Green Smoothie weekend

This weekend is my Green Smoothie Cleanse weekend! It actually kinda started Tuesday, which was "vegan" day. Wednesday was grain-free, and Thursday was all raw... which led me to Friday and the beginning of the all-smoothie, all the time weekend.

Since this has been taking up quite a bit of my thought process for the week, I thought I'd talk about it a little bit.

I should begin by saying that as long as I am using ingredients I like in a good combination and blending them up sufficiently, not only do I enjoy green smoothies, but I feel like I'm doing something good for my body and getting some good nutrients and energy for the day when I drink one. I also love that Zeke enjoys them (again, as long as they contain some essential ingredients such as a banana, blueberries, and spinach or kale). I have enjoyed getting the two of us into the habit of each drinking a nutrient rich, calcium rich green smoothie every morning (well, Zeke's 16 oz is stretched between breakfast and a mid-morning snack). So even in preparing for the cleanse, I learned a lot, and I've been inspired to make one major change in our daily eating habits.

The other thing I like about this cleanse is that I'm not starving myself for it... I can eat as many smoothies as I need (which it turns out is about one less than I expected to need, for a total of 4 a day).

Now for my whining! First off, along with the general rule to eat at least three green smoothies a day (and ONLY eating smoothies), the cleanse also has a schedule of other activities that you SHOULD do, including getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking lemon water an hour before the breakfast smoothie, spending time meditating, exercising, etc. HA! This is all the stuff that I sort of laughed at. Sure, without a 15 month old I might be able to dedicate my whole 3 days to this cleanse and force myself to do all this stuff I normally don't do, but... even 8 straight hours of sleep is still unrealistic for me. Still, I tried to do any of the items that seemed reasonable. I even TRIED to get 8 hours of sleep, although my first 2 days of that have been unsuccessful.

But pretty much, aside from eating smoothies, I've only managed to get about 30 minutes of exercise each day, drank plenty of water and herbal tea, and took psyllium before bed. Oh, and I did the dry skin brushing. Yep, that is all. Alas, I do the best I can.

And oh man, I gotta say this green smoothie thing takes more of an investment in TIME and CASH than I imagined. I'm sticking with it and happy to be doing so, but my wallet is hurting... it costs a whole lot more to eat all veggies, fruits, nuts, and superfoods than it does to eat lots of rice, legumes, and beans supplemented with the veggies, fruits, and nuts. And the food prep and smoothie blending both seem to take more time than just cooking up some meals. Sticking with it, but to be honest I'm glad it's only 3 days of smoothies, 5 days of raw total... my wallet couldn't sustain it any more than that. And time... Thursday night I got Chris to help me prep my veggies (washing, cutting, soaking, etc... getting things organized in the fridge so I can just toss stuff in the blender when it's time to make them), and it took the two of us about an hour to do. Then each night I've made two smoothies for the next day's lunch and snack, and THAT has taken about an hour each night. Not to mention I think I'm seriously wearing out my cheap blender.

So those are my main takeaways from this experiment. That doing green smoothies requires more of a time and cash investment that I have on a regular basis. It's more of an upper middle class event, it seems. Even the time and energy investment is a bit more taxing than I like. But as I said, I'm still glad I'm doing it, and I hope it helps me feel better and gets me back in good eating habits overall. And I do love that making one a day for Zeke ensures that he gets the nutrients his needs, even if he feels like being picky over the rest of the day's meals.

Raw goodies

In a couple of weeks, I'll be participating in a 3 day Green Smoothie Cleanse (tutorial available Jul 20), to try and get my eating habits back on track, and just do some general good things for my body. I've been feeling pretty cruddy lately and I'm hoping that will help.

So the same girl who is hosting the Green Smoothie Cleanse (I already got my tutorial, and man is it JAM PACKED with goodness), is doing a promo for a raw snacks company in Canada. I can't buy any of their tasty snacks being way down here in GA (they don't sell them down here yet), but I am hoping to win some with her giveaway. She's also giving away all her other tutorials... now that I have the Green Smoothie Cleanse tutorial, I know I would love the others, too!

