When Time Flies

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms (including pet-moms!) out there :)

Noah will be 18 in July, which means I have been a mom for nearly 18 years now. I was working at Curves when I got pregnant with Noah and I chatted with lots of middle-aged women all day. They all told me the same thing: "Time will FLY BY once you have kids. Make sure you cherish every moment!" And of course, I promised I would.

And then I blinked and Noah was 17 years old. And now I'm the middle-aged woman telling new moms that time flies when you have kids, cherish every moment while you can. My friend Jack sent me this quote and I thought it applied to parenting more than anything else:

As a new parent, you have no clue what you're doing. You just kind of go with the flow and then wish you did things differently! Hahaha. Then you share your wisdom/experience with other new parents who wind up doing the same thing and learning the same lesson.

Anyway, I decided to go through some pictures today and I saved a bunch of the kids and me from throughout the years, so I'll post them here. (I won't caption them because there are probably way too many, but it's crazy to see how fast these years have gone by.)

Keep in mind these are the "fun parts" of being a mom. I don't want to try to paint a picture-perfect life as a mom. In between all these pictures were many tears, worry, self-doubt, arguments, the "terrible twos" and "teenage hormones", and many heartbreaks. But these moments make all of that worth it!

Here are a few photos of my mom and me as well. I regret not having lots of photos with her, but like a lot of moms, she was usually the one taking pictures or she didn't like having her photo taken. She has always been extremely supportive and helpful as I navigated being a mom myself. I don't know how I would have done raising the boys if not for her help! 

When I first got pregnant, I imagined having a little girl and I was so excited about it. I don't want to say I was disappointed when the ultrasound showed a boy, because having a little boy would be fun, too. But wow, I had no idea just how much fun! After having Noah, when I got pregnant again, I was REALLY hopeful that it would be another boy. And after Eli, I had no desire to "try for a girl". I've never been a girly-girl, so it's probably best I didn't have a daughter to raise ;) 

My boys are amazing. They have completely opposite personalities, but one thing they have in common is that they are just plain ol' "good kids" in general--the kind of kids that parents hope their own kids will befriend or even date one day. I am so lucky to be their mom and I couldn't be more proud of the young men that they are today!

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VEGAN RECIPE REVIEW: Sticky Baked BBQ Tempeh Strips

When I started eating vegan in January, I swore I wasn't going to start eating all sorts of "weird" stuff that I had associated with a vegan diet--including tempeh. Tempeh is basically soybeans that have been fermented and compressed. For someone who is not at all used being around it, it was in the "weird" category. However, I love to try new things! So if I liked it, awesome. If not, at least I tried.

I had no idea what to do with it or how to cook it or if it even needed to be cooked, etc. I saw a recipe for BBQ tempeh strips and considering there was sauce all over the tempeh, I figured it would be a good one to start with. The sauce could hide the not-so-appetizing-looking tempeh. Here is where you can find the recipe: Sticky Baked BBQ Tempeh Strips by Feed Your Beauty. (I'll link to it again at the end of the post.) As I like to do, I made it exactly as-written so that I'm reviewing the actual recipe as intended.

First, the tempeh. This is what it looks like in the package.

When I hear the word "fermented" I automatically think that it has an overwhelmingly pungent smell. I was preparing myself for cutting it open. When I opened it, however, there was no smell at all. Even right up to my nose--it didn't smell like anything. I was really surprised!

The recipe said to rinse it well, so that's what I did. Then I got out the ingredients for the tempeh strips as well as the homemade barbecue sauce from the same site (there is a link to it in the actual recipe). The recipe also states that you can use store-bought barbecue sauce, but why not try the homemade one?

The two recipes (tempeh strips and barbecue sauce) used these ingredients: tempeh, tamari or liquid aminos, garlic, onion powder, tomato paste, maple syrup, molasses, apple cider vinegar, ground mustard, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and chili powder. (Not pictured: garlic and maple syrup. My brain was somewhere else while I was gathering ingredients.)

I actually had molasses in my pantry from when I was doing the heritage series, and I just never ended up using it. So I was interested to use it--I'd never used or even tasted molasses on its own before. It tasted like burned honey to me; Jerry agreed that was a good description.

First, you add the tempeh to the pan and barely cover with water. Add a little liquid aminos, garlic, and onion powder. Then I let it simmer for 10 minutes, per the instructions. 

I set that aside with 1/4 cup of the cooking water to "marinate" (the recipe said for about 15-20 minutes). I really was skeptical at this point. It didn't look even a little bit appetizing. But... I have a very open mind!

While it was marinating, I made the barbecue sauce. I love using mason jars to make sauces. It's so easy to throw the ingredients in there and shake it up. 

