Category: Five in February

Good morning, friends!! I hope y’all had a great weekend. We had a busy one full of soccer.

Our girl and her team did an amazing job this weekend at their tournament.

Because of the way the cards fell, they were placed in the bracket with the top teams in the state. We were set to play the #4, #6 and the #10 team in the state. Our girls were 24th.

Our girls showed up and played amazing!! We lost 2 out of 3 games. But we beat the #10 team and my girl made two goals!

Our final game we lost 4-0 to the #4 team but the last time we played them, they beat us 9-0. So that was a win for us!! Our girls are getting better and better. Many of those teams have played together for years and our girls are just beginning their journey.

We actually just learned that our girls moved up TEN spots and now sit at #14 in the state!! So very proud of our girls!!

In other news, ha! Today is the final week of my challenge! I’ve been at it for 22 days! It hasn’t gone perfect, but it’s gotten me back on track and that’s exactly what I needed.

If you’re new to my blog, you can read about the challenge, here!

1. I’ve continued to make my bed everyday.

2. I’m staying caught up on my laundry by using a method I learned years ago. You can read about that here.

3. Cleaning up the kitchen at night is going well. I’ve had a couple of nights where I leave the dishes in the sink because it’s late or I’m ready to go to bed. But I’ve been good about waking up the next morning and cleaning it all up as soon as I can.

4. Lists! I am making my lists and keeping up with all of our things on my planner. I wrote a post on how I do lists last week. You can read it, here.

5. And finally, as far as eating at home. We are trying, but haven’t been perfect with this either. We are, however, doing a lot better than before. We ate out more than we wanted due to not having a kitchen for a couple of days and travelling. But for the most part, we are eating at home throughout the week.

Here are a couple of things that work for me when I’m trying to eat at home.

Make it a non-negotiable. Do not give yourself the option to eat out. Unless, justified of course. Like for example, today I will get the kiddos take out because Jojo has a golf match this afternoon in Homer. The clock works against us here and we are better off to eat out. But I will still eat at home because I’m prepared for the week with grilled chicken and veggies.

Which brings me to my next tip. Prep, prep and prep. Now, I’m a little different when it comes to food prep. I will cook my meats ahead, but that’s it. I can’t stand soggy leftover veggies the next day. For me, prepping involves making sure I know what I’m eating each night, having all of my ingredients on hand and planning my day ahead to make sure I have enough time to cook each night. I also cook simple meals throughout the week that do not take long to prep and make.

Here are a couple of meals that I make each week.

Grilled Chicken, Rice and Veggies

This marinade is my favorite! It’s super easy to do. You can put your chicken breasts in a ziploc and let them marinade all day.

I can make a good pot of rice, but it takes more time so I use these instead.

Super easy, takes two minutes!

For veggies I rotate between broccoli and baby carrots or squash, zucchini and onions or brussel sprouts. I season them all the same. I spray them with oil, seasoning salt and if you like spicy then add a little bit of crushed up red pepper.

For the broccoli and carrots and brussels, I heat the oven to 400 degrees and then cook them for 20-25 minutes. Super easy!

For my squash, zucchini and onions, I cut it all up and stir fry it. You can bake these, too but Joseph likes them stir fry so that’s what we do, ha!

Taco Tuesday Taco Bowls

Having an assigned day for a meal, always helps when planning.

For my taco bowls, I put my chicken in a crock pot with a jar of green salsa and a taco seasoning packet. It cooks for 4-6 hours. Then we make our taco bowls which include the following:

Rice, Lettuce, black beans, corn, sour cream, shredded cheese, limes squeeze, avocado or guac…. honestly you can add whatever you want!

Spaghetti Squash

We use ground turkey instead of ground beef. I use this sauce and we love it. For the kids I do a pot of noodles and for Joseph and I spaghetti squash. Super easy to make, but it does take more time. Here’s a recipe that I found if you’ve never made one.

Oven Baked Mahi Mahi with Rice and Veggies

Super easy and quick! I season the mahi mahi with whatever I have on hand. Here’s a quick recipe if you need one. And then we do the veggies and rice I listed above.

These are my quick and simple go to meals. We also do burgers from time to time and my dad’s pizza of course. But if I need a quick meal, these four are my tried and true. I don’t mind eating the same thing over and over. It helps me when I’m trying to count macros.

Being prepared is so important when you are trying to eat healthy and eat at home. So just make sure you start each week with what you need and you will be set. Also, don’t be so hard on yourself. We can’t all be gourmet cooks. I sure am not so I just do what I can do. Thankfully, we are not super picky around my house!

And that’s all I have for today and for my Five in February Challenge! It technically ends on the 28th, but now that I’ve been working on my habits for over 21 days, I hope they are here to stay!

