Look What I Got! And Days 3 and 4

Yesterday I bought two things that made me very happy

The book Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr and a Yoga mat. I read Carr's book some months ago and LOVED it. I know the name sounds funny but it's a legit read! Carr is a cancer survivor who basically treated her disease by making some drastic lifestyle changes. Here is  the Amazon.com synopsis of the book

"Infused with Carr's signature sass, wit and advice-from-the-trenches style, Crazy Sexy Diet is a beautifully illustrated resource that puts you on the fast track to vibrant health, happiness and a great ass! Along with help from her posse of experts, she lays out the fundamentals of her Crazy Sexy Diet: an anti-inflammatory, vegetarian program that emphasizes balancing the pH of the body with lush whole and raw foods, nourishing organic green drinks, and scrumptious smoothies. Plus, she shares the steps of her own twenty-one-day cleanse, and simple but delectable sample recipes. Carr empowers readers to move from a state of constant bodily damage control to one of renewal and repair, making this a must-have for anyone who seeks to be a confident and sexy wellness warrior."

Meh...I don't think that accurately portrays the book's awesomeness but at least you have some idea what it's about. Anyway, I was very sad when I had to return the book to the library. There was so much information that I didn't have enough time to absorb. I knew that I had to get my own copy one day; it's been on my Amazon.com wish list for months. Well, I made that wish come true yesterday! I can't wait to read it again! That probably won't happen for at least another week though because I'm currently working my way through The China Study. Loving it so far. ::Sigh:: I get so excited reading about food and nutrition!! You know how your mouth waters when you're really hungry and you get a whiff or catch a glimpse of the delicious meal you're about to eat? Well that's what my brain does when I read about this stuff. Yes...reading about food and nutrition makes my brain salivate..and it always wants more! Next on my list is The Starch Solution. I almost walked out of Barnes and Nobles with it yesterday but I couldn't justify spending $26.00 on it when it's less than $16 on Amazon, and free from the library if I just wait a couple of weeks.

As for the yoga mat: I do yoga fairly often and plan to do it even more regularly so I thought it was about time I invested in a mat. I learned this morning that doing yoga on a yoga mat instead of on a rug, a quilt, or a regular exercise mat makes SUCH a big difference!

Now onto food: I've officially completed FOUR WHOLE DAYS of being gluten, sugar, and dairy free (I would say vegan but I had that fried egg on Sunday)!  I am so proud of me. Only 38 days to go...It's been tough. It's hardest at the end of the day when I'm really tired, I get home and I still have to make dinner (a process that took me about 2.5 hours tonight) and I really just want something sweet to boost my mood. For the few days I think I may have been using too much oil and salt in my cooking so I'm trying to be more mindful of that here on out. Here's what I've been eating:

Day 3

Breakfast: "Nut Shake"- 1/4 cup almonds soaked overnight, soymilk, 1 banana, 1/2 avocado, 2 dates, 1tbs flaxseeds, 1 tbs hemp seeds, 1tsp cacao powder

Lunch:
Leftover Tofu Scramble, Grilled Polenta, and spring salad mix

Dinner: "Spicy Black Beans" (I used this recipe as a reference but basically only seasoned them with garlic, onion, Bragg's liquid amino acids, and nutritional yeast), Baked Plantains, Brown Rice, and Raw Kale Salad (I love raw kale when I prepare it this way: with olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt, raisins, and raw cashews, ahhh so good).

This has been my favorite dinner so far!
Snacks: a banana, baby carrots, too many handfuls of cashews,  and a pack of pistachios

Day 4:

Breakfast: "Very Very Banana-Blueberry" chia pudding

So "normally" you make chia pudding by soaking chia seeds in milk from anywhere from 20 minutes to a day or two. I usually make mine by soaking the seeds in soymilk or raw almond milk with some agave syrup. Well since I'm currently not using any form of sweetner that isn't a fruit I decided to try something new. I made a banana blueberry smoothie and then soaked the chia seeds in that. That's the first picture. I quickly realized if I wanted to be able to actually eat the pudding I'd have to spruce it up a bit. So I added a banana and some blueberries in their whole form. It wasn't the best but it was very edible. And I felt pretty great after eating it!

