I love carbs.  I mean I really love carbs.  Pasta, bread, bagels, pasta...did I mention how much I love pasta?  As I watched the numbers on the scale slowly go up over the years, I've come to realize that my metabolism just can't handle the amount of starchy carbs I've been eating.


Gone are the days when I'd have an English muffin for breakfast, a bagel sandwich for lunch and some sort of dish with pasta...or heaven forbid, a grilled cheese sandwich on slices of French bread.  I've been limiting my starchy carb intake and amping up my fresh fruits and veggies as well as my protein.  I've added things like chia seeds to my diet.  Now, hard boiled eggs are a good snack instead of some crackers.  (Sorry, rosemary and olive oil Triscuits!  I do miss you!)

To help with the change in diet, my mom and I purchased the Nutra Ninja Nutra Bowl Duo so we could start making healthy breakfast smoothies.  (We aren't getting paid by Ninja for this blog post, so what follows is my honest opinion.) I had been pinning healthy smoothie recipes for days in anticipation.  So as soon as it arrived in the mail I unpacked it and got it all set up.  I even looked through the recipe book that came with it.


And I of course had to make my first smoothie not long after that. I was inspired!  I read through the directions on how to use the system, filled my cup the correct way (fresh on the bottom, liquids, sticky stuff, then frozen), twisted on the blender blades and snapped it into the base unit.

This system is easy to use with the Auto-iQ technology.  I selected the boost because I had some seedy fruits then hit the smoothie button.  WHOA!  I thought the blender was going to lift off like a rocket!  This little baby has some serious power behind it at 1200 watts.  No wonder why the base had suction cups on the bottom to stick it to the countertop!


The result was a perfectly blended smoothie.  No chunks and most of the seeds were ground up well into fine little bits. No yogurt was stuck to the sides of the cup unblended.  It was really quite amazing compared to our old blender.      

Ever since, I've made myself a smoothie nearly every morning for breakfast.  Occasionally I will let myself have something starchy or I'll opt for something with eggs, but as a lover of all things fruit, I have really been enjoying these smoothies!


And with the two cups that come with the system, both my mom and I can enjoy a smoothie in the morning.  We have even pre-prepped smoothies the night before, sticking the cups in the fridge.  In the morning we add some ice and blend.  The results were just as perfect.

I really love tart things.  It's an inherited trait.  As a young girl, my Oma loved to eat lemons like oranges.  So any chance I get to have tart citrus fruits, I'm all in.  This particular recipe can be sweetened up to taste by adding honey if you aren't a sour puss like me.

I just love the dark pink color of this smoothie!  And the tart flavor mixed with sweet fruits is so much better than the faux taste of cherry limeade drinks you get at fast food joints, plus it's way healthier.  The chia seeds give you an added boost of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, fiber, iron and calcium.  Limes aid in digestion, cherries and pomegranate seeds are packed with antioxidants and the blueberries and blackberries have vitamin C.



Yum

I've been occasionally chronicling my family's story of new beginnings here on our blog.  In the last blog post, we had just sold both my mom's house and my Oma's house and were living temporarily with family while our new house was being built.  My mom and I have now been living in our new home for nearly a year and a half now and we couldn't be happier.

Our home last summer prior to adding my garden beds.

Those three months were tough living with other family.  I won't go into all the details but I did a lot of driving back and forth between my dad's, music rehearsals and my sister's apartment.  I felt like a gypsy constantly on the move.  I even drove down to our lot to check on the progress of my mom's new house.  Move in day could not come soon enough--we were so excited to get back to a normal life and enjoy our new house.

Move in day went smoothly.  We hired College Hunks and the four young men who helped us move were so courteous and efficient.  As a thank you, my mom made sure to order them lots of pizza for lunch since they helped us move out of three storage units and into our new home.

The main living area after moving in.  You can see that the our furniture is dwarfed by the size of the home.

