Weight Loss After Pregnancy

Hi all, so I've been putting my creative juices to work lately but one thing I can't seem to shake are the extra pounds from my pregnancy. I've been pregnant three times, the last ending in a D&C, even though I never miscarried. It was absolutely heart breaking. The worst part was that I still felt morning sickness the day after the procedure and cannot shake the gained weight, even though I have no third child to show for it.

Not to worry, I found an amazing resource, the Weight Loss After Pregnancy Center blog. It's so nice to be in a forum with other moms who are working hard to gain their body back. It has helped me start to gradually lose the weight, feel better about myself and gain my confidence back. It's so refreshing to talk with other women who feel the same way about our bodies after having had our lil peanuts.


The Weight Loss After Pregnancy Center is a great resource and for those of you following me on my quests, keep me on my toes and accountable. I want my body back!

Parmesan Crusted Chicken

So my family doesn't exactly live to eat, despite our Italian last name. My boys are more of the "eat to live" types. So to get them to get the proper nutrients and not bore them to death every night at the dinner table, like everyone, I need to try new recipes with them. Recently I made Hellman's Parmesan Crusted chicken and it got rave reviews, even from the husband who has a picky palate.

I buy my chicken breasts in large trays at the grocery store, then wrap them individually to freeze for future use. I grabbed two chicken breasts {I literally almost wrote "two breasts" and would have kept going, avoiding the specific breasts to which I was referring, yikes} split them in half horizontally after rinsing and patting them dry. I mixed one cup low fat mayo with some gorgeous Parmesan cheese {thank you Zio Enzo}, smoothed it atop the chicken breasts and then poured on a thin cost of seasoned bread crumbs. Put the chicken into the pre-heated oven {425F} and within 12 minutes we had a delicious dinner waiting for us.

I paired the main dish with wild rice and steamed broccoli and we were off to the races. Believe it or not, the broccoli took the longest to cook. I simply steam it until it turns bright green, careful not to let it reach that Army green color, as that's a sign that the nutrients have left the building.

The chicken got glorious reviews. Thank you to those who have passed along the recipe. I will be making it again this week and will also have mouthwatering pictures to share.

So now it's your turn. Who's trying a new chicken recipe this week? Want to share a new recipe or have a favy that brings all your family members to the table quickly?

Cheers!
O

Family Meal Plan

So who doesn't like to eat? Come on....that's right, most of us do! And on a budget it can still be done, even better than once thought. Recently I was talking with a best friend of mine about how to keep the meals updated and fresh in our household and not break the bank. Here's a tool I use to help keep my family's bellies full and happy and keep the bank account feeling pretty much the same way.

After scouring the internet for ideas, I began to take a look at my Household Calendar and decided that it needed to work a little harder for me since I put so much effort into creating it. I am a fan of routines, as are my two little guys, so I put myself to the test one day. I decided to plan out all the meals for one week to see how well we could stick to it.

Here's how I did it. I broke down all the meals we have as a family for each day, keeping in mind my kids' minimal palates, coughed up some old daycare day sheets listing their typical meals, and created a "week sheet" of my own.

With me being home everyday I had to account for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner with the kiddos. I drew up a plan using my bff Excel, laid it out with a cute color scheme and printed it out for the week. I then grabbed my favorite cookbooks which have colored tabs highlighting the pages of tried and true recipes we love {and online recipes I snag from Allrecipes and Weight Watchers} and started plotting them out on each day's dinner section. I then create the grocery list from what we need to create each days' recipes. I fill in the breakfast, lunch & snack with balanced options for the kids and let my husby manage his own lunch that I gladly make for him while prepping my oldest son's lunch in the AM.

What I came up with was a pretty and scheduled way of answering the age old question of "what's to eat Mom?" My boys {my husband and the older son at least} know to go to the clipboard that's hanging in the pantry, look for the appropriate day and see what's cooking.

To the suggestion of something I tripped on one day on the internet, I do my grocery shopping on a weekend morning and we're good to go. If there's anything perishable that is scheduled for later in the week, my loving husby will usually pick it up for me on the way home from work to be cooked that night. Other than that, I get everything on Sunday and we're locked & loaded for the week. I give us flexibility over the weekend but we've recently found that if we don't plan for Saturday or Sunday nights, we look at each other in sort of a loss because of the lack of plan.

Now don't get me wrong, we still get the occasional pizza delivered, but for the most part, I'm finding that our grocery bill has shrunk drastically every week and that our budget isn't as tight as we'd first anticipated. We use Mint to help us categorize and track our spending and we're finding that sticking to the painless family meal plan has allowed us to move our funds elsewhere and still eat like kings and queens.

So now it's your turn to share. What have you done to trim your food budget that's worked for you and your family? What successes have you had? What lessons have you learned? Any new recipes you'd like to share?

