My apple cider vinegar experiment: The befores

Don't remember exactly how i came across the benefits of apple cider vinegar,  but i like what i am seeing about it. Here's just one page i was looking at for things it says it does: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-5875/15-Reasons-to-Use-Apple-Cider-Vinegar-Every-Day.html

I took a few pictures so that i can have some before pictures for this testing and also just because i want to lose weight anyways and i've gained weight since my last "before" pictures....haven't been good on the weight loss. at the end of this will be the pictures for my befores

What i was thinking i'd do is that i'll go by each benefit that it says it will help and write how i am on them to see if after a week there's any differences after just one week. I've seen people say that since they started that after a week they lost around 10 pounds or something. Well none of them have said how much of their life style they have changed, whether they started to eat better or exercise or just went as normal. Which my normal is pretty lazy.

There are uses that it can be used for that i'm not going to do, such as for your hair, i might try the toner at some point, but not this week. What i will be doing will be 2 teaspoons of it in a glass of water before each meal. I think some do more at once but i'm expecting the taste to be strong and until i experiment with how to make it, i think multiple times a day with smaller amounts might be easier. I am kind of expecting myself to just push myself through it to really try this without giving up.

I will try to remember to write a daily post about how the drinking it is going.

Here's my currents:

Weight:
current- 185 pounds.
What i hope for- If this really does help with weight loss, really anything lost would be amazing, if it does help, maybe it will get my butt going to keep up with losing weight.

Energy:
Current- Not a lot of energy. I think it's partly from weight too but i also haven't been sleeping well
What i hope for- It says that it helps with energy boosts, so i'm hoping that it actually does and makes it easier for me to get up in the morning. To help test this, i'm going to start waking up earlier than normal so that i'll be tired when i drink the first glass each morning.

Allergies:
Current: i have seasonal allergies that become a pain in spring and summer. I will get hit randomly with feeling extremely drowsy and runny nose and just not feeling up for anything.
What i hope for- i don't really know what to hope for on this. i think just as long as i don't get allergy hits as much or not at all besides the occasional sneezes then i will love that.

Poor memory/sugar craving:
Current- well i'm not sure on if this will really help it, but the page i linked above says that ACV helps clear out yeast from your body and that a build up of it can lead to poor memory and sugar craving, few other things but those two stood out for me. I have crap memory and forget little things all the time. And i'm always looking to snack on things which really is probably just searching for sugar.
What i hope for- well really any improvements would be great. not sure if i'll really be able to judge memory on just testing it for a week, but will see.

Number 2:
Current- This one is about the bathroom. since having my daughter, been having problems with going. The doctor said just more fiber would help, which it did seem to help but i don't eat enough all the time to help all the time. I will get bad cramps before needing to find a bathroom fast. it's not all the time, but i feel like dying when it happens.
What i hope for- if it really helps make you regular, then that will be amazing.

Acne:
current- I've been getting a bunch of stress pimples and ones just because of not always getting a chance to wash my face when i need to. Also got a bunch on my arms and back and chest. drinking ACV is suppose to help with getting rid of them, if i did the toner version too says it should help with scars.
What i hope for- just to get back to a fairly clear skin like i had a few months ago, i think it was a few months ago lol.


I think that's all on the befores, if i forgot anything i will write later...it's getting late and i'm tired lol.

Before i forget, here's my pictures and with my measurements, don't really expect any measurements to change in a week, but doing it also for just my knowledge. And if there's actual benefits i see from drinking this, then i will be drinking longer than just a week.

Might need to click the pictures if you really want to see the numbers. and sorry if you can't see them even after clicking lol. Just ask if really curious.

 these side shots are for weight loss but also to show the acne/scars i've gotten from stress pimples

 i look so bleh in these. i did the first one just to see once i get to my goal weight if i can even make a double chin like that lol. the other one is just be normal....i look so tired and droopy.


Those pictures just put me in a state of "i can't believe i let myself get here". Not going to go into my whole weight story, maybe if i reach my goal weight i will.

Anyways, i should be off to bed if i want to get up earlier than normal to start this little experiment :)

Nutella Sauce

This isn't really a recipe, just something i made.

If you want to make some just for a short time then it will work. i tried storing it(though not covered) and it hardened. I just used a little on the little banana cream pies i made that can be seen in the background.

At first i thought that maybe you could just heat it up and it would kinda melt like peanut butter. Well it didn't.  So i just added some milk to mix and got it to be saucy.

