So even though the raw diet doesn't start until tomorrow, I tried to get a jump start on it this morning by making a variation on this Rawnola and making myself a smoothie.
I discovered, however that the wonderfully cheap oat groats I bought at Sevenanda weren't totally raw and wouldn't sprout. Either way, I continued to soak them and just followed the recipe from there. If it ends up crispy and gooey like I think it will, this is going to be a staple in our diets over the next month (if I can find true raw oats (and if not I'll just make a lot of this next month!)
The green smoothie was a half fail, as I got overzealous with the kale and only used one apple and too much ginger. I managed to get half of it down before I tapped out. It was thick and fibery and I couldn't drink it; I had to spoon it on my way to Dunwoody on a run this morning.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
WOW. That was an epic fail.
So, I've done horribly at Fresh January. Basically, it's been an epic fail on my part, but I sure had the best intentions....
It was super hard for me to get into only thirty minutes of cleaning. I seem to be more of a four or five hours of focused cleaning kind of girl. I would come home exhausted and just want to relax on the couch with Caryn and drink a glass of wine to slow things down...
Seeing as how I worked through a lot of the holidays and the entire week everyone had off for the snow (yeah, I drove the 3.5 miles to work that first day AND the second day after everything iced over, and only slid maybe 2 times all week. I blame it on having driven the same car for 10 years and knowing it well...) AND I was in pre production all month for this infamous Dolly Parton film in which I'm involved (which, btw pre production can be normal or it can be insane, depending on the crew I'm working for, and despite Cedar's and my best effort, it has been insane, frustrating and at times debilitating.) Regardless, I've been consistently getting at least seven hours of sleep most nights and I wake up exhausted and not ready for the day- so something has to change...
So I've sucked BUT---- Rhu has knocked it out of the park!!! In self defense of the impending cabin fever during the snowpocalypse, she straight up scrubbed the floors on her hands and knees!! She's done so much that needed to be done around the house, I can't start to list it! I'm normally a control freak when it comes to spaces and organization, but I'm trying really hard to just let go and trust Rhu's system, because it needs to be done, and if I don't have time and she can take it on, it's better to just have ANY system than try and force something I don't have time to set up properly... This alone has been a growing moment for me, however little it is...
NEXT MONTH, however has been super intriguing and exciting for us- especially for me! I love, love, love cooking/ preparing/ 'uncooking'/ making anything really at all!! I've found it easier to take snippits of the day to read up on the ins and outs of raw food theory and the raw lifestyle and it's many techniques.
I'm so excited about it, I could easily see it being my next career. Probably because I see cooking (or uncooking as the raw community calls it) as a fun, quick art project that has the best reward- Rhu loves to eat as much as I love to cook! We've pleasantly turned into a happy pair of vegetarian foodies! I love combining flavors and textures and the chopping and mixing and feeling it out instead of following a recipe closely..... it's the easiest way to relax into my intuition without committing hours and hours of a weekend....
I must say right off however, that I don't think that a lot of what I'm reading is either healthy or accurate. There are a LOT of people out there who are extremist and become obsessed with consuming only raw, pure, never heated food. I'm just not sure that I think that becoming obsessed or too serious about anything in life is healthy. I personally feel that ideas and theories should always be fluid and evolving, especially if they're as restrictive as the raw food diet can be! There's nothing wrong with enjoying a veggie burger & fries and a few beers occasionally with good friends to flex other parts of your soul that simply eating healthily can't fulfill.
While we are committed to being as raw as possible for the next thirty days (I'm shooting for 90-95%, allowing for some financial and flavor practicality), neither one of us seem to think that a fully raw diet is possible or practical, and obsessing over the food we eat is prohibitive to enjoying life and the few hours every day that we have free! However, my goal after this month of strict raw food is to eat a 50- 75% raw diet and continue to dehydrate and sprout so that I'm eating more healthy and filling the cravings we both have with healthier options. I'm interested in the heightened energy levels, and am actually counting on it to be able to get up extra early in the morning to prep food for the day!
