Hi friends! Just wanted to pop in with a quick post to let you know that I've decided reopen my sidebar to a very small handful of sponsors (blogs, small businesses, etc.) this year. 

If your New Year's resolution is to expand your blog or business, then I'd love to work with you to help make it happen! You can place an ad using the widget below, but if you have questions (or just want to say hi!) please feel free to send me an email here. I also have a media kit I can send you if you're interested in coming up with some more involved sponsored content on Freckled Italian. Just let me know! Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

I have always wanted to be the kind of person who cooks for the week on Sunday evenings. I've done it once or twice but never seem to stick with it. Since I'm doing The Whole30 this month, and because I had an early meeting yesterday morning, I decided to whip up an easy Paleo breakfast that Rob and I could each grab on our way out: Paleo omelette muffins!

This one is great for Sunday cooking because it gives you an opportunity to get rid of whatever vegetables you might be about to throw away (which means the recipe can be different every time you make it). This time I used an onion, carrots, celery, and some leftover squash from a previous dinner. Throw in a little ham and you're ready to go (although you could use bacon or sausage or just leave the meat out completely).

Ingredients: 

• One onion, a few stalks of celery, four carrots, several handfuls of greens, and/or any other vegetables in your fridge
• One or two tablespoons of olive oil
• 10 eggs
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Optional: breakfast sausage, bacon, ham, etc.

Instructions: 

1. In a large pan, saute the onion and other veggies. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
2. In a bowl, whisk eggs together until combined well. Pour eggs evenly into each tin of a muffin pan (only about 3/4 of the way full).
3. Spoon your veggie mixture into each cup.
4. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until the eggs are firm. Place in a container and refrigerate until ready to eat, then pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute and enjoy!

Well you guys, we made it--Monday after the holidays is here and I just can't even believe it's January of 2016.

I have never been so happy to put a year behind me than I was with 2015, and now that we're here, I feel like I have so much to look forward to in 2016. Alt Summit is this month and I'll once again be traveling to Salt Lake City to attend, and then Rob and I have a Miami vacation planned for early February. There will be a few weddings and hopefully lots of weekends with friends in the spring, summer, and fall. Our lease is up in August and we're thinking about moving from our two-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom house with a yard. There are a lot of little exciting things in the pipeline but overall, I'm praying for an uneventful year.

I started my first Whole 30 on January 1st after spending New Year's Eve on the couch with a bottle of champagne, a couple large bags of potato chips, and one too many days of looking in the mirror and feeling bad about what I saw. So now I'm four days in and already feeling so much better--day two is no joke though. I'll be sharing my experience with The Whole30 once I'm done, because up until December 31st of 2015, I was actually kind of anti-food/diet challenges.

I want to be able to say that things are going to be different and that I have a ton of things planned for this year (both on and off the blog), but the truth is that pretty often I'm still taking things one day at a time. I know that life isn't magically going to get easier because the calendar changes at the end of the year, but it's been nice to spend these two weeks of holidays resting and relaxing; reminiscing and getting inspired for the year ahead.

As always, I appreciate all of you so much. I hope you had the happiest of holidays, and that you get out there and crush it this Monday! Let's do this thing.

Photo by V.A. Photography.