My Saturday on Instagram

Since my Instagram is private except for events I hashtag, I thought it would be fun to share my day through Instagram. 

People always make my favorite pictures!  We loved having our friends over for lunch.  They are friends from Europe and will be leaving to go to Asia on Wednesday. It was wonderful to spent sweet time together.   

We used from Basil from our Backyard to Table. :) We LOVED it! It made me have Best Italian Food Ever Chef status for a luncheon. :) And we indulged in our everyday favorite, Fresh Mint from our backyard. It went perfectly in our Sweet Tea. 

             

Me loving and sharing my Monogram from One Moms World's sweet daughter. Talent! 

                      

It is always a good day when it starts with a great cup of Starbucks with the love of my life.

                            

Then, I shared these fab Rudbeckia! from Whole Foods. Brightens everyone's day! 

I even found a little time to read some Jamie on his 50th issue.

                            

Grater's Ice Cream made a visit locally and gave out perfect Chocolate samples of their goodness. The heat made this extra sweet. 

                         

Another highlight was a Welcome Home Party for our Friends who just completed their Family of 10! with their adoption of 6 siblings from Latvia! They are all precious and it was a sweet celebration of life and adoption of these precious children. It brought tears to our eyes to see our children all playing together. 

                

Then, this pretty little package came in the mail from my precious niece. We are collaborating on being Twins! 

                        

On a sad note, we are about to lose one of our original fish, Neon. We are all sad. Neon joined our family with our Aquarium and others fish 2 1/2 years ago. The boys and my husband are treating her separately here in her "hospital."  We are hoping for her recovery. She perked up when we all talked to her. 

                                     

That's a wrap on our Saturday for this week. I do believe this post contains most of my favorite things, family, people, faith, food, fun, fashion, reading, beautiful things, flowers, monogram, pink. :) t is fun to look at our full days and be completely thankful.   Hope you all have a blessed Holiday weekend. 

Warmly, 

Carolina Mama 

Whole Foods No HFCS

My family loves home cooked meals.  Healthy meals and fresh foods.  It's part of our health and wellness and fitness lifestyle.

Except there was my soiree into the Couponing.  We discovered when I was couponing - we did save - we saved BIG.  You know, like saved $200 and spend $59 big.  Except the things I bought home were things I didn't leave the house needing on my purchase list.

i.e. they were packaged and processed foods.

We have circled back around to purchasing Whole Foods like this....

We are avoiding all those packaged high sodium, high-fructose corn syrup filled with preservatives and food coloring products.

At first, I was worn out.  It took me three times as long at the grocery.  Now, I beat the system and go straight to Trader Joe's.  More value and less expense.

I know I am sounding all like a Trader Joe's Ambassador or Spokesmom...  well, I already do that.  No, this is just an honest post about how we avoid unhealthy foods.  TJ's has healthy, organic and natural foods for half the price of Whole Foods and other retailers .

And we totally avoid high-fructose corn syrup *HFCS* products - and that translates into MOST of the grocery store!  It has become a great game and fun to find products without this product.

We buy much more quality items now.   Shopping, cooking and eating are a lot more simple.  It is more work than eating the quick items or just eating out all the time.  Yet, oh my goodness, we are loving fresh, home cooked meals without all these sugar and fat laden fillers added like HFCS.  However, it is annoying and shocking the many items that have HFCS in them.

How do you avoid all of the preservatives and food colorings in foods?  Do you avoid HFCS?

Warmly,  Carolina Mama