Month: August 2015

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

As part of my committment to healthy living and cleaner eating, one of the first areas I needed to clean up was my breakfast. I used to always opt for quick and easy which sometimes meant I was not choosing the healthiest options that I could have. So I wanted to combine my favourite ingredients, oatmeal and strawberries, to make a simple, clean and easy to eat on the go breakfast item.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

These easy to prepare oatmeal cups were a huge hit not only in my house but also at work. They are light on the stomach (no flour!) but still sweet and satisfying will all the fruits that are added in.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Ingredients

  • one egg
  • one tsp vanilla extract
  • one cup unsweetened applesauce
  • one banana (mashed)
  • 1/4 cup of honey
  • 2 1/2 cups of rolled oats
  • one tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 1 1/4 cups of milk (or almond milk)
  • seven to eight strawberries thinly sliced

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Mix together the egg, vanilla extract, applesauce, mashed banana and honey all in one large bowl.

Add in the oats, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Make sure to mix these ingredients together well.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Add in the thinly sliced strawberries to your mixture and mix well.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Evenly place the mixture in muffin liners in a tray. Pour roughly enough mixture to fill about 3/4 of each liner.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Cook in the oven for roughly thirty minutes or until a toothpick is inserted in the middle of each muffin and comes out clean.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Enjoy!

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A Healthy Start to a New Me {Plus Giveaway!}

A New Month and A New You

Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom before you realize that a change needs to happen. For me that happened last month with my overall health and well-being. I just was not and still am not happy with how I have let my health and fitness go. I stopped focusing on myself and put too much energy into things that were draining me. I realized that I needed to make a change and gave myself a start date of August 1st, 2015.

Because of my personality, I had to have clear goals set in mind and wanted to share them with you to help encourage and hold myself accountable to keeping up with goals.

A New Month and A New You

So here it goes!

Long term goals:

  • Lose fifty pounds, with an average of 2-3 pounds a week. This will put my weight back into a healthy category for my height.
  • Follow a strict vegetarian diet with a gradual transition to vegan.
  • Complete a 3 mile run.
  • Organize and complete a weekly workout plan.
  • Spend time every day meditating for at least five minutes.
  • Practice yoga three to five times a week.
  • Let go of the areas in my life that are draining me.

Every week I will come back and share my current weekly goals and how I did on last week’s goals. My hopes are that this will motivate not only myself but you to focus on your own physical and emotional well-being (something most of us don’t spend enough time on with our busy lives).

This weeks goals: 

  • 2 pound weight loss.
  • Follow my vegetarian diet with a meal plan.
  • Yoga four times a week.
  • Daily evening meditation.
  • Daily squat, lunge, push up and crunch challenge.
  • Run daily for five minutes (I am starting out here!!).
  • Stay hydrated with eight glasses of water a day.
  • 10,000 step minimum a day.

I will be sharing with you on Monday how I did with these goals listed above and my new set of goals for the week.

To kick off this healthy month, I want one of you my readers to win a $50 Shoppers Drug Mart gift card so that you can splurge on yourself.

Canadian residents, eighteen years of age and older can enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Heart Dancing

iRead Book Tours

What would you do if your heart stopped dancing?

Heart Dancing

About Heart Dancing

Brian, his wife Christine and their 14 year-old daughter, Savanna, are a typical all American family. Their lives begin to unravel when a dark secret from their past threatens to destroy them. Divorce seems imminent unless they can discover a miracle.

Savanna refuses to stand by and watch her family self-destruct. A mysterious young woman and her dog show Savanna how to look past the physical and see the spiritual side of her situation. A leap of faith and willingness to change her perspective gives Savanna a new view of her life, her values and her purpose.

But can the adults give up their stories about the past that are tearing them apart?

Brimming with inspiration, transformation and empowering messages, “Heart Dancing” is life changing. It also introduces the 4 step process called Story Alchemy, which is used to transform the stories that threaten the Hartt’s peace and happiness.

My Thoughts

Heart Dancing is a story that so many can relate. Savanna’s family is in a deep crisis, a crisis many teens and adults can relate to. This crisis arose from decisions that were made many years ago that still haunt Christine and Brian. This haunting affects not only their relationship but now their daughter. Their family starts spiraling out of control and Savanna feels so many emotions that it is hard for her to understand and cope with them. Forgiveness is not always easy and even harder is to move forward from hurt. Each member of their family must learn to heal, understand and move forward.