Speaking of which, anyone want to join me doing the smoothie cleanse, Aug 6-8? It's always good to have moral support.

Glass Straws?

For those of you who are big fans of straws, I just learned about a company who makes glass straws that you can carry with you. Kind of an interesting idea, from a conservation and anti-plastic standpoint.

One of my favorite bloggers is hosting a giveaway now, in case you want to check it out. And let me know in the comments if you do!

Gardening Update

left to right: basil, tomato, parsley, dill

If I had read my blog feed yesterday before potting my tomato plant, I would have seen this excellent post on how to plant the best tomato plants, and I wouldn't be back out there re-potting it this morning while Zeke napped. I didn't do ALL the stuff in the blog post, but I did plant the stem down farther, throw a banana peel in there, and put the plastic container around it to keep worms away. It already had composted manure and some organic fish fertilizer in it. While I was at it, I also replanted my basil in a better pot, and added the aquaglobes for watering that I got super-cheap on woot.com.

I'm particularly hopeful about getting some tomatoes this year, because growing my own is pretty much my only hope for pain-free tomatoes. You see, I suspect that my intolerance to nightshade veggies stem from a sensitivity to the alkaloids they contain. If that's the case, then I wouldn't have a problem with tomatoes that had ripened on the vine for three days. But pretty much the only way to get three-day vine ripened tomatoes is to grow 'em yourself. So when I saw these tips for great tomatoes, I figured I should put them to good use. At least, the ones that were fairly easy to execute. Here's hoping for a tasty harvest!

Oh yeah, and I made a little bird feeder with a couple pine cones, peanut butter, and millet (upper right, it's a bit dark in the photo). I thought it would be neat for Zeke to see the birds up closer. If this works well we might buy a bird feeder eventually.

Plants!

As spring came along, I was pretty jealous of all my friends with space and time to plant a garden. I figured next year I'd try my hand at some container gardening again, but I just didn't have the time to go looking for organic plants (forget about trying to grow things from seed, I just don't have the skills!)

So imagine my excitement that I have 6 plants this year, and all I've paid for is the dirt! Friends from church have passed along some extra plants they had growing, so now I have parsley, dill, basil, rosemary, and a sweetie tomato plant. And my awesome sister-in-law got me started with a sweet potato plant. I'm so excited to have some fresh herbs more immediately, and hopeful about the tomato and sweet potatoes to come.

Georgia Aquarium

This past weekend was a BIG weekend - Chris's birthday, Mother's Day, and a surprise (for Chris) visit from my sister-in-law, Emily!

Some of the things we did to celebrate include going to the Georgia Aquarium, eating sushi, going to see Iron Man 2, eating salmon, planting a sweet potato plant, and napping. The only part we took pictures for is the aquarium.

Hooray for home made baby food!

Butternut squash is one of Zeke's ultimate favorite foods. Even as we're moving away from purees and into more solid foods, Zeke is pretty picky about the texture of his food, and we find that mixing grains and such with some butternut makes it more palatable. I also use butternut puree to bake Zeke's butternut squash muffin bites, which are a most healthy snack that he LOVES like it's candy.

Since we always make our own baby food, I don't usually give it much thought, but today I was curious how much it would cost to buy baby food jars of butternut squash if we didn't have time to make our own. The cost difference shocked me. I bought 3 organic butternut squashes from the farmer's market yesterday. My total cost was just over $10. I baked them in the oven last night, scooped out the cooked squash, pureed it in a food processor, and transferred it to storage containers. I wound up with close to 100 oz of puree. That's 10 cents an ounce for organic butternut squash.

