A Dab of Glue Will Do: whole 30

I have linked up with the fabulous Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday. Last week was crazy and I did not get to link up, which made me so sad because this has become a great blogging habit for me.

I have been updating (scratch redoing) items like crazy the past couple of weeks. I started with my best seller and I am slowly working my way down. Pretty much any extra time has been spent doing that. Here are some of the products that I have updated lately. You can click on the pictures to see more of the product at my store page.

I submitted my application to have my store name trademarked this week. I am pretty excited about it. Since this is something that I envision doing long term, I wanted to make it finalized before someone else might have taken it. I used trademarkplus.com. If you are ever interested in doing it please let me know and I can send you the coupon that I used. It should take up to three months so hopefully I will hear something in the not so distant future.

Today is the deadline to RSVP for the DFW Mini Meet-Up on May 30, 2015. It is tentatively scheduled to be hosted at Mia Dia in Grapevine, but due to the overwhelming response that will be changing to a different Grapevine restaurant that can accommodate this size without charging an arm and a leg. We have some great giveaways planned and I cannot wait to meet everyone. If you have not RSVPd click {here} to do so before the end of the night.

I finished the Whole 30 this week and I am beyond proud to have accomplished it. I decided to do the Whole 30 because I have an autoimmune disease and doctors have been telling me for years that I would feel SO much better if I would just be gluten free. I told them they were crazy and that there was no way that was even possible. I have bought several gluten free and Paleo cookbooks over the last year or two and have really enjoyed the food, but also would really enjoy pizza and bread from time to time too. I thought if I did Whole 30, it would give me a decent amount of time to commit (it seemed doable having a fixed time frame) and see if it made a significant difference and it did. I feel so much better. I think that I might do one more round before TpT Vegas and then I envision continuing eating closely to Whole 30 indefinitely. I will eat rice, but try and be gluten free. I will not be 100%, because sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. My plan is to allow a ‘cheat meal’ every week. I know that sometimes it will be more, but I think it is healthy to put at least one meal a week in there to enjoy anything I feel like. To celebrate being done I enjoyed a large glass of wine and sushi.

I emailed Oriental Trading a few weeks ago about being a part of their blogger program. They give $75 worth of products to people that will blog about the items. I decided that I was going to set up a tot school in our upstairs playroom and what better way to get that started than with the help of all of Oriental Trading’s amazing education products. I will probably not have it all complete for another month or so, but I am so excited about it that I had to share now.

That is all I have for this week. Head back over to Kacey's page to check out what all the other amazing bloggers have been up to this week. I hope you have a great weekend!

How in the world am I doing another Five for Friday already? I feel like I just did this for last week's Five for Friday. I guess that is a good thing, when a crazy week flies by.

I am on Day Five of the Whole 30 and it has not been as horrible as I thought it would be. It has made me realize how much I do mindless snacking throughout the day when I am not even hungry, particularly emotional eating. When the girls are misbehaving or I am stressed about something, I feel the urge to grab something from the pantry, but I choose not to. I guess that is what this has taught me most: I can have control over food and food does not have control over me. That is a pretty empowering thing. I do miss wine and chocolate like crazy. I cannot wait to have a handful of dark chocolate chips and a large glass of wine. This vegetable slicer was my favorite kitchen tool before doing Whole 30, but this week I have used it a lot. If you do not have one, you should like into purchasing it. You will not regret it. Here are some of the meals I made with it this week.

We are starting a garden and I am so excited about it (and so is my little helper Molly). Stuart, my husband, bought all the wood to make it this weekend and we have planted the seeds in little pods. I do not have a green thumb at all, so I am a little bit nervous about this, but I think it will be so much fun to go in the garden and pick a snack or food for dinner. I also think that it will be a great educational experience for Molly.

Molly had her Parent’s Day Out Easter party and egg hunt on Wednesday. All the other kids had 2 or 3 Chickfila chicken mini biscuits and then went off to play. Molly sat at the table the entire time and ate chicken mini after chicken mini. I think she polished off seven in all {bear in mind this was after she had oatmeal and a banana for breakfast!?}. That girl can eat. She was a bit skeptical of the egg hunt at first, but got into the groove once she saw the other kiddos doing it. We have a couple more egg hunts this weekend so I am sure that she will know just what to do come Saturday.

Next week we will be having our big giveway on Instagram. There will be TWO chances to win a $150 Target giftcard. Follow @adabofgluewilldo on Instagram for more information. The big giveaway will be starting Thursday, April 9^th. Working with all of the women involved in this giveaway has been such a huge blessing. Everyone has been so encouraging and supportive of one another. Teaching and TpT can be a difficult business so it is so nice to have a community of teachers that can work together for the greater good of our students.

I finally caved in and bought some essential oils. I have been thinking about doing it since I was pregnant with Molly {over two years ago} and just decided that I was going to make the move now. My husband is very skeptical of this whole new venture. I am hoping that he will soon see the benefits of them and be on board. My friends that use them said all of their husbands were skeptical at first, too. I am hopeful that these will make a big difference in our lives. We have been working hard on getting rid of all things toxic in our house and I think this will be another layer of making our home a more healthy one. If you are interested in them please let me know!

I hope that yall have such a great Easter weekend with your friends, family, and/or loved ones.