I put in:

1 beet

1 apple

1 large carrot

1 small bunch parsley

1 bunch of kale

2 cups watermelon

I got 24 ounces of juice out of it! It was pretty tasty too. Then I put the lid on and packed it up for the commute. But what to do with all of that pulp? I didn’t want it to go to waste. I didn’t have much flavor left (I tried it). I know! I’ll give it to the piggies!

My guinea pigs were over joyed. I gave them about half and put the rest in the fridge for a snack another time. Soon they will get elated at the sound of the juicer the same way they got excited about hearing the blender because they knew they are going to get a banana peel.

So what is the big deal about juicing anyway? Is it really worth it to pulverize all that produce for a little bit of juice? Wouldn’t it be better to get it all with the fiber? Is it really cleansing?

It turns out it depends on what you want to get out of it. Getting your daily fiber intake is only half the reason why it’s so important to fill up on produce. The juice is where all the other good stuff is. It’s full of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and nutrients in a form that your body can readily digest and absorb. Therefore your body can put all that good stuff to use sooner without alot of work. You can get additional benefits depending on the types of vegetables and fruits you are jucing.  Some (like beets and kale) are particularly great at detoxifying your liver. Others (cucumber and watermelon) are great for your skin. It can also help with increasing metabolism, easing depression, boot immunity, providing extra nutrients, and so on. Hmmm, I wonder what I can juice that has Vitamin D?

I love trying new foods and lately I have become aware of the fact that there are different “styles” of yogurt. There is Greek, European, Icelandic, Australian, and probably a few others. My so much for the Dannon fruit on the bottom of my childhood. Last night I made a trip Whole Foods and picked up a few cups of Siggi’s, not sure what to expect.

It is wonderful, and creamy, and tastes very much like Greek yogurt…..but better. It is better is so many ways. The only thing I love better than good food is good food with a conscience. The label of the yogurt was some good lunch time reading. Let me share:

All natural

Milk from grass fed cows

No aspartame

No sucralose

No gelatin

No artificial coloring

No preservatives

No high fructose corn syrup.

I love it because of everything it is not. So what makes it Icelandic? Apparently they call their yogurt “skyr”. It is made from skim milk after the cream has been floated off to make butter, so it is naturally fat free (0 fat, 120 calories, 6 oz serving). It’s also made from milk, instead of a combination of water and milk, so it’s high in protein (16 grams). They make it with agave syrup, so it is also low and sugar and gets a better rating on the glycemic index (carbs 13g, of which is sugar 11g). It contains 20% of your daily recommended amount of calcium. Aside from all the nutritional benefits I also enjoy that they company “works with nice farmers” from “family farms in New York State where the cows are not injected with any kind of growth hormone and graze freely when weather permits”.

It’s about the same price as the Greek yogurts in the store and comes in flavors like Pomegranate & Passion Fruit, Blueberry, Orange Ginger, and Plain. Atleast that is all my local store carries right now. Oh, and the container is recyclable. This is the kind of food I can feel good about eating and supporting. I love it.

Last Wednesday I felt tired again. Breakfast was coffee and green juice.

Lunch was leftover Puttanesca. Yummy and easy. I generally enjoy leftovers.

I had a piece of the cake I had made in the afternoon. It went over very well. I actually got alot of compliments on the decorating and apparently it tasted really well too.

After work I went to a Avon Walk Into meeting. In the photo is my walker-buddy, Tara. Hi Tara! She works for the foundation  and helps organize the walk. More importantly she’s the contact person for hundreds of participants and helps us with fundraising ideas, training tips, and staying organized and motivated.

Confession – I didn’t have dinner. I was exhausted by the time the meeting was over and drove straight home. I felt a headache starting to creep up, so I went straight to bed and was out like a light by 9:30, even with the husband being away at work for the night.

It didn’t do any good. I woke up Thursday with a horrendous migraine. I tried to go to work, made it about halfway, and decided against it. On the upside, I got to hang out with the husband in bed for the day, even if we were both sleeping. He came home from his shift not feeling well either. I don’t remember what I ate that day, but it wasn’t much. I’m recalling 2 slices of frozen pizza.

Friday I was feeling much better. The husband was not. He called out of work, which is insanely abnormal for him. I went off to my doctor appointment and to run errands.

