The Outside & In

Today I wanted to share something that we set up at our house about a year ago that has been fantastic for us. It’s the IKEA RASKOG Utility Cart, which we have been using to house art supplies.

Initially, I ordered two as a nightstands for the boys’ room. It fit perfectly next to Ben’s bed, but just didn’t look right next to Max’s. So we took that one out and decided to try it out as an “art cart” instead.

Once we moved it out by the kitchen table, I used some existing jelly jars and little containers we had to fill with crayons, markers, paints, colored pencils, and our household favorite…Sharpies. All stuff we already had, but lived in different cabinets and drawers throughout the house. Ever since we did this about a year ago, drawing and coloring is a daily activity. At any given moment, the boys can start cutting, coloring, drawing, whatever they feel like.

We have always been into doing crafts and art projects with them, but that would normally happen a couple times per week. Now, they can use their comfort with the supplies to create their own works.

As you can see in this picture, the cart is just “out there”. Ideally, I wanted to tuck it into a nook or tuck it into a little space so it wouldn’t be in the middle of everything. But we don’t really have any nooks or any extra craft rooms hanging around the houseAnd that turned out to be a blessing because they actually use it. Constantly.

The only thing I really need to restock on a pretty frequent basis is the pad of paper. I usually pick one up from Target about once a month, because they go through it pretty quickly. I love the thickness and quality of the paper. I think that makes a big difference in wanting to draw. Plus, every once in a while I pull out long-forgotten activity books or coloring books and put them on the cart. And voila! They suddenly are interested again.

My favorite aspect of having the cart the past year is to see how the kids utilize the tools in front of them when they don’t have to ask permission and are not following a special project. I’ve noticed that they really use it to help them communicate. For good and bad. For example, when Max was frustrated with his brother for bossing him around, he made a not-so-nice picture about it and stuck it on their bedroom door. When we talked to Max about how the picture made Ben feel, he went and drew an “I love you” picture for him. Just last week, Ben couldn’t find his beloved favorite stuffed animals, Pigeon and Bear. He took it upon himself to draw a picture of Pigeon and Bear to notify his family that they were lost.

Honestly, it is these pictures that I am keeping for the future more than the art projects coming back from school. They come with stories and memories attached to them and are unique to them. It is a reflection of who they are at that moment in time and what inspires them.

They may not be “Pinterest” project worthy, but they are works of art for sure.

Posted by Ale & filed under Creativity, Our Home. This post has 2 comments.

So it was almost a year ago this week that Brian and I began Diane Sanfillipo’s 21 Day Sugar Detox program. Since most people share their experiences with a detox while they are participating or maybe right after, I thought it would be valuable to look back at the experience with one year of perspective.

I somehow stumbled on the 21 DSD through a blog I was reading. I honestly can’t remember which one. But when I read about it, it got my attention, and it led me down a rabbit hole of learning more. Much more. After reading up on it, I went ahead and ordered the 21 DSD book. I read it, and decided this would be a great way to start 2014. When we did the program, we just did it using her books (the program guide and the cookbook). Diane now has a full comprehensive online program, but we did it just by following the books.

Instagram post from a year ago.

In general, most people would have described the way I ate before as “healthy”. I cringe when I think about that, because I now know so much more about what I thought was healthy. Or at least what I thought was okay. I didn’t eat fast food, junk foods, cakes, cookies or sweets. What was it that got me wanting to change? I would say two major things. First, we were so bored with what we were eating. Second, I was curious to see how hard it would be to cut out the sugar from my diet. How much sugar was I actually consuming? Was I really addicted?

What is the goal of the 21 DSD?

Helps you bust sugar cravings.
Helps you break old habits and establish NEW habits
Helps regulate your blood sugar so you don’t have those “hangry” moments, where you feel like you could chop someone’s head off due to your hunger and low blood sugar.
Helps reduce the constant inflammatory state are bodies are in due to the highly processed food
Changes your taste buds! After a week, a carrot started tasting sugary sweet. So crazy!