Next I looked up baby food on Amazon.com. Amazon tends to have decent prices on things so I thought that would be a good comparison. One thing I discovered is that most baby food manufacturers don't offer straight butternut squash. It's butternut and apples, or butternut and corn. When I finally found a straight butternut squash, I found 2.5 Ounce Jars (Pack of 12) for $12.50. That's 42 cents an ounce. 4 times the cost of my homemade, and theirs isn't even organic! Now for a secondary comparison, I did find Canned Organic Butternut Squash in 15-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) for $28.32. That's 16 cents an ounce for large cans, which is a much better price. But canned goods are lined with BPA, so we would be feeding him a hefty dose of BPA with his butternut. And it's still a good deal more expensive than the tasty homemade stuff. So I will have to say I'm feeling pretty good about my efforts today.

If you want to make your own pureed squash (butternut, acorn, pumpkin), wholesome baby foods has a good tutorial.

Happy Pi Day!

Here I am with my obligatory Pi Day post for 2010. This Pi Day is much different from last year's for me. Last year I was pregnant with my first child, wearing a pi shirt that Chris made for me, and making gluten-free pies for a pi day party. This year I have a 10 month old son, and to celebrate pi day I am ... wearing the pi shirt. And that is all. This mamma has too much going on to bake a gluten-free pie, or even to notice when the clock hits 1:59 on 3/14.

So since I have little to say about the holiday this year, I will leave you in better hands than mine, with Instructables' guide to Pi Day. For those of you who are able, eat a piece of pizza pi or a slice of apple pi for me, 'kay?

The new life of the baby mobile

As you probably know, before Zeke was born, I crocheted him a sea creature baby mobile. It didn't actually make its way to hanging above the crib until we actually got him a crib around 6 months, but he has had it there for a few months now, and he enjoyed swatting at the goldfish. Well, Zeke grew two inches in under two weeks, and suddenly was able to get a good grip on it (unbeknownst to us) and pull the whole mobile down. When I saw it on the floor, I picked it up and set it on top of the dresser, planning to rehang it later. Well, Zeke caught a glimpse of it and started reaching for it... for two days anywhere I moved it, he would see it and cry for it, until we finally just handed it to him to see what he would do with it. What he did was carry the whole thing around with him for days, until he finally managed to detach a goldfish and the octopus. At first I was thinking I should take it away from him before he messes them up. But then I decided, I made it for Zeke to enjoy, and he's enjoying it, so who cares if he drools all over them?

So here he is at 10 months old, and for a week now he's been carrying around the individual creatures, as well as sometimes carrying around the coral with the jellyfish attached. I would have to say this is currently his favorite toy... and since he never seems to care about any of his toys, I've really been enjoying watching him get excited over the sea creatures I made for him. The mobile has taken on new life. I don't think we'll be hanging it back up.

dodecahedron

I finished the dodecahedron. I think it turned out pretty well! It took much longer than I expected though... I think each point took me about an hour, how absurd is that?! I put a bell in each point, too, so it will jingle. I'm going to give it to Zeke tonight. He saw me working on it the other night and was all excited about it, so I hope to get the same excitement when I hand it over... and I really hope he plays with it, considering it took me at least 12 hours to complete! (Am I just a super slow crocheter?)

Booties

A friend of mine from work is having twins soon - a boy and a girl - so I made these booties for them using my two favorite free patterns for baby booties. I think the boy shoes are bigger than the girl shoes but that couldn't really be helped. Maybe we'll be lucky and the boy will have bigger feet so they can still wear them at the same time.

Foamies...

I love this idea for crocheted bath toys / scrubbers. So I got a couple of skeins of organic cotton yarn on sale and made one for Zeke. My yarn was a bit thicker than the one from Carrie used, I think, so I wound up making a smaller version, and used different eyes. But it's nice and soft and I'm looking forward to using him at bath time!

Octopus Crochet Pattern

I just bought my first crochet pattern. Usually I make up my own or find free ones and modify them to my purposes. And in the past 8 months I've had very little time to crochet, thanks to the awesome little man that requires my attention.