I'm still at a loss for what to bring everyday for lunch, but I'll have to figure that out soon, as Tuesday is the first all raw day!
It's been SO FUN going to the farmer's market and dehydrating stuff (dehydrator provided by the lovely Sheila Nash, set designer extraordinaire!) and exploring the great blender we have and Mom brought me her juicer, so I've got to figure that out (apparently you can't juice in advance? like the night before? I'm sorta still in the dark about that one)
Either way, I'm looking forward to next months' challenge and hopefully will be able to stick to it- as I'm more often than not in charge of my time or my meal choices....
Here are some pics of the bounty our kitchen holds:
It was super hard for me to get into only thirty minutes of cleaning. I seem to be more of a four or five hours of focused cleaning kind of girl. I would come home exhausted and just want to relax on the couch with Caryn and drink a glass of wine to slow things down...
Seeing as how I worked through a lot of the holidays and the entire week everyone had off for the snow (yeah, I drove the 3.5 miles to work that first day AND the second day after everything iced over, and only slid maybe 2 times all week. I blame it on having driven the same car for 10 years and knowing it well...) AND I was in pre production all month for this infamous Dolly Parton film in which I'm involved (which, btw pre production can be normal or it can be insane, depending on the crew I'm working for, and despite Cedar's and my best effort, it has been insane, frustrating and at times debilitating.) Regardless, I've been consistently getting at least seven hours of sleep most nights and I wake up exhausted and not ready for the day- so something has to change...
So I've sucked BUT---- Rhu has knocked it out of the park!!! In self defense of the impending cabin fever during the snowpocalypse, she straight up scrubbed the floors on her hands and knees!! She's done so much that needed to be done around the house, I can't start to list it! I'm normally a control freak when it comes to spaces and organization, but I'm trying really hard to just let go and trust Rhu's system, because it needs to be done, and if I don't have time and she can take it on, it's better to just have ANY system than try and force something I don't have time to set up properly... This alone has been a growing moment for me, however little it is...
NEXT MONTH, however has been super intriguing and exciting for us- especially for me! I love, love, love cooking/ preparing/ 'uncooking'/ making anything really at all!! I've found it easier to take snippits of the day to read up on the ins and outs of raw food theory and the raw lifestyle and it's many techniques.
I'm so excited about it, I could easily see it being my next career. Probably because I see cooking (or uncooking as the raw community calls it) as a fun, quick art project that has the best reward- Rhu loves to eat as much as I love to cook! We've pleasantly turned into a happy pair of vegetarian foodies! I love combining flavors and textures and the chopping and mixing and feeling it out instead of following a recipe closely..... it's the easiest way to relax into my intuition without committing hours and hours of a weekend....
I must say right off however, that I don't think that a lot of what I'm reading is either healthy or accurate. There are a LOT of people out there who are extremist and become obsessed with consuming only raw, pure, never heated food. I'm just not sure that I think that becoming obsessed or too serious about anything in life is healthy. I personally feel that ideas and theories should always be fluid and evolving, especially if they're as restrictive as the raw food diet can be! There's nothing wrong with enjoying a veggie burger & fries and a few beers occasionally with good friends to flex other parts of your soul that simply eating healthily can't fulfill.
While we are committed to being as raw as possible for the next thirty days (I'm shooting for 90-95%, allowing for some financial and flavor practicality), neither one of us seem to think that a fully raw diet is possible or practical, and obsessing over the food we eat is prohibitive to enjoying life and the few hours every day that we have free! However, my goal after this month of strict raw food is to eat a 50- 75% raw diet and continue to dehydrate and sprout so that I'm eating more healthy and filling the cravings we both have with healthier options. I'm interested in the heightened energy levels, and am actually counting on it to be able to get up extra early in the morning to prep food for the day!
I'm still at a loss for what to bring everyday for lunch, but I'll have to figure that out soon, as Tuesday is the first all raw day!
It's been SO FUN going to the farmer's market and dehydrating stuff (dehydrator provided by the lovely Sheila Nash, set designer extraordinaire!) and exploring the great blender we have and Mom brought me her juicer, so I've got to figure that out (apparently you can't juice in advance? like the night before? I'm sorta still in the dark about that one)
Either way, I'm looking forward to next months' challenge and hopefully will be able to stick to it- as I'm more often than not in charge of my time or my meal choices....
