Ice, Ice, Baby!

Well, today is day 3 of operation iced in here in Indy! Another day off of school!  And of course this guy keeps popping into my brain!

ICE, ICE BABY!

We have had lots of fun being off this week. It's nice being married to a teacher too because it allows for a lot of nice family time.

Here are some of the shenanigans we have been up to.

Sophia and I made this beautiful jewelry box.

I also made me green juice with kale, ginger, cucumber, lemon, and green apple.

And then I got it stolen!

Next, was some chickpea curry over quinoa. For this I just used 2 cans of organic chickpeas and store bought coconut curry sauce. It was very good! I love quinoa and I love how quick it cooks!

After some good food, we practiced some yoga moves.

Then settled down to a nice cup of tea.

Heading back to the grind tomorrow and it will be Friday already!

I could get used to this kind of work week!

~A

Fueled on Juice Today

Today was all about business! Grades are due! Always a busy time. Can you believe it is already midterm for my kiddos?

Since I had a juicing fest yesterday, I was stocked for a juicy day! Here are today's eats (mostly drinks):

• I started the day with 3 huge grapefruits, juiced to perfection! This is by far my FAVORITE morning drink. I Love it on ice!
• Throughout the afternoon I sipped on 2 green juices and water.
• As soon as my kiddos left school I drank some pumpkin pie in bowl drink. This stuff is delicious! I knew it was in my lunch bag and I looked forward to it all day!
• Then it was time for dinner. here's what I did:

I started with a nice sized salad with spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sprouts.

For my dressing, I made this dressing from Angela@ohsheglows.com
it is a balsamic dressing. The only change I made from hers was that I omitted the maple syrup and added NuNaturals liquid Stevia instead.

I made whole wheat angel pasta and steamed veggies for Matt and Sophia

Of course I used Mr. Newman for the sauce (actually this kind was not my fave) Wasn't he such a handsome man? My family is huge racing fans, so we miss Mr. Newman.

Rather than pasta, I just had the steamed veggies with the pasta sauce over them. I have been doing this a lot when I make pasta for the fam. It is a much better choice for me, but since I get the sauce I don't miss the pasta at all. Truthfully, I am not a huge pasta fan. I'm a sucker for Mexican food though!!

And of course the man of the house and I had to polish this off! Oh, how I do enjoy a glass or 2 of wine at the end of a hectic day!

Hope everyone had a fantastic day!

Be well,
~A

Juicing Jubilee

Yeah, we are over the Monday hurdle! I REALLY am not a big fan of Mondays. I hope yours was good though. I wanted to show you some recent finds at the store and do some explaining on my recent eats.

On Sunday, I went here and got:

This for me. I saw Jenni McCarthy talk about these in Shape Magazine. They are pretty high in calories but good for a treat.

This for Sophia. I am trying to gradually get her off of dairy because it is so mucus forming and she has asthma. This is a coconut Keefer. She wasn't impressed. I think it is wonderful!

This for Sophia. She won't eat regular peanut butter, but loves chocolate peanut butter on strawberries! It is a great healthy snack for her!  This stuff is kickin'

Then I stopped here:

And got this: Vegetarian nachos- Yikes! I felt so gross after eating this. WAY too heavy. I prefer Qudoba!

Tonight was a grocery night for me so we had this. This is my favorite pizza, I've talked about it several times on here, but here is a picture of the box for you visual learners!

Afterwards Sophia had a healthier version of a fruit roll up.

These are called FruitaBu's and they are 100% real fruit with no added sugar. Here is the box.

The rest of the evening was pretty much a juicing jubilee for me! I have been eating a lot of packaged foods the last couple weeks and boy can I feel it. I feel sluggish, grumpy, and bloated. It is amazing how much lighter and happier I feel when I am juicing. It has been a good lesson for me taking a few weeks to eat less than ideal food because I realized just how good the juice makes me feel, and how bad the packaged stuff makes me feel.

Cut

Wash

Partaay! They are like my little cheerleader pyramid! G-O Let's go Green juice, G-O Let's go!

Ok, sorry!