Have a great Monday!!

XO

Hi there! So this morning was a bit crazy. I sat down to write my blog post, finished it and went to save it. It tried to save for almost an hour until it finally just stopped and my entire post was deleted. Ugh!

So here I am trying it again and if you are reading this then it was successful!

I wanted to check in with you guys and see how you are doing with the Habits Challenge. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can read my original post here.

Basically, I set out to take my life back one habit at a time. It takes 21 days to create a habit and February has 28 days so it’s a perfect month to do it.

All of my five habits are habits that I’ve already mastered at one time or another, but after the holidays and being sick with covid for what felt like a month….I’ve fallen behind.

So how’s it going? Well let me tell you…

1. Make my bed everyday.

I’ve successfully made my bed every single day of February! Woot woot!!

Y’all, I love a bed that’s made. It’s a little task that makes me feel accomplished and puts a pep in my step.

Have y’all read the book, Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven? Here’s a quote that I love,

“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.” 

Isn’t it true? Accomplishing a task at the start of the day just makes you feel good and ready for the day. In the book Atomic Habits it says, “changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.”

2. 1-2 loads of Laundry 6/7 days each week. Fold and put away immediately.

Ok… so this one I am still struggling with a little. But, I am doing better than I was. Here’s a tip that changed my whole world a couple of years ago.

I always sorted my laundry by whites, colors, darks….etc. But then one day a friend shared that as long as you wash with COLD water, you can put it all in together. What?!!! And y’all, I’ve been doing this ever since and I’ve only had a couple of oops. But most of the time, I’ve sprayed some SHOUT and it’s been ok.

This was a game changer for me because I could do 1-2 loads each day without worrying about sorting it all. Another tip to add to this is to use your washer machine as your laundry basket. Throughout the day as you take off your dirty clothes, put them straight in the washer. As soon as everyone showers and puts on their pajamas for the night, start your washer so that the load is ready to be switched to the dryer the next morning. This keeps the loads small and manageable.

I do sort towels, sheets and jeans. And I may wash some reds and clothes that may bleed separately.

Make sure you fold and put away/hang immediately. This is the key and what I fail at the most. Let me show you how my morning is going with this…

This is the foot of my bed. One pile are the clothes that I folded for the girls to put away while I was in Hilton Head last week….yeah, it didn’t get done. The other pile are the clothes that Joseph took out of the dryer and didn’t fold. He laid them on the bed because we were in a rush yesterday morning. When I came to bed after the Super Bowl game and having family and friends over, the last thing I wanted to do was fold clothes much less put away. So I just laid them in the floor. And then the basket full of clean towels that I have not gotten to and Joseph’s suitcase from last week.

And then there’s my closet….

I didn’t have time to hang and put away my clothes before we left for Hilton Head last week and then we were on the go all weekend so they are on my bench. Ugh.

And then my bag from our trip is still on the ground. We leave again on Wednesday, so is it even worth putting away? Ha!

My goal this week is to get caught up before we leave for the beach. And then when I get back, it’ll be easy to keep it going.

My laundry room still looks better than it has in the last few months so I will take it!

3. Clean up the kitchen every evening.

I’ve been doing pretty good with this one. I have left the dishes on the counter to dry overnight instead of doing that right away. But I’ve put them up first thing in the morning.

A clean kitchen and sink just helps me feel less frustrated in the mornings.

My advice here is to just do it. Don’t let the sink pile up, wash the cup or plate right then or put it in the dishwasher right away. I put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher as I go throughout the day and then start it at night. Unload in the morning and start over the next day.

4. Make my to do lists each night.

I have not done this one. And it’s surprising because I am a list maker. I live and breathe lists and I’ve been terrible about planning my days lately. So this is one that I am going to work on this week. I will give you all the tips next Monday on how I do to do lists and what kind of lists I make that have helped me throughout the years so stay tuned!

I did find this notepad at Walmart and love it! I normally do a similar breakdown of this on a plain sheet of paper so it’s nice to have it all on a small notepad.

Are you a list maker? Do you use paper and pen or an app on your phone? If you have any good suggestions for a good list making app, let me know!

5. Eat at home as much as possible.

Oh my goodness, we did this one! We ate at home every single night except for a couple of meals on the weekend which is fine with us. This is a must when you are trying to count macros and eat healthier. The final Monday of the month, I am going to share with you tips on meal planning and what we do each week to eat at home.

And that’s all I have today. I hope that you are doing this with me. It’s not too late to start. Pick five habits that you want to work on. And if five is too much then start with one and then add a habit each week. Let’s take our life back, one habit at a time!

I hope you have a marvelous Monday!!

XO

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