Here are some pics of the bounty our kitchen holds:
This is our raw nut stash- I'm planning on using these for our protein and iron and fat intake- they're also filling, so they will help us with food craving and hunger in the first four or five days until our taste buds shift to more raw tenancies...
this is the greens basket for the smoothies in the morning,
as well as a few dehydrator trays that have been prepped with unbleached parchment.
The white fabric is what I'm using to stretch over jars for sprouting.
This is raw food central for us!
The dehydrator is full of grapes and cranberries and strawberries,
our favorite sprout mix, super sprout sandwich mix from Sevenanda
and some red Quinoa are sprouting in front,
some dates are soaking and some oat groats are sprouting
for some raw granola that will be made in the morning....
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Fresh(ish) January: Day 20
Bleck! I finally failed yesterday. I was doing so good (mostly due to the fact that the holiday season-slash-Snowpocalypse of 2011 resulted in a lack of work for the first two weeks of the month). I had actually spent hours a day organizing and cleaning things, scrubbing tile on my hands and knees, disinfecting suitcases (the cat thinks my suitcases are nice places to put hairballs and other awkward bile apparently), cleaning baseboards, and getting that weird dust collection off of the ceiling fans. Heck, I even installed (almost straight) shelves in the laundry room! But then I get back to work and two days into it, decide that this resolution is better off being replaced by couch chillaxing and gorging on nutty bars. Jesus, I have no will power.
But I'm not as bad as Onion! (Hint, hint).
I'm making up for my slackertude tomorrow as I am off yet again. I think I'm going to give the oven a good working over. That's right, two years worth of burn crud, I'm a-comin' for you!
But I'm not as bad as Onion! (Hint, hint).
I'm making up for my slackertude tomorrow as I am off yet again. I think I'm going to give the oven a good working over. That's right, two years worth of burn crud, I'm a-comin' for you!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Fresh January: Day Four
Duuuuuuuude! Onion's already a poop eater! Three days in!
Ok, ok, that was dramatic. Monday was her first day back to work which ended up going to 13 hours AND she was fighting off a major cold. So, when she got home at 9:00 p.m. after having left the house at 7:30 a.m., I kinda just made her some chili and put some Vicks on her and pet her to sleep.
I had done my time earlier or I probably would have been more persistent.
Today I kind of expected the same out of her, but she totally led the charge on getting stuff done. So, I think we're doing good so far. The house smells like cleaning supplies and our sheets are clean. It's a good thing.
We're really excited about next month's resolution, but as we are researching it, we are finding that it's going to be quite a challenge. Next month we are going to be raw vegans. We're finding that there's a lot more to it than we originally thought though (just the sheer amount of shit that's pasteurized, for example), so we're making sure we're prepared ahead of time so we don't starve to death or worse-- fail! Onion's making me hunt down a dehydrator so we can make hippie raw jerky treats. I'm stoked! (I think.)
Ok, ok, that was dramatic. Monday was her first day back to work which ended up going to 13 hours AND she was fighting off a major cold. So, when she got home at 9:00 p.m. after having left the house at 7:30 a.m., I kinda just made her some chili and put some Vicks on her and pet her to sleep.
I had done my time earlier or I probably would have been more persistent.
Today I kind of expected the same out of her, but she totally led the charge on getting stuff done. So, I think we're doing good so far. The house smells like cleaning supplies and our sheets are clean. It's a good thing.
We're really excited about next month's resolution, but as we are researching it, we are finding that it's going to be quite a challenge. Next month we are going to be raw vegans. We're finding that there's a lot more to it than we originally thought though (just the sheer amount of shit that's pasteurized, for example), so we're making sure we're prepared ahead of time so we don't starve to death or worse-- fail! Onion's making me hunt down a dehydrator so we can make hippie raw jerky treats. I'm stoked! (I think.)
