Choose to be happy Monday

I'm grateful to have a friend who helps take the fear out of pursuing my own happiness. She is the reason why, despite a thousand obstacles, I haven't given up on my biggest dream. 

What you will want to share?

I am part of a generation that is obsessed with itself. We love Facebook and Instagram and selfies and jazzing up the mundane with filters and clever hashtags. Now that my peers are having kids, nearly every minute of a child's life is documented online, starting with conception. An old friend recently had a baby and shared that she and her husband would NOT be posting any pictures out of respect for the baby's privacy. I love this. More people need to do this. This in itself will probably be a topic for another post down the road. 

I'm guilty of posting the occasional selfie and tagging myself at hipper locals than my usual hangouts, though I try to keep the updates to a minimum. My husband does a great job at keeping me in check. My phone is full of boring selfies, many of which are of me in the passenger seat while my husband drives, most likely rolling his eyes. 

On our way to the zoo for the 7th time. This picture was not necessary.

On our way to the zoo this morning, he brought up an interesting thought in response to me rationalizing that if we have kids someday, it'll be neat to show them what we did when we were young. In response, his point was that with the thousands of pictures our generation will accumulate of themselves, the "here is us on our way to the zoo for the 100th time," "this is a fancy cocktail I had one night," and "this is me in the bathroom after a 1 mile run at the gym," will do nothing to impress our kids. We should be striving to DO more and document less. 

After that pointless picture above, I put the phone away and enjoyed a few hours of animal watching with my husband. The park is so much more fun without feeling like I need to take a perfect picture and to edit and post online. Our Christmas present this year was an annual membership to the zoo, so it'll be one of many visits this year, and something that isn't special enough to memorialize every single time. 

Instead, I should be striving for more of this for my kids:

Here is mom marrying your dad on a beach in Kuai:

Here is your mom doing her first Ironman:

Here is your mom moonlighting as a professional bellydancer:

Here is your mom conquering her fear of dying on a motorbike during a road trip around Bali with new friends:

In the next couple days I'll post the "30 Before 30" list I've been working on for the last few days. Everything on that list will be something I'll be proud to share with my kids. Running a 5k and baking the perfect pie won't be making the cut. 

Make it now, eat it later

The morning was dreamy as clouds enveloped the house. I had the morning to myself, and despite being confined here for the past couple days, the thought of being cozy at home sounded wonderful. I'd had my fill of lounging about, so with a few hours until Lars returned from his ride, decided to take a stab at a goal I have for the new year: weekly meal prepping to improve our health and finances. Four hours, a trip to the grocery store with Sam, and five recipes later, our fridge is stocked with - *GASP* - homemade food!

This is NOT normal for me. I typically do not enjoy cooking, especially after a long day of work, so everything I picked was designed to be nuked within a few minutes or thrown in the crockpot in the morning. I'm worried that after we go back to work, my domestic side will go back in hiding and I'll never do this again. I hope that's not the case!

You guys. You guys. I cooked. You guys, lookie. I cooked something.

A food blog, this ain't, and anything I make up myself isn't going to be nearly as delicious as a recipe by someone who knows what they're doing. I'll leave it to the pros - everything that I made today came from:

• Chicken Tortilla Soup - Damn Delicious (Lars and I agree, this is damn delicious)
• Spinach Tortellini Soup - Budget Bytes
• Greek Marinated Chicken - Budget Bytes
• Freezer to Crock Pot - Pork Green Chile - A View at Five-Two
• Unstuffed Cabbage - Easy to be Gluten Free

Now, back to my book and quiet afternoon.

-M

Back to normal

I'm happy to announce that just about 24 hours after surgery, the poofy cheeks are gone and I'm feeling at 100%, except for the whole not being able to chew my food part. The above is my "back to normal" face, and while I did take a post-surgery selfie, I won't be posting it here. I didn't lose the baby fat in my face until well into my adult years, after discovering regular exercise and healthy eating habits, and so my post-surgery face was basically me, circa 2004.

As justifiably lazy as I've been the last day and a half, my brain has been in full planning mode for 2014. I've never created new years resolutions before, other than the vague lose weight or eat better. This list is in progress and I'll post it in the next few days, but like this blog, the resolutions are going to work towards the goal of being happy, healthy and balanced. These are the life areas that I'm going to focus on, with a goal or habit in each area:

• Career
• Family
• Finances
• Fitness
• Friendships
• Health
• Home
• Marriage
• Mental Health
• Travel

I have a few ideas jotted down in each category so far, and I'm continuing to brainstorm. Stay tuned for the full list before the new year!

-M

This ain't so bad

Other than slight chipmunk cheeks earlier in the day, this whole wisdom teeth removal business hasn't been half bad. Husband has made a wonderful nurse, and I've enjoyed not feeling guilty about lying on the couch all day watching my favorite Studio Ghibli movies. The pain has been minimal to non-existent, and I'm almost regretting having the pain med prescriptions refilled today after Lars mistakenly threw them out before my surgery.

I thought this whole process would be worse, but I think that keeping the hard drugs and bad food to a minimum during recovery has really helped a lot. While a real vanilla shake sounds perfect about now, and something I rarely treat myself to, I'm glad I went with a chocolate protein shake with almond milk instead for my first meal of the day.

Now its time to pick out movie number four, and enjoy a glass of fresh juice. Since Lars is my chef at the moment and he has a tendency to throw in whatever he can find in the fridge (sound familiar?), this recipe is going to be super rough.

