My Whole Foods Journal

GSG suggests that we journal each month to track our progress on our journey to eating whole foods. So, here is my first entry.

I started drinking the Sole on Saturday. I woke up Sunday with stiff and puffy fingers. But I think it was the salt I used to season my dinner with. I had the same dinner Sunday and had salted it when I packed it up Saturday night so, Monday I woke up with stiff and puffy fingers too. I used some sea salt in our dinner Monday night and woke up this morning with slight stiffness but no puffiness. We'll see where that goes.

The weird thing I noticed is my knees. They are killing me! They are so sore - I've never had pain in them like this. I did spend a lot of time on them and bending up and down at work on Sunday (I was detail cleaning the front end so was crawling under and around the registers) so that might have something to do with it. I started feeling it Monday and they were still sore today. Something to keep an eye on.

Today was also the first day of green smoothies. I liked it, it filled me up and didn't taste horrible. What more could you want?!

Today was also my first day with no caffeine. Usually if I don't have access to a coke then I'll drink some Spark from Advocare. But not today. One of the first steps is to get off all stimulants. So headache city for the next couple of days baby! I did pop a couple of Ibuprofen to help get me through the day. I also took a pretty good nap so that helped out.

I've been rubbing the coconut oil on my face the last couple of nights. We'll see if it helps my mug look better. I'm not big on beauty regimes so we'll see how long this lasts. Quinn is quite the pro at it now. She gets some serious chapped lips so we've been putting the oil on her lips. She thinks she needs it for everything now. Sydney hasn't been left out. She got a little red/diaper rash going on last night so I used some on her and by this morning the red was gone and she didn't act like it was sensitive like she did the night before. Good stuff!

I made my first batch of granola tonight. It smells so good and it tastes good dry too. We'll see how good it is in a bowl with milk tomorrow morning. I got some more stuff at the store so we'll sweeten up our green smoothies with some bananas and mixed berries. I can hardly wait until breakfast!

My first batch of granola.

Our First Green Smoothie

Our Blendtec blender showed up this morning! I saw the UPS truck pull up across the street so watched every move that the driver made. It was all I could do to let him get on the porch and ring the doorbell!

The girls *helped* me unpack it. They were as excited to make green smoothies as I was. Until they found out what was actually IN the green smoothie. All I had in the house was spinach and frozen strawberries, so that's what went into our very first green smoothie.

I must say, it didn't turn out too terrible! I could definitely taste the spinach, but it wasn't really strong or anything. Quinn just flat out refused to taste hers. Sydney sucked hers down like she was drinking a chocolate milk shake. I was both surprised and impressed. And can I just say that this blender kicks ass?! I'm so impressed and I've only used it once!

While Sydney and I were drinking our smoothies, Quinn was off doing this:

Apparently she likens drinking green smoothies with going into battle. This must be her princess camouflage! She even decorated her legs since they were exposed and all. Or maybe she was just trying to hide from me so I'd quit asking her if she was ready to try her smoothie. She finally did try some later on. I think she thought it was okay but decided that she wouldn't be drinking it today. Sydney ended up drinking all of Quinn's too. Hooray for one victory!

Quinn ended up winning this battle but the war has just begun!

May Celebrations!

We thought Memorial Day was a good day to celebrate our family and friends with May birthdays/anniversaries.

We had our first whole food dinner and boy oh boy was it yummy! Dinner pancakes with potato, zucchini and onion in it with a scoop of organic applesauce on top, a spinach, strawberry and pecan salad with home made dressing and our non-whole food roasted garlic bread (it was an impulse buy - I'll have to work on that!).

The girls pretty much ate all of the strawberries out of the salad, the applesauce off the pancakes and the bread. They did get a few pieces of spinach down but that's about it. Had this not been our celebration dinner, they wouldn't have gotten any of the yummy desert....Almond Joy Fudge! Man oh man I can certainly live on food that tastes this good! This fudge is made with coconut oil, agave nectar (never heard of it before but it's really good! K.C. says it's the plant they use to make Tequila...tastes nothing like tequila, I assure you!), unsweetened coconut, chopped almonds and unsweetened cocoa. It is SO good and actually does taste like an Almond Joy candy bar. Here are the girls blowing out the candles:

And this is who we are celebrating this month. Again, if I've left anyone out, please let me know!

