Tuesday, January 25, 2011

My ramblings on food and health.

 

I truly believe that ‘you are what you eat.’  No, I don’t think if you eat cake you will turn into a cake.  But if you eat healthy, exercise, and generally take care of yourself, you will be healthy.  If you eat processed foods, sit around all the time, and don’t take care of yourself, your body will not be healthy.  It will not be able to fight off germs and diseases since it’s too busy trying to deal with all the processed food stuff you are shoving into it. 

I’m sure you’ve read my posts about Kali’s “issues” and those of you that know her, know what I’m talking about.  We know she can’t have food with artificial dyes in them, unless you want her head to spin and then have her melt down in a puddle for hours.  My poor baby.  Sad smile  But I realized something the other day, though I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out.  We gave up meat and dairy at the end of October, and since then she has improved 100%!!  No hours of crying (though those were thankfully few and far between at that point), no sadness, no hiding under the kitchen table, nothing.  Just usual kid stuff.  OMG!  Amazing. 

How many people keep medicating their kids because they find that the easiest thing to do?  Sad.  Here kids, eat this fake food, have issues, and then we’ll medicate the symptoms instead of getting to the root of the problem.  Ugh.

Then there’s me – the old chick.  I run, I eat fairly well, and I do my best to stay really active.  But I was tired.  Oh so very tired.  And cold.  Or hot.  And foggy, you know, like when you first wake up in the morning.  And crabby, amongst other things.  Did I run my butt to the doctor and say “fix my symptoms?”  No.  I did some research on my old self, came to the conclusion that my thyroid was falling asleep as much as I was, and gave it what it wanted – iodine.  So I take kelp and bladderwrack every day, and within a few days, I was up before the alarm as usual.  Why can’t my body be low on chocolate?!?!? 

So do me a favor, if you aren’t already putting yourself first, do it now.  Don’t wait.  Don’t wait until you’ve neglected yourself so much that you just keep neglecting yourself.  Sure, it might not be easy, but easy is hardly ever the best choice. 

Eat healthy, take care of yourself, and exercise.  You might live long either way, but don’t you want to live instead of just existing?

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Double digits!

 

My middle baby is 10.  TEN!  I cannot believe it.  How on earth did she get to 10 so darn fast? 

We woke her up with some Stevie Wonder “Happy Birthday to you” music; it’s a tradition around here.  Here’s what she looks like when we storm into her room while she’s sleeping……

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She finally got out of bed.  Smile 

There were gifts and cinnamon rolls on the table……

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She got money, gift cards, a Build-A-Bear dog (that she will go stuff tomorrow), and books.  She got Mary’s gift later on that day.

I promise there were more than 5 cinnamon rolls, too!  I made 2 pans and the bigger one was still up on the counter.

She got dressed and I finished making frosting for her cake and we put our lunch together for the day.  I am no cake decorator.  At all.  Not.

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Can I tell you how much I love these containers?!?!?  They are da bomb!  I made a Quorn roast and sliced it up for sandwiches.  I made the focaccia bread, too.  I also made pasta salad and broccoli slaw.  Yummmmmmmm.  Alex got some blue corn chips, too.

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It had been storming all morning.  Sad smile  I thought it would clear up, but it rained on and off the entire day.  Not good!  We had originally planned on having a picnic in the field by La Nouba, but the rain forced us over to the Polynesian.  Gee, such a pain.  Lol.  We enjoyed our lunch and then Hannah wanted to shop.

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She bought some perfume at the Polynesian and a keychain over in Downtown Disney. 

Mary joined us around 2:30.  We met her over at Downtown Disney and then went over to Baby Cakes (in the spot where McD’s used to be – now it’s Fresh A Peal and Pollo Camparo).  We ended up getting some chocolate chip cookies from there.

Check out the many faces of my girls:

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I think Hannah wanted Kali’s cookie!

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Um, Hannah, no drinking until you’re 21!

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See how much they love each other?

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Uh oh, maybe I was wrong!

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Yep, there is no love here!

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Then they started playing with my phone.

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My starving college student was, well, starving!  She talked us into going to eat early.  Off to House of Blues we went!