What does the plan consist of? I don’t want to go into all of the details, because I would be doing a disservice to the awesome book and plan. However, it involves eat REAL, WHOLE foods and eliminating processed foods and anything with added sugar. There are three different levels you can participate in. You can decide which one appeals to you most. I guarantee they will all be effective. Plus, Diane includes modifications based on your activity level to ensure you have all the energy your body needs. Even though you might feel discomfort as you break out of old habits and your body starts breaking the sugar addiction, you will not be hungry.

Instagram post from Day 6 of the program last year. We under ate the first week, so I was making sure that didn’t happen again.

Getting started

I had always been intrigued by “detoxes”, but was hesitant about them being gimmicks, or short term fixes. When I read through the book, one of the things that really sold me is Diane’s very easy-to-understand explanation of the effects of spikes in blood sugar throughout the day. She also outlined the negative outcomes that manifest as a result. Everything she said made sense to me. So I decided that I was in. Lucky for me, Brian said he would do it with me too.

So after we set our date and mentally wrapped our heads around doing this challenge, we were all set to go! The first two days were pretty good. The novelty of the program and the excitement that we were doing it, made it easy. Days 3 & 4, not so much. At least for me anyway. I was missing my carbs, and would down lots of hot herbal tea to try to get my mind off of it. My energy dipped and I was starting to feel restricted. At this point, I almost ditched the program. I thought, “This is not for me.” But I managed to plow through. By day 5 & 6, I turned a corner. We started getting a hang of the meals, and we both started feeling the energy levels go up. It really felt cool!

Instagram post on Day 11 of the program last year. Eating a whole different way than I was used to, but so good!

What were some of the physiological results we saw?

Clarity of mind & energy.
Clearer skin
Less wrinkles ( this was a completely surprising side effect, but I think that was temporary while I was on it, because I feel like they are back)
Change in body composition (for me). I only lost about 2-3 pounds.
Brian dropped 15 pounds.

What was the best part for me?

Changing habits. Like my daily sugar in my coffee, diet soda habit, etc.
Cutting out foods I formerly thought were semi-healthy like bread, pasta, cereal. Read the ingredients in those foods; you will be shocked.
Making dozens of new recipes and learning to cook more with whole foods.
Learning to quickly identify hidden sugar in all kinds of grocery store food.
Realizing the importance of a high healthy fat diet.
Having my kids embrace the food and eat much better as a result.

What is the toughest part?

Cooking every meal. Lots of dishes!
Leaving the house during a mealtime. There are very few places where we live that serve whole foods. Sad, but true.
Eating out with other people who are not on the program.
The cravings at the beginning. Especially the limit on fruit.

The 21 DSD Cookbook, which has tons of delicious recipes to choose from.

My tips for getting started:

READ the book. It’s not very long. But it is extremely important that you understand the all the details before starting.
Select a start date at least 2-3 weeks out from when you decide to start. You need the time to mentally prepare and to make arrangements.
Try to plan your 3 weeks when you will be close to home. Major events and travel will definitely make it tougher.
Make sure your fridge and pantry are very well stocked with the right foods before you start.
Buy the COOKBOOK. In the weeks leading up to your start date, try a few of the book’s recipes before you start so that when you are in a pinch, you are familiar with a few dishes you can whip up.

Quick solo lunch of roasted brussels sprouts, chicken and dijon mustard.

A year later…

After the detox, I was intrigued by Diane’s other incredible book, Practical Paleo, which sealed the deal for us and was the style of eating we transitioned into after the 21 DSD. Eating a real food, nutrient dense diet, which is what Paleo is, provides a lot more freedom after the sugar detox because you can incorporate fruit, dried fruit and some real honey or maple syrup. Those things taste like the equivalent of a hot fudge sundae after being on the sugar detox.

