spring cleaning in mid-november

Hey world!

I’m probably going to be MIA for the rest of the day as we put our house back together. Hubby and I thought this would be a good time to do some deep cleaning and get rid of a bunch of stuff since the house is in shambles anyway. So that’s the plan for tonight.

Hopefully things will be back to normal tomorrow – I’m planning on going to a beginning yoga class tomorrow night after work. It’s a really cool studio I found online that meets at Eagle Creek park – Peace Through Yoga. What better place to exercise and meditate than in the serenity of the forest? I’m really looking forward to it because I need a strength training alternative to lifting weights at the gym. I HATE lifting weights – bores me to tears.

This morning for breakfast I made an awesome new smoothie: blueberries, almond milk and a frozen banana. Sorry, didn’t take a picture!

I’ve been blending instead of brewing – I haven’t had any caffeine in almost three days! Saturday and Sunday I had pretty bad headaches in the morning, but today wasn’t so bad. I definitely miss the taste and smell of a nice strong cup of hot coffee, but I’m going to try to limit it to one or two cups a week – just when I REALLY need it.

Arggg – also gotta find the time to do my Thanksgiving shopping. I hate grocery stores this week, and I know the longer I wait, the worse its going to be. Serenity now!

Hope you’re having a decent Monday – later!

more blender fun

Sludge!

I don’t have a juicer, so I’m juicing the ghetto way – using my food prep to grind all the stuff together and then throwing it in the blender with some ice to finish liquifying it. Lame!

Don’t you think a juicer would make a great Christmas present? I do.

Anyhoo – today I used a disgusting-sounding recipe I found at GOOP:

Beet, carrot, apple, ginger, and also I added one stalk of celery.

And I just have to say I am really not a big fan of Gwyneth. She has said a few things that make her sound like she thinks we’re all just a bunch of fat, unsophisticated slobs. And I also hate Coldplay, so that makes it a twofer. A hate twofer. Hehe.

But I have found some recipes on her site that I adore, so she gets points for that. Of course, when you’re a gazillionaire, its easy to cook interesting and delightful foods all the time. On a budget; not so much.

So I’m gonna finish this bright red drink and head outside for a run! I feel pretty good today. I failed at raw, and I failed at vegan (just barely) this weekend but I have managed to be vegetarian for the past two days, so that’s something. And while it might be fun to try to do one vegan day a week, or one raw day a week, I’m really not trying to go nuts here. I don’t have any ethical dilemma about eating animals (although I do try to eat free range/cage free), and I eat pretty healthfully most of the time anyway so there’s no reason to make any drastic changes in my diet. I just need to cut out some of the processed foods I eat during the week and stay dedicated to running and working out, and I’ll be fine.

By the way, who’s doing a turkey trot/drumstick dash this Thanksgiving? Indy’s is a 4.5 mile run and it benefits the Wheeler Mission. Plus, its a great way to eat guilt-free for the rest of the day!

Okay, hope you’re having a great Sunday – peace!

Kitchen Sink Pizza

Needless to say, my raw experiment was cut off a little early today. I behaved myself for most of the day…did housework, went to the gym and ran a mile, lifted weights and then came home and did some crunches on the ball.

I had a healthy afternoon snack – clementine and some raw cashews:

But then for dinner we made…the mother of all pizzas!

Almost every ingredient came from Trader Joes, except the tomato, which was the very last tomato of the season from our garden!

We used a Tabula Rasa whole grain pizza crust, pizza sauce, onions, garlic, baby bella mushrooms, sliced guindilla peppers, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, Tofurky Italian sausage, and quattro formaggio shredded cheese blend.

Oh, and I also had one very good glass of wine:

Getting ready to go to bed and read! It feels like we’re moving – everything is out in the garage on blankets and our mattress and box springs is on the floor of the bedroom. Its a little like camping – I’m sleeping on the floor and I don’t know where any of my stuff is! I can’t wait until the new carpet is in and life will be back to normal!

I think the cat will be happier too -

Super green me

Yar!

Hoping this green mess will make me like Popeye today:

It looks GROSS but its actually really, really good! I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, a frozen banana, handful of blueberries, couple of big handfuls of spinach and a big spoonful of Very Green from TJs. Its a supplement – bascially just a powdered green vegetable mix.

