Have I mentioned I love Saturdays?

Oh today was so nice :)

Today my husband and I headed over to the Lynchburg Community Market for their final Mistletoe Market before Christmas. We both agreed it's very quickly becoming our favorite time of the week when we visit the Market. The people are so friendly, the food is so fresh and the atmosphere is just lovely. 

I try to plan what I need to buy when we go so we don't end up buying too much. This time I was in search of farm fresh free-range eggs and some local sausage. Didn't really have a preference whether it was pork, beef, turkey, or chicken but I needed to buy some for these delicious breakfast pockets I need to make more of. Don't worry...that recipe will be linked up in time! I haven't gotten around to posting it yet because I need better pictures. 

We stopped at a couple booths looking for sausage or ground meat bu I don't think any vendors bring any with them unless it is to fill an order for a customer. One farm, Auburnlea Farms in Gladys, Virginia (about 30 minutes South of Lynchburg), caught my attention because they sell cow shares. We've been bouncing around the idea for a while but haven't committed to it quite yet. We ended up leaving and headed home but I was checking out Auburnlea Farms' website on my iPhone and I noticed they sell a lot of meat products as well. I did a quick GPS search and found they were only about 30 minutes away and we were off! 

We made it!

If you still need a Christmas tree they have them! They're all grown in Virginia and are chemical free!

I loved the little sign out front to greet us :)

They have plenty of meat, alright!

Their little store is full of so much good stuff! I really can't even list it all, so go to their website for more information and pictures! 

We ended up buying grape jelly, citric acid (for making dishwashing detergent soon), 2lbs of ground pork, sausage seasoning, and two Boylan ginger ales. Let me just tell you...that is the BEST ginger ale! It's made with real cane sugar and not high fructose corn syrup and it makes a difference. So delicious! I can see that quickly becoming something we'll buy every time we visit The Grainery. 

I've never made sausage before so I'm sure there will be a future post for that as well, so stay tuned!

The views are just beautiful at this farm. Makes me miss living in the country!

Beautiful view from a beautiful home.

 Moo cows!

Gobble gobble...lots of turkeys!

And of course the chickens!

Best ginger ale ever!

If you're in the Lynchburg or surrounding areas, definitely go check out Auburnlea Farms. It is a wonderful family owned farm and they've got just about everything you could need! One visit and I'm hooked already! I absolutely love small businesses and I do my best to support them, especially farms! No farms, no food. Oh and not to mention, if driving to Gladys isn't workable for you, e-mail them your order and they'll have it ready for you at the Lynchburg Community Market!

And again, be sure to check out their website, my blog post doesn't do them justice!

Have you picked out your Christmas tree yet? Busy getting Christmas stuff done? Only 9 days left!

Till next time,
Catherine

Sad day in America

Today we need to all be praying for our country and especially the families of those who were involved in the shooting in Connecticut today. For anyone who hasn't heard, this was one of the worst school shootings in our history. Here is an article for more information. 26 people were shot and killed and 18 of them were innocent children. The shooter went into an elementary school and opened fire.

All we can do now is pray. It is incredibly sad that this tragedy happened. The shooter is dead but pray for his family as well. He must have been extremely mentally ill to have done such a sick and horrible thing.

But for now, pray.

Till next time,
Catherine

Cook: Leonard Mountain Chicken 'n Pasta Soup

Mmm...how perfect is a hot soup on a cold winter's night? 

Tonight my husband and I had a friend over and I decided to make some soup. If you may recall that I love Leonard Mountain soups! I wrote here about how they are so simple but can be made into whatever you want. I like to stock up on their soups at the Richmond Bizarre Bazaar and I did just a few weeks ago. You can read about that here as well.

The thing about Leonard Mountain soups is that they are so easy to make! They're super yummy by themselves but if you want a heartier soup, you can add a few things and make it even better! While picking my soups at the Bazaar the man giving out samples was explaining how these soups are a great choice for someone on Weight Watchers. I forget how many points a cup of soup is, but he said vegetables are 0 points now so you can add a bag of frozen veggies for a more filling soup but it doesn't cost any more points. The points for the soup were really low. 