 

Didn’t I tell Hannah no drinking?!?!  I don’t think she listened to me.

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She almost ended up on my dinner menu.  Smile 

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After dinner Mary had to take off and get home.  She had to get up at the butt-crack of dawn for work today.  She’s coming over tomorrow for cake and hopefully a good football game!  Oh yeah, I nearly forgot!  She gave Hannah tickets to Universal.  Smile  She is soooo excited!  We’ll go in 2 weeks when daddy has a Friday off of work again.

We all went home after some more shopping and had cake.  Really yummy cake.  Smile

 

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She wanted strawberries on her cake.  I only put a few on there so it didn’t get the icing all soggy.  I have more in the fridge waiting for her!

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And she also wanted strawberry ice cream.  OMG.  This stuff is awesome!

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And so is this girl.

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Happy 10th Birthday to my most awesome, beautiful, funny, smart, and creative daughter.  You are my favorite 10 year old in the whole universe.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Check this out!

 

My Activities Disney's Boardwalk 1-16-2011

If you are like 99.9999% of the people in the world that have no idea what this is, I will tell you.  Smile

This is my map of my run this morning.  All 13.2 miles of it.  Yes, 13.2  That is .1 more than a half marathon.  Say what?!?!  MORE.  And I didn’t die, though I do think my legs are still somewhere along that route.  I did the lake/run to Hollywood Studios path about 6 times for that 13.2, though it could have been 7; I don’t really remember now. 

The weather was lovely, the sunrise was gorgeous, and I am glad that I am done and home now!  I will admit – I got slightly teary-eyed when I hit the 13.1 mark.  At least I know I can finish without the sweeper truck getting me. 

Off to run errands now and come back to watch the Bear’s game.  I think I will take a small nap, too. 

Saturday, January 15, 2011

My taste buds are very happy tonight.

 

Alex decided we needed to go out to dinner tonight (could be because I might be “slightly” pms-y?!) so we all piled in the family truckster and went to try out a new restaurant. 

OMG

We went to a new (to us) vegan restaurant called Ethos.  First, I will say how great it was to order anything we wanted off the menu without having to worry what was in it.  I ordered a pizza with spinach, sausage, and onions.  The girls ordered a pizza, too.  Hannah’s half had pepperoni and broccoli, Kali’s half had chicken, roasted red peppers, and ham.  Alex got a philly cheesesteak sandwich.  Kali was a bit freaked at first and had to double check that the ham and other stuff was really not ham!  Funny. 

The food was excellent.  Seriously excellent.  My normally quiet husband kept saying “This is ridiculous!”  It was ridiculously good.  So were the cookies and cake we got when we were done inhaling our food.

Yummy vegan food, lots of laughs, and mama didn’t have to cook!

If you live in the area down here, go check out Ethos.  If you don’t live in the area but are coming down this way, make a pit-stop over there.  It’s well worth your time.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Food, fun, and ……..

 

Fruit?  Fireworks?  Freaky kids?  Winking smile

Hope everyone had a great New Year’s celebration.  We ate our way through the end of 2010 and into 2011.  I had a serious sugar high going on and then I nearly slept until 10:00 this morning.  Oy!

Alex had to go to Whole Foods last night and he got me the most awesome vegan peanut butter smores from Sweet & Sara.  OMG.  Seriously.  Go get some of those for yourself.  You most certainly won’t regret it.  Sweet & Sara products 

Then, while he was making some rice crispy treats with marshmallow fluff (has no gelatin – yay!) I had taken some pie crust dough I had in the freezer, defrosted it, and did this with it:

I filled half of them with some homemade apple butter, and the other half with some raspberry jam.  Then I did an egg wash on top and sprinkled them with some coarse sugar in the raw.  Mmmmmmm. 

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Yes, they really were very, very good.

Tonight I made some tofu fried rice.  Totally made my taste buds happy.

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I think I’ve rolled my way into the new year.  Alex took some of the leftover brown rice and just made me a small bowl of rice pudding.  OMG.  I am going to have to walk my 12 mile run tomorrow.  This holiday eating binge has to end!