@>--- Apple & Pear Salad ---<@

What you will need:


1 bunch of romaine lettuce - chopped
2 apples - cored and sliced
2 pears - cored and sliced
1/4 cup of raisins (optional)
1/4 cup of pecans or almonds (optional)

4 TBSP Raspberry Dressing

In a large bowl add the ingredients and mix well to coat the salad with the dressing. Enjoy!

Very Berry Salad

What you will need:

1 head of romaine lettuce - chopped

2 cups of strawberries - cored and sliced

1 cup of black berries

1 cup of blue berries

4 TBSP Raspberry dressing

In a large bowl add the lettuce, strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Mix the ingredients well. Add the salad dressing and mix well to coat the lettuce with the dressing. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes then serve! Enjoy!

~Banana & Berry Breakfast~

What you will need for this recipe is:

5 Strawberries (large ones are preferred) - chopped or sliced
1/4 cup of blue berries
1 banana sliced.

In a container add the strawberries, blue berries, and banana. Then transfer to a bowl, mix and eat!

Kale Stir Fry

Things have got me in a place where I need to start making better choices for my health so I will begin with a Kale Stir Fry.

Today I am making a stir fry using:

1 bunch of kale - shredded
3 peppers (red, yellow, orange) - sliced
1 bunch of green onion (scallions) - chopped
2 cloves of garlic - minced
Coconut oil

In a skillet add 2 tbsp of coconut oil, and saute the scallions in the skillet. Next, add the kale and allow it to cook down while stirring frequently. Add the peppers and garlic and continue to stir while the peppers are cooking down (becoming soft). Once all this has been done, remove the skillet from the heat and serve. I will post a pic after it has been cooked!

You can also add scrambled eggs to make this more of a breakfast meal too! cook scrambled eggs and mix with some of the stir fry you just made.

Butterflies - Smithsonian

My husband took me to the butterfly pavilion at the Smithsonian this weekend! MAN was it crazy! There were so many people and of course everyone is waiting to see the cherry blossoms, which have arrived late this year due to the harsh weather.
While we were in the Museum of Natural History, we had seen the Hope Diamond, some strange looking stone formations, an Orchid room full of many different kinds of beautiful orchids and of course the butterfly pavilion. Here are pictures for you to enjoy from the butterfly pavilion. The butterflies were landing on people and their clothing, it was pretty sweet!

 The room where the butterflies were, was VERY warm, but beautiful! Full of flowers and an area with live caterpillars and cocoons. If you ever get the change, go! It was $6 a person and so worth it!

Since I have been dealing with issues with my knee and foot, I had to go home and rest my foot that evening. All in all, we had a great day!

The results are in!

A year and a half ago, I injured myself at work and instead of making a report and getting myself looked at right away, I allowed pride to over take me because I didn't want to be labeled, a klutz, incompetent, clumsy, you name it! So I dealt with the pain for a LONG while! It was difficult to go up and down stairs, drive my car, even walk a few feet without pain. I was limping and shifted all of my body weight to my left heel, which caused another problem, plantar facetious. GREAT! Another thing to get myself FIXED from! A month had passed and I had gone back home to get the rest of my belongings to move to my new place! Thankfully my family, boyfriend and friends were there to help, because there was NO way on earth I would have been able to do any of the lifting and moving on my own! Also, my boyfriend asked me to marry him! So this also played a part in my prolonging getting my knee checked out.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, when you sit down at a desk for the first time, be very certain there is NO keyboard tray holder under the desk that may be turned backward, only showing the metal plate that is attached to the bottom of the desk, it SUCKS when you ram your knee into the plate because you didn't know it was there! SO be very careful!