Tonight I pulled out the Chicken 'n Pasta soup. The guys loved it! I paired the soup with salad and they each got a second bowl...of soup...not salad. Definitely a crowd pleaser. And since it's great in the crock pot, it was so easy!

Ingredients: 

• Leonard Mountain Chicken 'n Pasta soup
• Two cans chicken (or one if you prefer)
• One bag of frozen veggies (or 2 cans if you prefer)
• 6 cups water
• 1/3 cup milk
• A few dashes of milled flax seed (shh...don't tell the guys!)
• A few sprinkles of garlic salt

Directions:

Turn your crockpot onto low if you plan to let it cook for more than about 4 hours. High if you want it done in 2 or less. 

Mix in your soup ingredients (dry packet off noodles/vegetables and a pouch of flavorings)

Let it cook for a couple hours. About an hour before you want to serve the soup, add in a bag of frozen veggies and your can(s) of chicken. Mix well and turn your crockpot to high (preferably). I waited till the end to add in the chicken and veggies so the veggies wouldn't get mushy and the chicken wouldn't be overcooked. 

I also added a little more water, a little bit of milk and a few dashes of garlic salt towards the end. The beauty of it is you can do whatever you want and it will be delicious! I also added a little milled flax seed but you can't even tell! I like to add it in where I can without it being noticed. I also snuck some into two loaves of honey wheat bread I made today!

Now serve and enjoy!

Pair this soup with a salad or a sandwich or eat it alone! No matter how you work this soups, they turn out great. They are tasty by themselves or you can dress them up. And did I mention easy? Mmm...I wish I had thought to make some soft honey wheat dinner rolls with this soup! It would have been a match made in Heaven! Or cornbread if you like!

How do you like to make soup? From scratch or from a box? Do you like to add in your own twist or leave it as is?

Till next time,

Catherine

The Walking Dead Workout

You may have seen this picture floating around Pinterest recently. I actually hadn't seen anything like this before except the drinking games. My husband and I watch The Walking Dead so I figured I'd pin it and we'd try it out some day.

Today was that day. We decided against going to the gym because we didn't have enough time so we queued up Season 1-Episode 2 (We figured episode 1 wouldn't have much of a workout) on Netflix. Let me just tell you...we worked! Mostly we were laughing so hard at ourselves! My husband isn't the best at sit ups but ironically I am. So the whole time we were laughing and goofing off. 

If you can't read the picture very well, here's what the requirements are:

Someone kills a walker - 5 sit ups

Someone draws a gun - 5 push ups

Human blood is spilled - 5 lunges

Someone refers to "the living" - 20 jumping jacks

Someone cries - 3 squats

Someone screams - 3 burpees

Someone dies - 1 minute plank

Yikes. Do you realize how many walkers are killed in every episode? A lot. 

In this episode we did:

115 sit ups 

20 push ups

3 squats

5 lunges

Ok so that doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up! Not to mention, we were laughing our tails off! I'm sure we may have missed a few things but the more we do it the more we'll remember what to look out for. 

If you're planning on trying this workout, do it! It's especially fun with a friend. We specified a few things to make it a little easier. For it to count, we only add visible walker kills, not just when you see someone shooting a sniper rifle and assuming they killed one. We also said that it must be human blood that is spilled because you'd be doing an equal amount of lunges as crunches. Maybe that'll be more of an advanced version! And someone has to scream, not just gasp or yell. It has to be a scream as if a walker is coming at them or they're watching someone get attacked.

We've mostly done cardio lately so we're pretty sure our abs are going to HURT tomorrow! Oh well...it'll be a good hurt! I think pairing this with cardio will be a great start to getting our butts back into shape!

Click HERE for Season 1, click HERE for Season 2, and click HERE for Season 3!

What's your favorite way to work out? How do you motivate yourself? 

Till next time,

Catherine

Done with Christmas prep!