Also for breakfast is an apple with raw almond butter. The AB is also from TJs – I like it, and it costs a LOT less than the Maranatha raw almond butter, which is like NINE BUCKS. Forget that!

So far, so raw!

Anyway, gotta do some housework this morning and then hit the gym. We’re having new carpet put in on Monday and all of our belongings are going to have to go out the garage! Ick.

Have a great day -

Cleaning up my act

Aghhhh I’m so tired! Long week. I’m anticipating falling asleep the minute my head hits the pillow!

I started out pretty good today – breakfast in the office of puffins with soy milk, banana and coffee:

But it just didn’t take and I ended up going to Trader Joe’s famished! Not a good idea…

Here’s the breakdown:

• unsweetened soymilk
• Gingerbread coffee (guilty pleasure!)
• bag of clementines
• water crackers
• bottle of Casa Lapostolle Cab
• bottle of Merum Monastrell Spanish red
• Very Green powder drink mix
• TJ’s organic free range low sodium chicken broth
• a birthday card for a special somebody!
• Canola oil
• jar of guindilla peppers
• organic vodka spaghetti sauce
• jar of marinated artichoke hearts
• steamed six-bean blend
• steamed lentils
• unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• packaged of sliced dutch goat cheese (heavenly!)
• sliced roasted turkey breast
• bag of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• multigrain waffles (gonna break out these bad boys tomorrow morning!)
• package of basil
• 2 bags of baby spinach (going into a superfood smoothie)
• shelled edamame
• tofurky italian sausage
• garlic chipotle salsa
• multigrain English muffins
• sliced baby bella mushrooms
• yogi super anti-oxidant green tea
• plain 2% Greek yogurt (they were out of the fat free – boo!)
• 3 cans of Hatch green chiles (should have gotten four!)
• blueberries (also for the super smoothie!)
• bag of mini light babybels
• yellow and red bell peppers
• bag of shredded quattro formaggio cheese (for pizza tomorrow night!)
• whole wheat tandoori naan
• hummus
• whole wheat pizza crust
• a hass avocado
• 2 lemons, 2 limes

I guess I went a little nuts! But the good thing is I will have plenty of fresh healthy foods to eat and I probably won’t have to go to the grocery store for a couple of weeks…hopefully.

I’m planning on cleaning up my act this week – I know the main reason I’m so tired and sluggish tonight is because of beer and processed crap foods. So I’m going to go raw for a day or two and see if I can’t get my glow back.

Have a great night – peace!

I’m a double dog kind of girl

Happy Thursday!

I attended Beer Geek Thursday at Patrick’s tonight – something I recommend everyone in the Indy/Zionsville area do. My powers of persuasion (or maybe my charm and good looks – ha!) actually made Beer Geek Thursday an official event at Patrick’s Kitchen! I do a little blogging and social media for Patrick, along with a couple of friends, and after we had so much fun talking to Hans and learning about beer LAST week, we decided other people might like it too. This is what we do – drink beer and come up with great ideas. Can I please do this full time?!

The Flying Dog Double Dog is the bright red beer you see on your far left, and then you see a couple of beers that I got to taste – Young’s Double Chocolate Stout; and a Schlyfly Kolsch. Neither one made me jump off my stool and break into song, but they were good. To be honest, with the Double Dog in front of me, even the stout paled in comparison (A little beer humor, heh.)

The Double Dog was my reason for being at Patrick’s: 11.5% ABV & 85 IBUs. Double Pale Ale, dry hopped with an insane amount of Cascade and Columbus hops. Very, very good.

I also tried a Punk IPA –

I wanted to love every last drop of it, being a punk rocker at heart and all, but – I couldn’t drink any more! I took a few sips and then shared it with some fellow geeks – because that’s what drinking is all about, right? The sips that I did have were great, but not wanting to get drunk and kill anyone, I knew I had to stop while I was ahead…and there’s always next Thursday!

And, I’m kind of turning into a music/drinking blogger this week instead of running/drinking, which tells me I need to get back on task! (Even though technically, music could also be cheaper than therapy!) I’m making my weekly Trader Joe’s trip today and then a nice long workout first thing in the morning, so you should have plenty of food/exercise content to read over the weekend.

I’m just a heavy metal hillbilly with crooked toes

I am so proud! Current search terms used to find my blog include crooked toes, drunk people and эстрагон, which is Russian for tarragon.

