A must see!!!

One of my favorite things to do is to listen to motivational speakers. While I work I let it play in the background and from time to time I go back to a few to really digest the key points and I do believe that repetition is the key to really grasping something and this one is one of them so I definitely wanted to share.

Hope it helps some you and the key to anything is ACTION!

Married Life and a new low fat recipe

I watched the Netflix Dave Chapelle comedy special on Netflix and I found it hilarious but after watching it one thing stuck out in my mind that he mentioned when discussing his wife. He said that married couples don't do a lot of talking after being together for so long and I laughed so hard because I agree. I love my husband but we don't have a lot of conversations over the phone. When my husband calls me it's usually to tell me something quick and when we try to sit on the phone and chat it's usually dead air. There is no need for long drawn out conversations to kill time because we're around each other day in and day out and if something unusual happens throughout our days we recap the story when we actually see each other so there really is no need for phone chats in my opinion. If you've been in a relationship for along time, do you still have phone chats?

My diet is paying off but I did have my cheat moments this past weekend. I ate popcorn, bread, a slice of cheese, and a bit of 2% milk which are all on my do not eat list but I think I did well in spite of all that. I exercised and prepared good healthy meals which I'll share with you because they were good with the exception of my burnt non-forming gluten/wheat free waffles that I tried. They wouldn't stick together and pretty much stuck to my waffle maker making a mess and wasting the expensive ass coconut and flax seed flour that I purchased. That stuff is expensive and to be honest eating healthier is expensive. I'm spending way more money on food than I've spent in the past to get all fresh products but it's worth it when you feel better internally.

Best recipe that I tried this weekend was the ground chicken lettuce wraps.

Recipe:

Olive oil - to line the pan
ground chicken
3 cloves of garlic - minced
1/2 red onion -diced
3 tablespoons of Bragg's Amino Acid (to replace soy sauce)
2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar
small amount of freshly grated ginger
1 can of diced water chestnuts, drained
5 scallions
1 head of Butter lettuce
Optional- 1/4 cup of Hoisin sauce for sweetness but I prepared this without the Hoisin sauce and it's still great.

Heat olive oil in pan and add ground chicken until it's browned. Make sure you're breaking the chicken up to crumbled size bites during this process. Once fully cooked @ 5 min drain excess fat if needed.
Stir in garlic, onion, Bragg's sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger and scallion (also Hoisin sauce if used) and cook another 3 minutes and finally add the diced water chestnuts and let simmer for 5 minutes then serve on your Butter lettuce (optional: add sliced carrots for extra crunch).

Time to Detox!!!

My eldest daughter was just recently diagnosed as pre-diabetic and my mind has been blown ever since.Like really... because my little miss is only a buck and some change WET (for those who don't know what that means.. she's super skinny as is) so I've been going crazy to change her eating habits because she doesn't need to lose any weight. I think her culprit is more what she eats and with college and work it's usually bread and seasoned potatoes so I figured I would cook meals so that she can take them with her and we're trying a new diet. We've decided to try the no carbs, no sugar and no dairy adaptation of the GAPS diet because I honestly believe that the root cause of her issue is an imbalance in her stomach and this diet helps rid the body of candida and toxin. As motivation to help her along I've decided to try it too and navigate these tough times with her and I'll be damn it's HARD! I've never really tried a real detox and the cravings are something serious!

Throw back music

Happy 45th birthday Shaquille O'Neal!!! I'm not a sports fan but I am a hip hop fan and this was by far the best song that Shaq ever did.

Hunter Biden Playing Uncle-Daddy

I hope you all had a great weekend. Here in Jersey it was bitter cold so I stayed home and hosted a small dinner party and I invited a new couple over to join in the mix. My 6 year old daughter is at that age where she has play dates and we tend to meet new people so once you're invited to someone's home, you have to reciprocate and that's what I did.  I really like the wife of the couple and the night went well but I felt a bit uneasy at the end of the evening because the husband came upstairs following me into my daughters room which I felt was a violation! Let me clarify the scenario a bit... he came upstairs because his daughter went up to my daughters room to get her bracelet but still I followed her upstairs and he followed right behind me. Ummm that's not acceptable because I didn't know he was behind me and it's a sign of out right nosiness disguised as a concerned parent trying to find a plastic bracelet. When I was at their home and my daughter went up to their children's room to change, I didn't invite myself upstairs in their house and honestly I've never experienced someone just taking the liberty to walk through a strangers home. I have friends who I know quite closely and I've never been upstairs in their private bedrooms because it's a violation of their privacy. At least that's what I think and I thought it was a bit weird but my house is nice and I know this soooo me being be went the positive route and I've decided to overlook it BUT it made me wonder how a person could be so brazen or if it was just a cultural difference??? Is that normal for other cultures??? You tell me. The couple was a Filipino woman and a white husband but I know enough Filipino's to know that it's definitely not a cultural thing for them but to be honest I don't have many white friends so please fill me in? 

