Liquid Gold

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You guessed it! We call chicken stock liquid gold. It makes the most amazing soups, stews and sauces. I used to buy chicken stock in the store because I thought it was very complicated to make and that I would have to waste a whole chicken to make it. Not true! Believe it or not, it's practically free! If I had known this sooner, I would have saved myself a lot of money.

This amazingly rich stock is made from things you likely throw in the garbage. In my freezer I keep a Ziploc bag filled with onion, celery, carrot and other veggie ends. You know what I mean, right? The stuff you toss when prepping dinner. Yup! Take these and toss them into a Ziploc bag and store them in your freezer.

Every so often I make a whole chicken in the oven. After dinner, I pick all the meat off the bones. I take the bones and put them in a pot, add some of the veggie ends from the freezer, fill the pot with water and a good splash of raw organic apple cider vinegar. Bring it to a simmer and when foam starts to form on top, skim that off. Let it simmer at a very low temperature for about 24 hours. Strain through a colander, cool in the fridge and jar up in some freezable (make sure they say they are freezable) jars.

This highly nutritious liquid will amaze you! Yes, from kitchen scraps you have something useful, healthful and yummy! Give it a try!

Helping My Child Heal

Some of you may remember an earlier post My Child's Pain from the end of last year. We tried so many things and nothing worked...until we tried something called NAET. There are many who think this is a scam, but the woman providing the treatment is a member of our Village Home community and I decided to trust her. She was certain she could help Princess to heal. Within weeks, Princess' skin began to improve. Within two months her skin was almost completely healed. She continues to have some minor skin issues and we haven't been able to eliminate the itching, but the difference is incredible.

The NAET practitioner also suspected that Princess had Celiac Disease. We had her tested and confirmed that this was true. Princess has been off gluten for a couple of months now. This may have helped further her improvement, but I do want to say that the gluten avoidance started after we witnessed improvement from the NAET. I am sold on NAET with our practitioner, Shelley Lowrie. Are you local? Contact her here! We are still working with Shelley to completely eliminate all of Princess' skin issues. I love when I find an alternative that really works!!

Real Salad Dressing!

I stopped buying salad dressing 2 years ago when I changed the way I eat. I have yet to find a bottled dressing that contains ingredients I am willing to consume myself, let alone feed my family. We've been sticking to oil and vinegar, using a variety of vinegars, but still...it gets kind of old.

On Christmas eve, Freckle invited Princess and me for dinner and festivities. I stood by and watched very carefully as she made dressing for the salad. Wow! That's it? That's easy enough. Of course, I made some of my own adjustments, but MAN! is it good.

I don't think it's a secret, but I'd better not share unless she comments and says that it is okay. Of course, my recipe isn't exactly the same as hers, but the base is the same. So Freckle...is it okay to share? If it is, I'll post in the comments so be sure to comment and subscribe.

Oh...a quick update on the workouts. Today is the 5th and I have officially worked out for 5 days! The EA Sports Active 30 day challenge works you for 2 days and then you get a day of rest. Well, my day of rest is walking on the treadmill while watching Netflix Instant on TiVo. Thanks to Sherry over at Living and Learning and Secret Mom Thoughts and another show suggestion from Lisa over at 5 Orange Potatoes. Thanks, ladies!

Healthy eating and living to you all!

Get up off your a%#!

Who knew that eating crap all day, every day could do this?! Oh...wait...I did. I don't like New Year's resolutions, but yesterday I got on the scale for some bizarre reason. I knew I had gained some weight because my clothes weren't fitting quite right. How did this happen?!

It seems my food intake went to hell hasn't quite been pristine since the Lizard King left the country. Okay, fine. I need to get back to my healthy Weston A Price/Nourishing Traditions way of eating. Done. Maybe it's even time to pull out my copy of Eat Fat, Lose Fat. Done.

Now to figure out how to incorporate a workout into my daily life. You see, I have this love/hate relationship with exercise. First off, I hate to wear shoes. Putting on big, clunky sneakers is a big deterrent to my working out. Going to a gym is out. That takes even more motivation than putting on sneakers. So not going to happen!

So that leaves a home workout. Perfect! I've got lots of fun workouts here. I have this awesome, gym quality, treadmill that I got for free (thank you Law of Attraction). I have the Wii Fit, but that started to get boring. I hated having to choose each exercise and wait for the annoying bitch narrator to finish talking. So what else is there?

I was out on my new favorite shopping site, Amazon (Amazon Prime rocks, by the way. Two day shipping!) and discovered EA Sports Active. The reviews were great, so I decided to give it a try. It was FUN! There are workouts, continuous workouts, that are put together and are customizable. You can create your own workout. And there is the 30 day challenge with 3 levels.

I did one pre-designed workout and loved it. Then I put the box away and hadn't touched it since. That is until today. I put new batteries in the Wii Balance Board (not required for this workout), pulled out the EA workout box and decided to try the 30 day challenge. I loved it! It was really fun and no annoying bitch narrator! Yes, you have a "personal trainer", but I wasn't annoyed by her at all. The music is cool and you can even choose what type of music you want in the 30 day challenge. The scenery changes and, for working out in cartoon world, is pretty. You'd think that would be enough to inspire me, right? Right?!

Unfortunately, no. I have even been known to work out for a year and then suddenly stop for five years. So people, I know you workout fanatics are out there, motivate me! Inspire me! Help me find a way to keep going! Ready, set, go!