Puppy Love & Happy Skin

Everyone knows how obsessed I am with my furkid, Gordie, so the idea of me falling in love with a new puppy is COMPLETELY PREDICTABLE! Our family adopted little Gracie just over a week ago. She was skinny, malnourished, exhausted, but incredibly kind. A week of constant hugs, pets, love, and some happy-tummy food has brought this lil pup from RAGS to RICHES.

This is why this company is so important to me. Cruelty free {no testing on lil furries}! Naturally-made ingredients! The Mascara— green tea fibers! The BB Cream— shea butter! The list goes on and on.

Everything is literally made with YOU and your BODY in mind. So, be nice to your body and skin. It’s the only one you’ll ever have. ❤

www.Rehab4Lashes.com

XO, Megan

Best Friends 4 EVA & EVA

I want you to meet my four best friends. They build me up each day, make me feel like a rockin’ superstar, and are always trying to make my life easier. I just love them.

Who are they, you ask?

Why their names are KitchenAid, Ninja Blender, Pressure Cooker, and Keurig (hey, a girl NEEEEEDS her coffee!). 🙂

Can I tell you that THEY are the reason why I have gone 14 days eating Paleo and LOVE it? My husband and I tried this so many other times before, only to fail miserably after eating too many frittatas & Cobb salads. {And let me tell you, if I see another frittata, I may go fri-crazy}.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Eating Paleo is amazing {and you will FEEL GREAT}, but it is hard IF you are like me and are a food snob/baked goods fiend. I simply cannot live on steamed broccoli and chicken, and I will not. I will turn to a crazy person. {FACT: I would do it for a week, quit, and then angrily stuff bon-bons in my face just to spite all the do-gooder-Paleo-peeps!}

DISCLAIMER: Some of you strict Paleo peeps are probably thinking, “Well you are not completely Paleo if you are constantly making baked goods and not changing your relationship with food. You are cheating.”… {round of applause} I AGREE 1000%, but honestly, I’m stubborn, know what I want, and hey– I’m taking baby steps, baby! Delicious, baby steps. A girl’s gotta LIVE! 🙂

So, let me put on my QVC boots and tell you about my best friends!

-KitchenAid Mixer— Er. Mer. Gerd. This thing is amazing. Not only can I whip up a batch of muffins or cookies in a jiffy (without using Jiffy, since that’s not Paleo) BUT I can cut, slice, shred, stuff, grind, whip, mix, etc. with all of my fun attachments. Best yet. Easy to clean!

 

-Ninja Ultima Kitchen System (“for the beyond professional food processing and blending experience”)– This comes with individual blend cups, a big blender jar, and food processing bowl. I can blend my veggies/fruit togetheras a shake for breakfast and chop everything into a bagillion pieces for dinner. Super easy to clean. Doesn’t like fingers, though. Be careful! Super sharp!

 

-Instant Pot Pressure Cooker— At first glance, it may look like the inside of Doc’s 1985 DeLorean, but don’t fear the buttons. This genius gadget will make anything… and make it so delicious, you will weep gravy tears. Cook your chicken in a blink of an eye? Done. Steam your veggies to perfection? Psh, easy. Make some homemade yogurt? Errr, hhhhaven’t tried that yet but the fact is, I CAN because there is a button for that! Again, easy to clean (are you seeing a pattern?), and it makes an awesome geyser noise/spray when it releases pressure. Who needs Yosemite? AmIRight? 🙂

-Keurig–I love coffee. Enough said. 

Between these four friends, we have no excuse to eat Chinese take-out, much on mediocre dishes from restaurants (who just buy their ingredients from GFS or some other frozen bulk food chain), or order a “cardboard Son of a B—-” {aka cheap pizza}.

They are costly, but THEY will save you on your journey to eating healthy.. AND if you compare that to the various doctor bills that you might accumulate after living on a strict diet of Doritos and DiGiorno Pizza, is pretty inexpensive.

I’m not saying to blow all your tax cash on your electronic pluggy-inny things but find a way to help you stay prepared and have fun! Because food is FUN! And yummy.

End rant. Here is a delicious Strawberry Lemon Muffin that my best friends and I made tonight! It’s amazeballs.

{Recipe from this book, Paleo Meal Planning on a Budget}

XO,

Megan

 

A Sultry Love Affair

That’s me (dressed like the 80-year-old) enjoying some delightful cinnamon buns. You can just call me, Meg-jamin Button.

If we were speaking in Facebook terms, I would probably label my relationship with eating healthy food as “It’s Complicated.”

I’ve loved food all my life– eating it, cooking it, smelling it, tasting it, thinking about it, talking about it, blogging about it, etc. And when you pair it with the perfect alcoholic beverage in your favorite dimly-lit restaurant. Ah. It is heaven.