Ok, let's continue. February came around and a friend of mine was sharing with me about a product she used and how it had helped her after a VERY bad accident she and her family were in that should have killed them, but praise our heavenly Father, it didn't! She is a great friend of mine today! Anyhow, she shared with me how the product helped her neck not be in pain anymore and how life is MUCH better than it ever was! Heck, I need to get some of what you have! After a week, I noticed my pain was still in my knee and my foot. After two weeks, the pain wasn't as bad to deal with....after 6 weeks the pain was gone! See this product is an anti-inflammatory product. This is how it has helped my friend, myself and other friends that had issues with arthritis! They were taken off their medication by their doctor and continue to drink this product! Other friends had been taken off diabetes medication and others off of high cholesterol/ blood pressure medications! Friends of mine that have been diagnosed with ceallic disease (gluten issues) and are lactose intolerant take this product with no issues and there are NO fillers! The ingredients are organic, grown in nutrient rich dense soil and are SUPER FOODS!

Ok, so like I said 6 weeks and NO MORE PAIN! I was able to run, jump, bend, kneel, crawl and everything else you can do on your knees, again with absolutely no pain! Also, I was working out and changed my diet to be healthier for me. Well, I was getting ready for my wedding and wanted to look amazing!

Fast forward to this week 4/3/2015, during February I was sick for 2 weeks and had the intention of checking if my knee was better. I still had no pain in my knee, but it was still clicking, snapping and popping so obviously, I was concerned. I took myself off the product and the pain of course came back! Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it was when I was first injured, but it still stunk! This week, I finally went to the orthopedic where they took an xray of my knee. The doctor wanted to know why I took so long getting to the office and I shared with him the exact same thing I shared with you in this post! When I told him that I took myself off the product, he looked at me like I was insane for doing such a thing, I mean IT WAS WORKING!!! He had told me to get back on the product and start working out again! I was blown away!!! I said, so I was already doing what I needed to do? Yes, and also I want you to take physical therapy! Ok, why physical therapy if I am already doing what I need to do? He advised that it is because physical therapy will help me exercise my knee in ways that I would otherwise not know about.

Ok, so this week I also went to the physical therapist and they told me to do the same thing, get back on the product, do low impact exercises because my knee is still inflamed and do my home exercises they gave me, as well as visit the office 3 times a week!

Can you believe this? The doctor and the physical therapist are NOT pushing drugs at me!!! They see something working and are encouraging me to continue!!! What is also amazing is this product is very affordable! More affordable than a meal at a fast food joint!

Well, I just had to share the good news with you! If you have any questions about what this product is and want more information, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me on facebook!

Cinnamon Apple Oats & Honey

Do you ever have too many apples that you just have no cotton pickin' idea what you are going to do with them? It's not like you are in the mood to pick one up and take a bite out of it. What do you do? I figured it out! My mom has given me a recipe from my Mamaw for rhubarb strawberry crisp, don't get too excited just yet. That recipe will be for later, let's take care of our apples for now.

It's so good your lips will SMACK you!

Apples in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes

What you will need:
6 Cups of sliced Apples keep in mind the more you have the more of the other ingredients you will need as well!

4 TBSP Cinnamon
2 Cups of Oats
2 TBSP Butter
5 TBSP Honey

Don't turn the oven on just yet or it will get too hot in the kitchen. Slice the apples, I used a tool to slice apples with one movement and also cores the apple too! While slicing the apples, put them aside in a bowl. In a separate bowl add cinnamon, apple spice, and oats.  After the apples have been sliced and cored, turn the oven on to 350 degrees. Put butter in a skillet and turn the heat on to medium to high, add apples (You want a LARGE Skillet so you can turn the apples and coat with the butter). While mixing the apples in the skillet, you will add just a 3 tbsp of the oats and cinnamon. Continue to cook on the stove for 10 minutes until the apples begin to get soft and break down, but not too soft. Then add the apples to a baking pan, add the honey and rest of the dry mixture. Mix the ingredients well and bake for 25 minutes! Take out of the oven and enjoy!

Bowl of Delicious Apple Bake!

This goes great with vanilla ice cream or even by itself!