I tasted the sauce after mixing it and unfortunately, I wasn't a fan. The tomato paste and molasses were the dominant flavors. So, I decided to put that sauce on a few of the strips and use my trusty Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce on the rest. I didn't want to dislike the recipe just because of the sauce.

Once I had the sauce done, I removed the tempeh to a cutting board and cut it into 10-11 slices. Then I set it on a baking dish lined with foil. Bake for 10 minutes. Brush with the sauce. Bake for another 12-15 minutes. Done.

I don't know what I expected, but the tempeh looked exactly the same from package to plate. I was kind of hoping the sauce would hide the tempeh better (if not for me, then for the family when they tasted it!).

I don't know why, then, I was surprised when I cut into a slice and it still looked exactly the same (just covered in sauce). I'm always open-minded about trying new things, so I hoped it would taste better than it looked.

The verdict: I actually really liked the tempeh itself! Again, not a big fan of the barbecue sauce; however, I could get on board with the tempeh and try it with other recipes. The texture reminded me of chickpeas (something that I eat a lot of). I didn't used to like the texture of chickpeas--being firmer than other beans--but I got used to them and I really like them now. I felt like the taste of the tempeh was kind of nutty and not super strong (a good thing, at least in my opinion). It definitely tasted better than I was expecting!

Time to ask the family:

Jerry: "The flavor isn't too bad, but it doesn't taste how you expect it to when you look at it." I thought this was very accurate!

Noah: "No. No. No. The texture!" I thought he may actually spit out that bite--it looked like he was having a hard time swallowing, haha.

Eli: "No, I don't like it. The texture is gross."

I had a feeling the kids weren't going to like it, and I don't think that should reflect poorly on the recipe itself. It's the opinion of two meat-eating teenagers. They said the sauce was "fine"--that it tasted like barbecue sauce, but not as good as Sweet Baby Ray's. The sauce did taste better to me after baking it, but I still wasn't crazy about it enough to save the leftovers.

I tasted the tempeh strips that I'd put the Sweet Baby Ray's sauce on and there wasn't a big difference. I think it's because the tempeh itself didn't have any barbecue flavor. It tasted separate, if that makes any sense at all. If I rinsed off the barbecue sauce, you would probably never know it was on there because it didn't get absorbed into the tempeh. It's like with chickpeas again--they don't absorb flavor, but if you eat them in a sauce, you get the texture of a chickpea and flavor of the sauce. (This may be characteristic of tempeh and not just this particular recipe. A quick google search didn't really give me a definitive answer.)

So, while I didn't love this particular recipe, it definitely opened up my eyes to tempeh and I would like to experiment with it again.

Again, you can find the recipe here: Sticky Baked BBQ Tempeh Strips by Feed Your Beauty.

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Friday Night Photos

Rain and baseball. That's what the past three days have been. I can't get over this "spring" weather--it hasn't been this cold in May for as long as I can remember. When in the car, we go from heat to air conditioning and back to heat in a single day; at home, we go from heat to windows open to closing the windows for rain, and heat again when it's too cold in the late afternoon. At Eli's baseball games this year, I've been wearing long underwear under my clothes as well as a hat and gloves. In May! It's crazy.

Anyway, this weekend has started out very poorly...

After two and a half years of managing to avoid it, COVID has reached our household.

Jerry is the only one who has it (or who is symptomatic, anyway), so hopefully it stays that way. He took tests Wednesday and Thursday--both were negative. This morning, his symptoms were worse and I told him to try another test. It showed up as positive almost instantly.

All four of us are vaccinated and boostered, so I hope that his symptoms don't get any worse. He has a cough, very stuffy nose, body aches, mild fever. He won't have to go to work until next Friday, so right now he's just sleeping a lot. It's crazy how he managed to avoid it for so long, even when it was at its peak and he was still working all through the pandemic.

Anyway... Eli asked me to take some pictures of him at his game earlier this week and when I was looking through them, I couldn't believe it was my kid. He's SO grown-up! It was funny--a couple of kids from the other team asked him if he plays football and he said no. They said he looks like he lifts weights, haha. He is taking time off of lifting until baseball is over because he has practice or a game every single day. But I can't believe how much the lifting changed his body in such a short time frame.

Check this out... a 10 year difference:

That year, in his gray shirt, he chose number 11 because it was my favorite number. The sweetest kid ever!

We have baby squirrels!! I'm so excited and they are SO stinkin' cute. It's hard to see their size without something to compare it to (and it's hard to get pictures of them because they move so fast and all over the place). They look like adult squirrels, just in miniature form. There are four of them and they chase each other all over the tree, wrestling and going out on limbs that just look way too small for them. 

They all stop and stare, still and wide-eyed, as their mom comes to get food to bring to them. This morning, mom was coming down the tree with all four babies following in a single file line behind her. My heart melted.

In this picture below, you can kind of see their size in comparison to mom. She's on the far right.

