Moving on Over

I have decided to shut down this blog and focus my time over on my new blog, The Little Library.  I have nothing to offer in the lifestyle blogging world (which is sad) and the beauty world requires me buying products and we are struggling financially pretty much daily lately (which is also sad).

So, since I write and read and have done book reviews in the past, I started a blog just for that. It's still growing since it's so new. Right now it's just reviews, but I will be adding in giveaways, writing wednesdays, and more soon(ish).

You can now find me at The Little Library!


I'll keep this domain for now and may return to this blog in the future. But for now, my focus is over there.

XO

Brittany

5 Things I've Learned from Drinking Hot Water

I heard about the benefits of drinking hot water a while ago. Better digestion, better metabolism, better circulation, eliminating toxins, and even faster hair growth. It wasn't some crazy wrap or tea - it was hot water, so I decided there was literally no risk in giving this a shot.

I read that hot water in the morning was good, but then found some women that were drinking hot water all day instead of cold. I figured if I was going to try this, I was going to try it all day and not just in the morning.

A lot of people add lemon to their hot water in the morning for further benefits, but I'm allergic to citrus so I keep it lemon-free. Our filter hooks up to the faucet so I didn't have to wait for a kettle. This made this experiment a lot easier AKA no excuse for being lazy.

After two weeks of nothing but hot water did I find any truth in these "Miracle Hot Water Benefits"?

Well, yes.

 

1) Digestion.  I've never had a big issue with my digestion since I cut out gluten and dairy, but sometimes I have stomach pain and cramps for seemingly no reason. Since I've been starting and ending my day with hot water, these pains have pretty much gone away. I find the hot water, like claimed, relaxes things from the inside and just makes my organs feel better all around. Keeping them warmer instead of shocking them with cold water seems to agree with my body.

Justin has also been drinking hot water, but only in the mornings. He has pretty bad stomach issues and he's even said a glass of hot water in the morning has been easing the severity of his symptoms.

2) Health. I've found that in this season of Winter when my nose gets stuffy and my joints aren't happy with the weather changes, that hot water helps a lot. My nose doesn't stay stuffy like usual and my joints are much happier. I used to get headaches and muscle aches a lot and I've noticed I've had almost no headaches since drinking hot water and my muscle aches aren't as bad, either. It's said that hot water helps maintain the electrolyte and mineral balance in the body, and I do find that I stay better hydrated with hot water than I did with cold.

I'm also finding that hot water is helping with my pretty severe anxiety. Since it aids the nervous system in ways, this does make sense. I've been able to do several things lately that I would usually be incredibly anxious about, with very little anxiety.

3) Sleep.  I admit, there were many times when I would have wine before bed so I could sleep during those times of insomnia. Since I switched to hot water, I haven't had wine before bed but maybe once. The hot water relaxes everything. Sometimes there's chamomile in the cup, but usually not. I also find that I sleep better and deeper. Is this partly from the lack of alcohol before bed (which interrupts your quality of sleep)? Maybe. But I still credit the hot water to this some.

4) Circulation. This is kind of a no brainer for me. Warmth equals better circulation which is why you tend to use heat on some injuries to help with the blood flow. Warmth from inside is even better. I have a circulatory system disease, so I was really interested in seeing if improvements here happened. And they did! I still have my symptoms, but they don't last as long and they aren't nearly as bad as they have been in the past.

5) Hair Growth. Okay, I really didn't expect to have this on my list. Total surprise. My hair doesn't tend to grow very quickly because of my disease, but it's grown a noticeable amount since I started drinking hot water. Now I wish I had measured my hair in the beginning, but it never crossed my mind that this would help my hair. It's not a crazy amount, but I definitely noticed my hair hanging lower on my shoulders and getting in the way at night.

-

Is the hot water flushing out toxins and helping my metabolism also? Maybe. But I don't think I've been doing it long enough to notice a metabolism change. However, I definitely think it's helping flush toxins out. My skin had a bit of a purge a few days into hot water - a sign of detox. And I just feel better all around drinking hot water.

