Fifteen years ago tomorrow Marla Cilley, aka Flylady, had a major breakthrough on her path to becoming Flylady.

She told me about it and I want to share it with you. Watch what she has to say

Prepare this on New Year's Eve day for a feast on January 1.

Remember that song "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall?" Every year during grade school field trips the rowdy boys would begin singing it in the back of the bus. By the time we got down to one or two bottles left on the wall we'd either be at our destination or ready to muzzle those kids! Anyway, you might start humming that old familiar tune when you make my turkey marinade. However, it only takes six bottles of leftover beer along with a few other simple ingredients and guarantees your turkey meat will be succulent and delicious. In this video, I also show you how to "save your skin" and cook up some smooth, mouth-watering gravy to serve alongside your feast. And the best part! No bus ride required sitting squished in the middle seat. Cheers!

Recipe:

6 bottles of beer

One half cup lemon juice

1 small onion chopped

10 cloves garlic minced

1 tbsp. sage

1 tbsp. Penzeys Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Base

Cut Turkey into parts as you would a whole chicken. Put back, neck and giblets into pot with 4 stalks of celery, 1 onion cut in big chunks, 2 tsp. sage and 1 tsp. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and add water to cover. Simmer all day on low.

Turkey Gravy

Drippings from roasted turkey

2 cups turkey broth made from the back, neck and giblets of cut-up turkey

2 tbsp. corn starch

Prepare this on New Year's Eve day for a feast on January 1.

Remember that song "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall?" Every year during grade school field trips the rowdy boys would begin singing it in the back of the bus. By the time we got down to one or two bottles left on the wall we'd either be at our destination or ready to muzzle those kids! Anyway, you might start humming that old familiar tune when you make my turkey marinade. However, it only takes six bottles of leftover beer along with a few other simple ingredients and guarantees your turkey meat will be succulent and delicious. In this video, I also show you how to "save your skin" and cook up some smooth, mouth-watering gravy to serve alongside your feast. And the best part! No bus ride required sitting squished in the middle seat. Cheers!

Recipe:

6 bottles of beer

One half cup lemon juice

one cup olive oil

1 small onion chopped

10 cloves garlic minced

1 tbsp. sage

1 tbsp. Penzeys Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Base

Cut Turkey into parts as you would a whole chicken. Put back, neck and giblets into pot with 4 stalks of celery, 1 onion cut in big chunks, 2 tsp. sage and 1 tsp. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and add water to cover. Simmer all day on low.

Turkey Gravy

Drippings from roasted turkey

2 cups turkey broth made from the back, neck and giblets of cut-up turkey

2 tbsp. corn starch

Merry Christmas to you all. I feel so honored to have you in my life, even though I haven’t met most of you in person. I write for you from my heart and I’m honored when you send such loving comments reflecting your love back to me. I know how busy you all are, yet throughout the year many of you have taken time to share your love with me. And to those of you who haven’t written to me, I know in my heart you are a SHE just like me and I love you.

If you want to hear the rest of the poem, here it is!

When you were growing up do you remember how great it was to wake up to wonderful smells coming from the kitchen? Did you snuggle deep into the covers anticipating the delicious breakfast being prepared? Now that you're an adult those delicious smells are up to you to create for others, and who wants to shiver out of a cozy bed to begin chopping, frying and cracking away for the gang while half asleep?

Well, help is here! In this video you'll see how to throw together an easy, nutritious breakfast casserole that you can make ahead of time and just heat up when you're ready to feed a houseful of hungry guests! It has a coconut flour crust, parmesan cheese and lots of yummy ingredients that are absolutely divine together. Of course, it's low carb and sure to get rave reviews just like all the recipes I share with you. You could make this a favorite Christmas morning tradition at your house! Enjoy!

Sausage & Egg Casserole (for two)

Make Coconut Flour Crust:

• One half cup coconut flour
• One quarter cup coconut oil
• Enough water to make a dough (add slowly and work with the consistency of pie dough made from flour)

Bake crust at 375 degrees for half an hour 

 Filling:

• 3 large mushrooms sliced thinly
• 1 cup thinly sliced onion
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• One quarter tsp. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
• One half cup parmesan cheese grated
• One quarter cup olives chopped
• One half cup sausage fried and drained
• 4 eggs beaten
• Lawry’s Seasoned Salt to taste
• Pepper

Melt coconut oil in frying pan on medium high. Sautee mushrooms and onions until they begin to brown. Add cheese and seasoning. Keep cooking until the contents are a delicious brown. Put mixture in the baked crust. Spread chopped olives and any other choices like peppers, tomatoes and such.

Fry sausage and drain put over other ingredients.

Pour beaten eggs over mixture and refrigerate in you are making this ahead of time.

Bake at 400 degrees for half an hour.

I was shopping at Michael’s (the craft store)in the late afternoon when I heard a conversation in the next aisle between a mother and her six-year-old daughter.

As I listened to the excitement and love for her mother in the child’s voice and the drone of her mother’s responses, tears welled up in my eyes. I thought about how many times I’d done the same thing with my children when they were young. After all, I had a centerpiece to make, a decoration for the coffee table to think about, colors to consider, people to impress and not enough time!