Cheers!
O

Bringing New Life to Old Things

Ahh September....in my house it means getting back into a routine, knowing what's coming next and going back to school. My older son is now in first grade and in school full day. Our district must be one of the only ones still utilizing only half day for the Kindergarteners but I can fully understand why. They need more time to play and be glorious children :)

Having been in the workforce for the last nearly 13 years, I have been exposed to many a 5S meetings, discussions, training sessions....you name it, I have experienced it when it comes to 5S. I'm almost ashamed to say that it has poured into my household a bit, but not to fret, only in a good way. I breathe the mantra of everything has a place and every place has a thing. Well, not so much the latter part when I'm constantly de-cluttering our house....I'm getting away from myself now. The thought came to me that now that Sebi, my oldest, is in school all day, he'll have to have a proper desk where he can complete his homework in peace and well prepared.

The thought of buying one more piece of furniture gave me the heeby jeebies so I put my DIY hat on, turned to my husby and said that I'm on a mission to create a warm environment in which Sebi can learn. Translation: I'm going to make him a desk babe!

I set out to one of my favorite stores, HomeGoods, in search of a brilliant looking, small-ish desk without breaking my wallet. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Although they did have other really cute things {which I'm proud to say I did not buy}, I walked out sans the desk in question. As I approached my vehicle I thought to myself, "self, you have a perfectly good desk in your basement that your father gave you that can be refinished".

So I went to my next DIY store, Lowes, and picked up some drop cloths and Rustoleum's Universal spray paint in Espresso brown. I came home with enthusiasm and money to spare in my wallet. My husband stood there scratching his chin...I showed him that I could do it.

It was the day before school was to start and I had one child napping and another eager to help me with the project. So we put on our gloves, grabbed our sanding blocks, put down our drop cloth and began smoothing out the top of the desk. I wish I had pictures of the progress, but unfortunately not. We smoothed the top of the desk, smoothed out the legs and now we were ready to paint. I didn't bother taking all of the original finish off the desk surface since we were using spray paint and not re-staining it.

After one coat, I let it dry overnight in our ventilated garage. By ventilated I mean the door was ever so slightly cracked to let air move around but not enough to let burglars in. Just kidding, we live in a very safe neighborhood! I put a second coat on the next day and let it dry overnight again.

By the third day, as my son was off to school enjoying his day in first grade with his friends and teacher, I was moving the newly refurbished desk into its new home indoors.

Here is the desk set up in a quiet corner of our living room. Now to stock it with pencils and crayons for his homework every night. I do have to be creative as to how I stock with supplies as we have a toddler roaming the house who just loves to color with his big brother's supplies. Coloring isn't the sticking point....it's when the coloring happens on surfaces other than paper {yikes}. I just heart how well this project came out!

Again, I wish I had before and after pics of this project. I can promise you it went from ugly to gorgeous with an investment of only about $7 and some elbow grease.

So let me hear from you now readers. What pieces of furniture are you bringing back to life? What tools are you using? What lessons are you learning?

Cheers!
O

Here's a little about me and my family and what makes our world go round as stress free as possible.

I often feel strange answering the online request of "please tell us about yourself"...well, I'm a mother, a wife, a former career junkie and newly launched stay-at-home mom. I come from a set of extremely driven parents who came to the USA a "few" years ago to start a new life. They grew up in neighboring countries but met in Michigan while attending graduate school. They agreed that going back to their native countries was not in the picture for either of them, and fast forward a few years and I was born. I have one younger brother who's also very ambitious and who left the Northeast for a sunny patch in Florida and never looked back.

My husband is also a child of immigrants, who's parents married in Europe but came to the US to make a better life for their children. Needless to say we were an instant match when we met years back and we both have an appreciation for everything that we work for and earn.

We have two young boys, Sebastian and Luca, who keep me very busy. When I'm not planning meals, running errands or cleaning something, you can find me on the floor playing tractors or trains or dinosaurs or just building block towers, eagerly anticipating their fateful knock-down from our toddler.

I studied Mechanical Engineering and Business at an academically rigorous university and have worked for large corporations. My love is to always understand how things work, how you can improve them and so on. I guess I have lean and 5S concepts coursing through my veins at all times, which is exemplified in my continuous organizing, improving, cleaning out and purging, and simplifying our lives.

I recently became unemployed but I like to think of it as anything but. I may not get monetary paychecks and don't have to answer to grown men as superiors anymore....but now I rather work for small growing men (S & L) and get paid in hugs, smiles, kisses and I love you's. This is by far the most rewarding job I've ever had and feel happier with myself, my marriage and my family than ever before.

As always, if you have any questions, please do feel free to get in touch. I love love love putting my skills to the test and managing a hectic household as simply as I can...one day at a time :)