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Fresh January: Day one
Today was our first day of the year of twelve resolutions (one per month, folks.) We stayed at Kyshona's in Athens an extra day, so she actually got to reap the benefits of the 30 minutes of cleaning!
I cleaned out the refrigerator in her new place because when her old roommate left, she didn't clean it- I forgot to take a before picture, but this is the after picture:
Cllllllllleaaaaaaannnnnnn! So Ky gets to enjoy the benefits of our Fresh January too! Maybe now she won't be afraid to use it! That Tupperware on the bottom is the leftovers from the turnip greens and black eyed peas she made us! Yumville!
Caryn and the pup had a fight over a pack of cheese crackers in the Cruiser, which ended up all over the car, so she got to vacuum and clean the car tonight. Maybe there will be pictures. Maybe not. That's how we're gonna roll.
I cleaned out the refrigerator in her new place because when her old roommate left, she didn't clean it- I forgot to take a before picture, but this is the after picture:
Cllllllllleaaaaaaannnnnnn! So Ky gets to enjoy the benefits of our Fresh January too! Maybe now she won't be afraid to use it! That Tupperware on the bottom is the leftovers from the turnip greens and black eyed peas she made us! Yumville!
Caryn and the pup had a fight over a pack of cheese crackers in the Cruiser, which ended up all over the car, so she got to vacuum and clean the car tonight. Maybe there will be pictures. Maybe not. That's how we're gonna roll.
Month 1
Onion has nicknamed this "Fresh January," so I guess I will run with it.
The rules:
1. Each partner must clean something (ourselves not included) for 30 minutes everyday.
2. It doesn't matter where you are, there's always something that can be cleaned.
3. If for some ridiculous reason you cannot clean for a day, you must make up the time on another day of that week (however, that still counts as a half-fail).
4. All 3.5 hours must be completed in a 7-day time frame.
That's it.
Sure, we know that a lot of you (probably MOST of you) already do this everyday anyway. We don't. We'd rather snuggle than vacuum. We'd rather read than mop. We'd rather (insert ANYTHING here) than fold the laundry. We're the kind of folks that wait until someone is ten minutes from the house to remove the dirty bra from the ceiling fan (ok, maybe not THAT bad, but close), and that's probably the most annoying habit we hate about ourselves (is this true, Onion?). We want to have a house that people can just let themselves into (people we know, not the bastards that robbed us a few months ago) without feeling bad about the mess.
So, that's where we're going to start: somewhere simple yet important.
Resolution one, here we go. . .
The rules:
1. Each partner must clean something (ourselves not included) for 30 minutes everyday.
2. It doesn't matter where you are, there's always something that can be cleaned.
3. If for some ridiculous reason you cannot clean for a day, you must make up the time on another day of that week (however, that still counts as a half-fail).
4. All 3.5 hours must be completed in a 7-day time frame.
That's it.
Sure, we know that a lot of you (probably MOST of you) already do this everyday anyway. We don't. We'd rather snuggle than vacuum. We'd rather read than mop. We'd rather (insert ANYTHING here) than fold the laundry. We're the kind of folks that wait until someone is ten minutes from the house to remove the dirty bra from the ceiling fan (ok, maybe not THAT bad, but close), and that's probably the most annoying habit we hate about ourselves (is this true, Onion?). We want to have a house that people can just let themselves into (people we know, not the bastards that robbed us a few months ago) without feeling bad about the mess.
So, that's where we're going to start: somewhere simple yet important.
Resolution one, here we go. . .
What is all this Crap?