December 12, 2014

Want to simplify this Christmas? No problem! My granddaughter Kaytee proudly demonstrates that even those of us with butterfingers, can decorate beautifully with...well....butterfingers! Watch her create a magical gingerbread house using that stash of Halloween candy we told you to save.

You still have that candy right? Well, if not, don't worry, we'll wait for you to go get some more and then get ready to have fun putting together this festive holiday favorite.

Ready to watch this fun video....to see how 9-year old Kaytee orders her older brothers around?   

The best gift you can give the world is to be healthy and happy.

December 11, 2014

Consider this: What if you chose to come to this planet at this specific time, in this specific body with this specific life? And what if you knew before you came that you would never be alone, that you would be protected and loved every moment of your experience during your stay?

 What if this life experience you are having as you read this blog is exactly what you signed up for? Shakespeare said, “Life is a stage and we are actors upon it.” So imagine before you came here that you went over a bunch of scripts and you picked a play that really intrigued you and after much consultation with your fellow actors and from your angels you decided to come here and be YOU in this play called This is Your Life.

I had a dream many years ago on this topic. I walked into a large conference room where there was much laughter. I focused in on a very large black man dressed in a glorious, white African tribal chief’s robe. When I approached the oval table he looked at me with great love and his eyes sparkled with joy. He asked me if I had any questions about my life, so I asked him, “What happens to evil people when they die?”

Posted by Pam Young

Have you heard people say, “The kids today have short attention spans and because of quick-paced television, they’re used to watching three to four-second bites and become restless when the action is diminished.”? HOG WASH! As I sat in an Amtrak station waiting for a train that was 38 minutes late, I watched a grandmother read Curious George to her five-year-old grandson.

From my vantage point, she appeared to be a rather listless reader, void of expression, sound effects and lifted eyebrows accompanying some of Hans and Margaret’s incredible thoughts, yet the child was glued to his grandma’s side listening to the story.

When that book was finished, he pulled another from his backpack and she proceeded to read it in the same mundane way. The train turned out to be an hour late and the child remained interested in her reading the entire time. So much for the short attention span.

So here are what I believe are 6 benefits of reading bedtime stories to your children.

1. Cultivates Imagination

Now that visual stimulation is served up via television, IPads, IPhones, Xbox etc., children rarely get to tap into their imaginations unless we read to them, or until they can read. As a child, I loved radio (it was before we had television) because my imagination provided the visuals. Because we don’t have kid radio, unless we read to our kids, their ability to use their precious imaginations and be able to visualize will weaken.

I remember one Christmas, my daughter Peggy bought a bunch of children’s books at a neighborhood garage sale and recorded reading them on a cassette tape recorder for her non-reading cousins as gifts for Christmas. As adults, those cousins still speak of how they loved her gifts of being read to.

My husband Terry and I recorded books on CDs, the same way Peggy did with a cassette recorder. This way our grandchildren could listen to us read the books we gave them as gifts.

"Mmmm.... what's cooking?" That's the question you're bound to hear as this simple dish simmers on the stove sending a savory smell that truly excites the senses. One bite of these sautéed onions and mushrooms and you'll forget you ever craved those carb laden side dishes of the past.

Recipe:  

Mushroom and Onion Side Dish

4 large mushrooms sliced thinly

2 cups thinly sliced onion

2 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 tsp. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

3/4 cup parmesan cheese grated

One quarter cup almond flour

Melt coconut oil in large frying pan on medium high. Fry mushrooms and onions until they begin to brown. Add cheese and almond flour and seasoning. Keep cooking until the contents are a delicious brown. Serves four.

Hope you enjoy the video!

Lack of motivation causes procrastination!

I’m always trying to figure out ways to use my creative mind to motivate me and then pass my discoveries on to you. I’m sort of like a walking SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) research lab.

As you know, if you’re a SHE, you have a retarded concept of time and then it’s, “Holy Smoke! It’s December 23, Christmas is in two days!” So why not use your divine gift of imagination to quick-start your motivation? 

Here’s my idea and it’s so simple, just pretend it’s December 23, and evoke a little panic and a good dose of adrenalin into your system. Because you’re a SHE, you know that familiar terror you’ve felt over years of last-minute shopping for holiday gifts. You’ve experienced that very un-Christmassy feeling you get from dashes to the mall with its irritating marketing to get you to buy “mine,” “mine,” “mine,” like those seagulls in Finding Nemo.

And don’t beat yourself up for knowing exactly how horrible that feels; according to the National Retail Federation, nearly 32 million people will not have started their shopping by Dec 9! (I should get them on my mailing list.)

Just thinking about the chaos of post-Christmas morning, I wrote this poem in the hopes that while you shop this holiday season you’ll think of ways to cut down on the clutter of it all. Here’s the video of me reading that poem. I think you'll like it...especially if it reminds you of your Christmas mornings past.

To hear Julie Andrews sing this lovely song click on Julie:

One of the best ways to cut down on Christmas clutter is to give cash as your gift. My Stick it Right on the Money Gift Giving Kit will help you give money in a funny way.

There are almost 100 clever, fun stickers.   You put them on cash (yes, they peel off easily without damaging the money.)   Here is one of the stickers....see me behind them? The recipients of your disguised cash gift will roar with laughter.