New Beginnings

Happy New Year! A year of new beginnings!

2014 was pretty awesome for me, to recap (totally out of order:)

• I MARRIED THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, my wonderful husband in October!
• We moved back to my hometown, a little beach community, in a little house across from the water
• Hubbins (what I call my amazing man) got a new job right up the road from us!
• I got a new supervisor at work who's kind and supportive
• I GRADUATED WITH MY MSW!!!!
• I PASSED MY LICENSING EXAM!!!!

And now, for the newest addition....drumroll please...we're eating clean in 2015! Yes, I meant that to be cutesy/rhymey....DUN DUN DUN!

What does that mean you ask? Well, *sigh* it means that for the next three months, Hubbins and I will no longer consume the following:

• added sugars (anything not occuring in a fruit, etc.)
• gluten (including potatoes *sniff)
• red meat
• pork
• anything fun....kidding....kind of...

I have my vices I will not give up, including my coffee creamer that I only drink at home and only on the weekends.

"Why would one do this to themselves?" You may ask. Well, many reasons.  For him it's because he wants to practice more portion control (specifically with sweets.)  For me, it's because I gained a significant amount of weight in grad school and well, it's not budging.  For both of us, it doesn't hurt that we ate alot of baked goods over the holidays and we need to get off the sugar train.

So here we go...*deep breath*...we're on day 2 now of this lifestyle change.  I'm trying to not call it a diet because, well, I hate that word, I mean it has the word "die" in it, right? Who wants to do that? No fun.  Also not fun? Ignoring my cook books and pinterest boards that contain some of the yummiest baking and cooking ideas I've discovered.  *sigh*

So over the next few months at least, a lot of my posts will probably be about food and what we're discovering on this new lifestyle change together.  Yesterday was day 1 (which you probably figured out by today being day 2...) and the migraine started around 2AM this morning...I'm assuming sugar withdrawl?

I made a "yummy" chicken, broccoli and quinoa caserole Recipe - Click here! for dinner.  I put "yummy" in quotation marks because it probably is, I just DESPISE quinoa.  When I was a kid we kept birdseed in the house to, well, feed the birds and that's what I think quinoa is.  Millet.  Yuck.  Anywho, I'm not really selling this recipe well, the taste was delicious, and if you don't mind the texture of quinoa (which I most certainly DO!) then you will love it.

For dessert/breakfast I made These delicious carrot oatmeal cookies .... to help with the sugar cravings.  They're yummy! Not very sweet and nothing like my delicious buttery Ina Garten oatmeal raisin cookies (that I'm not totally craving.) But still, they're good!

Now, I know what you're going to say "but Christiana, neither of these recipes are gluten-free!" Ok, you're right, I used whole wheat flour in both recipes, but they could be substituted with any GF flour you like.  I just didn't have any at home and I want to use up what ingredients I still do have.

Hope you enjoy reading this and coming along this journey with me!