Health & Happiness Cleanse: Day 3

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well. I've made it to day three of my cleanse and I'm feeling really good. I have had some really great juices and meals and have been working on doing more for myself to indulge my interests and hobbies. Today I'm just going to show my lunch because it was a combination of the health and happiness portion of this cleanse!

How is it part of the happiness portion of the cleanse? Today I had my friend over for lunch and we were able to catch up. It has been a while since we have seen each other and it was so nice to catch up over a lovely meal! I made the cooked portion of it yesterday and re-heated it today (and it re-heated beautifully!) and made a salad this morning.

Check out this amazing plate of deliciousness!! Not only is it delicious but it is a super clean/healthy meal. In the foreground we have some really delicious Baked Zucchini Fritters from blog called It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken. I made a few changes to make this clean recipe fit my cleanse. First, I had no yellow onion so I used green onion (so good!!). Instead of whole wheat flour I made my own fine breadcrumbs by toasting a few slices of Ezekiel Bread and then pulsing it in the blender into a powder. I also left out the nooch because I didn't have any. They are baked which eliminates any grease issues and are just a really healthy, fresh option for a quick summer meal (if you make them ahead of time).

The salad was a really light and fresh Shepherd type salad. I chopped up cucumber, tomato, green onion, carrot and parsley and dressed it with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, a tiny bit of red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. So fresh and delicious and a perfect side for the fritters!

The only thing that was better than this great meal was my company. I am so glad I was able to get together with my friend and catch up. She is an amazing person and we always have the best time :)

That's what I have for you today! I will try my best to check in tomorrow but I have to come and walk and feed the dogs and take all of my crap home tomorrow so hopefully I'll have time to check in at the end of the evening! If not I'll do a comprehensive post on Wednesday :)

Have a good night!

Health & Happiness Cleanse: Day 2

Hey everyone! I'm back with the first two thirds of day 2 of my cleanse. I woke up really late today (9:00 which is waaaaay late for me) so my meals have been much later than I'm used to. I had quite a bit of energy in the early part of the day but after doing a little cooking for tomorrow and indulging in today's happy time (you'll see in a bit!) I'm feeling quite tired. I'm cuddling with the pups while typing this up and maybe I'll take a nap in a bit... we'll see :) I'm feeling pretty good so far other than a still weird appetite but I'm hoping that will settle as I get further into the cleanse.

So what was I up to today?

For breakfast I enjoyed avocado on Ezekiel Toast. I don't think it is technically gluten free but sprouted grain breads are a great and less expensive option that gluten free bread.

Grape, kale and apple juice.

Snacky plate of Mary Gone Crackers Onion flavored crackers with hummus and tomato and more ants on a log.

This was my lunch! A smaller juice containing grapes, apple and lots of kale which was very delicious and the snack plate described above. I ate this at about 3:30 and am still quite full from it so dinner will probably just be a salad later.

For a little bit of happiness today I took a bath in the big amazing jacuzzi bathtub using a Lush Bubble Bar that I received for the holidays! I honestly don't even remember what this one is called but it smells like sweet candy and you get lots of big bubbles from it and it turns your water a pale pink. I was really lovely :)

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After I posted yesterday I continued to catch up my the recent Disney movies (I've also watched Brave and Mulan recently) and watched Frozen because I saw it on demand. I really liked it! I didn't know if it was just overhyped or if it was actually really good but I enjoyed it a lot. The only thing I don't understand is why everyone loves Elsa so much when Anna is the real bad ass? Either way it was super cute.

So that's what I have for you today! I don't know if I'll be able to post every day once I go back to work on Tuesday but I will certainly try!

I hope you have all had a great weekend!

Health & Happiness Cleanse: Day 1 (Take 2)

Hey everyone! I'm back and this time it is for real! No more false starts. I'm at my brother's house, I have tons of produce, my juicer, time and space. And I'm so excited about it. Today I woke up a little later than I normally would and didn't have much of an appetite all day so it's been kind of small snacky things but I'm planning on really getting into it tomorrow and making some yummy produce centered meals. But for now, I'll show you what I've had so far today and tell you what I'm planning on eating tonight. I'll also show you what is making me happy today :)

Oh my goodness you guys! This is my first homemade juice in a while and it was SO FREAKING GOOD. I finally got to try a recipe for Fully Raw Kristina's Holy Grale Juice. This juice has two ingredients: grapes and kale. It is sweet and delicious and you don't even know that there is kale in there. I'm actually going to add more the next time I make it because it was quite sweet and I'll cut it a little more with the kale. I highly recommend this juice!! I know it doesn't look like a lot of juice but this is a huge stemless wine glass full of juice and it was actually quite filling.