But yesterday I was browsing around crochet patterns and happened upon this awesome Octopus pattern. I tried once or twice to crochet my own realistic looking octopus, but wasn't having much luck. I searched in vain for patterns that weren't cutesy... I at least wanted some realistic looking tentacles! Alas, I finally found what I was looking for, and for just $3 on ravelry. I saved it as a favorite so if I ever have time to make it I could look it up and buy it. I told Chris and he said, "You should just buy in now in case you can't find it later." So I did. I have no idea when I will have time to make this 3-foot long bugger, but I am super excited to now have the option to do so!

Too Freaking Cool.

This one goes right up there next to this tree frog in my "Patterns I want to make for myself if I ever get around to it" list. Of course maybe now it will be made for that awesome little guy that takes up my time.

The next thing I plan to actually make, though, is this dodecahedron for Zeke. I will put bells in it. Then I will hope he actually wants to play with it.

Happy 30th Birthday to Me!

Birthdays of old... oh, how the times fly.


1st birthday


The year I got a dirt cake (hooray!) ... I can't find a photo of the barbie cake.


16th...


21st.


28th.


30th!! (That's me with my 7 month old, Zeke)

Approaching 30 (Part 7)... Birthday Freebies

Less than a week left of being in my 20s! And this week is going to FLY BY, let me tell you. December is always crazy. Good, but crazy. And at this point I think I'm all tapped out on reflection, so now I'm just going to glide on into my 30s.

Celebrations... my parents took me out to sushi when they were in town on their way back home, so I have continued my tradition of birthday sushi. Chris is gonna take me out sometime this weekend if he can find someone to watch Zeke. So not sure if that will happen or not.

Oh yeah, and I'm keeping track of what kinds of freebies I can get on or around my birthday from stores. So far the only good ones I've found are a free drink at Caribou Coffee on my actual birthday, and a free entree at Doc Chey's on the day. A lot of places only give away a free dessert with purchase, which I think is lame. The Gap gave me a 25% off coupon, which is the same as the rest of their promos for the month so that isn't special. I THINK Moe's usually emails a coupon for a free burrito but I haven't gotten it yet, and at any rate I'm allergic so that will go to Chris. So it looks like on Sunday after church we'll be doing Doc Chey's and picking up my coffee.

If you want to plan for your own birthday, here's a national list of places that offer birthday promos.

Approaching 30 (Part 6)... Birthdays of Old

To commemorate the passing of my 20s and my 30-year milestone, I'm reflecting on memorable birthdays of my "youth." Let the nostalgia begin!

One year... maybe around my 11th or 12th birthday, my mom asked me if I wanted a "barbie cake." You know, where you stick a barbie in the middle of the cake and decorate it like a dress. My mom always wanted one but never got one, I guess. I told her no, I didn't want a barbie cake, I wanted a dirt cake. That's where you crush up oreos in some ice cream and hide gummy worms in it and put it in a flower pot and stick fake flowers in it. For my birthday I got a barbie cake. Then I had to pretend to like it. I was sorely disappointed.

For my 16th birthday I was planning a big bash for the Friday after my birthday. So the Saturday before my birthday, my dad took me out to a movie. But there wasn't anything good showing at the time we wanted to see something, so we wound up going to an awful movie with the Olsen Twins and a treasure hunt? Awful. Then we came home, I opened the door to walk inside and all my friends yelled SURPRISE! I just closed the door again. It took me a couple minutes to get over the shock and go into my surprise (a week early!) party. Turns out my mom and my two best friends had been secretly planning for a while, and my parakeet kept almost ruining the surprise. For a week whenever I wasn't in the room he would yell "Surprise!" and my mom couldn't figure out WHY, but was worried he would say it when I was in the room and I would start to suspect what they were up to.

For my 18th birthday some friends "kidnapped" me and took me out to dinner and bowling.

Most of my birthdays since college have been really quiet, because even when I wasn't a college student, all my friends were so they were either studying for finals or had already gone home for Christmas break by the time my birthday comes around. But sometimes I've been lucky and people were still in town.

For my 21st birthday, my roommate threw a surprise party for me and my friend Mandy, whose birthday is one day before mine. This should have been awesome, except I had just become a Christian and had a lot of drama going on (losing friends, gaining friends), so one friend who hadn't been talking to me showed up to tell me that he thought I was doing the God thing all for show and I wound up crying for half the party.