My daughter who has white friends said that one of her friends give out the garage passcode to her friends so that they can walk into her house and she too thought that was odd so this sparked my question. I know if my kids gave my garage code to ANYONE for them to invite themselves into my home we would have a PROBLEM! What's your take on it? 

Another thing that I wanted to chat about was the Hunter Biden. Apparently the younger Biden has become romantically involved with his deceased brothers widow. Let's not overlook the fact that he's still very much married BUT he is currently getting a divorce. Wendy Williams discussed this on her show as well on Friday and I've made a comment on another post as well about this uncle-daddy scenario. My personal opinion is that it's a bit distasteful!  Hunter has children and they know Hallie to be their aunt as well as their cousins mother and now it's a possibility that their dad is leaving their mom to go live with their cousins and auntie??? That's crazy and can cause all kinds of issues in the kids relationships with their immediate cousins and their parents. That is NOT normal and despite the fact that aunt Hallie may have been lonely you just DON'T go digging for a new beau in your deceased husbands family.  

So I Made It To Harvard!!!

All I can say is DO that shit!!!! 

You never know where your road will take you but it takes some planning. Watch Rihanna's acceptance speech of the HarvardFoundation Humanitarian Award and you get the sense of where one girls dreams took her and where your dreams can take you as well. All that's required is a bit of planning because you can't ever steer a ship to a destination without a compass. Watch the clip of Rihanna accepting her award from Harvard below. Honestly I skimmed it and the best part starts at 1:16 into the clip (it's her actual acceptance speech) and it's soooo cute and inspirational. She stated that she achieved her goal of helping others at the age of 18.
If you need a little help drafting your plan of action I've outline a few easy steps below.



Your map to a personal action plan for growth!  
Meditate. Grow. Build. Plan.
Step 1.   Meditate
This is the simpliest action of them all. It only involves silencing your surroundings and centering yourself so that you can clear your inner dialog of any clutter so that you're focused. It's simple and will take a bit of practice but 10 minutes a day of pure silence and concentrated breathing to gain clarity.

Step 2.   Grow
Nurture yourself. Grow in wisdom and sense of self. There are many ways we can achieve this task. Life is the process of growing and learning therefore you're cultivating your true purpose by enhancing your knowledge. Take time out to read of learn a new skill that enhances your being. Take a yoga class or learn to grow your own food with a small garden. Any form of growth and personal enhancement is awesome and feeds your soul.

Step 3.   Build
This goal is a multiple tasked goal. First you need to build a team of people around you that propels you to strive for more. Cut dead weight out of your life if needed and build a new team around you. A team of friends and acquaintances who can contribute to the achievement of your goals. Whether those people serve minor roles or major roles on your path is strictly  up to you but a team is crucial to getting where you want to be.  
Secondly you'll need to give of yourself freely so that you can receive. For every action there is a reaction and what you send out into the universe is what you'll receive therefore you must do sincere acts of kindness done from pure love so that the universe can reward you in return. Think well and do well and you'll be well. I won't go too deep into the laws of attraction but you can read about it on your own. This is the simplest action that you can do to achieve your goal without really doing much other than being a kind person. The type of person you're looking for to join your core team. Get it???

Step 4.  PLAN
This is by far the hardest action. You have to plan and really focus on your plan so that you're staying on course. Write your plan down somewhere you'll be able to see it often. You'll need to see it so that you're consciously aware of your task. Write your plan with an actionable deliverable with due dates (basically a to-do list). This is your map and if you track yourself I promise you'll reach most of your goals. The main point is to write it down and set your course because again... if you don't have a plan in place you're basically letting life guide you aimlessly and before you know it, you'll end up no where because that's how you planned it.