I think it took us the better part of that first year to really get settled in.  Because packing was so haphazard with two houses going into three storage units, there were a lot of boxes to sift through.  And despite the fact that we had three storage units full, we donated a lot of furniture.  Our new house was much larger than either of the houses we came from and some of the furniture we did have was dwarfed by the size of our new house.

Our new table prior to getting additional chairs.

But we have enjoyed taking our time filling our house with new furniture we actually want.  We didn't want to buy just any cheap thing because we needed something.  We wanted it to be nice.  Two small cabinets, 2 chairs, 1 long dining table, 6 dining chairs and 8 counter stools (6 with backs and 2 without) later, our main living area is coming along quite nicely (thank you, Pier 1, especially Brandon at our local store)!  We still need a very, very large china and buffet hutch to store all of the china and crystal we inherited from my Oma and Opa.  Luckily, we have a whole wall!  My mom has been eyeing the Tucker Wall Unit from Pottery Barn.  It is the only thing big enough in our decor style that would work and we love that it is modular!

Our living room after getting our new chairs and small cabinets as well as our new area rugs.  (Yes, that is a wine fridge you see in the top right! There is that cute bunny garland!)

We have also been fixing up the guest bedroom and downstairs bathroom in an Austrian ski chalet theme in honor of my Oma.  My mom stopped calling the bedroom the "guest bedroom" months and months ago, referring to it as "mom's room" or "Oma's room."  We've layered grey and white sheets, a quilt and a duvet on the bed, adding snowflake accent pillows.  Around the bed we hung photos of my Oma and her family in Austria.  Here and there about the room are other snowy-themed items: wooden snowflakes, an antique sled, my mom's old skis, my Oma's old ski boots and some faux alpine trees.

After getting our new table for the dining room, we moved our small round table downstairs to the family room.  We put my mom's leather furniture down there.  Our TV armoire is dwarfed by the wall.  Eventually, we move that armoire to the guest room and buy an entertainment unit.  But for now, it works.  We plan to make this room a ski chalet lobby theme with movies and games.  My Oma loved Scrabble.  I really want that large wall Scrabble board from Restoration Hardware.  You have no idea how badly I want a giant Scrabble board in honor of my Oma.  

My mom's bedroom is simple.  We still need more art on her walls.  (Hello, Jacob!)

My mom has kept her own bedroom simple.  I let her have my tall set of drawers to place her TV on. She placed the faux leather chair she had in her room at my Oma's in her sitting area.  Her shower is huge--you could fit 5 people in there comfortably.  It's perfect for her to easily step through with a walker when she gets older.  I gave her my teak bath stool to hold some of her shower supplies.

My Scrapbox Workbox 3.0 all closed up.  I still needed to attach the crown.

Upstairs is my own little slice of heaven.  I call the loft my "scrap loft."  And thanks to my Oma, I have a fabulous storage unit to hold all of my scrapbooking supplies--a Scrapbox Workbox!  It was made specifically for scrapbooking so it couldn't be more perfect.  When I'm not using it, which isn't often, it folds up into a tidy little armoire.  When it's open, there is 9 feet of crafting bliss!   I also have my counter height craft table, some storage cubes (yes, I have that much scrapbooking stuff) and my desktop computer.

My Scrapbox Workbox 3.0 open and with the crown installed.  I have a lot of supplies!

Just off my loft is my own bedroom with an on-suite bathroom.  I've never had such a large room before, let alone an on-suite bathroom.  My old bedroom was just barely big enough for a twin bed, small nightstand, small writing desk and a tall set of drawers.  Even then I still had to shimmy around between furniture.  Now a queen-sized bed, a larger nightstand, a TV armoire, a chair and a set of nesting tables fit very comfortably in my room.

My bedroom.  I also need more art on my walls.

We even have a small bedroom near the entry that we use as my mom's office.  Right now it's just a computer desk with my mom's computer, a chair and a small shelf unit.  Eventually we will need some bookcases.  There is also a bathroom off this bedroom.  I had a friend of mine from my flute choir alter one of my old shower curtains to make it longer.  She added a pretty ruffle of fabric to the bottom in a matching color.