Just make sure that the nutella is warmed, or would even work probably if the milk was warmed instead. And don't add too much milk or else you'll just end up with nutella milk.

4th of July

To start off. That picture is of my daughter, being all cute with her pigtails and 4th of July dress. Couldn't help but make that the first picture :)

Anyways, as the years go on, we do less and less. It's sad. Well hopefully with as Kaylee(my daughter) gets older, we can do more and more to keep her kids spirits up. I know i started to lose interest in holidays because my parents hardly did anything. Since having Kaylee, and maybe partly because of pinterest lol, i want to do big holidays. I would love to throw parties with the holiday themes, but i have like hardly anyone who'd care to invite. Though also i don't feel our house is inspirational like the houses you see throwing parties on pinterest.

With that out of the way, back to what this is suppose to be about.

We still did a small dinner though it was just me and my mom eating, daughter is picky on eating. Here's what we had.

Apple chicken sausage, chicken and pepper kabobs, ribs, strawberries and cream and ambrosia, and little fruit kabobs i made to look like a flag.
Here's the fruit.

i ended up running out of bananas so the last one is messed up. But was still fun.

Here's just a few more cute pictures of my daughter.

Not a great picture of this but i love it because i caught her pop it sparking :)

Only thing really left to share is just a few firework pictures.

Regrowing Green Onions

I kept meaning to try this every time we got green onions, but then i'd forget. This year we started a garden and grew a bunch of green onions...well really too much green onions. We don't use them that much so i have a freezer with a lot of them cut up.

This first picture is how i started it. Wasn't sure of how much needed to be cut off so i just went with that. I did this again with it being cup down at the white part, like just a little more than just the roots, didn't work that well. This first way worked well. So was doing this same idea with what was in the garden but leaving the roots in the garden.

Here's a picture of how it looked after 2 days.

I think that was a good bit of growth for 2 days. They did seem to grow faster with the ones still in the garden.

I let these grow for about 10 days before finally just deciding to stop since i already had so much. here's before i cut them up.

Mostly just wanted to see if this really worked and it does. Just don't cut too low and make sure you actually cut them. I saw someone say their try at this was a fail but with their pictures, they never cut them in the first place. Like they bought some and just put it directly in the water without cutting anything.

Watermelon Knife

What first caught my eye about this was it looked so cute. Then was curious about how well it worked for it being a knife for watermelons. My mom said we could get it so there it is lol.

It cut really well, i'd say just from it being sharp and the way the knife is. Though really that's about the only things on how a knife works lol. I thought we'd be getting more watermelons than we have since getting this, so i guess so far it's been a fairly pointless to have. It's still cute though, the coloring is still even on the blade, see...

Pudding Pancakes

These are something that i've come up with randomly one day when i was still in high school. I'm sure somewhere someone has maybe tried this or even perfected it(which i haven't yet). But i like to think of these as my special pancakes.

I don't even remember really why it came to mind to try and put pudding in pancakes. I just get random ideas of trying to see how they work together. Biggest thing that is hard about this is, how much pudding do you put in? if you put the whole pack in them then you have to add a lot of milk to thin it out enough to even make the pancakes...but then you also need to have enough pancake mix to make it not completely pudding.

With this batch, i put about half or less than half of the packet of pudding and i felt that there wasn't a lot of flavor to it. Though maybe it was just because of what pudding i used. It was a jello one like i normally use, though really any pudding should work. But the flavor was chocolate fudge, maybe it's just not a bold flavor.

I would of used my banana cream one, but i've been wanting to use it for a little banana cream pie things.

One day i will try and perfect this, but with not really having pancake eaters in my house besides me, i don't want to make pancakes too much. Maybe after my daughter gets older she will eat them more and i can make them more.

If you wanted to try and attempt these:
-mix pancake mix as it needs to be prepared
-add pudding mix, as much as you want, and mix
-add milk as needed to keep the batter thin enough.

You cook them just like normal pancakes. Over all it's simple, i just don't have the right ratios yet for making them perfect.

My Heart Shaped Mug

I have a thing for mugs....i don't know why, just do. Well one mug that i've seen online that i've always wanted was a heart shaped one. I was at goodwill and just happened upon this mug and felt like i just needed it and then seeing the price tag of $.99 just made me need it even more.

It comes with a little spoon that sits in the handle when not using it. It's also dishwasher and microwave safe, plus plus :)

This drink i started with for first pictures was just my coffee. Did black coffee for the first picture and took pictures after adding creamer because i like my coffee with creamer.