I thought it was interesting that Duck sleeps with his eyes open sometimes. In this picture, you can clearly see his eye, but he was sound asleep. I thought he was watching me as I was moving around the living room, but his eyes weren't moving. You can see a shift in his eyes when he wakes up--from vacant to "Oh, hello there". It's kind of creepy!

I gave myself a haircut and it feels a millions times better. (It looks bad in these pictures because I'd had it pulled up while it dried, so there are lumps from the hair ties, but you get the idea.) The top of it was looking so weighed down, and I just spontaneously cut it when I got out of the shower. It doesn't look like a big difference, but it feels SO short now. I'm glad I can still pull it into a messy bun (just barely, though!).

Joey on our walk Wednesday morning. I kind of miss doing this route with him. I'm going to make it a point to do it more often.

The cats have been getting so much attention ever since Duck's surgery in December. I laid on the couch a few nights ago and instead of letting all the cats sleep on me, I let Joey crawl up on my lap (he's there, he's just hard to see!). He loved the extra attention--I think he felt special that he got priority over the cats.

Eli asked me to buy him Lunchables when I went grocery shopping. They're like $2.50 each and you barely get any food in them--certainly not enough for an active teenage boy. I put together these ones for him and it made me so nostalgic for when the kids were little and I packed their lunches. When they went back to school during the pandemic, lunch was free for everyone. Eli started eating school lunch ever since (by choice, not because I made him). Now he says he's sick of school food; I'm happy that I can pack lunches again! (I never thought I'd say that)

When we went to my parents' house on Sunday, Noah played with Luke and Riley. He's SO GOOD with them! I always thought it would be Eli who was great with kids, but Noah chased them all over the house and the kids had a blast with him. I love seeing all of them play together.

Noah got a haircut yesterday, thankfully. I feel like I have to explain because of the way his hair looks in pictures, haha. He's been growing it out so he just had the sides cut and the top trimmed. I'm not a fan of the long hair, but I'm just an old-fashioned mom I guess ;)

Finally, a picture of Phoebe enjoying the one random nice day we've had. She rolled around on the concrete and lay in the sun. She loved it! I take her outside a couple of times a day for about 10-15 minutes because it's the only thing that she seems to really look forward to. She perks up so much after being out there. 

And that's all I've got. Have a great weekend!

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Spring Cleaning/Organizing

I had no idea what to write about today, so I spent the morning making a list of chores that I want to do for spring cleaning (if the weather ever feels like springtime!). After the whole fiasco with the pantry moths and my subsequent cleaning of the pantry--as well as putting everything into food storage containers--and organizing my spices, I'm in the mood to keep going.

I can't even believe this is (part of) my pantry (it was hard to get a picture of the whole thing). And funnily enough, my kids are probably the ones who are most excited about it... hahaha!

As I started to write this post, I had an idea: How handy would it be to have readers share cleaning and organizing hacks/tips/products all in one spot on a blog post? If you have any tips or want to share photos of your organization of particular spaces, or have favorite products for cleaning/organizing, etc., you can email them to me and I'll put everything into one blog post. I would love to get my house clean and organized this spring!

As for me, maybe you can help me with this... 

I need to figure out solutions for organizing this stuff:

pots and pans
lids for pots and pans
food storage containers and lids (the kind we use to store leftovers or put in lunch boxes)
cleaning supplies (spray bottles, cleaners, etc.)
water bottles (we have way too many, but it's hard to choose what to get rid of)
Mason jars and lids
plastic grocery bags (again, way too many; but we use them when scooping the litter box)
medication boxes/bottles/tubes
winter hats/gloves

This is my embarrassingly disorganized cabinet with pots and pans. I looked for a pan organizer on Amazon, but they are about $25 each and I'd probably need 3-4 of them for pans and lids! I used to have the lids organized on the white rack that's in there (I got that for $1 at a thrift store) but I'm probably the only one in the house to try to keep it organized. Boys don't care.

And this drawer full of measuring cups and spoons drives me crazy!

And I'd love tips for cleaning this stuff:

stove top and oven
toaster oven
window blinds (the most tedious task ever!!)
shower
(I know there are more, but my mind is blank at the moment)


Here are a few of my own ideas that I've implemented and have been super helpful:

Save old toothbrushes and/or the toothbrushes that the dentist gives me at my appointments. (Jerry and I use an electric toothbrush, so we don't use them.) The toothbrushes are perfect for cleaning things that have nooks and crannies like the tracks around windows, drains in the sink and shower, etc. Just make sure you store the old brushes far from the brushes you currently use ;)

Wooden skewers and toothpicks work really well, too, when trying to deep clean in the nooks and crannies (I especially like them for the sliding glass door track. It's hard to scrape out dirt that accumulates in the crevices, but skewers and toothpicks work really well!)