Lunch: Leftover Raw Kale Salad and Spicy Black beans (beans not pictured here).

Dinner Part 1: Brown Rice and Kimchi (making dinner tonight took a LONG time. So to avoid passing out from hunger, I had to have an "appetizer.")

Dinner Part 2: Breakfast Burrito Bake - This ended up being alot so I'll probably be eating it for lunch and dinner for the next couple of days! I loved this because it's made up entirely of vegetables, beans, and spices: mushroom, zucchini, onion, red bell pepper, potatoes, swiss chard, cilantro, black beans, and pinto beans. I did not love this because it was a completely oil free and salt free recipe and that took some mental adjusting.

I didn't have enough potato topping. womp.

Snacks: walnuts and raisins, baby carrots, a banana, an apple, raw cashews

Alrighty, that is all for now!

Sweet Jamaica mine.

“ Help me big up Jamaica/the land of food and wata/the system might nuh propa, but wi love di vibes, di food, and di culcha/ Woi, can’t you see the beauty of dis country/  mi nevah know a serious ting/ until mi reach a foreign…”

Today my country is celebrating 50 years of independence from Great Britain.  I am sure that celebrations of “Jamaica 50” are in full swing. I am happy for Jamaica and the people around the world who are having a good time in her honor right now. I am also, as I usually am when I think about my country, a little sad. I have a hard time thinking about her because when I do, I can’t help think of the ways people have constantly challenged my right to claim her as my own.

 When I first left Jamaica 11 years ago there was very little questioning of whether or not I was Jamaican. Although I had visited the United States, Miami specifically, a couple of times in the years prior, in 2001 I knew I was in Miami to stay and I felt like a foreigner: The food was different— I was particularly grossed out by how thick hot dog sausages were here, “patties” didn’t mean a flaky pastry crust stuffed with meat/and or vegetables, and spices, but rather, hamburger meat shaped into a flat circle, KFC didn’t have barbeque chicken sandwiches or fries only potato wedges, apparently eating rice and peas and plantains (now pronounced plan-taynes, instead of plan-tins) with EVERY meal was not the norm, and everyone did not love ackee and saltfish and fried dumplins. A new culture surrounded me—most people seemed to speak Spanish, most people greeted me with a kiss on the cheek; there were new words and phrases like oyé! Mira! Dimé, Can I hold your pencil? I’m finna go…I found myself in a new type of school with no uniforms and no morning assembly, a school that offered “free or reduced lunch,” that sold CRAP cafeteria food (no patties or pizza pockets or cooked lunch or amazing assortment of candy), that did not insist on standing up when a teacher entered the classroom to show respect, that gave out progress reports, and where you moved around for most classes instead of the teachers coming to you...I could make a much more extensive list describing my culture shock but I’ll stop here. Everything was different, everything was new.  In the beginning I processed those differences negatively and so I clung to my family, I kept in close touch with my friends back home, and made my first new friends ones who were either Jamaican or had a strong Jamaican or Caribbean background/ connection.

 Over the years, things changed. I became acclimatized to the U.S; my mother cooked run down, ackee and saltfish, fried dumplings and festival , “yellow” soup, and red peas soup  less and less often; my accent faded;  and the majority of my friends became people who knew very little about my pretty little island. I found that I liked my American high school a great deal. I was known and celebrated there because I was smart.  I began kissing people on the cheek in greeting.  I  legally became a U.S citizen. I could no longer name all the Jamaican parishes and their capitals. I could barely remember an Anancy story or the plot of A Cow Called Boy, the U.S government and U.S universities worked together to finance both of my degrees. And during these years people began to either imply or straight out tell me that I was no longer Jamaican or not Jamaican enough. They haven’t stopped. These people were strangers and these people were family and friends.  And their words hurt very much.

 For the past 10 years I have hated the question “Where are you from?” I hated that the asker didn’t realize that their question was not a simple thing to answer. “I am from Jamaica.” “No, where are you really from?”  “….My immediate family lives in Miami…but I was born in Jamaica and lived there for 13 years.” “But you don’t have an accent…can you say something in Jamaican? C’mon let me hear it.”