I thought this would take a lot of adjusting since it's hot water and we're used to room temperature or ice water. But I've found I have no trouble. I actually really enjoy the warmth, especially since it's cold outside. Can I keep this up in the Summer? Well, I hope so. Because right now I have no plans on drinking any water but hot if I can help it!

Meal Planning & Eating Paleo at Aldi: Is It Possible?

Being an adult can suck. I've spent the last week without Internet because of our data plan, for example. It was not a fun time.

Also not a fun time: meal/menu planning. I'm growing to like it some but when I'm at the checkout and that total is going up, up, up, I don't like it so much. I try to plan out two weeks at a time and try to use ingredients for two dishes (or leftovers for a couple of days, at least). With my restrictions, we can't buy the good ole cheap stuff to keep our bill low, like Spam, Ramen, and Kraft Mac & Cheese. Trust, if I could tolerate those things we would be living off of them.

But, I can't. No gluten, dairy, soy, citrus, beans, legumes, some nuts, nightshades, a lot of fruits, etc.. That's not hard to shop for, but it can be a little harder to find good deals.

I had a somewhat small list since I still had some meat in the freezer from Costco, so I just needed other ingredients for side dishes and entrees. This menu looked like this:

Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Cobb Salad
Sunday: Mediterranean Sweet Potatoes
Monday: Baked Vegetable Soup
Tuesday: Turkey Sausages & Sauerkraut
Wednesday: Pasta
Thursday: Taco Salad
Friday: Beef Liver & Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Saturday: Hamburger Salad
Sunday: Turkey Burgers & Sweet Potato Fries

Not two full weeks, but some of those leftovers will stretch us a few more days between trips. Justin isn't home for lunch most days, so that cuts down there, and I usually have some leftovers or a wrap or a salad. Breakfast is also usually some kind of leftovers for me, eggs for Justin if he has breakfast. Very big on leftovers here. If it ain't broke, don't fix it (although I would choke a bear most mornings for pancakes, toast, grits, and eggs - maybe at some point in our lives).

Usually I shop at Walmart and Sprouts. I've found Sprouts to be cheaper a lot of times when it comes to produce and some meats. Bonus: that produce is usually organic, and meat can be organic and sometimes grass-fed for the same price as Walmart's conventional stuff or sometimes cheaper - depending on how much meat you need. Just check their flyers.
But, that was still adding up and with work being slow lately, I needed to find more way to save money.

Enter Aldi.
I had only been to Aldi once before yesterday. It was a big failure for me that first time. There was string inside my hummus, and the bagged bananas were black and liquefied. So, yes, I was hesitant to go back. But, I'm trying my hardest to save where we can since we are basically living paycheck to paycheck and that's just not fun. So I got my quarter and found the reusable bags and off I went with my mom.

Ended up with:

Chicken Breasts: $3.77
Turkey Sausages: $3.69
GF Pasta: $1.89
Chicken Thighs: $4.19
Tomatoes: $1.69
Bag of Sweet Potatoes: $1.99
Zucchini: $2.99 for 3
Artichoke Hearts: $2.69
Bananas: $1.09
Olives: $1.19
Diced Tomatoes: $.59 
Almonds: $2.99

Total: $28.76

Okay, you cannot beat that. Shopping Paleo at Aldi could be pretty damn easy if you're not set on organic or grass-fed.

I even picked up some snacks for Justin pre-work, a bottle of wine for under $3 (that I hope has zero wheat paste involved), and me some GF cookies (that are AMAZING) for only $2.49.

Our total was still under $50.

Can we do without the cookies and plan better for him before work? Yes. This is a work in progress.

I did still need to go to Sprouts for some produce Aldi didn't have and I still needed to go to Walmart for the liver (Sprouts was out), deli meat for wraps, air filters, Emmy rawhides, etc.

BUT that still brought us to barely $100 and the food should hopefully last us about two weeks.