It was kinda late by the time I got around to eating, so I stopped by Starbucks for a latte and egg salad sandwich. If it’s a sandwich and it has eggs, does that make it brunch?

This is the sad sight I returned home to. Poor honey. That was pretty much the theme through out the rest of the weekend. He seriously went through a box of tissues. He also slept through me vacuuming, doing dishes, laundry, and other general cleaning. Over the weekend I was also on ambulance duty in town and in our neighboring town. And he slept. The only place he went was between the couch and the bed. Not feeling well sucks. I also worked really hard on trying not to get sick myself.

Wow, I did not hit my goal of 7.5 hours of sleep last night and boy, am I feeling it. I recall last looking at the clock around 12am. When I looked again to hit the snooze it was 5am. Not cool. Hitting the snooze isn’t really good for you either, but I had to finish building the roof of pink fondant on the house and I needed to take another measurement of the gazebo. No, I’m not crazy, I was just dreaming, and I didn’t get to finish. That’s a pretty good indicator that I rudely interrupted a nice REM cycle. I have had a lot of interesting and weird dreams lately, but I’ve gotten to the end of most of them during the past month while trying to increase my hours in the sack.

So how did we all manage to get through college pulling all nighters and living on caffeine? I was a champ at functioning on 4 hours of sleep right up until I was about 23ish. There were a lot of late nights in highschool too. Back in grade school we all had a bed time, which we usually argued about with our parents. Then as we got older, and more rebellious, we would stay up late because we could and there was cool stuff to watch on TV. I am a nerd, so I will also admit I stayed up late reading. In college, off on our own, bedtime didn’t exist. Mostly it was because there was too much going on that you didn’t want to miss out on. So when we become grown ups do we somehow regress? No, I don’t think so. We prioritize better, or atleast we should. We can make better decisions on how to take care of ourselves.

I value my sleep much more now. Sleep actually removes toxins from our body and lets our mind function clearly. The RadioLab podcast does a great job of explaining all this. Getting enough sleep helps prevent hormone imbalances that lead to over eating. It’s clear from all my yawning and typos that I did not get enough last night. Hopefully I can avoid the cake that I brought in today.

Let’s get the food for the day out of the way. I woke up a little late. I slept in until 6 because that is when duty crew was over. As a result I got 7 .5 hours of sleep. That might be a first for a week day. Yay! Breakfast ended up being just coffee in my new mug. I didn’t get around to the green drink, traffic required too much of my attention and then work got crazy.

Lunch came at a perfect break point. I ate my roll left over from last night just before lunch, partly out of frustration with the mapping program I was using. I knew my Tomato Soup wasn’t going to be enough to I headed to the cafeteria downstairs and got a Tuna Melt Panini with tomatoes on it. See, it even has cute little grill marks.

For my 4pm Hungies I had some TJ Blueberry Oatmeal. It helped me get through the TPS reports. Just kidding, those things don’t actually exist, but it really felt like that’s what I was doing.

The husband had dinner ready when I got home. He made Salmon Burgers with a kind of cilantro dressing. We at them naked (w/o rolls). He also roasted some asparagus in the oven. I like them a little over done so that the tips are crispy and the stems are soft.

After dinner it was time for Round 2 of cake practice while watching The Biggest Loser. Thanks to Duncan Hines I had a much more successful base to start with. I decided to cover the first layer in a sort of turquoise/teal color. According to Pantone it is the color of 2010 because it represents hope, tranquility, peace or some such nonsense. I also just happen to like that color.

I don’t have alot of room to work with but I managed. I split the first 8×8 layer, filled it with elderberry jelly, and crumb dusted it with chocolate buttercream. After watching a video at work today (http://vimeo.com/298002 How to cover a square cake in fondant) I felt a little more confident about diving in. Thanks to Ms. McKay’s instruction it came out quite nicely. Yeah, I actually did have a fondant smoothing tool around from a couple years ago and it was still in the package. How handy is that?

The second 4×4 layer didn’t go so well.

My intention was to make a coppery colored second layer and fiddle with texture. I would make it sparkle! Unfortunately I somehow forgot the cardinal rule of working with fondant layers. KEEP IT DRY. Just like a mogwai…..never mind.  Anyhow, it turned into a sticky mess. Rather than throw away perfectly good cake I stuck it in the fridge the way it was. Good thing too because apparently yellow cake filled with peanut butter and iced with chocolate tastes EXACTLY like a candycake.