Nearly two months ago, I visited my country for the first time since I’d immigrated and I once again felt like a foreigner. I was there for 6 days and had an amazing time with family on both my mother’s and father’s side, with my god parents, and with friends.  I was jealous though. Jealous of the people who hadn’t had the formation of their ethnic identity disrupted the people who were so clearly Jamaican and sounded like it. I felt out of place and that the comfort I should have had being around my people had been stolen from me. I had to deal with the comments about how “Americanized” I was.  And I mourned.  I mourned the other life I could have had— the life that would have been mine, the certainty in being Jamaican that I would have possessed, if I’d spent years 13-24 there.

 The United States as a country has never felt like “home” for me.  And despite my great love for President Obama, I don’t possess an ounce of “patriotism,” and I will never ever be a “proud American” (not because it is a bad place but because it’s not “mine.”) I lived 13 years in Kingston, Jamaica, 4 years in Miami, Florida, 5 years in Gainesville, Florida, and  I've been here in Chicago, Illinois for nearly 2. Right now Chicago feels like “home” but I’ll never be “from” here and no matter which U.S city I live in and grow to love, it will never translate to me feeling like an “American.” I am very thankful for the opportunity living in the U.S. has given me, I am grateful for the life I have here for the amazing, amazing relationships I’ve formed and experiences I’ve had here. I like the privilege I receive from having this country on my passport but…

Nothing can change the fact that on July 5^th, 1988 I was born in Nuttall Memorial Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. No one can change that I spent the first 13 years of my life living on Grovedale Drive and then in Acadia Circle. No one can take away the Christmas days that I would drive to country with my family to visit my great-grandmother “Granny Blanche,” my uncle Lance and my cousins Mark and Chester “the man from Manchester.”  No one can take away the 10 years I danced at Jamaica School of Dance and all of my performances at The Little Theater. No one can take away the mornings that I would listen to Reggae and Soca music as mommy or daddy drove me to Discovery World, St. Andrew Prep, and then Campion College, or the afternoons that I’d listen to Barbara Gloudon on the way home from those places. No one can change the times I spent playing “Ring around the Rosy,” “What can you do Puncinella Little Fella,” “There’s a Brown Girl in the Ring,” or “Farmer in the Den” on the school playground with my friends or at home with my sisters. No one can change the fact that I know why the phrase “we don’t play hockey, we eat [h]ackee” is hi-larious or the fact that I used to watch Royal Palm Estate.

Who can take the jingle “Me-etric fever, me-tric fever; everybody haffi learn fi use-metric; everybody haffi learn fi use-metric;” out of my mind? Who can say that I never enjoyed Chippees Banana Chips, Cheez Zees, Kiss Cupcakes, Cheese Trix, Dominoes cookies, Cheese Popcorn, Big Foot, bag juice, box drinks, patty and cocoa bread, fried dumplings, mackerel run down, curry goat and chicken, jerk chicken, gungo rice and peas, stew peas,  guineps, and oataheite apples? Who can change that I knew paw paw and pak choy before I knew “papaya” and “bok choy”?  Who can re-write my history to not include the times I would stand to attention with my right arm crossed over my heart and proudly sing the words “Eternal Father, Bless our Land…” or the special morning assemblies at St. Andrew Prep where they would raise the flag and we would say the National Pledge?  Who can change that I grew up watching JBC/ TVJ, CVM, and Love TV? Who can change that I was born going to St. Andrew Parish Church and was christened by Father Thompson? Who can erase the fun I had during November Prizegiving ceremonies, and December bazaars and Christmas concerts at my prep school? Who can say that I didn’t take the GSAT and earn the right to be a first-former at Campion College? Who can say that I Mrs. Edwards didn’t teach me to write in cursive or read, Miss Lynch didn’t teach me art or that Mr. Stone didn’t teach me history, that I didn’t survive Mrs. Ogilve’s clasroom when I was 6 and Mrs. Frasier’s when I was 10, that I never had extra lessons with Mrs. Williams? Who can tell me what it was like for me to go to the market with my mother on Saturday mornings or to spend Sunday evenings with my family at Devon House, eating ice cream and standing on the small bridge over the pond to see the turtles and little orange fish!