Carrot juice for pumpkin pie in a bowl.

Sophia drinking the pumpkin pie drink! She loves this stuff! Never mind the bad picture and the dirt all over her face! Point is even three year olds like veggie juice!

What I am realizing right now in my diet is that I am feeling the best when I am eating mostly raw, mostly vegan. Notice I am NOT saying all raw and all vegan because I do still liked to eat cooked things at dinner and I am really enjoying goat cheese and salmon (sometimes) salmon grosses me out sometimes too. I am still learning what works for me. This is still all part of my journey.

I have some exciting stuff coming up next week! Will share soon.

~A

I Found Carrot Cake!

Hello blog friends! Hope everyone had a great hump day!

Sophia and I made two stops on the way on home. First here:

For all you locals this is @ Stop 11 and Madison. It is lots of different International foods.I must warn you about the fish smell and the meat department. I did glance over and see some chicken feet, nails and all! Seriously! But, I LOVED the spice section and the produce section! I got some dried mangoes I am excited to try!

Next, we stopped here:

Locals, this is at Smith Valley and 135. They have so many things that you can usually only get on the North side of Indy! Tonight I found some exciting things including the new Carrot cake Lara Bars. I didn't forget about my blogger friends Sentiments by Denise and That Hoosier Girl. They will come soon girls!

I have now tried all the new flavors of Lara Bars and I have to say this is still my favorite
Coconut Cream Pie- G double O D = GOOD

Dinner #1 tonight was a tostada with beans, avocado, and tomato

Dinner #2 was this cereal that I bought for Sophia, but I have now had 2 bowls of it and she will only eat the marshmallows...guess I won't be buying this again. It is really good though!

Here is my breakfast tomorrow. Greeeen juice! Cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, and kale.All I have to do tomorrow is grab and go...I love quick and easy!

All the juice and smoothie supplies after getting a nice warm bubble bath!Have I mentioned my love for my juicer and Vita-mix??????

Have a great evening!

Be well,
~A

Clean House, Clean Food, Clean Week

Hello blog friends! This weekend has been exhausting, but I did get a lot done. Now it's back to work again! This working stuff is for the birds!  Today was spent prepping for the week. Cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and then prepping food for the week.

Last week was a bit chaotic, so the goal for this week is to stay on top of things and have everything organized including food.  I ordered Sophia the coolest new lunch box system so that we can pack a waste free lunch everyday. I will blog on it when it arrives.

So Saturday morning I had some cleansing to do because of the Taco Bell and drugs I ingested on Friday! So here is how I started my day...a Green Monster! This consisted of 2 cups spinach, handful ice, one cup almond milk, 1 tablespoon chocolate peanut butter, 1 scoop chia seeds,1 banana, 1 scoop Chocolate Amazing Grass! It was just what I needed! So delicious!

I spent most of the day at school getting things ready for this week since I left early Friday. For dinner I made nachos with Trader Joe's Blue Corn Chips, Eden Black Beans, Soy crumbles, avocado, onions, tomatoes, and Annie's Ranch Dressing. Here is the adult version.

And here is the Sophia version.

Here are my "bags of juice" Each bag is what will go into my morning juice. This way all of the produce is washed, cut, and ready, so that all I have to do in the morning is run it through the juicer. And clean the juicer! Blah! Each bag has 1 cucumber, 1 apple, 1 grapefruit, 3 kale leaves, and 3 celery stalks...aka "The Green Greyhound"

I also prepared all of Sophia's lunches, a few salads for me, and these sandwiches for Matt. They are cucumber, tomato, spinach, hummus, and Gouda cheese on rosemary and olive oil flat bread.

I also juiced and froze a bunch of "Green Lemonade" for a mid morning juice each day this week.

This juice is 1 lemon, 1 granny smith, 1 cucumber, 2 stalks of celery, and kale.

The whole middle row is juice! I buy ball jars and plastic lids to freeze my juice in.

I love having a clean house and clean food for the week. It makes me feel so prepared and ready to go!

Now I'm going to rest before that alarm goes off at 5:00 A.M.  YIKES!