I decided to stick with just the blue cake and free hand some designs on it in violet. I shall feed it to my coworkers tomorrow.

I’m actually kind of proud of it.

Do you have any hobbies that make you giddy thinking about it?

I haven’t been very hungry so breakfast was just coffee in my new indestructible Thermos and a Cantaloupe Green Monster. Yes, I snuck in a shot of the cute baby duck from the CuteOverload.com daily calendar I got for Christmas.

Lunch was a romaine salad with some sliced cucumber and heirloom cherry tomatoes, grated goat cheese, and Cowgirl Ranch dressing. Yum.

When the 4pm munchies showed up I had a cup of TJ’s Greek yogurt. It did the job.

The dinner picture deserves a full size photo. I worked a bit late since I knew the Husband wouldn’t be waiting up for me, and I still managed to hit traffic and realized I would feel way to lazy to cook something nutritious for myself at 8pm, and not eat until like 9pm. I called ahead to Romeo’s, this great little Italian place in town, for an order of Spaghetti Puttanesca and Eggplant Parm. Mmmmm, I ate one of the little rolls on the way from the restraunt to home. Their eggplant is good, and isn’t all breaded and fried. I love puttanesca, and it’s a little hard to describe. It’s red sauce with capers, anchovies, olives, and a few other things. The origins are actually really interesting if you are into that whole food-anthropology thing. Alton Brown got me hooked on it. Here is more info about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puttanesca.

I had a glass of Jersey Red from Heritage House vineyards. It’s made with Concord grapes, so it does taste grapey, and it’s a little on the sweet side. My kind of wine.

During dinner I started watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s one of my favorite old movies. I find it more and more interesting as I get older.

After dinner I tried to make a cake but it came out as a total cake-fail. I rushed popping it out of the pan so I could decorate and it split in half. Atleast it tasted good. I took it as a sign it was too late at night to start that project. I still had a chance at getting 7 hours of sleep, despite being on duty from 3a-6a.

What are some of your favorite old movies?

I woke up pretty early so, I’m excited about that. I’ve been working on trying to keep my regular routine on the weekends, which is hard when you have a 3-day weekend. Since I was able to do that, next week’s personal challenge will be to get atleast 7 hours of sleep per night. That means going to sleep by 10pm. This is going to be hard.

Today started with a Green Monster. It was okay, but after 2 weeks of Virgin Green Monsters I need a change. Next week I’ll try the one with cantaloupe.

Lunch was a leftover piece of Spinach Calzone with Tomato Sauce. Like its brethren pizza, it was still yummy eaten cold the next day. After doing some laundry I decided not to let the gray weather get me down and braved the rain to go to Trader Joe’s for some grocery shopping. Is it odd that I find that fun?

When I got back Meredith invited me to go see The Lovely Bones with her and Lisa. She asked if the husband wanted to come to, I didn’t think he would, but I texted him at work anyway. Turns out that he was interested and decided to meet us at the theater as soon as his shift was over.

It turned out to be way creepier than I expected. I had not read the book, so I was kind of shocked by most of it. It kind of me of What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. It was also sort of thought provoking.  During the movie I shared some popcorn with the husband and had some of his Sprite.

Afterwards we stopped at Barnes and Noble in the mall. The husband wanted to get this game called “Killer Bunnies”. He had been talking about it all week. I had no idea it was an actual game that you play with other people and game pieces. The four of us decided to go to Fridays for dinner since it was nearby.

I got the Gourmet Gourmet Mac n Cheese with Chicken. It was a small portion size, so I felt okay about getting something a little indulgent. Before dinner came out we started playing Killer Bunnies. There are way too many rules for a card game. Half the time we couldn’t figure out whose turn it was, but we found it very entertaining. Our waiter liked to stop and watch while he wasn’t dropping our food on the floor.

After dinner our friends departed for another party since, they have off for MLK day, and we headed home. But first we stopped off at the store for a snack.

Mmmmmmmm. Haagen Daz Chocolate Icecream. I get those little mini containers because it automatically stops me from eating a whole pint. I must say, they do make the perfect chocolate icecream.

Now here I am blogging and trying to make it to bed on time. Ooops! 10:32pm, I’m running late. Goodnight!

Thursday morning I was a good girl and made my coffee at home. It’s economical and sometimes it tastes better than convenience store cofee. Btw, isn’t my phone cute?