 Who knows the grief I felt at leaving my home behind?  Who feels my grief now when I realize that there’s so much about it that I that I no longer remember?

 I don’t understand why people feel the need to define my identity for me and I resent them for trying. But the truth is no one can change the blood running through my veins—my mother’s blood, my father’s blood, the blood of their mothers and their fathers and their mother’s mothers and their father’s fathers and their mother’s fathers and father’s mothers. I have centuries of Jamaican ancestry to support me and I will always be Jamaican. It is the place that holds my history, the place that is the foundation of my heritage. I will never forget the words of our pledge or our anthem. I will never feel such pride for and loyalty to another country. I will never be from anywhere else. And I have only two words for the people who want to challenge me on that. I won’t say them here though.

I love you Jamaica. Happy 50^th year of Independence!

“This is the land of my birth/ This is the land of my birth/ This is Jamaica, my Jamaica/ This is the land of my birth.”

I'm not alone; Days 1 and 2

Today, first at church and then at home, I had some great conversations with friends about food and about my frustration with not knowing which dietary plan is "the best" one. These conversations were great mainly because several people admitted to also feeling frustration and confusion. Empathy is always nice.

I've been completely gluten, dairy, and sugar free for 2 days! It's been challenging and I know it's going to get much more challenging over the next couple of weeks but I'm proud of my 2 days so far.

Day 1

Breakfast: Smoothie: 1/3 cup strawberries, 1 banana, 2 dates,  3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup soymilk, 1/4 cup raw walnuts soaked overnight, 1 tbs hemp seeds, 1tbs ground flaxseeds, 1 tbs flax oil.

Lunch: Leftovers of this Caulilower Chickpea "Curry" I made a couple days ago with Sauteed Spinach. And Jasmine green tea (without honey or stevia!)

Dinner:  Grilled Polenta,  [kind of sauteed] Tofu, Steamed Broccoli

Snacks throughout the day: a few handfuls of raisins , a banana, an apple...I think that was all.

Day 2

Breakfast: Green Smoothie (I didn't take a picture): 1 cup spinach, 1/2 avocado, 1/4 cup frozen strawberries, 1 banana, 1 tbs flaxseed, 1 tbs flax oil, 1 tbs hemp seeds, 3/4 cup soy milk, 3/4 cup water, 2 dates.

Lunch: Went to a local cafe-ish place with some friends after church and had the "Huevos Toni." Which was a corn tortilla topped with a fried egg, black beans, corn and salsa.

It was alright but I'm pretty sure I could've made a tastier version...with tofu. And I think I will attempt that soon. Look out for it!

Dinner: Leftover Grilled Polenta and 2 cups spring salad mix topped with Scrambled Tofu.

Snacks throughout the day: a banana, some tortilla flaxseed chips a friend offered to me, about 4 handfuls (that's 3 too many!) of raw cashew pieces.

Dessert: An entire carton of fresh organic strawberries. so yummy. Strawberries in the summer are so much better than strawberries at any other time of the year!

How am I feeling? "Hungry." but I don't quite trust my "hunger." At several points yesterday and today I would feel full but still feel "hungry" b/c I just wanted something more...particularly something sweet and/ or dough-y. lol. Sigh. We can do this body!!

So many food plans, so much information.

There are so many different types of vegans. The "I'll eat whatever I want as long as it's vegan" vegans, the no-salt-added vegans, the oil-free vegans, the raw food vegans, the macrobiotics vegans, the vegans who emphasis drinking green smoothies and green juices, the vegans who say it's better to chew your greens than to drink them, the "the only sugar I use are dates," vegans, the gluten free vegans, the wheat loving vegans, the vegans who say the only supplement you need to take is vitamin B12 and you'll get the rest from your food, the vegans who advocate still talking supplements beyond vitamin B12 ...and then, there are the handful of doctor-writers (Furhman, Hyman, Campbell, Esselstyn, McDougall) who I admire and trust but who have varying opinions on eating animal products, consuming gluten, or cooking with added oils... and I recently learned about the Whole30 Plan from a friend who's currently doing it (the 30 day plan basically advocates eating meat, eggs, tons of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and healthy oils. no sugar or artificial sweetners, legumes, or grains) and I am intrigued by it.