Lars' Recovery Juice
Beets
Carrots
Celery
Kale
Cucumber
Ginger
Apple

Wash it. Juice it. Bam.

This one is tasty and a bit gingery. Sweet, pretty and a good dessert thanks to the beets. I don't even know why I'm throwing these up on the blog. I have the cooking skills of a toddler. I promise that these will get more interesting when I'm back at it!

-M

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas folks! No juicing was to be had today, unless you count bottled OJ and champagne. No worries though, I have a date with the oral surgeon tomorrow to have my wisdom teeth removed, so it'll be all juice all the time for the next few days (and maybe a bit of fro-yo). 

-M

Doug's 3 C's (and an A and a G and a smidge of L)

Home alone days are rare for me, and when they roll around, my lazy habits come out in full force. It's Christmas eve and I have a giant, holiday-related to do list, but I'm still in my PJs at 10 AM and I still have no idea what my husband and mom are getting tomorrow. I have a tendency to push things off by making up other dumb things I need to do instead. On home alone days, it's usually "Welp! 10 AM that is close eee-nough to lunch!" and then I proceed to consume something ridiculous because I can and my husband isn't around to tell me that waffles and popcorn are not appropriate lunch options. 

Fortunately Doug was around to remind me that there are healthy mid-morning snack alternatives.

Doug: Needs more bacon
Me: You can't juice bacon, Doug
Doug: Have you tried?

I initially started perusing my juicing recipe book, but I was too impatient to find something that would have all of the ingredients in my kitchen. Into the fridge I went, and out came the pile of goodness you see above. I guesstimated that I would get a me-sized glass of juice out of that, but I ended up throwing in a couple extra celery stalks and a carrot to up the yield to this full glass of tastiness here:

Go team!

With a greenish, brownish, reddish hue, it's not as pretty as yesterday's concoction, but it was quite delicious. I shall call it..

Doug's 3 C's (and an A and a G and a smidge of L)

4-5 red chard leaves

2 carrots

3 stalks of celery

1 apple

A nugget of ginger (so precise!)

A squeeze of lemon

Wash your stuff. Start with the chard in the juicer chute. Turn your juicer on and add the rest, except for the lemon. Add the lemon, give it a stir and add a straw. Thank your dog for encouraging you to make good choices.

Bon appetite!

-M

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Happy Monday!

I am not a happy Monday person, but I'd like to be. So in the spirit of things, I'll start with this..

I'm happy today because Monday was my Friday and that means I'm officially on winter break for the next nine days.

Wheeeeeee happy Monday y'all!

I think it's working.

-M

Beets 'n things

I woke up feeling sick this morning, again, for the 20th some odd day in a row. Instead of my usual cup or two of coffee and coconut creamer ('cause I'm fake healthy, remember guys?!) I decided to whip up some juice!

I'm too impatient to spend any time on cooking, so in about 1 minute I had raided my fridge and came up with a pile of this:

And 30 seconds after taking this picture, turned it into two glasses of this:

I suppose I should post a recipe.. I shall call it..

Beets 'n things

2 small beets

1 carrot

1 cucumber

1 1/2 apples

1 handful of kale 

3 red chard leaves

1 small squeeze of lemon

Wash your stuff. Cut up anything that doesn't quite fit in the juicer chute. Throw away the kale that you realize you purchased a month ago because at the time, kale salads sounded great. Turn on your juicer. Ask your husband why the juicer isn't working. Flip up the safety bar. Turn on juicer. Shmoosh fruits and veggies into juicer and pour into glasses. Sip and feel like you've somewhat made up for all the junk you consumed over the weekend

That was way too many steps. But you get the idea. I used to juice more often, and my general rule is to mix up the sweet stuff, like root vegetables and fruits, with the really good for you stuff, like dark, leafy greens. This particular juice was heavy on sugary veggies, which is still better than juicing a chocolate bar, but it tasted delicious and is a good start to get back into the habit. 

In hindsight, I should have thrown some ginger in there to help with the stomach ache, but 10 minutes into my juice and I'm feeling better. Ooooh the power of juice! I say that half sarcastically, but I do know that long term, by body on clean foods and juice is much, much happier.

-M

Fake it till you make it

I've been sick for a solid month now. It's not a legitimate bug or ailment, because I'm blessed with some sort of superhuman immune system that can withstand that majority of cold and flu seasons. It's the type of ill-health that comes from consuming more processed junk than I care to admit, and less time physically moving this squishy self than is recommended for a human of my age. Things aren't working the way that they're supposed to- which means I have a perma-tummyache and have the energy of an inanimate object.

Most know me as a mostly healthy super active triathlon/dancer/runner chick, but I would say that I'm far from that person. While I suppose I look healthy on the outside, and have participated in sporting events in the recent past, and follow fitness bloggers and claim I don't eat dairy and juice regularly, I'm a faker. I've been fortunate enough to have real healthy people get me to finish lines and skinny jeans, but it's never been me, and the second I don't have someone prompting me to be good, I'm off the line.

I've always wanted to be a REAL healthy person. So it's time to admit that I'm Mama June on the inside and stop faking it.

And so, for my first feat, I'm going to dust of my juicer and juicing recipe book!

Tubo-charge? Mmmk we'll see little book, we'll see.

..tomorrow. It's already 9 pm you guys. And I'm pretty full from the WAFFLES I MADE FOR DESSERT. Yes, that happened because I <3 everything that is NOT good for me. Even if it gives me stomach aches, which this did. But hey, I decided to start a blog about getting healthy so perhaps I'm learning.

Stand by folks, for the morning's juicy concoction.

-M