Family Birthdays:
-Brian
-Kayli
-Dennis

Friend's Birthdays:
- Lance
-Peyton
-Elizabeth
-Barbra G.
-Jack

Anniversaries:
-Tom & JoLyn - 16 years!

We hope your special day was fabulous and that you have a wonderful year!

We'd also like to wish our friend Vicki a super speedy recovery! Give it hell sister!

Hugs, kisses and loves to all!

My New Obsession

Funny how things work out! Shortly after my last Insomnia post, my sister turned me on to a fabulous web site, www.greensmoothiegirl.com. She was telling me about the BlendTec blender she had just purchased off this site and was excited to get it and try out some of the recipes she got for free (from greensmoothiegirl.com) for ordering it.

I literally spent the whole day on this site and the links on this site. I couldn't believe what I was reading! Something about nutrition that actually made sense to me! And, even better, was something that was pretty close to what I've been trying to do. It gave me that last bit of information that I've been missing. So, I'm done with the Advocare stuff (although it worked for me to lose some weight and gain some energy, I found that I was on edge all of the time, which is why I stopped taking it a few weeks ago when I ran out) and am going on the Whole Foods journey. And I'm dragging the family along with me!

What I like about this is, well, it's natural! Food that you can grow/buy anywhere, it's inexpensive, it's easy. So, I ordered up my blender (should be here maybe tomorrow!) and even ordered up some coconut oil and some Himalayan Crystal salt (K.C. 'gets' the coconut oil but thinks the salt is a bunch of crap. The literature is a little out there for me but I understand the basics of it so am giving the Sole (so-lay) a try anyway).

But this is the topper. I mentioned in my Insomnia blog that I was dealing with female issues so was looking to either get pregnant, go on the pill or give acupuncture a try to hopefully help me deal with this (endometriosis is what my issue is). Reading Robyn's blog has given me new hope that I CAN win the battle with this crap without synthetic hormones. I still may give acupuncture a try and we are still going to go for #3, but I can almost imagine a life with no pain/on-the-verge moods in it. Beautiful!

Insomnia

I don't know why I even bother trying to get any sleep! It never quite works out for me. I should be use to it by now! I'm so tired. I even took a sleep aid. But my brain is still wide awake. So, I guess I'll blog it out.

Let's see....where to start. The girls got their first 'professional' haircuts on Saturday. They've been going with me for the last several months so they were comfortable in the salon and that made it easier. They both did well, sat still - or as still as a 2 and 3 year old can sit - and look as cute as can be! Just a bang trim for both of them, some angling around the face and a little off the back of Syd's to even things up. I think we'll get more bangs cut next time as they still have hair flopping around in their little faces.

We converted Syd's crib to a toddler bed! She has done very well with it. She even stays in her room to play if she's not ready to go to sleep or if she wakes up earlier than the rest of us. I hope that lasts! But, if history is any indication of how things are going to go, then she should be in my room waking me up in just a few short hours. I guess she did venture out several times the other night while I was working. K.C. told her that if she didn't stay in her room, he was going to put her bed back into a crib. I guess she high-tailed it back to her room and he didn't see hide nor hair of her again for the rest of the night. Smart girl!

I don't think I ever updated on the pre-school situation so I will now. Quinn has officially been enrolled in a (gulp) church-based pre-school. I think it will be just fine. She is excited to go so we talk about it all the time. Some days she wants one or all of us to go with her and other days she wants to go alone. Let's hope she's up for going it alone when the time comes for her to actually start! She'll be going three days a week for three hours a day. I'm sad thinking about it - my baby being away from me for that long. But, I know she'll get so much out of it and probably needs it and that's what is important.

Speaking of my babies, K.C. and I have decided to try for #3. It's either get pregnant, go on birth control (to manage my female issues) or get a hysterectomy (again, to manage my female issues). Probably in that order. Oh wait, I'd like to try acupuncture too in there somewhere. We'll see. I'd love to have two more, but I'm totally happy with whoever it is we end up with!

So now we get to the things weighing heavy on my mind. Breast cancer. One of my friends here is going through the process of finding out if the lumps she's found are cancerous or not. And, I just found out today that one of our old friends in Colorado not only had a double mastectomy today, but found out in that surgery that the cancer has spread to her lymphnodes. I guess the doctors were able to remove a portion of them under her arm but she'll more than likely have to have chemo and radiation. She's my age and has kids about the same age as mine. I just can't comprehend it. I feel so helpless in both cases and I just hate it. Hate that they have to go through this and hate that I can't do anything to make it better for them.

