PadawanOfHappiness

 In my previous post on healthier swaps I covered: ✅ Instant Oatmeal (I am keeping this)  I am still toying with my ratios but I am fairly comfortable with this. 🚫 Annie's Mac & Cheese (I am going back to the blue box, but will limit how often I use it) 🔎 Hersey's Simple 5 Chocolate syrup for Hershey's chocolate syrup  -  I am not ready to go with this syrup I am going to try to make my own. There are a lot of recipes out there and they have similar ingredients/proportions so I am just going to pick one and go for it.  Many of the comments talk about how much thinner the homemade version is, the three popular solutions based on the comments are (1) add less water (2) boil longer and it must be a hard boil (3) add 1 tbs of corn starch. 🚫 Crazy Richard's Peanut butter  I was not a fan so 🔎 I am going to try another brand before I go back to Simply Jif Next up to try is Teddie's 🔎 Bisquick -  My kids still like Bisquick better, but I am still ...

Instant Oatmeal Since I was last here I have managed to try making my own instant oatmeal.  One good thing is that Mr. Padawan and the little Padawans* are very happy eating the same thing over and over again.  This makes my life a bit easier since I don't have to make a variety of instant oatmeal flavors. I settled on maple and brown sugar.  I did play with a few different versions that I found on the internet and found that I prefer the old fashioned rolled oats because that is what I use to make my granola and I didn't want to have a variety of oats in the pantry.  This means that I do toss my oats into a mini food processor and some of it I do chopp relatively fine, some are cut down a bit and some are left as is.  I then dump it all in a big bowl add in brown sugar and cinnamon, mix and then dump it into a glass jar.  For Mr. Padawan I do a general 1/3 cup, for the little Padawans, who seems to eat BIG breakfasts they do a 1/2 cup. One note, I need to ...

As I have started to eliminate some of the processed foods, I have a varied approach.  Sometimes I try for less processed or processed but NonGMO foods, and sometimes I go for things made from scratch. Items that I now make from scratch (at least 90% of the time) Pasta sauce Pie crust Cookies Granola Items that I make from scratch occasionally Rolls Bread Pretzles Items that I swapped to NonGMO Baking Powder  Things I am trying to find alternatives for Instant Oatmeal Chicken nuggets Stove Top Stuffing Bisquick pancake and baking mix For the instant oatmeal I found a few recipes on line that I will try out.  I do actually have the time to make regular old fashioned oats in the morning, but the problem is one of texture, one of my kids doesn't like it and I can relate.  So rather than fight that I want to look for better healthier options.  The reason I picked this was a friend posted a comparison of the ingredient list for Quaker Oats Instant oatmeal in the US v...

With the whole scaredemic of the Covid years, it has awakened me in many ways.  I became more politically active than I had been previously, I became more aware of the pitfalls our society, and how unhealthy we are as a whole.  Not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually. It opened my eyes to how much other entities want to control individuals, they want to treat us as stupid children and have us just accept what they offer us, because they are only "looking out for our best interests." Well you know what, for the most part companies, governmental agencies, and government bodies are not looking out for the individual, they are looking out for themselves.  We have it so good right now, clean water, food, and most of us are not working in hard labor industries, we have gotten soft.  Mentally and physically. Right now I am looking at food companies and trying to figure out what is good for us vrs what is bad.  My favorite principle to live by is KISS, ...

Thank goodness the end of the year is drawing near, like many I am really looking forward to it with great enthusiasm that is trying to mask my apprehension of expecting more of the same if not worse. I am looking forward to what I hope are positive changes, and believe it or not things that I am looking to maintain into the new year.  2020 while overall, has been pretty darn craptastic, there were some really good things that I can focus on. It was often reported in the news and social media about a huge weight gain of many, and knock on wood I didn't have a huge weight gain but a bit.  I am re-invigorated by the treadmill that I got for my birthday to reverse the slide and actually pick up on my weight loss journey.  For the most part I mainly stagnated, toward the end the jeans were getting a bit tight so I made some tweaks. My 2 cents for things that have helped me or have inspired me to continue on my health journey (which for me does include losing weight): COVID - ...