An interesting concept from this book is in the form of Miracle Tokens. Miracle tokens are pieces of inspiration, wisdom and advice that you would give out to those you love or even strangers.

I found the beginning of the novel slow to start and I had a hard time reading through each story but I was happy that I pushed on through the first half of the book as I began to love the story and it was well worth it.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 4/5

About the Author

Kathryn Eriksen is known as the “Story Alchemist.” She has touched many people with her inspirational books, blog and articles about living your best life. A lawyer by training, she transformed her own life story from anger and frustration to love, joy and peace through the use of the same techniques that she shares in “Heart Dancing.”

The Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Through Waters Deep by Sarah Sundin

Litfuse Book Tour

In Through Waters Deep, it is 1941 and America teeters on the brink of war.

Through Waters Deep

About Through Waters Deep

Outgoing naval officer Ensign Jim Avery job is to escort British convoys across the North Atlantic in a brand-new destroyer, the USS Atwood. On shore, Boston Navy Yard secretary Mary Stirling does her work quietly and efficiently. She is happy to be out of the limelight. Yet despite her reserved nature she never could back down from a challenge. When evidence of sabotage on the Atwood is found, Jim and Mary must work together to uncover the culprit. A bewildering maze of suspects emerges and Mary is dismayed to find that even someone close to her is under suspicion. With the increasing pressure, Jim and Mary find that many new challenges and danger awaits them.

My Thoughts

I love a good historical novel and this is another huge hit set in World War II just prior to America entering the war. Sarah does an amazing job capturing the emotions, stress, tension and fear that arose in America prior to the country entering the war.

Mary, the most unlikely hero, personally challenges herself to step out of her comfort zone to help solve a mysterious case before tensions crack and disaster strikes. Everything that makes her the perfect secretary is what makes her the perfect ‘spy’ (I use spy in a loose term). Mary transforms in this novel and it is beautiful to witness as she struggles on her journey and the freedom she finds at the end. The mix in of a little bit of romance by Jim’s character tops off a completely heart warming, exciting and beautiful story. A story that reminds us that there is always much more to a person then the outer features or the fears that people hold against others.

You can find more reviews on the Litfuse Blog Tour page. You can purchase a copy of the book here.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Sarah Sundin is the author of With Every Letter, On Distant Shores, In Perfect Time, and the Wings of Glory series. In 2014, On Distant Shores was a finalist for the Golden Scroll Awards from both AWSA and the Christian Authors Network. In 2011, Sarah received the Writer of the Year Award at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. A graduate of UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy, she works on call as a hospital pharmacist. During WWII, her grandfather served as a pharmacist’s mate (medic) in the Navy and her great-uncle flew with the US Eighth Air Force in England. Sarah lives in California with her husband and three children.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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DinoTrux Are Here and Ready to Build! #StreamTeam

netflix

Dinosaurs are strong, powerful and oh so popular. Dinosaurs captivate our imagination as we try to imagine just what these powerful creatures would have been like. What better way to capture these fantastic creatures then in an animated series by DreamWorks called DinoTrux?!

DinoTrux: A Netflix original series

DreamWorks Animation brings to life the popular and award-winning children’s book series by Chris Gall. DinoTrux features imaginative characters that are hybrid dinosaurs and construction vehicles (awesome, right?!). The series follows the unlikely friendship between Ty Trux, a massive Tyrannosaurs Rux, and his tiny friend Revvit, a razor smart Reptool. Together the DinoTrux build a bigger and better world. All of this is threatened by D-Structs, the biggest and baddest DinoTrux, who is determined to ruin all that they make.

Netflix and DreamWorks have done it again with a fantastic new children’s series that not only your children will love but you as well! The DinoTrux are adorable, funny and unstoppable. I especially fell in love with Tiny Tool, he is just too cute! I would not mind having a little friend like him at all.

With the summer coming to an end (hard to believe but the weather is already cooling!) this new series will arrive in perfect time to keep your children entertained on those long rainy summer days as the series is set to launch this week on August the 14th. I can definitely see this new series becoming a quick family favourite loved by all.

Check out this fantastic trailer of this new hit series set to launch August 14th on Netflix:

Disclosure: I am a #StreamTeam member and receive perks with this affiliation. I was granted early access to this series in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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