I ate today:

Breakfast: Coffee. Smoothie made from blueberries, raspberries, coconut milk, flax-seed, chia seed, nectarine, banana, protein powder (and Aaron says with lots of love because he made it).

Snack: Banana.

Lunch: Salad with green lettuce, carrots, olives, bell peppers, and olive oil and vinegar.

Snack: One cup of “mean green” Naked juice.

Dinner: Paleo muffins made with almond flour. Chili cooked in a crock pot with black beans, kidney beans, mushrooms, green chilies, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and olives.

I also stopped by the store and bought some vitamin B-12 because I read somewhere the vegetarians need more of this since you usually get it from dairy and meat. I’m also thinking this my help the headaches, but we’ll see.

Oh, and I’m toying with the idea of ending this early. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I’m not sure if it will be easier or tougher tomorrow since I don’t have to go to work, but we’ll see. I won’t just binge on Saturday, but I am thinking of eating a small piece of meat on that day. I will keep you updated!

Wolf Detox: Day 3

Today was easier than yesterday, but I wouldn’t call it easy. I think we are slowly running out of ideas for how to cook all these fruits and vegetables. I have cookbooks, but some of the recipes seem so intimidating that I don’t want to try them. Friday is my day off though, so I’m going to focus on cooking then.

Tonight also we had a meeting at our church where dinner was provided. It was Hawaiian food and the chicken and beef smelled amazing! Luckily there was salad and fruit provided as well, but it eating Hawaiian food (that is free) always makes a happy stomach for me.

Here’s what I ate today:

Breakfast: Yerba mate. Smoothie made from banana, necterine, blueberries, strawberries, coconut milk, protein powder.

Snack: Banana.

Lunch: Salad with green lettuce, carrots, olives, and green and red bell peppers.

Snack: Apple. Smoothie from Fresh & Easy. A few hours later … a “green machine” smoothie with protein powder.

Dinner: Green lettuce with carrots. Cantelope, watermelon, and pineapple. Eggplant stuffed with sauteed eggplant, garlic, mushrooms, and tomatoes with oregano and olive oil.

We also went to the store tonight and bought some almond flour. I’m going to try to make pizza crust out of this on the weekend. We’ll see how it turns out!

Wolf Detox: Day 2

Today was harder at home compared to being at work.

When I get home in the evenings I usually take a bite of something to eat, then immediately workout. My go to snack is a piece of cheese. I really missed eating that cheese today (and I’m not working out while doing this by the way).

Today I ate:

Breakfast: Smoothie made from banana, strawberries, blueberries, ice, protein powder and coconut milk. Coffee.

Snack: Banana.

Lunch: Salad with green lettuce, cabbage, carrots, snap peas, oil and ginger vinegar.

Snack: One protein smoothie from Fresh and Easy.

Dinner: A cup of ginger tea. Spagetti squash with sauce made from organic tomato puree, organic diced tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, garlic, chili powder, oregeno, and italian seasoning. Steamed brocoli.

I’ve also been trying to up my daily water intake. Today I did ok in that, but not great. Honestly my head hurts a little bit, but I’m hoping that a good night’s sleep with help with that.

Right now I’m thinking that I can’t believe we’re going to be doing this for another week! We were going to break this diet on Monday, but I’ll be traveling and I don’t want to have airport food on my first day back to regular eating. So next Tuesday it is. Two days down – six more to go!