Ok, not completely but I have finished all my Christmas shopping AND wrapping! I have everything in a huge Sterilite box ready to load into the car when we head back to Richmond for Christmas. I spent my evening last night wrapping Christmas presents and watching Aristocats on Netflix. Don't judge me...you know you love that movie too! I'm planning on watching Fox and the Hound tonight! Love that one even more!

So glad to be a little  ahead of the game as far as Christmas wrapping!

I still need to plan what food(s) I'm going to bring but it probably won't be much. Hopefully Christmas will just be relaxing and fun. Mmm...maybe I could make sweet potato casserole again! Yum!

How about you? Are you a last minute wrapper or do you like to have it all done way in advance?

Till next time,
Catherine

1000 Page Views!

Wow...I have had this blog for a little over 2 months now and I have just reached 1000 page views!!! I can hardly believe it!

Thank you SO much to everyone who has been reading my blog! I really had no idea how much I would enjoy this and how much of a response I would get. I know 1000 views may not seem like that  many to most bloggers but I feel like it's such a big deal! How cool would it be to have 1000 page views be an average day? Hey, a girl can dream, right?

I promise to continue to work hard on bringing you great blog posts that are fun and informative. I don't plan on giving this up anytime soon!

What kind of things do you like to read about? Personal posts, recipes, crafts, Pinterest failures? Please comment and let me know what you'd like to see more of and what you'd like to see less of! Also, would you rather watch a tutorial video of a recipe/DIY project or scroll through pictures/text?

Till next time,
Catherine

Saturdays

I value Saturdays more than I think I ever have. When my husband isn't working out of town and we're not visiting Richmond, it's so nice to just have the day to do whatever we want.

Today we slept in (always nice) and then headed to the downtown Lynchburg Community Market for their Mistletoe Market where the focus is on Christmas. There was a trolly going around the city and two beautiful horse drawn carriages giving free rides around the block. There were lots of friendly people picking up locally grown and handmade goods. I even saw face painting and balloon animals for children and of course Santa and Mrs. Clause were sitting for pictures. It was just a lovely day. The weather was amazing as well, t-shirt weather in December!

As many tempting items as there are to see, we only bought a quart sized jar of honey. Yeah, I know, that is a LOT of honey! The last time I bought honey it was only 16oz and it got used up really fast since I made several loaves of honey wheat bread and so many of those delicious dinner rolls. around Thanksgiving. I was really tempted by the beautiful handmade live wreaths and really beautifully decorated topiaries. They're doing Mistletoe Market again next week so hopefully we'll check it out again.

After the market we just walked around downtown and checked out some local shops. Antique malls, furniture stores, camera shops...wherever we decided to step into. It was a really nice, relaxing afternoon.

This was in one really nice antique shop we went into. It's Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara!

We even found a newly opened natural food store!! I am beyond excited! It reminds me soo much of the one where I used to work. It's right on Main Street in downtown Lynchburg, called Hanna's Health.   They just opened in September but they've got a little bit of everything! We didn't buy anything today but I'll be back! I kept making mental notes of everything they had so I know for next time I need to go grocery shopping. They also had lots of bulk products as well. The owner even said she'd order my favorite Organic Fiji lotion for me! If you've been looking for a natural food store in Lynchburg, go check out Hanna's Health!

Once we left downtown, we had a few errands to run but it was still a fun time with my husband. We finished a little Christmas shopping and by the early evening we were getting hungry and we noticed a little place called The Spot. We decided to check it out and it was delicious! It appeared to be owned by a family and they were all so nice and friendly...it was a wonderful atmosphere. They have salads, sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, and even wings. I got a grilled chicken sandwich and my husband got a burger....both delicious! Our food was cooked right away and didn't take long at all. The owners always had smiles on their faces! We'll definitely be eating there again! If you're in Lynchburg, I highly recommend you check it out! They've only been open for about a month so go show 'em some love! You won't be disappointed, I promise!

We also stopped by a thrift store on the way home and got my husband some nice dress shirts for about $3 a piece...you know I love a good deal!

All in all it was a lovely day and now we're just relaxing at home. Ahh...it's the life :) Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend as I am.

What did you do for your weekend? Was it full of Christmas shopping or relaxing?

Till next time,
Catherine