A very-lightly damp washcloth works perfectly to remove pet hair from furniture. If you wipe it with good pressure, the hair will ball up easily on the washcloth and you can just pull it off and throw it away.

Use space organizers in my closet to keep clothes organized. I started doing this ages ago after 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' was super popular. I have not had to re-organize it ever since! I don't use anything special for the organizers--any sort of box will do--but folding items and storing them horizontally instead of vertically was actually "life-changing" for me. My socks take up so much less space! I was able to get rid of our dresser completely and store everything in the closet.

You can tell one of the cats was sleeping on top of my tank tops! Hahaha. Chick and Duck like to find inconspicuous spots to explore and/or sleep.

Now that I've lost quite a bit of weight, I need to go through and get rid of a lot of clothes that are too big. I'm starting to have to cram things in the boxes. (I have two loads of laundry to put away right now.)

Okay, so I'd love to hear your tips/hacks/ideas/products/etc for cleaning and/or organizing. Just send me an email (even if it's just a one-sentence tip and no picture) and I'll include it on a future post (a compilation). If you don't want me to use your name (I'd just include your first name), then please let me know. If you want to share pictures of your organized spaces, then please do! My email address is: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com. I'm excited to see what you've got to share! :)

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Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 49

When I bought this shirt, it was WAY too tight and I couldn't even put it on. It's a very heavy fabric (great for cold weather running) and it stretches, but not much. It was so small that I hadn't even attempted to try it on ever since, but I held onto it.

I was trying to find a shirt that I haven't yet worn for my Wednesday Weigh-In picture and then I noticed this shirt. I tried it on, expecting it to be too small. But it was actually pretty loose! (Not on my arms. Nothing is ever loose on my arms.) I was excited to see that it fits; even though I know I'm making progress, it's fun to see it in my clothing.

I was happy with last week's weigh-in (148.8). The lowest number I've seen on the scale since I started losing the extra weight last May was 147.8 (and that was a couple of months ago, I think). I've gotten so used to seeing 148-152 ish for MONTHS and I didn't get my hopes up this week. However, I saw a new low number today:

At 147.4, I was down 1.4 from last week. I'm so glad to see the scale trending downward again. If the past few months were a plateau, it was the first true plateau I've ever experienced while losing weight. It was frustrating; I was doing everything "right" for the most part, so I had no idea why the scale wasn't budging. My "naked weight" today was 147.0, which marks an even 50 pounds down since I started losing weight last May--an average of a pound a week, which isn't bad.

I'm only 3.4 pounds away from having a "normal" BMI (I'm technically overweight right now). I know that the BMI scale is bullshit, considering it only takes height and weight into consideration (no body fat, muscle mass, bone structure, or anything like that), but it's still used in doctors' offices and for insurance purposes, so I'd like to be in the normal range for that.

I had my DietBet weigh-in this week. I weighed myself on Sunday and was at 147.0 (without clothes and without holding my phone). To hit the DietBet goal, I had to be at 148.7 or lower. Once I put on my light clothing and picked up my phone for the picture, I was at 148.2--a half pound lower than the goal. So, I submitted the weigh-in photos at 6:00 or so in the morning.

I ate breakfast and drank a bunch of water. Then I got an email saying my weigh-in was rejected! The reason? The cord from my scale was too close to the scale itself. This picture is terrible quality because I had to get it from a thumbnail photo in the email, but this is what they were talking about:

They said it looks like the scale is resting on the cord. It wasn't; there is a little lip that hangs over the edge, so it was up against the scale but not under it.

Anyway, they said I had to weigh-in again. After the breakfast and water I'd had, I was over the goal. I thought about going for a run but I had just showered; so I took Joey for a long walk, hoping to lose a bit of water weight in order to weigh in again. (Fun fact: Did you know that when you lose fat, it's expelled through carbon dioxide from exhaling? Also water--from pee, sweat, and exhaled air. I just found it interesting that it's expelled when exhaling.)

When I got home, I was able to hit the goal when I wasn't holding my phone; but to take the picture with my phone, I had to lose another 0.4. I was super annoyed with DietBet at that point. I put on the light clothes I could find in my closet and tried again. I need to lose 0.2 more. I walked around some more and finally... FINALLY I was able to hold my phone and weigh in under the goal. I was at 148.6--just 0.1 away! Definitely cutting it close, but I'd been half a pound under goal just a few hours prior.

I submitted the photos and it said they'd get back to me within 24 hours. Yes, 24 hours! I really hoped there wouldn't be a problem with my second weigh-in because I wasn't about to wait around that long before eating or drinking anything. I wanted to eat lunch at noon, but I waited a little longer and the weigh-in was accepted at around 1:00 PM. I can't wait for this DietBet to be over! I'm not doing another one, that's for sure.

I'm very happy with how this week went, and I hope to have another good weigh-in next week!

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