We are starting week 3 of our challenge of not eating at restaurants except for business/giftcards. Here is our official total:

Number of Days on the Challenge: 14

Number of times we have eaten at restaurants with a gift card: 3 (two times at Starbucks with my son Justen for our weekly date, one time with Roger at Outback for his birthday).

Number of Cheats since the Challenge started: 1 (I was doing announcements at church today and while I got a free coffee from the café and brought my own banana from home, I forgot to bring a bottle of water from home.)

Amount of personal finances spent on eating out since the challenge started: $1

Biggest realization since the challenge started: Bottled water at church is expensive.

Amount of weight lost by me and Roger since eating at home: 7 pounds

Thing I have missed the most since starting the challenge: Starbucks and drive thru Diet Cokes.

Best new recipe: Portobello Pizzas. (Much like the recipe that Roger published last week, but with sausage and pepperoni – yummy.)

After sending out my newsletter on Wednesday, I discovered that many of my blog readers are not on the list. So if you are not on the newsletter list, you probably have never received the free, nifty gift that you get for subscribing which is a very cool e-cookbook called, “The Ultimate Guide to Man Food – How to Drive Your Husband Wild with Passion by Impersonating Better Crocker“. It has a ton of great recipes (and for some odd reason, they mostly include cheese,) plus you will get my oh-so-cool newsletter with lots of fun stuff (this month’s article – Dating on a Dime – 20 Dates for Less Than $20).

So, if this sounds at all interesting to you – or even if you just like new recipes – go sign up over at my website to get your free swag.

We have continued to have to be creative when it comes to our “Eat at Home” Challenge. (Which is very poorly named since it is not so much about eating at home as it is about saving money and being more thoughtful about what we eat. But that is a lousy name for a challenge.)

So we did a more intentional way of eating out and went to Big Basin and grilled over an open flame. (Any of you who have heard me do The Husband Project can guess whose idea it was to do the cookout…)

Now, one of the few advantages to eating outdoors is that Roger doesn’t allow me to cook. I am so OK with that.

Plus – his food rocks. Just look at the picture above. Portobello Mushrooms and corn. YUM.

If you have never had corn on the grill – well – it is one of the best things in life. And the mushrooms? A little slice of heaven. And the good news – you don’t have to eat these in the woods. Your BBQ in the backyard is totally fine.

I asked Roger to type out his recipe for the Stuffed Shrooms. This is his current recipe (he is always tweeking it.) Enjoy!

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

1 Large Portobello Mushroom

Break off stem. Scoop out under-side of mushroom. Save scoopings. Be careful to avoid breaking or thinning sides of mushroom.

Chop stem and scoopings finely.

Crushed croutons (or dried bread crumbs). The ratio should be about 3 parts mushroom scoopings to 1 part crumbs.

1 tsp margarine or butter

1 tsp garlic powder

½ tsp Italian seasonings

1 Tbs finely shredded cheese

Mix scoopings, bread, margarine, garlic powder and cheese.

Add mixture to mushroom cavity. The mixture should come to the top of the mushroom.

Top with a sprinkling of shredded cheese.

Grill until cheese starts to melt.

Enjoy.

According to Wikipedia, Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher who believed that virtue was better revealed in action and not theory, and whose life was a relentless campaign to debunk the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society. I love this story about Diogenes approach to life:

A friend of Diogenes visited him and found him eating a dinner of lentils. The friend was a courtier in the court of the king. He said to Diogenes, “If you would learn to flatter the king you would not have to eat lentils.” Diogenes replied, “And if you would learn to eat lentils you would not have to flatter the king.”

One of the ways that this No Restaurant project has made me more aware of the ways that I refuse to “eat lentils”:

• Eating out way too many times each week
  
• Buying books and DVDs instead of using the library or trading with friends
  
• Purchasing new appliances instead of having old ones repaired
  
• Starbucks – enough said
  

   

What has my refusal to live simply robbed me of?

• Family time – I have had to work overtime to pay for the convenience of restaurant food because I am too tired to cook – get the irony?
  
• Buying books and CDs instead of borrowing them – and then not having the time to read/watch them
  
• Paying too much for a new computer when I was single and super broke – because I didn’t have the time to look for a deal.
  
• Time in the morning with God because I am too busy trying to do ministry.
  

I am working really hard to learn to eat the lentils in my life – I want the freedom that simplicity offers – not for simplicity’s sake, but in order to live the life that I believe that God wants for me and my family.

My question for you today – and please share – I have heard from so many women that they are as inspired and challenged (in a good way) as I am by your responses – is:

How are you learning to “eat the lentils” (live on less or more simply) in your life?

But boy, can these kids.

I have no words. I am so excited that it is back.

Yes, we watch American Idol, but So You Think You Can Dance is appointment TV.

The only time that you gasp when you watch Idol is when they announce Chris instead of Adam. With SYTYCD – the gasp factor is about every three minutes.

If you are not watching it – let me just say – you should. (Even Roger LOVES it. But don’t tell him that I told you!) When you see what people have overcome in order to dance, you will have to come up with much better excuses to not get out and at least walk – much less exercise.

Trust me – have I ever steered you wrong?

Thursday nights at 8 on Fox – love it.

OK – Monday was majorly enlightening. I had to go to the mall to pick up some See’s candy (the downside? It was a gift for someone else.) and help Roger pick out some new glasses. (I have a total Danny Gokey of American Idol fixation when it came to glasses, and Roger and I have an agreement about picking out frames. As we are the people who have to look at our husband/wife the most, we get to help with the buying decision.)

I had some time to kill, and money burning a hole in my pocket. This happens about as often as I wake up and say to myself, “Wow, this feels like a great morning for a hike.”