So, those are just some of the things running through my head. Guess I'll go see if I've worked them out enough to get a few hours worth of sleep.

Family Photos

I'm so excited! The family photos we took a couple of weeks ago are ready to view! Enjoy!

To access your slideshow, go to www.jamiericksonphotography.com
Go to "Client Slideshows"
Your gallery name: "Valentine Family"
Password: Lake Wilderness

Mother's Day

Well, I must say, this has been a great Mother's Day weekend! We actually celebrated on Saturday so as to avoid the crowds. And oh what a time we had!

We headed to Snoqualmie first thing to take a train ride. One of my friends has told me about this train ride and we actually tried to make it there when Tina and Kora were here in April but I didn't have the address or any other details to go by so we didn't get to do it then.

We boarded the train at the Snoqualmie Depot and headed to South Bend. It was a nice ride and we saw some beautiful scenery. I must say, I was a little shocked at the condition of the interior of the cars. I know they do a lot with this train so I guess I expected it to be in better condition. But, considering this whole museum and railway system is run by volunteers, (and that some of the cars are pushing 100 years old) I guess I'm impressed with how well it looked and, more importantly, ran!

Me, Sydney and Quinn on the train. It was so funny, Quinn kept asking where the seat belts were!

I just love this picture of the girls looking out the window.

This is a shot of Mt. Si from train. We did get a few shots of the girls and I with it in the background when we were in North Bend, but there was a car dealership across the street from us and some power lines that kind of took away from the photos. Oh well.

We departed the train in North Bend so we could look around there. More specifically, we wanted to eat at Twede's Cafe. What can I say about Twede's?! I didn't know anything about it, other than it was the dinner in Twin Peaks, before I sat down to write this. Now that I've seen the web site and it's history, well, it makes me sad. This place was filthy dirty! It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years upon years. I could already feel the food poisoning hit when we walked in the door! With such a great claim to fame, wouldn't you think that they would want to keep it up a little better? And that's another thing, all of the Twin Peaks memorabilia was hidden back by the nasty bathrooms. And they looked as though they hadn't been cleaned since they were hung up. So sad! But, we ventured in anyway - and survived! We ended up ordering some fries, a cinnamon roll and their famous cherry pie. I thought it was all mediocre at best and most definitely over priced. It was such a disappointment and I defiantly don't recommend going inside to eat if you're ever in the area! Maybe a nice picture by the mural outside would suffice. If you can get the people that are digging through the garbage to step aside that is.

Back on the train we went. We went past the Snoqualmie depot and over the Snoqualmie Falls. We stopped just past the falls so that we could see the 300 foot drop. So pretty! I was a little disappointed again as I thought we were going to be able to SEE the falls when we stopped. I never saw them and we walked the whole train from front to back looking. The disappointment didn't last long once I looked at the rest of the scenery!

Next stop was P.F. Chang's in Bellevue for some lunch. The girls slept all of 10 minutes in the car so we had some drama here and there but it was manageable. Since we were right across from Lincoln Square, we decided to take the girls to the bowling ally K.C. and I had gone to on our anniversary. They had a blast! It was a lot of fun and they actually picked up on it pretty well. Even did better than K.C. and I at some points during the game! SO fun!

Quinn, getting her bowl on! We didn't plan on going bowling when we left the house so didn't pack any socks for her. Gross, I know. Thankfully she's not old enough to care at this point.

Sydney, getting her bowl on. Too stinkin' cute I tell you!


The final stop on our outing was the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. I can't even begin to tell you how beautiful this place is! In fact, it's my new favorite place. The girls and I went there with one of our Mom's groups on Thursday. I knew we'd be back this weekend to show Daddy. I wish I had known about this place before we had our Family pictures taken! It blows Lake Wilderness out of the water, no pun intended! And once again, the work of volunteers helped make this place possible for me to enjoy. These pictures I took on Thursday:

And these pictures we took on Saturday.

We definitely had a big day but it was so much fun! I enjoyed every minute of it - even the parts that disappointed me!

