MAKING OURSELVES is our new monthly series focused on finding and creating more time to nurture and prioritize ourselves, our passions, hobbies & health. You can read all the posts HERE.

Be sure to follow along on social media & tag your own pics with #makingourselves!

This month for Making Ourselves my focus has been on food. Not a diet, but healthy lifestyle changes. You see I hate to cook...most of the time. Realistically I would much rather be sewing or knitting! Let's face it - cooking eats up into the creative time that I enjoy best. But now that we moved into our house my hubby gets home later and guess who has to make dinner most nights? That's right - me. Insert sad face.

So instead of whining about it and feeling bad for myself I made the decision to try not to let it add stress to my day and instead to focus on the things in cooking that I "do" enjoy. Like color, interesting textures, controlling my diet, trying new things and of course, using my spiralizer! Seriously people - spiralizing is the most fun I've ever had cooking (and how funny are those leftover bits of zucchini? I lmao every. single. time). I couldn't resist showing you all some of the things I've been doing this past month to change my food habits.

/// SPIRALIZING. I spotted spiralized noodles a while back on instagram and thought to myself - what a great idea but never did anything about it. Then it just seemed like wherever I looked this year things were being spiralized. I took it as a sign and bought myself one of those bad boys. I haven't looked back since.

I try to eat Gluten free, low on dairy, low/no sugars if possible and whole foods as much as I can. I also have life threatening nut & tree nut allergies (the anaphylactic kind) so eating just hasn't been "fun" for me for a long time now. Eating out is non-existent and I have to say it depresses me on a regular basis. Especially being someone who loved to go out to eat and try new foods, eat ethnic foods, socialize etc. It's just something I'm slowly learning to say goodbye to. So when I'm able to replace some of those foods I would eat at a restaurant and can now make at home I'm learning to find new joy in gaining a bit of control back.

So many of you lovingly referred me to the awesome site www.inspiralized.com when I first bought my spiralizer (I have the Paderno World Cuisine Vegetable Spiralizer - 3 Blade show above right) and I've been hooked ever since. I was totally amazed at the awesome amount of recipes and foods that you truly could spiralize! Pasta has never been better or yummier in our house I can tell you that.

I also loved that Ali, the author of the cookbook (and blog) Inspiralized also went on a weight loss journey herself. I found it really inspiring to read her story and to see how much spiralizing has changed her life. I was so happy to know Ali was releasing a cookbook shortly after I started reading and I've been enjoying it a lot! I recommend it if you're getting started with spiralizing! It's also called Inspiralized. You can find it HERE on Amazon. Have you been spiralizing? Fave recipe to share?

/// VEGGIE GARDEN. The other thing I'm excited about this month is our Veggie Garden! If you're following me on instagram you'll have seen my updates on what's going on with the planning of our garden! It's been my dream that when I became a homeowner I could grow some of my own veggies! So off planning and learning I went.

The hubs surprised me when I was out of town recently and built our veggie garden! I was so surprised! Such a romantic surprise! We've got our soil now, some seeds and a few starters. I'm anxiously awaiting the rain to stop today so I can get some planted! The veggie I'm most excited to grow is Kale and of course, now that I'm a spiralizer addict - zucchinis! Now I can make my green smoothies with my own Kale and eat my pasta with my own zucchini! I cannot wait! We're also planning on growing some radishes, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, and lettuce. We also have in seperate containers some strawberries, mint, and herbs. And don't worry, the mint and strawberries are each in their own pot. I only made that mistake once..lol. What's your fave veggies to grow? Tips to share this newbie?

/// COOKBOOKS. I cannot not say enough about the book "100 Days of Real Food" by Lisa Leake. My kids and myself truly enjoy this book and it has helped me so much with learning some new cooking basics and to improve my kids choices for foods, broadening their horizons and also to help this momma with lunch packing. We've loved it and it's the most used cookbook in our home. It's also the most read. My oldest even takes it to bed and reads some of it! We love the pictures of the kids, kids foods and how the book is family oriented and has an easy and approachable manner to making some big changes to your food and family's diet. There's also great ideas in here for involving kids and how to make dinner easier and more fun. I can use all the help I can get. You can also read Lisa's blog HERE. Two thumbs up on this one friends.

We are also still enjoying our copies of The Oh She Glows Cookbook by Angela Liddon and good ol' Gwyneth Paltrow's "It's All Good". Oh She Glows is a no brainer. The food is delish, the book is gorgeous and her blog is awesome. Gwyneth's book is one I enjoy for the beauty of it. It's so inspiring to me. I love the photographs, the way the recipes are sorted and there are some truly yummy ones in it. I know, it's Gwyneth, and some have love/hate relationships with her but I like this one. What are your current fave cookbooks? I'm on the hunt for a few new ones!

Have you been joining in on MAKING OURSELVES? I'd love to hear about it! Leave me a comment below so we can chat! Be sure to tag your pics with #makingourselves on social media so I can cheer you on too!

You can always stay up to date on the series by visiting our MAKING OURSELVES home page HERE.

*This post contains affiliate links but all opinions are my own.