For lunch I stopped at the grocery store for some ingredients. I tossed together a yummy Caesar salad with some shrimp. It was ok, but I’d probably do it with chicken next time.

I finished off my lunch with a cup of Liberte Pear Yogurt. It’s kind of quirky with the grains mixed in, but I really like it. I also had a gorgeous Rome apple while perusing this month’s Lucky magazine.

The husband had a Trader Joe’s pizza ready for me when I got home. I had just enough time to enjoy it before racing over the squad building for the evening. It turned out to be a blessedly uneventful night. After some training with the cadet, I went home and actually got a ful nights rest. I had every intention of going into the office on Friday to get a jump on some stuff.

Then I woke up on Friday feeling as if a train had struck me. It wasn’t really a train, just turned out to be my period, which is actually a huge event for some women like me with PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome).  My head was screaming, my uterus was angry, and my back was weak and achy. God I felt gross. The kind of gross that doesn’t even come off with a shower. I scrapped the idea of heading to the office in lieu of a couple more hours in bed. After a few extra hours of rest I felt like I could be functional.

My blender pieces were still in the dishwasher so no green juice. I decided I would score some breakfast while out running errands. I couldn’t pass up a fresh out of the oven bagel from Bagel Street, the store with the most delicious bagels in town. So perfectly crunchy and chewy at the same time. The husband and I do bagels for breakfast only from this place maybe once a month…or anytime we set out on an early morning road trip. Usually I go for cinnamon, but when I walked in the Jalapeno bagels were just coming out of the oven.

After a couple hours of cleaning and laundry I went out for a walk to the little downtown area. I passed the bakery called Sugar and Sunshine (isn’t that just the cutest name ever for a bakery!) and decided to stop in. My husband had read a review that their cupcakes were amazing. I rationalized that my walk would make up for it, so I took one home with me.

To be honest I was a little let down It was supposed to be red velvet but it tasted bland. The icing was okay, but the cake part def fell flat. I ate half and tossed it out. That is pretty good considering I would normally eat the whole thing anyway b/c it’s sugar. Yay me! I triumphed over food.

Dinner was nothing special, some salad and piece of leftover pizza. Then we went out to Meredith’s to hang out with some friends to watch a movie and drink adult beverages.

And then there was today. I slept in while the husband went to Reading Room for the morning. I woke up to some needy pets who wanted food and their cages/areas cleaned.

For brunch I made myself a little plate of various things from the fridge including a banana, few pieces of goat cheddar, and olive tapenade with multigrain crackers. Then back to laundry. Seriously, I believe it multiplies like single celled organisms. Give it 16 hours and the population with double.

After a couple loads I was hankering for something sweet. I opted for a little bag of Honey Multigrain Smartfood. It’s like popcorn and wheat puffs with a caramel corn flavor.

The husband was in the mood for pizza for dinner again, but wanted real pizza. He loves buffalo chicken pizza. I had a slice with some POM juice and a piece of spinach calzone.

The amazing thing I noticed during dinner is that it wasn’t pitch black outside. I was eating dinner while I could still see daylight. A little thrill of excitement went up my spine. It’s like hope! Seeing the sun physically makes me feel better sometimes. 

For the rest of the evening the husband is going to watch the Saints kick the Cardinals’ butts and I’m going to start reading Alice in Wonderland. My body seems to think tomorrow will be a more productive day.

Next week I will be signing up for the Avon Walk to be held in October in NYC this year. I did it a couple years ago and I’m looking forward to participating again. Here is the email I sent out to friends and family today….

Hello!
 
Next week I’m registering for the 2010 2-day Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in New York. For those of you who are not familiar, participants raise money to be donated for breast cancer research and then spend 2 days walking through the five boroughs of NYC. The first day is a 26.2 or 13 mile course, and the second day is 13 miles. It’s not as hard as it sounds. I did it for the first time a couple years ago and I’m excited to be walking it again.
 
This year I’d like to start a team. There are a couple people who are interested, but we would love to have more friends along for the trip. Information meetings are offered throughout the state to answer questions about the walk and to register, or you can register online. If you’d like more information let me know or go to www.avonwalk.org. Training starts next month….or whenever the thermometer gets above 30 again!

Is this something you think you might be interested in? Check out the link and see if there is a walk in your area.