I'm definitely impressed with Aldi and everything we've tried so far has been great. But I haven't cooked any meat yet. Which brings me to the end of this:

Some things were still sketchy at Aldi. And be careful when it comes to the meat and produce. Some of the produce was in bad shape. Some of the meat had very leaky packages and some had even expired 4 days ago. Yikes. So I'm slightly afraid to get my meat from there, but I figure as long as the date is okay and the package isn't gross, we should be fine. I would recommend not buying the stuff that looks like they package there and get the stuff that's more vacuum sealed. Although even some of that stuff was past expiration.

I did save a lot but I won't shop at Aldi exclusively. I can't, really, since they don't carry all we need. And I still will probably buy some meat from Sprouts or Walmart instead of there. If we can save enough on more box and canned items at Aldi, we should have the extra for the better meat and eggs elsewhere. That's the plan, anyway!

What's your experience with Aldi? I know so many people that adore it, so is mine just lacking in some areas?

Snow Day

We very rarely get snow here in Alabama. But when we do it's usually a State of Emergency. We don't have snow plows out here and no one salts the roads this far out in the country. So if it snows, we're kind of screwed. Yesterday we got about two and a half inches. I was so excited. I love snow.

If I lived somewhere that got snow frequently I'm sure I wouldn't love it this much, but here it's such a treat. Schools get closed, everyone's usually off work. It turns out to be a small snow-filled vacation.

Unfortunately for me, Justin's work decided not to close until 4 and the snow started at 1. He didn't get home until dark, so there went my 'Snow Day Selfies' plan. But Emmy and I had a blast. This was her first time ever seeing snow. Chick was so confused. She kept her paw up a lot (a self-calming position for dogs) the first few minutes and just looked at me like 'What the HELL is this!?' and ate the snow. But then she realized, Hey, this is fun! and we were off. We stayed out there for hours playing in the snow. If you've never played in the snow with a puppy, I highly recommend it.

2016 Makeover

I had plans for this to be a really interesting lifestyle blog last year. Problem is, my life isn't very interesting right now. With Justin taking my car to work, working long hours, me working from home, and me being around the house the majority of the time, nothing really interesting ever happens. Maybe in the future, but for now there's no way this could survive as a lifestyle blog.

So, this year I took it back to the drawing board. What do I love? Natural living and writing. So, Natural Ink. I am determined this year to post regularly and grow a reader base.

There will be product reviews, short stories, things in the holistic world, things in the writing world, and, when it's interesting, things in the life world. I'm excited. Are you excited?

The First Christmas

This year was Emmy's first Christmas, Justin's first Christmas, and our first Christmas together. Lot of milestones there! It was a really nice one. Christmas Eve is our huge day of traditions and it was really nice having Justin there for it all. Christmas Day also had some traditions in it. We're now able to leave Emmy for about an hour and a half without her freaking out which has been amazing for us. We can run a couple errands together now instead of someone always staying home with her. Yay for growth! So we got to go have Christmas dinner at my parent's with my grandma and hang out for a bit. Lot of lovely moments. One of the best Christmases to date.

 

Hope y'all had a merry one!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas - Kind Of.

Technically, this is Justin's first Christmas ever. When we were talking about how to decorate he suggested, "Some outside lights and we're good...right?" 

Bless his heart. 

I did keep things to a minimum this year though: outside lights, Derick the Polar Bear (who cannot keep his scarf on to save his life), some window decor, a wreath, tree with the weirdest fucking ornaments ever (we got a lot of freebies this year), two elves, candles, and some indoor lights.

We got a four foot tree and put it on the bar because I don't trust Emmy with a tree or ornaments or presents. Nothing basically. She's even ripped her stocking down twice so now that's not hanging constantly.

My dad came over to help us (ok, Justin) hang outside lights. I did my part. I drank wine and took pictures.

Literally the best four pictures of the day:

Back to work after we had a three foot light gap at the end that needed to be shifted over:

Inside:

 

 

My favorite ornament is probably this anchor with two mice. What that has to do with Christmas, I'll never know.

 I don't know about this one, either...

 

Or this duck

 

Or a bugle

 

Yes, this is a mouse in a hammock...with a ukulele. 

 

Some dude with a gun...Merry Christmas?

 

Sheep on a...horse.

 

Some of the weirdest fucking ornaments, I swear.

 

Merry Christmas!