Sometimes I don't know exactly who to believe and I do alot of jumping around/ moving on to the next thing instead of sticking with one plan consistently and for a reasonable amout of time to find out if it really works for me. A little over a year ago I decided I wanted to be vegan. And even though I have been far from consistent in living that out, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made because I've learned so much about what it means to eat well, and truly be healthy. I've reached a point where while my aspiration is still, to be vegan, I don't know how long it'll stay that way. If I ever decide that I want to make meat a consistent part of my diet again 99% of the time it'll be organic, grass-fed meat from animals who were humanely treated and I probably wouldn't eat it more than once or twice a week. These "meat eating boundaries" are important to me because 1.abstaining from meat isn't just about health for me. It's also very much a moral/ ethical issue. I don't think it's inherently wrong to eat animals. I do think factory farming is wrong, evil even, unnecessary, and unhealthy for all involved, and it is a well-researched fact that the vast amount of meat we eat has a severe negative impact on the environment. So having those beliefs and knowing those things would really compromise my integrity if I were to just casually pop a piece of meat in my mouth. 2. once or twice a week is probably all I'd be able to afford lol; when it comes to meat, going the sustainable, ethical route can be pricey! (it would be less so however if more people demanded a change!) Anyway that is the distant future, if it even happens at all.

For now, I am sure that I want to abstain from the following things 99% of the time, for the forseeable future: dairy in every form , all refined grains and refined grain products, refined sugar, processed foods and snacks, refined oils. For the short-term future, i.e the next 6 weeks, gluten and any sugar at all (except for the natural sugars in whole fruits) is on that list. After I get through 6 weeks straight of not having any of those things then I'll make another decision about where to go next.

I'm going to log everything I eat for the next 6 weeks on here! It'll be fun for me and make it less likely for me to make bad food decisions. I look forward to posting my "Day 1" log later today!

Salad bowl blog

Every day I either think about or experience three or four different things that I want to share on this blog. Alas, I don't get paid to share my life so there may never be time to write about and post all those things. Sometimes, however, I will just toss a bunch of topics/thoughts/happenings into one semi-long post and that'll be that.

Vegan, gluten-free, almond lemon blueberry cupcakes!

1. My hair:

 In two days it'll be an official month since I shaved my head :). Some of the novelty of the cut has worn off for me. I'm still 100% glad that I did it but now that my hair has grown out some I feel like it's in an awkward stage. First of many I'm sure. I'm fine with that though and excited to see what it will look like on September 5th, and October 5th, and November 5th, and...you get it :).


2. Moving and its complications:

Since last Sunday I've been in between apartments. I moved out of the condo I rented for the past 2 years and am currently staying with friends until I sign the lease for my new apartment- hopefully next week. When I moved out I had to stay goodbye to some very important things: central AC and  kitchen utensils. :(. The friends hosting me have an attic apartment. It's great because along with a regular bedroom, I have my own kitchen and bathroom! It is also, especially great because they are letting me stay here for free! It's not so great because it's really hot up here. I mean really frickin stinkin HOT! Sweat-rolling-down-your-chest-and-back-if-the-fan-is-off-for-a-minute HOT! They did warn me about that though. And it's really a small price to pay. The heat has actually been nice while I'm exercising. I sweat so much more than I normally would and so I feel like I'm really working hard AND more sweat means more toxins leaving my body, woot!

Cooking has been a challenge. The condo I previously rented came with a fully equipped kitchen. Thankfully, before I moved I'd acquired my own blender, food processor, crockpot, juicer, and mason jars (love those things!) but I recently had to quickly buy a saucepot, frying pan, a mug, a bowl, plates, cutting sheets, cutting knives and cutlery- and those are the very basics of what I need. I'm also currently doing my cooking on a pair of burners which is definitely harder than using an actual stove.