During our day I received an email from one of my friends asking if I could provide a meal to a family in need. After enjoying a wonderful day with my family in places that people had volunteered their time and energy to create, how could I say no? So I set up a Sunday delivery. I thought Mother's Day was an appropriate day since the family consisted of a single father and three daughters. They don't have a mother to take care of them. The father had surgery on Friday and, by the looks of him, was in a lot of pain. The family is being helped by Vine Maple Place, which is a great organization. I always worry about donating to certain charities. You just never know if the people who actually need the help are getting it. There are so many people in this world that take advantage of 'the system' and take all that they can get. Heck, I'm related to some of them! But, I think this place helps to weed out those types of people so I don't mind 'doing business' with them, so to speak. We've done several things with them through both of my Mom's groups so they are an organization I'm comfortable with.

Anyway, first thing this morning, after Daddy, Quinn and Sydney made pancakes:-) we cleaned up and headed to Costco. We got a few things for us and enough stuff for a yummy meal or two for the family and then dropped it off to them on our way home. I was telling the girls about what we were doing and why. I'm trying to teach them that we all need help sometimes. Quinn needs help wiping off after she goes potty. Sydney needs help reaching things. Mommy needs help picking up the house. Daddy needs help keeping his sanity while living with three females. Etc. And that we should do what we can to help other people. Quinn really wanted to help me take the food to their door. She felt bad that they didn't have a mommy. She talked about them all the way home and has even brought them up a few times again. We talk about how the daddy had surgery so his tummy hurts and the food we took them will help his tummy feel better. We talk about the little girls who don't have a mommy to cook for them and whose daddy doesn't feel good so we made them feel better by taking them dinner. She even talks about the fact that we should have gotten them cookies for dessert (we went with the fruit bowl instead). Such a sweet, insightful little girl. What more could a mommy ask for?

This Mother's Day is going to be tough to beat! But, I'm looking forward to seeing what the next year will bring!

We hope all of you Mother's out there (and you Father's that have to be the Mother too) had a wonderful day!

Hugs and Kisses to all!

Fiesta!!!!

And we feasted! Oh my gosh, did we ever feast! Holy cow! I can't imagine wanting to eat another bite...ever! But, to be perfectly honest, I'll probably eat some more after the kids go to bed!

So, let's see. Here is what we ate (top to bottom, left to right):

Costco pound cake, cantaloupe, Frankly Fresh Roasted Chile Rellenos, chips, pico de gello, sour cream, refried beans, guacamole, roasted onion & mini peppers, black beans, Mexican style cheese, Del Real Foods seasoned shredded beef, cilantro/lime basmati rice (I actually got the recipe for this on line and it turned out very good!) and tortillas. We couldn't find any Mexican coke so we picked up some Jarritos Kids brand strawberry juice/non-carbonated soda type of thing for the girls. I also picked up a bottle of Senorial brand non-alcoholic sangria, which tastes just like sangria. Kind of freaked me out a little. I keep thinking I should be a little tipsy but I'm not:-)


Sydney, Quinn and K.C. eating away.


I try to refrain from actually eating this way. I am, after all, somewhat civilized!


This is how much food was still left on my plate at the moment I felt full and should have stopped eating:


This is how much food was left on my plate when I started to doubt my champion eating abilities:


But, I soldiered on, finished my dinner and moved on to my reward. Dessert! Pound cake and cantaloupe.


And this is my new figure. No, I'm not pregnant. And no, I don't have a tumor the size of a basketball in my stomach. That's just pure Cinco de Mayo fiesta goodness right there! Impressive, no?!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

So what if we aren't Hispanic! We love the food and are always up for a good celebration! So tonight we are having a fiesta!

The girls and I just got back from picking up our food at Costco. We aren't doing the usual Taco Tuesday meal. No way. This is a celebration! It's the 5th of May for crying out loud! So, we picked up some chilie rellenos, seasoned shredded beef, some mini peppers to roast with the onions we already have, some basmati rice (I haven't tried this one before but I tell you what, for the price I paid for it, it better be good!) some pico de gallo, chips, and pound cake! I have no idea what roll pound cake plays in Mexican tradition but it's oh so yummy in my tummy so it's in the meal plan! The only thing I forgot is the Mexican coke. Maybe K.C. can pick some up on the way home.

My mouth is watering just thinking about all of that yummy food! If I would have been on the ball I would have made the beef and chilie rellenos myself. But, not slaving over a hot stove on my day off sounds pretty damn good to me!

I'll post pictures of our Fiesta later tonight. But first, to honor our Mexican friends/neighbors/family, we will take a nice long siesta! Adios!