But for the next 26 days, we are ditching the sugar, the alcohol, the grains, the dairy, and the beans/legumes to jumpstart our Paleo(ish) lifestyle. It’s usually pretty easy, but today (Day 4)… I had bad thoughts.

I wanted cheesecake. I wanted Honey Jack Daniels on the rocks. I wanted garlic breadsticks smothered in butter. I replayed every slow-motion, junk food commercial OVER and OVER in my head.

…{CAUTION: FOOD PORN MOMENT AHEAD}…

You know the commercials with the melty-stringy cheese slowly stretching between two pizza slices or the slow waterfall of chocolate that gently falls atop a delicious bed of peanuts and ooey-gooey nougat. I was a GROUCH-A-SAURUS REX because I couldn’t have any. I. WAS. HANGRY!! Ya know, if Hungry + Angry had a child.

Gordie suffers from “treat withdrawal” on occasion

I kept thinking of ways I could get out of it. I’d imagine myself having a delicious one-night-stand with pizza (just one slice… or five), and in the morning, I would look at the disappointed reflection staring back at me and vehemently yell, “WE WERE ON A BREAK!” (the infamous line that Ross Gellar screams at Rachel).

But then, Julia Child’s voice would boldly interrupt my imaginary love affairs, booming: “You have to have courage in your convictions.”

What can I say? That old broad’s right. I probably should chill on the hardcore food fantasies. 🙂

So tonight, I will have a delicious slice of courage for dinner (and really, it isn’t that bad), alongside some Paleo-ish (yes, ISH since I doubt cavemen had Frank’s Red Hot) shredded buffalo chicken lettuce wraps and sweet potato fries.

“The Rex” has quieted for now!

XO, Megan

My Roadmap to Happiness

Brace with me, peeps. I am having a WOW moment here…

A few years ago, I was crying in my car afraid to walk into work because I fell out-of-love with my dream job. Here I was teaching in the school I wanted, in the town where I grew up, with people who were amazing, in a pretty awesome district, and I was unhappy. I kept thinking, “How DARE you! People would kill for this job…” I felt stuck.

So we left. We packed our bags and journeyed across the country looking for all the things we felt were missing. We’d unpack, conquer the city, and leave. And as each exit sign, rest stop, and city skyline faded in our rearview mirror, we understood something new and amazing about ourselves. We evolved in each place, but we felt we were STILL missing something.

 

                              

We had love. We had money. We had family. What was left that mattered?

Then one day, something snapped within me, and I realized that we had it all along. Buried deep within us was a belief that was so profoundly monumental that it had carried us back home and to a place of happiness and gratitude that we could never have imagined!

It is within these SEVENTEEN WORDS that I repeat on a daily basis!

I WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP, AND THAT. IS. OKAY!!!

Our travels, to name a few!

What does that mean? Happiness (for me, at least) is not defined by a career or a location. It is a state of being that exists within each of us, whether we choose to find it or not, and it is constantly changing! 

So what is my happiness right now?

Well, that’s easy. Mutts, Mascara, and Macchiatos.

XO, Megan

Almond-Milk Lattes + Love Muffins

In honor of our Whole30 “Paleo” eating, I am going to post this DELICIOUS banana muffin recipe that I have borrowed and adapted from this amazing blogger. Her original recipe is here!

I have baked a million muffins before (I have even been known to whip up an occasional “pupcake” a time or two). This recipe is BY FAR the best.

“OMG-That-Can’t-Be-Paleo” Banana Muffins

Yields 1 dozen muffins

• 3 very ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup cashew butter {you can use almond or sunflower seed butter}
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups almond flour/meal
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3 Tbsp. shredded coconut {the delish factor}
• Coconut oil to grease your muffin tin {if you do not use muffin cups}

1. Mash your “nanners” in a bowl. Add your cashew butter + eggs. Mix well.
2. In a separate bowl, combine almond flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and shredded coconut.
3. Mix your dry ingredients with your “nanner concoction” and mix until combined.
4. Grease your muffin tins {if you are not using muffin cups} and fill each approx. 2/3 full with batter. I sprinkle the tops again with cinnamon!
5. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 375 degrees or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let cool completely before storing.
7. Hide a few from your family members, or they will eat them all. 🙂
8. Pair it with your FAVORITE coffee/tea* and you have a delicious snack!

*Idle Awhile Coffee in Oxford, MI is AMAZING. They make the best almond-milk lattes in the world. Makes us feel like we are in Austin again.

This was the perfect snack to go along with my coffee. Delish.

XO, Megan