Fitness Follow Up

Gah, all of the sudden summer feels like it's nearly over. At least I can check off ONE GIANT KID BUCKET LIST item off my list- we did a lemonade stand!

It was my four year old's idea and as you can see by the photos, I *may* have slightly hijacked helped.

Fresh squeezed baby!

As Gonzo said in A Muppet Christmas Carol- "I'm creating scarcity! Drives the prices up!"

Definitely not each other's mirror image.

Lemonade and sugar cookies aside, I've been at my post-baby "easy" fitness routine for over a month now. Time for an update. The results?

Well, not dramatic, but there IS improvement in muscle tone and I'm feeling really good about it. To me feeling good is worth the routine alone. I have to remind myself that no one gets six pack abs 1. three months after having twins, and 2. from doing 5 minutes worth of exercise. Ha. 

I'm pretty solid in my morning habit now- I make the bed (embarrassing to say that I NEVER did this when I was working), do my exercises, then go have a breakfast cookie and check the news in peace before the kids wake up.

That being said, I do want to switch things up. Sorry not sorry those burpees are no longer on my list. Here's the new plan for the next 4-6ish weeks:

Plyo jumps will replace the burpees- I have a super sturdy bench in my bedroom and will jump onto that from the floor. "TNTs" are "toned by tonight"- it's an ab exercise I learned from my friend Erin back in college. You lie on your back and extend your right arm above your head while also extending your right leg to the ground. Pull both back up and switch to your left side. Great for targeting lower abs without putting strain on your lower back. 

The plank, while hard, has been really good for helping my super weak post-baby core muscles. When I first started I could barely hold 30 seconds. Now I'm up to doing about a minute and 15 seconds at a time. 

As long as I keep feeling mentally great about this, it's worth doing! The accountability I'm putting out there doesn't hurt either, heh heh. 

No berry or cherry is safe from me

Uffda. It's been a week, amiright?

Like, a really good week, but a busy week. We kicked it off with some wildberry picking-

and cherry picking-

and then Fourth of July-ing-

And then we wrapped it all up with cabin-ing-

Shelby, the amazing one legged dog!

ALL OF THOSE THINGS ARE VERBS.

One question I get asked a fair amount is "how do you do shopping with four kids??"

Truly it took me weeks to get up the guts to take them all out in public. Just the mental load alone was intimidating:
Do I have diapers?
Do I have size one AND size five diapers?
Did I put the double stroller in the trunk?
Will I have enough time to get home before feeding/nap?
What did I even mean to buy in the first place?

Now we are totally in a groove and it's really not a big deal to schlep the kids around. I mean, it IS, but I'm now used to it. That being said, there's noooooo wayyyyyy I could possibly get a week's worth of groceries. Two carseats don't fit in one cart, and the stroller bottom basket it only so big.

Enter Wal Mart grocery pickup!

(Ahem, I really wish Wal Mart was paying me for this unbiased review. They are not.)

I've been doing this every Monday for months now, and I'll lay out how it works and the pros and cons.

For starters, I don't have the Wal Mart app, which I probably should. I do it on my phone- Walmart.com- and it works just fine. You select your preferred store (not all Wal Mart locations participate) and your desired pickup date and time window. You shop away, pay for your items, and then go to the store when it's time to pick up. You won't be charged until you pick up your order.

PROS.
-A favorite feature is that you can checkout, but addend your order up until about 5 hours. This wouldn't be super helpful if you have same day pickup, but I tend to start my order on Friday or Saturday. I ALWAYS end up thinking of more items I need, so to add or delete things is super easy.

-Substitution. I tend to order the generic brand of items. If the store happens to be out, they'll substitute the name brand while giving you the generic brand's price. This can really add up to be in your favor.

-The groceries are brought out to your car. They have a designated place you drive to for pickup. You call a phone number and an employee loads it up for you. I don't have to get out of my car. I DON'T HAVE TO UNBUCKLE THE KIIIIIIDS!

-I've found that we're saving money on groceries overall because I'm aware of the total before I check out. Think about it- at a normal grocery store, you have all your items rung up and whooops, "that'll be way more than you intended on spending, ma'am!" Seeing my cart total allows me to reassess what items I truly need, and if there are more affordable swaps.

-No impulse buys. Because I'm searching for specific items based on my meal plan for the week, there's none of that "hmm, this looks good and so I'll buy it" as you're cruising down aisles.

CONS.
-Substitution. I've had this happen twice- I'll tell the crushed red pepper story. Last week I ordered the generic brand bottle of crushed red pepper- I have no idea the dollar amount- let's just say it was $4 for 4 ounces. They were out of generic, so they grabbed me the name brand crushed red pepper, which happened to also be $4. Buuuuuut, the name brand bottle was only one ounce. I noticed the substitution on my "your order is ready for pickup" email and alerted the grocery loader guy. He was super polite and friendly and grabbed me 3 more bottles of the name brand crushed red pepper- no charge of course- so that I was still getting the same value. Again, I caught this error, but they were more than willing to correct.