I've never been a New Year's Resolution kind of girl. I always balked at seeing my friends all gear up on January 1 for a brand new year of healthy eating, working out at the gym every day, or not sleeping with every dude they meet in a bar, just to see them fail by January 10. I don't like to fail, and one sure-fire way of making sure that never happens is to not make goals like that. But this year, two things have inspired me to come up with this cockamamie scheme:
1. A lot of friends have been making resolutions over the past couple of years and (get this!) following through. They've been living them out online for everyone to see and judge, and while at times it can get annoying (I get it, you're going to the gym AGAIN today), it's mostly been inspirational to see people lose a shit-ton of weight, compete in their first marathon, go completely vegan, drink only water for a year, make their Weight Watchers Lifetime Goal, quit their job and pursue their music career, etc. I'm envious. I don't think I've followed through on anything. Heck, the last two GREAT books that I read, I left like ten pages in each one. What kind of fear of commitment is that?!
and also,
B. Onion and I have grown together in our love and adoration so much so that we completely overlook (nay, NURTURE) each others' bad habits. Snuggling on the couch has become the preferred evening activity to doing the dirty dishes. We spend hours reading on the porch, while buckets of unfinished art projects and shelves of unedited video go ignored. We no longer cook, opting for the faster choice of eating out all the time-- a habit that has affected both our waistlines (and thighlines and double-chin lines) as well as our bank account.
Sure, it's been fun living in the moment. I've enjoyed the dissonance of simultaneously being hard-working and a couple of slackers, but it's time for us to grow up and start acting like adults. Aside from both turning 30 this year (that's our story and we're sticking to it), we are talking about our future in a way that no longer fits in our irresponsible current lifestyle. So, we're going to do it-- we're going to get motivated and stop being the snuggly blobs of unused potential that we currently are.
However, I'm not an idiot. I don't think we can jump into a complete lifestyle change because it's January 1 and not be completely frustrated by it. So, we're going to take it one month at a time. We are making 12 goals for the year, one for each month, that will address something about our lifestyle that we want to change. The idea is that after a month of immersion in each specific goal, we will create habits that will spill over into the rest of the year and for years to follow.
We'd love for anyone who wants to keep us accountable to do so. Comment on our blog. Watch as we struggle to do what millions of people do and find routine everyday. Just don't harsh our mellow, man. We're super stoked about this here crazy thing, and we'd like for you to be too. If you don't like it, feel free to not click on over here. I mean, hell, we probably find you annoying and trite sometimes too.
Just kidding. We love everybody.
1. A lot of friends have been making resolutions over the past couple of years and (get this!) following through. They've been living them out online for everyone to see and judge, and while at times it can get annoying (I get it, you're going to the gym AGAIN today), it's mostly been inspirational to see people lose a shit-ton of weight, compete in their first marathon, go completely vegan, drink only water for a year, make their Weight Watchers Lifetime Goal, quit their job and pursue their music career, etc. I'm envious. I don't think I've followed through on anything. Heck, the last two GREAT books that I read, I left like ten pages in each one. What kind of fear of commitment is that?!
and also,
B. Onion and I have grown together in our love and adoration so much so that we completely overlook (nay, NURTURE) each others' bad habits. Snuggling on the couch has become the preferred evening activity to doing the dirty dishes. We spend hours reading on the porch, while buckets of unfinished art projects and shelves of unedited video go ignored. We no longer cook, opting for the faster choice of eating out all the time-- a habit that has affected both our waistlines (and thighlines and double-chin lines) as well as our bank account.
Sure, it's been fun living in the moment. I've enjoyed the dissonance of simultaneously being hard-working and a couple of slackers, but it's time for us to grow up and start acting like adults. Aside from both turning 30 this year (that's our story and we're sticking to it), we are talking about our future in a way that no longer fits in our irresponsible current lifestyle. So, we're going to do it-- we're going to get motivated and stop being the snuggly blobs of unused potential that we currently are.
However, I'm not an idiot. I don't think we can jump into a complete lifestyle change because it's January 1 and not be completely frustrated by it. So, we're going to take it one month at a time. We are making 12 goals for the year, one for each month, that will address something about our lifestyle that we want to change. The idea is that after a month of immersion in each specific goal, we will create habits that will spill over into the rest of the year and for years to follow.
We'd love for anyone who wants to keep us accountable to do so. Comment on our blog. Watch as we struggle to do what millions of people do and find routine everyday. Just don't harsh our mellow, man. We're super stoked about this here crazy thing, and we'd like for you to be too. If you don't like it, feel free to not click on over here. I mean, hell, we probably find you annoying and trite sometimes too.
Just kidding. We love everybody.
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