Things are really picking up!

In other me news, the concert last night was awwwwsome! Cowboy hats and Slayer t-shirts, long beards and leather jackets. It was psychobilly at its finest.

And, although I love rock ‘n’ roll, I’m not really a rock writer – my attention span is too short to go into detail about anything at all – but here are some of the highlights:

The openers were called Those Poor Bastards. The band is a couple of dudes – a drummer and singer/guitar player. I had never heard them before but I liked em a lot. They did a great cover of Hank III’s Pills I Took and a creepy dude in a skeleton costume came out on stage and danced for a bit. He had a mask on, but I’m pretty sure it was Hank III himself.

Hank did most of his awesome repertoire of songs, including Smoke and Wine, Country Heroes, and Not Everybody Likes Us, and a few of the all-time favorite country classics – The Ride (Coe), a turbo-speed version of Cocaine Blues (Cash) and I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive by Hank Senior (chills)! Everybody really went nuts during that one.

The last group, Assjack is another Hank III project, fronted by Gary Lindsay. They’re pretty much straight heavy metal. This was when of the moshing and crowd surfing really got out of hand and I stepped back away from the stage to enjoy it safely, haha. Not really – the pit was actually pretty tame.

They played at the Vogue, a venue I adore. (Hubby and I saw the Derek Trucks Band play there earlier this year.) There are tables and chairs if you want to sit, a balcony up above, and also a nice hardwood floor in front of the stage for the die-hards. And, they had my Bell’s Two Hearted! (Bottle though, not on tap.)

I love venues where you can actually see the performers. If I have to watch them on a jumbo-tron just to see what’s going on, I might as well be listening to them on the stereo at home.

Being just a few feet away from Hank III, the family resemblance was apparent:

I feel so lucky that I got to see Hank William’s grand-baby performing live! SO COOL. Okay, now that I’m getting all misty, I’ll move on.

Tonight I plan on punishing myself for my mid-week shenanigans by working out extra hard. Its chilly outside, but not windy. I’m thinking a good long run and 500 crunches should be the proper atonement.

Hm, maybe I need to rename the blog “the journal of a metalhead drinker with a running problem…”

Puffins, inspired by Puffins

So I can’t get the Kittens inspired by kittens girl out of my head today, hence the clever title.

“I want pie! I want beef jerky!”

Classic.

Anyway, yes, I am having Puffins for breakfast with soy milk and bananas. And coffee. Don’t forget the coffee!

Got a busy day today – heading downtown at noon for a Dreamweaver class at IUPUI. It’s the third in a series I’ve been taking. (Actually its the fourth but I didn’t take the first class!) Its like boot camp – they cram as much information as is humanly possible into a four-hour class. It’s great. Plus, my employer is graciously paying for it so that I can become a more productive worker and build more web pages for them! (Thanks guys!)

Then….Hank III tonight!!

I am so pumped for this show. I was really torn on whether or not to go, it being a “school night,” hubby couldn’t/didn’t want to go and its a good 30-40 minute drive from my house (in the rain, looks like). But then I was like, “hell, what am I? 80 years old? Live a little!” I think of couple of my old buddies will be there too, so it should be a great time.

Okay – off to work! Have a great day…

when the lights came back on…

Hola campers!

The power was out for an hour or so tonight. Hubby called while I was driving home from work because he heard a crash, then the power went out and then the sirens. Apparently someone plowed into a transformer near our house and naturally he assumed it was me. (I only hit mailboxes, thank you very much!)

Here’s a few pics from our very short campout (probably you’d get a better idea if my flash weren’t so dang effective):

Whoops! That was supposed to be a photo of a 2007 Rheingau Pinot Noir I took in the dark. Yum! Wine is definitely better in the dark, by a hot fire!

For dinner we had leftover spaghetti squash pasta. I stopped by the grocery store and picked up some basil on the way home. It was a different store than I usually go to – and they had their basil in the COOLER. (Actually its called an air-curtain merchandiser; don’t ask me how I know that.)

Raaawr. So it was all limp and tasteless. I may have to write them a letter and tell them not to chill their basil!

Okay – now that the power is back on, we have some movies to watch!

Later!

lazy blog: must be Monday

Was thinking about the movie Jerry Maguire this morning and that psycho mentor Dicky Fox. This is probably one of the best parts of the movie:

Must be Monday.