-Missing items. OK so in the 12 weeks I've used this service I've only once had an item be missing from my order. I emailed customer service and within 5 minutes I got a response- a refund for the item, and a $5 off coupon for my next purchase.

-Learning container sizes. When you're shopping online, you have to be aware of what size roughly correlates with ounces, pounds, etc. When I ordered 2.7 ounces of parsley, I did not realize that 2.7 ounces is a five year supply of parsley.

-Bags bags bags bags bags. Wal Mart seems to really love plastic bags. Like, they'll put ONE item in one plastic bag. They definitely do not cram things in, but be prepared to have a ridiculous amount of plastic bags along with your purchase. They do have plastic bag recycle receptacles in their lobby (as does Target).

VERDICT:

Overall I really like this service that Wal Mart offers and I've been super happy with the groceries. It likely varies by store- the guy who always loads me up on Monday is friendly, and always likes to show me the bananas he picked out just to make sure I approve. Quirky, but I kind of like that.

I may not be cruising the aisles of the grocery store with all four kids, but if you're everrrrr in any other store and you hear crying/whining/and general kid shenanigans, it may very well be us.

Fermenting Fiends

Two weeks ago my mom and I hauled the kids over to the strawberry patch for a pickin good time.

Farmer Mac, ready to eat pick berries. 

Look at those shiny pretty li'l rubies. 

AND THE BERRIES AREN'T BAD EITHER!

Later that day I got to wash what seemed like 87 pounds of berries to freeze for later. What, may you ask, was I going to do with those berries? Well...have you ever tried kombucha before? Come-BOO-cha.

I remember buying it years ago, paying $4 for a small bottle, and liking it. It's becoming more and more popular, billed as a health drink. Kombucha contains probiotics. A probiotic is a bacteria believed to be beneficial to your gut. As a dietitian, after my patients would have a colonoscopy I'd always recommend they eat yogurt and have kombucha to help repopulate their gastrointestinal tract with healthy bacteria.

When my brother in law mentioned he'd started making his own, my husband and I were curious. Could we figure it out as well?

Turns out, it's pretty simple. You do need a way to start the fermentation process- this is done using a SCOBY- an acronym for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. The SCOBY is also called the mother- the mother will help grow the probiotics and you can store and re-use it again and again and again. This thing is BEYOND WEIRD, as you will soon see. We got a SCOBY from my brother in law, but there are articles online like this that teach you how to make your own. 

Step One:
Get the right container. In the first photo you can see I used a glass jar with a spigot. Not a great idea, as I learned mine had a slow leak. I transferred into a glass punch bowl, which took up too much space on my countertop, but did work just fine. For our second round of kombucha, currently in process, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought this glass jar.

Step Two:
Bring 13 cups of water to near boiling. Turn off heat and add 4-6 plain green teabags or black tea bags. Do not use flavored tea. Let brew for 5 minutes. Add 1 cup sugar, stir to dissolve. Pour into your glass container, as plastic is not a good idea for fermenting things. Let cool completely (I covered mine and left it overnight).

Step Three:
Add 2 cups of store bought kombucha (OR 2 cups of reserved kombucha from previous batch- my brother in law's SCOBY was swimming in about a cup already, so I added a cup of store bought). Add your SCOBY/mother, cover with cheesecloth and a rubber band, and set aside for 7-10 days. You want to avoid it being below 68 degrees. I kept mine in a corner of my kitchen. This is the FIRST fermentation.

Step Four:
After 7 days, taste the tea- it shouldn't taste sweet anymore- it'll be more like vinegar. The SCOBY is going to look like something that came out of a uterus. For real. I'm warning you. This picture is naaaaaaaaasty.

Because I used a wide punch bowl, the SCOBY grew to the entire width and basically looked like a peach placenta. And four kids deep, I KNOW PLACENTA.

I cut around the mother, which you can still see is the darker more raised area, and set it aside in another mason jar, along with 2 cups of the 7-day old kombucha.

Step Five:
So! Onto prettier more appetizing things. I took the frozen strawberries and some purple basil from my garden. I read online that the best ratio for fruit : tea is 1 tablespoon per cup. I added the chopped fruit to these bottles for the SECOND fermentation.

The probiotics in the 7-10 day old kombucha tea will now use the fruit sugar and give off carbon dioxide as a result. This creates the fizziness of kombucha. You can let it ferment for an additional 1-3 days, depending on how fizzy you like it. It's recommended that you "burp" your kombucha bottles every day or two, to prevent a dangerous buildup of air. I found that after just one day with the fruit it was fizzy enough for us.

Step Six:
To stop the fermenting, simply place the kombucha in the fridge. That explains why you don't find shelf stable kombucha tea- it's always refrigerated in the grocery store.

Step Seven:
Convince yourself that it's safe to drink, haha. Seriously, that placenta, I mean SCOBY, still gives me the creeps. The outcome is a really tasty drink though! I dig the strawberry basil. It's not too basil-y at all- just really fresh tasting, and I love how the strawberries made it such a vibrant red.

I mentioned that I reserved my SCOBY for a future batch- next up is peach kombucha and cherry kombucha.

So yes. Super WEIRD, but a fun project to try making at home!