Bead Embroidered Necklace in Red and Gold

When I saw the bead that I used as the focal for this bead embroidered necklace, I had one person in mind that the reminded me of.  The bead had a slight oriental flair.  The gold foil added a great metallic finish around the edge and in the texture of the bead. 

I don't often work in gold finishes as I personally wear more of the silver family (gunmetal, antique silver) finishes in my jewelry.  But this focal called for gold, so gold it got! 

I finished the custom beaded necklace with a 3mm red crystal picot style edging.  The end project has class, sparkles like the dickens and showcases that metallic gold finish for a pendant that is very versatile!

This weekend I attended a women's retreat at the Geneva Inn in Lake Geneva, WI.  We discussed everything from time management and knowing your true financial picture to dealing with the "stuff" we all carry to making cooking and eating healthier much easier. 

I took a few golden nuggets from the cooking/eating healthier discussion we had with Kristin Arnett, a Holistic Nutrition Consultant .  First, let me preface this by saying I don't dislike vegetables (with the exception of onions for which we share a mutual dislike of each other).  My challenge is A. I don't like to prepare vegetables.... it takes way too much time at meal time when I'm starving and B. I get BORED with vegetables.  I feel like I get the same peas, broccoli, beans and I steam them and it gets old.  I also like salads which are a great way to get good produce into the body... if you make the right choices on dressing. 

But anyhow back to the golden nugget... the nutritionist shared her "secret" to get more vegetables into our diet since on weeknights when our kids are coming home from school, hubbies are coming home from work and we ourselves are wrapping up our business for the day.  She make a vegetable "compote" for lack of a better word with a weeks worth of veggies at one time.  (Her vegetable medley had peppers in all colors, broccoli, zucchini, asparagus, kale, onions which I won't use and anything else that is in season.)  Then she keeps it in her fridge and adds it to each dish she's preparing.  She simply sautes the veggies in a little olive oil or grapeseed oil and puts them in a glass dish to hang out in the refrigerator so she can use them scoop by scoop.  Now THAT makes sense to me!

She also does this with her brown rice and quinoa as well.  It takes the 45 minutes out of cooking time it would take to make that brown rice.  Brilliant?  I think so!  I have to do my grocery shopping today so I'm going to give the vegetable medley a try and see how I do for a week.  We received a whole week worth of recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner so I'm excited to try new things.  She even had kale in her vegetable compote and it was delicious. 

The dishes she prepared were fast, delicious and huge portion sizes and under 400 calories per serving because vegetables are low calories.  Now how awesome is that?  If you want to check out her tips her website is currently being developed so she will be adding many more resources and terrific content.  http://www.KristinsHolisticKitchen.com She's a gem of a woman, a great mom and she made some awesome HEALTHY food... who would have thought?

I feel more energized this morning than I have in a long time (especially on a Monday) so I'm going to take a walk, work on photos of the black & white piece I started last week and see what this day has in store for me!

Hope your week is fantastic!
{Hugs!}
Dawn