For my 25th birthday we wanted to do a Lord of the Rings marathon. People kept saying they would still be in town when my birthday came along and would come over. But instead everyone had left Savannah for the holidays by then, so only one person came over. We didn't make it through all the movies.

Starting with my 26th birthday (I think), I always go out for sushi on my birthday. In Savannah that meant going to Sakura on Broughton Street. Then the last year we were in Savannah, Chris and I went to visit Atlanta for my birthday weekend and my friend Beth took us to Ru Sans, where they sing to you and give you a $20 gift certificate to eat there later when it's your birthday. So every year since, we've gone to Ru Sans on my birthday.

Last year, 29th, I was pregnant so I could only eat cooked and veggie sushi, and Chris and I spent a quiet date night out. And over my birthday weekend my mom came into town and we went shopping for maternity clothes all weekend. It was great to have quiet girl time to celebrate.

So what does this year hold? Probably time spent with my hubby and my best little man. I haven't thought much about it, though I'm counting on some sushi! Probably a rainbow roll. Hmmm, baby snuggles and a rainbow roll. That sounds about right.

Approaching 30 (Part 5)... Places I've been - Places to go...

Welcome to the next installment of my countdown to the end of my 20s.

Places I visited for the first time in my 20s:

• San Francisco, CA
  
• Washington D.C.
• New York City, NY
• Philadelphia, PA
  
• Cleveland, OH (well, sort of. I was there but didn't get to do much visiting)
  
• Portland, OR
• Oxford, MS
• Dallas, TX
• Myrtle Beach, SC
  

Places I hope to visit before I'm 40:

• Seattle, WA
• Vancouver, CA
• Boston, MA
• Luang Prabang, Laos
• Bangkok, Thailand
• Rome, Italy
• Yellowstone
• Chicago, IL
• Austin, TX

Reflections on My 9 Day Fast from Junk Food

This is a followup to my rambling about an 8 Day Fast from Junk Food.

So my 8 day chocolate / caffeine / refined sugars fast became a 9 day fast and was very successful! Why did it become a 9 day fast? Because apparently Day 8 was my threshold... although I still was craving coffee and chocolate (for the taste, not the caffeine) during Day 7, by Friday, when I was allowed to break my fast, I didn't want to. It was strange to me, too, but I just didn't really care about having a piece of chocolate or a coffee, even though we were taking a 6 hour drive with our screaming baby and reached our destination after midnight. So I figured as long as I didn't WANT it, I certainly wasn't going to be silly and EAT it.

On Day 10 I did have a little chocolate, but still didn't wind up drinking any decaf until about Day 12... and only then because I was cold and it was brewing at my grandma's house.

All last week I was at my grandma's farmhouse in rural Indiana (and by rural I mean corn fields are our neighbors and my uncle owns ducks). It was fantastic and I never want to leave when we're there. My grandma made about a dozen different sugary snacks and desserts that taunted me all week, so even though I was allergic to most of them, I still found sugary chocolaty sweet things that I could eat, to make up for all the food I could not. And I did drink a TON of decaf coffee. Like I said, it was there, and I was cold, and it was tasty. But although I indulged quite a bit over the Thanksgiving week, I didn't feel the same need for the stuff that I had before the fast, so I was very happy to have done it. Getting back to normal life is a bit easier now, and it's been easier to cut back down on the sweets.

On the plus side, Zeke didn't sleep any better or act any less rambunctious when I cut down on the caffeine and sweets, so it looks like having them in my diet wasn't really affecting him that much. This makes me happy because that means I don't have to cut them out altogether. He's just a rambunctious kid, plain and simple.

Approaching 30 (Part 4)... Goals for my 30s

Yesterday's list was my 20 Milestones of my 20s, now for the Goals for my 30s. Things I hope to list in my Milestones in another 10 years.