When I look back a year, I am happy with the progress we have made. We went from eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet lacking in nutrients, to a high fat, protein-packed, nutrient dense one. Instead of reading the nutrition facts on food labels, we now read ingredients. Don’t care about calories and fat grams any more. I no longer have those blood sugar crashes and can go longer than 3 hours without eating. When I do eat sugar or dairy now, I break out. When I eat foods with gluten, I start to feel bloated and achy. You may think that is not a good thing, but I really appreciate that my body now speaks to me when I introduce inflammatory foods. Those are not crippling consequences, so what it does for me is helps me to think about what “treats” are worth it and which are not. High quality homemade ice cream? Sure, I’ll have some. Belgian dark chocolate? Yes, please.

I call this a journey because there are still so many things I would like to learn about, change and incorporate into our lives. For example, I am interested in incorporating fermented foods, and even more nutrient dense foods, like liver (scary!) Also, I am interested in learning more about supplementation. And, I am definitely on the beginning of the journey when it comes to the kids’ diet.

Vegetables everywhere over here.

Bottom line:

This experience was fantastic for breaking old habits and rebuilding new ones. I have posted about the power of habit HERE and am a firm believer of the influence it has on our lives (for the positive and negative). It truly has had a significant positive impact on the way we eat and live. I would highly recommend this program to almost everyone for that reason alone. I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who finishes the program will come out better on the other side.

Have you done a detox program before? Let me know if you have any specific questions about this one!

Posted by Ale & filed under Life. This post has no comments yet.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Alessandra’s big girl room and designed a mood board for her parents to help with accessorizing the room. If you missed it, you can see the Princess and the Pea inspired room HERE.

When I was talking to her mom, Paola, about their plans for the room, she mentioned that her son Luca was wanting to change up his room too. I guess all the commotion and excitement for his little’s sister’s room made him want a little of the same. Understandable.

I honestly have no idea if any changes to his room are in the works, but for some reason, it got my wheels turning and thinking about Luca and what he likes. Right now, he is obsessed with paper airplanes. He makes them all of the time. His love for making paper airplanes has rubbed off on our boys. So now, at any given moment in time, you will find them strewn everywhere at our house. You might even have one fly into your pots and pans while you are making dinner. That’s a regular occurrence around here.

While that was still in the back of my mind, I stumbled upon the playful paper airplane pillow on Uncommon Goods, and I couldn’t help but put together some ideas for a little “refresh” of Luca’s bedroom. Just for fun. Because this is my idea of fun. I know…weird.

The mood board below is called “Dreams of Flight”. I think paper airplanes represent so many joyful things about childhood, imagination and creativity. Here’s what I came up with:

Pendant Light / Paper Planes Canvas / Honeycomb Wall Shelves / Paper Airplane Pillow / Blue Wall Hooks / Floor Basket / Bed / Metal Nightstand / Grid Sheet Set / Lamp / Gray Quilt / Rug / Dresser / Little Paper Airplane Print

One thing that stumped me was the wall color. I love how the elements look against white walls, but then, I remembered that Luca’s walls are currently a very pale light blue. When I see how the same elements look with the pale blue, I kind of like it! So I did another version with the blue walls. Do you have a preference? I think both could look really great!

Posted by Ale & filed under Home Decor. This post has one comment.

Through learning the basics of Adobe Illustrator from Nicole’s Classes online, I was able to utilize the skills to create our our 2013 infographic Christmas card. Alma Loveland is an incredible artist and teacher.

One of the things I have come to realize about myself in recent years is that I love to learn and consume new information. It may be a little obsessive, but I can’t help it. In fact, one of the reasons this blog exists is to serve as an outlet for what I learn.

Books, podcasts, blogs and online classes are my information sources of choice. You probably have gathered I love books based on the amount of posts about books I am reading or recently finished. I already blogged about my addiction to podcasts HERE, so I won’t elaborate much more. As for blogs, I must say, I learn so much from them, but often find they suck the productivity out of me, so I am trying to create some limits there as I posted about HERE. Today, I wanted to touch on online classes a bit.