My mom's office.  We need bookshelves because we have lots and lots of books.

For now, our storage area is full of boxes of books, china and holiday decor.  But we have already hosted a family Christmas party with my dad's family and I've even hosted a flute choir board meeting at our new house.

Outside I'm working on my gardens.  I brought some daylilies from my Oma's pool area.  I thought they had died before I managed to get them in the ground but they magically started growing one day in the little terra cotta pots I brought them in.  They have now all been planted and I dug out gardens around each of the trees in the yards.  I've planted ponies, hyacinth, tulips, daylilies, lilies, iris, allium, phlox, daisies, echinops, anemones, grecian wind flowers, astilbe, coral bells, columbine, lavender, snowbells and more!  I even planted some freesia in a pot so that I can bring it in to winter.  We've filled our window boxes with annuals and put them along the front porch.  I have a huge pot of lilies on the front porch as well as a potted geranium and fuchsia.

My garden bed out front this spring.

I intend on moving some of the rock to make more gardens.  I still have so many other things I want to plant--like some rosebushes for my Opa!  My Opa also planted clematis at my Oma's old house.  One of these days we will have a few trellises with clematis and climbing roses.  The combination of the two is lovely.

Part of the garden bed in the backyard. In the back corner is our lovely new hummingbird feeder.

We have two hummingbird feeders now (the one that looks like a giant fuchsia bloom is from Desert Steel--they have really cool stuff so you should check it out!) and I've got my birdbath installed for the summer.  My Oma's outdoor furniture has been placed on the back patio and front porch.  My mom hopes to one day have a pergola or covered patio out back.  But right now, we are finally getting our fence installed.  I've been taking my dogs out on leashes for the past 7 years and I'm ready for a fenced in yard again!    

My giant pot of lilies is full of these gorgeous blooms--Eyeliner Lily.

Inside, my potted hydrangea has had a rough two years but it is finally starting to come back to life.  I put it outside during the summer on the front porch and it actually flowered this spring!  My aunt even brought back a few of the plants she took from my Oma's house back to my mom.  In our kitchen sink window we've planted a few herbs and even have a small fairy garden pot in the window at our stove.

Our patriotic bunting for the Fourth of July last summer.

Though it really makes me miss my Oma, I have really been enjoying decorating for the holidays--it's bittersweet.  We've purchased a few new things here and there, adding to our collection.  Last summer we bought bunting for the Fourth of July--we've never had a porch railing before and we were excited to decorate it!  We've purchased glimmer strings to fill our lanterns by the front door.  But Halloween was my favorite--I made my own Dead and Breakfast sign.  But that is another post for another time.

Our home set up for our family Christmas party this past holiday season.  We don't have a chandelier yet over our dining room table so we made one with a branch, a glimmer string, some crystals, clip on birds, fishing line and clear Command hooks.

The only major issue we had was with backfilling around the house that caused the ground around the house to sink.  It of course happened during our monsoon season and so water would rush into our window wells.  Luckily, all new houses in our state are required to have a sump pump and each of our window wells had a drain to the pump.  So no damage.  But the builder did finally get the issue resolved at the end of last summer.

All in all, we are thrilled with our new house!  This new beginning has come in chapters over the past 2 years but my mom and I are finally able to start over.  We've been taking more time for ourselves, working on our own health and I'm back to working!  I finally got a position doing contract social media work that still allows me time to do my custom scrapbooking business.  And the best part--I work from home!

Our front yard this spring. Our white crab apple tree was in full bloom and the bees were loving it!  (That is the model home next door.  They have rock and plants in front of the garage for now.)

We hope to add more blog posts as we add furniture and gardens to our new house and of course all of our trials and tribulations in doing so.  I'm sure we'll have some funny and moving stories to tell.

Adrienne