1. Become a Stay-At-Home Mom. This part isn't up to me at all. It's completely out of my control. But it's something I hope to achieve before I'm 40. Not to say I wouldn't work at all, I'm sure I would work from home some. But I would like to devote the bulk of my time to my children and my home, instead of those being secondary to the day job.
2. Have baby #2. I'm not committing to any more than two kids. Any more than that will have to be the Lord changing my heart again, but I at least want to have a second child. Preferably 2 years from now, when Zeke is 2 1/2 and about out of diapers.
   
3. Figure out if I want to go to grad school, and if I do, get started with it. I talked about this in a post a few days ago. I honestly thought I would have at least gotten a start on grad school before I was 30, if not finished with it. This is not to say that I regret where I am. It was clearly not what the Lord had planned for us - He had Atlanta, learning about food allergies, and a gorgeous baby boy in our future. Grad school would have meant 3 years of sleep deprivation, stress, and sickness (I am pretty positive I would not have figured out my food allergies causing me to feel exhausted and sick all the time on a college health plan). So in the next 10 years I hope to figure out, once and for all, if I even NEED and WANT to get a graduate degree, if so, what kind, then when to do it.
4. Learn to do wet felting.
5. Learn to knit. Yes, I've knitted a couple of scarfs in the past, but I don't remember how to do it and I wasn't very good at it so it doesn't count anymore.
   
6. Learn to sew. I have the sewing machine, and even a friend who is willing to teach me. But I expect a few years to pass before I actually have the time to put into it.
7. Complete a fine art project. I have an idea in mind, I just need to execute it.
   
8. Find a place where I can get into wheel-throwing pottery again. I miss it. It feeds my soul. Then I want to get good enough to make a teapot. A good one. I tried last time around, when I first got into pottery after I graduated from undergrad, but my teapot was a bust and I never even took it home.
9. Produce another film.
10. Buy a house. I was debating whether or not to put this as a goal. Chris asked and I even said I didn't want it to be a goal, because if we don't do it then I'll feel like a failure. But I'm not afraid to list my other goals, so... yeah, to be perfectly honest I DO hope that we'll be able to buy a house in the next 10 years. It's impossible with our current financial situation and with what we want out of a house (size, location, etc). But I DO want a yard and a place to call our own with kids... we don't want to be moving from apartment to apartment forever. So there you have it. It's a goal, and we're slowly trying to put money away for a down payment, and while it's not on our 5 year plan, I do hope to have it on our 10 year plan.

So there you have it. 10 goals for the next 10 years seems adequately ambitious to me... it's like 1 a year. I wonder if this blog will still be around in some incarnation in 10 years so I can look back at my list and see what I've accomplished.

Approaching 30 (Part 3) ... 20 Greatest Milestones of my 20s

Here we are, 20 days before I turn 30. So I bring to you a recap of the 20 Milestones / Accompishments of my 20s.

1. Giving my life to Christ (just days before I turned 21)
2. Marrying Chris (age 23)
3. Giving birth to my first child (age 29)
4. Graduating college with high honors (age 22)
5. Finding out I was pregnant (age 28)
6. Realizing I was in love with Chris (age 22)
   
7. Producing a feature-length independent documentary (age 26-27)
   
8. Showing our first feature documentary in film festivals (age 27)
9. Showing my art in a two-woman show at the Reitz Union with .tif (age 21)
   
10. Learning to crochet, and writing my own patterns (age 27, 28)
11. Becoming friends with my mother (early 20s)
12. Discovering how to eat to feel healthy (age 28)
13. Letting go of "my plans" to move to Portland, and following the Lord's lead in moving to Atlanta instead, without a plan, and watching as God put the pieces into place (age 27)
    
14. Learning to teach (age 22)
15. Designing our own PEZ dispenser that PEZ made for us.
    
16. Learning how to throw pottery on a wheel (age 22)
    
17. Learning how to solder silver to make jewelry (age 22)
    
18. Learning to do stained glass (age 24)
    
19. Having the guts to dye my hair blue for a few months (age 21-22)
20. Learning needle felting (age 28)