And finally, I'm now living farther away from everything--the places I work, my friends, my favorite grocery store, the library etc. So getting anywhere I need/want to be takes at least a half hour longer.
I've been grumpy this week from tiredness and having to get used to these small changes. I think I'm just about adjusted though :).

3. Ailments-

Remember the hives outbreaks I'd been having for over four weeks straight? They're gone! And without my having to take any Zyrtec (thank you very much Dr. Jackson!) Unfortunately, for about a week and a half now I've been having a consistent pain near the right side of my lower back, right around where I think my kidney is. And something funky is going on with my left arm. I don't even really know how to explain the problem but it feels like my arm has gotten super sensitive to touch and temperature-- I've been getting random flashes of intense pain, the kind of pain that will make me immediately drop anything I might be holding at the time; if cold, or even cool, water touches certains spots of my arm (mainly my palm and wrist) then I'll feel that same pain, or if something I'm holding or carrying in that arm presses or pulls even slightly on my arm then I'll get that pain again. And when I run my fingers over my left arm it's nearly painful. I'm thinking something wonky is going on with my nerves in that arm, maybe from all the heavy lifting and carrying I've done within the last week because of moving? I dunno. Google hasn't been helpful this time and I'm not in any hurry to go back to my doctor who I've officially deemed as worthless (as a doctor for me, not as a human being). We'll see how it goes.

4. I recently made vegan fried chicken and vegan mac and cheese.

I took extensive pictures of the entire process but I'll only post a few. I found the recipes for both at www.brownvegan.com

In case you don't feel like clicking the link and reading the ingredients for this recipe, I'll tell you the basics: It's Gardein brand chick'n wrapped in rice paper and a batter of spices, flour, and cashew cream. I used safflower oil to fry it.

Vegan fried chicken! Although I don't think I fried it long enough, it was delicious! The rice paper had the same texture of chicken skin so that added authenticity.

"Cheese" Sauce. I loved this sauce, it could almost be called healthy b/c its made from raw cashews, carrots, potatoes, onions, water, dijon mustard, lemon juice and spices! The only mildly unhealthy part was the 1/3 cup of Earth balance vegan butter, and 1/3 cup of butter spread over about 8 (or more) servings is not bad at all.

The cheese sauce poured over some brown rice macaroni

Sprinkled with breadcrumbs (which I made by putting 4 slices of ezekial bread and a tbs of vegan butter in the food processor) and paprika

Seriously delicious and as healthy as mac and cheese could ever be!

5. This book is changing my life :)

I highly recommend it to EVERYONE. He doesn't advocate veganism--he thinks meat (lean cuts and preferrably organic, and grass-fed) is a part of a healthy diet. He does advocate a whole foods sugar, dairy, and gluten (at least for a trial period) free diet. As the title implies he offers invaluable information about the importance of controlling your blood sugar and curing diabetes and obesity if you have it and the way to live to prevent developing those diseases if you don't currently suffer from them. Even if you think you'll never be in danger of  getting diabetes or being obese, you'll learn alot from this book!

6. I'm currently reading The Good and Beautiful God.

I kind of read it before a few years ago but I didn't apply it in the way the author suggests. I'm excited to see what will come of it this time around.

Ok, I think that's all I wanted to share for now.

Laters!

No More Sugar[coating] !

No this isn't about actual sugar ( I'm trying to send you a subliminal message though) although that would be highly apropos for this blog...

On September 10 2011 I coined my first original quote—“We’re paralyzed by our inability to be honest.” If you’ve heard someone else say that, don’t tell me haha. I was pretty proud of it (it’s nice right?).  At the time I typed up that short sentence in MS Word, I literally felt stuck, trapped, because I couldn’t communicate truthfully and directly with a very significant friend. Since then I’ve become more aware of the importance of honest, “whole truth,” communication as well as of the fact that it’s not something I do well enough. This awareness really came to a head the other day as I was contemplating my new goal of seeing and describing myself  as accurately and honestly as possible. To sort my thoughts out I wrote this:

 Sometimes when I try to explain a certain situation or feeling I get flustered and I end up saying things like “It’s just really complicated,” “it’s really hard to explain,” “I don’t know...y’know?” Today I acknowledged that 90% of the time when I end an explanation with one of those lines, I’m actually lying. “It” is not really hard to explain…I do know. But I usually become incoherent because I think that the person I’m speaking with will a) not like what I have to say or b) won’t understand my story the way I want them to. So as I explain,  I find myself trying to make my words completely amenable to the listener  as well as saying what I think will allow them  to maintain the image of me that I want them to have. This often means tweaking the truth a little. If there is any actual confusion on my part about what I’ve done and why, how I feel about it, and how to explain it clearly enough, this is probably where it begins. When, in fear of being offensive (or of being seen negatively in any way really),  I change the truth even a little (usually through intentional vagueness and omission) I start to doubt what I thought I knew and become confused about how I actually feel about this, that, and that other thing. As  it turns out, confusing the “truth” I tell others is actually c) a handy habit to practice when I feel like avoiding or denying a particular truth about myself. No beuno. So I’m going to start saying "no" to my conversation- sugarcoating- tendencies.

Wish me luck.

Quick Update!

This is going to be rushed and haphazard, but once I get it out of the way I can resume my regular posting!

I’ve been busy! Since my last post I’ve:

- spent a week in Jamaica

A little Jamaican scenery

-gone on a week and a half long road trip from Chicago to three cities in Florida

One of my road trip companions!

-hosted guests from out of town (and am about to do so again in a couple of days)

- met one of my ALL TIME favorite authors

My autographed copy of SEP's latest book!

- celebrated my 24^th birthday (TWICE!)

My vegan German chocolate cupcake from The Chicago Diner

-shaved my head

No hair!

-struggled through catching up at work after my multiple vacays while doing frantic apartment hunting, while babysitting daily, while working on a couple of paid writing assignments

- read the first five books of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series  (on 6 now!) like I said I would here,  plus the latest book by above mentioned favorite author

The recently released cover for book # 11 of the BDB series. The actual book comes out in March of next year. It's the story I've been waiting on ever since I read my first BDB book last summer!

- done some serious life contemplation

-suffered for 4 weeks straight (and counting) of hives (Who does that happen to?!  I finally went to the doctor yesterday and do you know what she told me? To take zyrtec for a month. Worthless. No. And I want my copay back!)  

-written many blog posts in my head and in Microsoft word…who knows when they’ll make it over here.

And…just…more.

If you’re wondering what’s going on with my 10 pounds down plan, I wonder if I could get away with saying that I haven’t started it yet? Don’t judge me! Life has been crazeee (see above list). I have been pretty diligent with exercising every day though, not so much with maintaining a clean diet.  I am, however, currently working my way through In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan (not so sure if I like that guy although I do like that he’s an omnivore with the motto: Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants), The Blood Sugar Solution by Mark Hyman, MD and The China Study by T Colin Campbell, PHd.  So I’m at least reading about eathing healthily even if I’m not doing it myself. Case in point: do you know what I had for dinner tonight? Fried green beans. I bought a bunch of green beans from the farmer’s market the other day. I don’t really like green beans but I thought “everything tastes great fried.” And that was that.

Perfectly healthy fresh green beans

seasoned white whole wheat flour, soy milk, green beans, seasoned Ezekiel bread crumbs

YUM.

Also, recently, the UN-THINKABLE happened:  I green smoothied out. I woke up one morning earlier this week thought about making a green smoothie and my stomach turned, just twisted all up on itself, and I almost gagged. But I ignored  the feeling, got the blender out and whipped up a swiss chard, banana, peanut butter, carob concoction. MISTAKE. I couldn’t finish it and felt pretty nauseous afterwards L. This morning I didn’t even try to make one. I had an oatmeal cookie smoothie for breakfast instead. I’m hoping my stomach will wake up with a new attitude tomorrow. Or more accurately, with it’s OLD attitude. Not being able to drink my greens is going to vastly reduce the amount of them I consume…It’s my fault though, I went a little green smoothie crazy these past couple of weeks in an attempt to fix my hives situation. I never thought I’d get sick of them. Sigh.

C'mon tummy!

Remember how good this is!