Living in a small town, online learning has really been an invaluable experience for me. Having access to working, thriving professionals who are the best in their fields as my teachers? No brick and mortar university (at least not one I can afford or know of) would be able to offer me that.

When you talk about taking online classes, most people will assume you are going for some kind of degree. Probably because the traditional model of education is set up in a way that offers the classes as a means to an end (a degree). But for those of us who are passionately curious or have specific skills we want to gain, the online classroom is where it’s at!

Over the past few years, I have tried several online learning platforms that I have enjoyed, which I thought I’d summarize for you.

Here are the places I have taken classes from and a little bit about what makes them unique:

Nicole’s Classes – This was my first experience with online classes. I took 10 of their classes in 2013. Some of my favorites were Photography 101& 102, Illustrator 101, Photoshop 101 & 102, Principles of Good Design and Typography. The classes are 4 weeks in length and each week you can watch on your own schedule. Homework for each week is due on Sunday evenings. One of the reasons Nicole’s Classes is so good is the quality of their instructors and the fact that they actually review your homework. Sound scary? It’s not! They are super positive, give great tips, excellent feedback, and will answer specific questions when you have them. To be able to have a talented professional in their area of expertise critique your work and be there to answer questions is so helpful. At the time I took the classes, you only had access for the month you purchased the class for, but now they allow you lifetime access to the class modules which is very handy so you can go back and rewatch sections as you need or want.

Skillshare -Skillshare is a self-paced option with phenomenal quality instructors, and countless categories of classes. Anything from cooking to how to write your own illustrated book, and many more. I’ve taken Intro to Hand Lettering and Photoshop Fundamentals on Skillshare and really enjoyed them. This is more of a “watch and learn”, unless you participate in the end of course project. If you would like to share your project when you finish, you can upload them onto site to share with the community of students also taking the class. For some people, this might sound dreadful. However, there is something about knowing you want to upload your finished product that will make you really retain the knowledge. Skillshare is set up where you can purchase the classes individually, or for a low monthly subscription ($8/month), you can have access to all of the classes you want.

Creative Live – Creative Live is another really cool concept for online learning. The breadth and depth of the content will blow your socks off. It probably has the highest caliber instructors and production of any of the online learning options I have listed today. Here’s how it works: they source the best of the best in a creative field. I am talking icons here (Anne Geddes, anyone?) They post the dates that they will be filming the class. If it is a class you want to watch, you RSVP. That way they can send you reminders as it gets closer. So while they are filming the first class live, you can watch it for FREE as it is happening. After that point, you can purchase the class at any point to watch and have lifelong access to. The only negative to watching it live, is that the free live classes can be several hours long, so you have to be ready to be in a dedicated space to watch the class. They do take breaks though, which is good.

Atly – Atly is newer than the others, however another really good choice. They have the essential offerings like DSLR Photography, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc., but also some unique classes like , Creative Children’s Spaces and How to Create an Interior Fabric and Color Scheme, both of which I took last week. I plan on taking Kirsten’s other two interior design courses as well. Atly has very good prices for their classes if you just want to watch and learn. If you want to have access to instructor feedback on your class assignments, there is an upgrade charge for that. With only two classes under my belt, I would say that my initial take is that the class content seems a little “lighter” than the other classes I have taken. However, I think that would probably be a good thing if you are someone who wants to dip their toe in the online learning arena. You will not be overwhelmed. Also, they have just announced a brand new Freshly Picked Biz School series that looks phenomenal.

I highly recommend that if you are looking to expand your skills or knowledge in any area you can imagine, look into these options or even others that are out there. You might get the “bug” too.

Posted by Ale & filed under Learning. This post has 2 comments.

Early morning by the fire. Breakfast cooking in the dutch oven.

Last week, we decided to take a little family adventure road trip before the end of Christmas break. I’ve written about our interest in having family micro adventures before HERE. And this getaway fits the bill. We love creating shared experiences with our kids. We all benefit and learn from being together. And now that they are a little older, we don’t dread extended time in the car with them anymore.

