STEPHIE'S BEADS AND BAUBLES

Whew, finally, I got the mess taken care of. I have felt so overwelmed by the sheer volumn of crap I had to go through and just the complete mess the house was in. It was embarrassing and just kind of defeating at the same time.

Last night I told myself I would get up and conquer it finally. I have just been very tired , not feeling very well, and not very motivated. We had been working on getting completely on our low carb, and we were  almost there, and then did not do as good for a couple of weeks, but finally four days ago we started being very strict. It has come to our attention that wheat really trashes both our bodies. We snore badly when we eat it, and we do not feel good. My entire body aches when I eat wheat ,but I was not completely convinced until today. I had been on low carb with my husband doing the CAD diet, Carbohydrate addicts diet, you are allowed one reward meal a day if you keep it under an hour it tricks your body into thinking you never ate any carbs as long as you stay low carb the rest of the day.  Well up to a few weeks ago, we keep our reward meals to only  a few times a week and very lite carb, but the last couple of weeks we started adding more and more carbs and wheat based carbs.  Suddenly when I got out of bed in the morning it was hard to walk for about five feet and then I slowly got moving. I felt 85. I have been having bad body aches for a while and figured they were from menapause. Well, nope. Wheat. We cut the wheat out four days ago, our snoring stopped cold turkey after three days , it had been gone at the start of the low carb, after a few days on it,  until  we added the wheat back in. Two months ago, after a few days on our low carb plan, after no wheat for a few days, my  husband actually gently nudged me thinking I stopped breathing, but I had just stopped snoring , lol !!! So, it has been four days , today is day five, completely wheat free, and I got up today and no pain AT ALL. I could walk normally from the first step,  and my joints do not hurt anymore. So, we are done with it. NO more wheat. It will be hard, and we decided maybe a few times a year we can allow a favorate food, once is okay if weeks are in between, but when it is even a few times a week, nope. So, if we get to where we have to have chinese, or pizza or whatever, we will wait it out a few weeks and  have one thing and then wait it out a few more weeks until the next thing. If we find even one time affects us, then we will just not be able to do it. Frankly the way it makes us feel, we do not want it, but you have to give yourself permission to have those beloved foods occasionally or you will want them with every fiber of your being, lol !! I find when I give my self permission, I am less likely to have them at all. I do not want them now and I am learning to bake low carb as well. Something that has always made low carb tough on me. I am a baker. I  make so many cookies at Christmas it is crazy. This is a drop in the bucket from last year. We rented an apartment until we decided where to buy our next house and these are what I made for the staff of the building. I made ten times this, it is really insane. This year N O N E !!! No regular cookies at all. Only the low carb stuff I can make and we can eat. I have to learn a new way to cook and live. It is not bad. With coconut flour and almond flour you can make some pretty amazing things !!

So, I hopped out of bed this morning ,  full of energy and got more done today than I have since we moved in  months ago. I cannot believe the change in the house. Our son hauled all the stuff out to the garage under my husbands direction when he got home from work , on doctors orders due to an injury, no lifting for him, so it all got done. Tomorrow vacuum , mop and dust. I am so happy. So, here are the pictures to show off all my hard work !!!

Dining room before

Dining room table today AFTER !!!

you can see the turquise paint we were going to paint, but decided to do the kitchen in that color, only. It is too bright for the dining room, so we will paint it yellow and use turquiose accents, some of which you can see around the table on the walls, and the curtains.

living room before

living room now , my husbands work back pack is in the after, but that is not normally there. I forgot to move it before I took the pictures.  My flip flops though, usually are, lol !!! I have to work on that !!!

all my beads are back on the shelf and have even been organized a bit, that is what I worked on yesterday, getting the beads orgainized better in the boxes and adding a box to spread them out a bit. 

even my desk is not bad, and is even better now. The big paper on the door is a note to wake up our son before my husband leaves for work, lol !!

So, I am feeling pretty darm good about life tonight. I conquered a huge mess I had been putting off, did a few loads of laundry, swept the foyer, dining room ,kitchen and bathroom and cleaned most of the bathroom too. Still got to to do the tub .

I feel great, have amazing energy and cannot wait to get up tomorrow to our  clean house and just do some detail work. Oh, I also hung all the art up in the house I had left to do, and did a gallery of all the art our kids and some of the grand kids have done and will work to get art from all seven grandkids up on that wall by the end of the year with some help from the moms !!!

I am so proud of myself and no longer ashamed of our home. It feels great even though we still need to get that last book case and put the shelves in the other two, I just stacked some of the  books in the one for now. We will order that book case this week, have it sometime next week and then we will be done. In the mean time we will finish painting as much of the living room as we can. Things are finally coming together. I could not be more happy !!!

Well, I was excited to share our beautiful clean rooms with you !!! Oh and yes, it does look like  autumn exploded in the dining room, lol !!!

Thanks for stopping by !!

Stephie