You see, my good friend and amazing speaker, Cheri Gregory gave me a sweet gift: $150 in Visa gift cards. Nice friend, huh? I spent $50 taking Roger out to dinner (before the 30 day challenge), but the other $100 was right there, in my wallet, waiting to be spent.

Now I could have spent it at Target on the light bulbs we needed, or a new shower curtain for the kid’s bathroom, but really? I wanted to spend it just on me.

So I wandered the mall, and tried to think of something that I really, really wanted.

Nothing.

I have to tell you, that is so not like me.

Usually at the end of a chaotic work day, I feel like I deserve to go out to dinner. And, if we happen to be at the mall, then I can always find a reason to hit Macys or Bare Essentials or something.

But Monday? I had spent the day working, yes, but also reading all of your great comments, and taking very good care of myself. I spent time in the morning praying, watering my garden, reading and such. I took lots of breaks from work to read your posts, and looking forward to seeing some friends that evening.

And that was enough. Retail therapy not required.

Part of this 30 Day challenge is to find out what enough is for me. Yes, some of that has been making sure that I work hard to be able to continue to do what I love. But part of it is the realization that I don’t need to reward myself with a dinner out 4x a week. What if my daily life was reward enough? What if, doing what I believe God has designed me to do, serving others, learning to love Him, working to love my family better, being a part of a community, was enough?

I want to be more purposeful in my living – physically, emotionally and spiritually – and part of that is slowing down and taking very good care of myself.

So here are 10 things I am doing this week to do just that:

1. Planning a week of healthy menus that also taste amazing (fingers crossed)
2. Reading an excerpt of Praying God’s Word by Beth Moore
3. Reading a book for 20 minutes that has nothing to do with my work. (This week’s book? Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell)
4. Walking to the lake and back
5. Praying at 1:00 (I have a timer on my cell phone that reminds me to stop and pray)
6. Slicing up a flat of strawberries
7. Sending the See’s candy to a friend of mine in Atlanta (yes, this does make me happy.)
8. Taking my computer out to our back patio to write
9. Researching herb gardens online
10. Talking with my friend Angela

I used to think that I didn’t have any time to take care of myself, but everything I have listed here (excluding writing on the back patio – which is part of my workday,) takes less time than an episode of couple episodes of Oprah.

I know most of you would (like me,) will have a hard time coming up with 10 things, soooo…

Here is my question for you: What is ONE thing you are going to do to take care of yourself today? Commit it here – commit it loud and allow us to hold you accountable.

OK – so it was a good/bad day challenge-wise.

The good stuff: For Valentine’s Day I bought Roger a gift pack from Omaha Steak Company (BTW girls – he LOVED that gift.) Since we were the only ones home (and didn’t have multiple teenagers that needed their gullets filled) we did steaks on the BBQ, salads and twice baked potatoes. Beyond yummy.

For lunch today, it was our weekly business meeting and therefore one of eating out exceptions. We both decided to go healthy and order the grilled mesquite salad at Chili’s.

Um. Big mistake. Big huge mistake.

Roger went to the Chili’s website and got the nutritional info:

Calories    960

Fat        62g

Are you kidding me?!? Tomorrow I am going to eat something healthier – like a slab of cheesecake from the Factory.

No I won’t. But hey, I am feeling a whole lot better about the whole eating at home thing.

Have you ever been surprised but the labels on your food – either eating at home or out?

OK – How Cute is this?

This is the first draft of the cover of my next book, The Marriage Project. This is rough, but you get the general idea.

The only suggestion I had for the marketing department at Harvest House was that instead of them awkwardly hugging each other, they should each have something hidden behind their backs to give to each other. He should have flowers, and she should have… hmmm.

What do you think she should have? Here are some suggestions from my family:

• A T-bone steak
  
• DVD boxes with the title “Things Exploding”
  
• Tickets to a sporting event
  

   

  Suggestions that were made and then quickly dismissed:
  

   

  • A baseball bat
    

I am looking for suggestions for what the woman can be hiding behind her back. If Harvest House uses your suggestion, you will get a pre-release copy of The Marriage Project. If more than one person comes up with the chosen design, we will draw between the names that suggested it.

Leave your ideas in the comment section. Then you can add Cover Art Designer to your Facebook profile.

Day One

Would it be weird if I wrote an ode to drive thru diet cokes?

Thank you to each of my wonderful, brilliant posters on the blog. (Some of you should definitely be writing more than grocery lists…) I am going to be going over all of your posts and trying out many of the ideas and recipes that you posted.

The first day was… challenging. There were several times that I almost drove-thru somewhere. Mainly, not from weakness, but just from habit.

The good news? I cooked a great meal in the crockpot for dinner – and EVERYONE in our house ate it. It was cheap, yummy and easy. The Holy Grail of meal planning.

I had a yummy veggie salad for lunch, but for dinner, my people want meat. (Funny aside. I apologized to my daughter because the dinner I made was meat-based and she is not a meat eater. Her response? “Mom, it’s fine. I just don’t like steak – beef is totally fine.” He he.)

Here it is – just in case you are interested:

Crockpot Tomato Pot Roast

1 Onion, quartered

3 Carrots, sliced

4 Potatoes, quartered

3-4 lb Roast

1 Beef Bullion Cube

1 t. garlic salt

½ C Ketchup

3 T Worcestershire Sauce

1 Cup Warm Water

1 16 oz Can Diced Tomatoes

• Line the bottom of the crockpot with the onion slices, potatoes and carrots. Place roast on top of veggies.
• Dissolve bouillon cube, garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup in the cup of water, pour over roast.
• Put diced tomatoes over roast.
• Cook in crockpot on low for 6 hours.