Image by Blue Shutters Web Design. I have been toying a lot with Gretchen Rubin's Secrets of Adulthood , specifically this one. Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy And one morning Mr. Padawan and I were talking about things that we should do because they make us feel better in the long term but really hate doing them, and it hit me that secret of adulthood applies here. So I know that I feel better when I exercise, and I don't feel better in the moment, in fact I feel pretty miserable.  But when I think about how I feel over a period of time I feel better, less stressed, less tired, happier, less likely to be snappy with my little Padawans or Mr. Padawan, I have more patient. I have tried a bunch of different exercises and I haven't found anything I love, but I have found things that I can tolerate.  But because I don't love exercise it is very easy for me to put it off (aka forget to do it) and just say oh I'll do it tomorrow.  And sure I feel good in ...

I saw a friend of mine post on Facebook looking for hacks to survive quarantine and the discussion was about how their kids put them to bed now.  How much was tongue in cheek I don't know but it got me thinking that overall I am doing better than I thought I would be. To be honest I think it has largely been due to the fact that for the most part I have embraced my nature and what works best for my family.  I am going I am going to share what works for my family maybe it will work well for yours or at least inspire you to make some changes that allow you to embrace your nature and how your family works. Schedules Oh I have always loved my schedules, and for once I tried to just let go of control and fly by the seat of my pants and schedules be damned.  I really did, I thought everyone seems to say just let go and enjoy the ride so why not.  Well the thing is that there was so much out of my control that letting go left me even further adrift.  Once I got back to...

I am still working on getting back into the groove of weighing food, and counting calories, it is less successful than I had hoped it would be.  Part of the issue is that for dinners I love casseroles and one-dish meals, and those are really hard to count calories.  In my previous posts, I think I had mentioned something similar because NOOM doesn't have a place to input recipes and have it spit out portion and calories, and while MyFitnessPal does I find the interface clunky and therefore I don't use it.  To combat that a bit I have focused on this month's menu to not feature casseroles as much even the ones that I have altered to make a bit more on the healthy side.  I realized today as I was in the middle of my cardio work out that even though I had the intention of doing better in January, in reality, I was just in what Jillian Michaels calls 'showed up mode'.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing because some is better than none, but since I want to see pr...

Ok so the good news is that I don't have a full fledged mask with my CPAP machine, it is just this uber sexy nose pillow and the hose sits at the top of my head so it doesn't get in the way too much.  And it is really pretty quiet which is good. It does feel kind of weird as I get used to it and for the most part I don't feel like I am driving down the highway with my head out the window which is good.  Last night was a bad night, something wasn't quite right and there was a hissing sound like there was an airleak somewhere and I couldn't find it.  It couldn't have been that bad since my app gave me a good score but I did see that last night's "leak' value was higher than any other night.  Normally I am between 1-3, last night I was at 8.  Not sure what is up with that. I have noticed that for the most part I have been waking up around 5 AM fairly well rested and ready to go, but I just don't want to leave my bed because I LOVE my bed and...

I was cleaning out some notes on my phone and I found one that made me stop and realize how far my journey in 2019 has brought me.  I had just celebrated some achievements my son has mad and I need to celebrate mine too.  So here it is. In January 2019 my PCP had me see a cardiologist because my blood pressure (BP) was out of control.  He put me on a third medication and gave me a target range for my BP and said he would check in with me in 3 months.  I remember being fearful but determined.  The goal he gave me still seemed high but I wrote it down so I could remember it.  Here is what I wrote out. Seeing this note I realized two things: I need to take my BP more consistently.  I fell off the wagon At that 3 month check-in I was well below that. And I have continued to do amazing work.  I am not convinced it is all due to the medicine I think it was multiple things.  Since January I have worked to reduce my stress ...