~A

A Tale of 2 Greyhounds!

As most of you know I have a brown pony Greyhound. He is the sweetest thing ever! We are So in love with him! This is my favorite picture of him! Sad thing is his whole face is gray now! This pic was taken back in '05.

I recently discovered a different Greyhound that I am also in love with! This is called The Green Greyhound and I found it on another blog I follow.  Here is what went in the juicer!

1 grapefruit

1 apple

1 cucumber

3 stalks of celery

3 kale leaves

And here is what came out!

The Green Greyhound! Pure Bliss! This may be my new favorite juice! I try not to juice to much fruit but grapefruit and granny smith's are both very low sugar.











Have a great Thursday! Talk to you all tomorrow!
~A

August Break

Hello Bloggies! Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine t'was lovely! OK, so since school is starting IN ONE WEEK (holy cow batman) I know things are going to start getting super busy.  So I've decided to take Susannah Conway's blog challenge to post one picture a day through the month of August with a choice of words or no words to go along with it.  Short sweet and to the point! If I have more time on some days I may post more. Today is August first, so here goes day one!

This is going to be fun!

 

I love this book! You should check it out!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I have been pitting and freezing cherries all day! I'm like an animal storing up for the winter! I might go crazy without my Chocolate cherry bombs in the winter!

And oh how I love my green juice, even if it did have a bit too much ginger!

Peace, love, and oh my goodness it's August!
~A

Joe and Chicago

Hello blog friends! Yesterday was a great day in Chicago & today was a great day at Trader Joe's!

I know she looks really unhappy here, but we really did have a great time, I promise!









Eats from yesterday:
For breakfast yesterday I had a green juice with the usual: Spinach, celery, lemon, green apple, cucumber, and just a little ginger. I decided yesterday I like this juice a lot better when I use a whole lemon versus a half. It tastes more like lemonade to me this way.

Road food= Lara Bar

Lunch was pretty comical. Matt wanted to just stop for fast food, but I would rather just not eat than to eat a fast food salad. YUK!  So we stopped at a Texas Roadhouse and I got a carryout salad and he lovingly made fun of me!

Dinner was a few things. First this. Can you guess what it is?

It is Portabella mushrooms in a vinaigrette and oil. You should of seen Matt's face when they brought this out. He didn't hear me order and he totally thought it was beef! 

I let him think it was for just a few so I could continue to watch his face as I shoveled it in...priceless!

Next, was a huge bowl of romaine, tomatoes, and shrimp. It has been a while since I have had any kind of seafood.  I am very picky about seafood. This was really good though!

So, on to today. I had my green juice this morning, then was off to meet up with a friend and then to Trader Joe's. So lunch was skipped. Not good, I know! But here are my goods from Joe!

Round 1

Tough to see, so here's what it all is. Starting from the back left:frozen eggplant slices, chicken burgers, organic cucs, veggie kabobs, organic celery, 2 Trader Joe's vegetarian pizza, organic cottage cheese, 2 raw cheddar cheese blocks, 3 goat cheddar blocks, 3 goat Goudas, regular Gouda slices, cheddar cheese sticks, and a Greek salad.

All the cow dairy and meat are for Sophia and Matt and the goat cheese are for MOOWA. Ok, so I do share with my family!

Round 2

From back left: 2 boxes organic cheese crackers, 2 bottles stevia sweetened lemonade, 2 jars PB, 4 bottles of wine, agave maple syrup, veggie lasagna, pita chips, yogurt stars, probiotic smoothies, eggplant garlic spread, applesauce squeezers, 3 dark chocolate bars, organic yogurt, 100 cal dark chocolate sticks, 6 bars of vegetable soap, and yes folks that is a one pound 72% cocoa dark chocolate bar! I am going to cut it up, stick it in a freezer bag and toss in the freezer for a nightly square!

(excuse my candles that I didn't push out of the way)

And then there were these amazing green beans who never stood a chance! I told you I didn't have lunch!

Dinner was the frozen Trader Joe's veggie lasagna. It was very tasty!

~A