Especially after the Christmas hustle and bustle, we tend to be drawn towards activities that are simple and do not involve long lines and frenzy. Since we decided on this adventure at the last minute, and we knew we only had 3 nights to work with, that limited where we could go. Those limitations were good for us, because it helped us make some quick decisions.

Sunrise at Three Rivers State Park.

We took a drive up to Three Rivers State Park for a two night camping trip and booked one night in a hotel in Tallahassee on the way back. The state park is in Sneads, Florida, up in the Panhandle about 3 hours away. Never heard of it? Yeah, we hadn’t either. But we chose it because of its proximity to Florida Caverns State Park, which we have been wanting to go to for a long time. The park and campground were very nice. It would be really awesome to go when the autumn leaves are in full force.

We camped for three days at the park, just our family. When we go camping, we often go with other families, which is also fun. This was really cool because the kids were just as happy as they would be with friends. It is really refreshing to see how they can entertain themselves without toys, screens or friends. We will definitely be doing more of this type of camping in the future.

Who needs Legos when you have rock, dirt and sticks?

During our camping stay, we hung out by the fire, went on a nature hike, fished, and ate Brian’s dutch oven creations. He received a cast iron dutch oven for Christmas and was excited to try it out. We all gave his food thumbs up! We also set up the hammock, where I could read and relax.

On our hike, I paired up with Max to try to seek out unique colors and textures that we spotted on the trail. We noticed that if you keep your eyes peeled, you can find examples all around you!

We did drive out to Florida Caverns State Park on the second day. It was worth it. This is the only place in Florida where you can get a guided tour of underground caverns. The formations created over thousands of years are beautiful. Word of warning if you go…the tours fill up quickly. We got there at noon, and the first tour we could get into was the 3pm tour. Which meant we had 3 hours to kill in Marianna, FL. Hmmmm….try to avoid that if you can.

The next phase of our road trip was in Tallahassee, where we went straight to the Tallahassee Museum. Their tagline is “Where Florida’s history, nature and wildlife intersect.” That’s a good description for it. Apparently, this museum has been there forever. Most of it is outside and walkable. Seems like a pretty recent addition is the the zip lining courses they have throughout the property high up in the trees. You have to be at least 54″ to participate in that course though. So the boys did the course for kids that is smaller and closer to the ground. They still get harnessed and have to learn the process of changing their carabiner with each new section, which was good for them.

Getting instructions for how to stay safe on the obstacle course.

After the museum, we headed to the hotel. Not going to lie, we also enjoyed taking hot showers and sleeping in clean comfy beds after two nights of camping. The next day, we we were going to hit two more parks in Tallahassee, but it was drizzly outside, so we decided to head back towards home and make a pit stop in Gainesville instead.

In Gainesville, we ate at Burrito Brothers & got popsicles at The Hyppo for dessert. Can someone please tell me how their flavors just keep getting better and better? I had pistachio coconut dipped in chocolate. So. So. Good.

From there we took the boys to The Gainesville Rock Gym, which we had wanted to go to for a while. Brian and I weren’t really dressed for rock climbing, so we passed this time. However, Brian is already plans to come back without the kids so we can climb.

The Hyppo in Gainesville

Overall, the four of us agree that the road trip was a double thumbs-up. We did simple things, but we did them together. We are already trying to scope out when we can do something like it again. It was a special time for us to connect as a family before heading back to school, work and the craziness that sometimes takes hold when there are too many commitments.

Here’s wishing you and yours many beautiful shared moments in 2015!

Posted by Ale & filed under Family Time, Travel. This post has no comments yet.

An easy (and inexpensive) art cart for your home.

My experience with the 21 Day Sugar Detox. A year later.

Inspiration Board: Dreams of Flight Bedroom

Have you tried online classes?

Family adventure road trip

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