My next snacky type meal was celery with peanut butter and raisins. This is the only way (other than in  juice) that I'll eat raw celery and I actually really love this combination a lot.

After that I had a small individual sized bag of raw almonds from Trader Joe's.

I still plan on eating avocado toast and watermelon later but you know what that looks like... and if I don't put up this post now it won't go up :)

OK, now onto the happiness!!

First up, I splurged on four new colors of Zoya Nail Polish!! I believe most of them are from the new summer collections and they are absolutely stunning. From left to right they are Kiki, Aphrodite, Selene and Oceana.

Of course these cuties are making me so happy! I'm enjoying every second of our cuddle time and I just love their sweet faces!

OK so that's what I have for you today. Hopefully my appetite will be back by tomorrow and I'll have more substantial meals to show you tomorrow. There will definitely be a green juice happening and then I'll take it from there!

I hope you are all well and having a great weekend <3

False Start

Hey you guys! So I'm kind of a dummy. I don't know how I thought I could do 4 days of a cleanse with no groceries but I thought I would give it a try. It's not working though because I'm not eating the way I would like to be eating (more of the Crazy Sexy Diet way) and I'm eating more cooked food than I'd like. So I'm going to call yesterday a false start and start it for real on Saturday when I have my produce, my juicer and most importantly... TIME! Sorry for the false start, I feel stupid about it. Life gets in the way of my intentions more often than I'd like which is part of what I'm working on with this cleanse. It is 7:00 and I just got home from being out since 8:30 AM and I don't even know what I'll have for dinner.

I had an Orgain Vegan  Shake for breakfast (chocolate and unpictured).

Lunch was another gorgeous chopped salad. I had to purchase this one from Fairway (you choose your toppings and they chop it fresh) and it only cost $3.50!! I thought it was a really good deal for a fresh chopped salad.

That's it so far. I'm going to figure out dinner now... it will probably be brown rice with frozen veggies and tofu because that's pretty much all I've got right now. Tomorrow will probably be no post because I have to go grocery shopping after work then come home and pic up my clothes and drop everything off at my brother's house... so I probably won't be home until late-ish. I'll try and take pics and update you on Thursday or Friday on a few days worth and then I'll start up the cleanse and my daily blogging on Saturday. I'm excited about it and thanks for sticking with me! I am embarrassed to have to start over but I know that it will be better for my health and my happiness to do it when I actually have the time to devote to actually getting the most out of it.

I hope you are all doing well <3

Health & Happiness Cleanse: Day 1

Hey you guys! As promised, I'm here with day one of what I'm calling my "Health & Happiness Cleanse." This is because I'm not only cleaning out my body but I'm working on getting to my "happy place" so to speak. I tend to let the stressful things in life get to me and strip me of my happiness but I've been working really hard to find the things that make me happy and make the time to indulge these things. So this cleanse will be a marriage of putting healthy foods into my body and healthy thoughts into my mind. And I'll be here to update you on both :)

So today was day one and it was my intention to start with my favorite smoothie of all time which is my Cherry Chocolate Smoothie. Instead I slept very late and just went the easy route and had:

A giant pile of sweet, juicy cantaloupe. And I loved every bite of it.

A little while later (after some shopping!) I made this Banana Date Shake. It is basically frozen bananas, a few dates, almond milk and cinnamon. It's very delicious but very sweet so next time instead of dates I'll use almond butter or something to cut the sweetness.

For a snack I had some of these yummy Kool Ranch flavored Kale Chips. They were great and had no bell peppers (yay!). They also had a little bit of a kick to them which was also really good.

Dinner is going to be a big salad that I made using up some produce that I had. My salad basics of romaine, carrot, cucumber, tomato and sun dried tomato. I will add red wine vinegar and olive oil as my dressing.

Lots of water is also a big part of this. Staying hydrated is so important, especially because it is insanely hot lately. I had several of these 32 oz mason jars full of water. Also in this picture is the "Happiness" portion of my day. I am obsessed with candles, I really really love them. Every single day when I get home from work I lay down in my bed in a dark (or as dark as I can make it) room with a candle lit and I just recharge and relax for 30 minutes. I guess it is my form of meditation because it is the time when I let my day go and transition into my evening mode. It is my favorite part of my day. 

Anyway, for my "happiness" portion of the day I decided to light a candle (watermelon scented... shocking I'm sure!!) and apply a face mask. It was nice to pamper myself and give myself some time to really do something that I enjoy and makes me feel good.

Just to let you know, even though I started my cleanse today I haven't been grocery shopping yet for the week. I am going to be at my brother's house from Thursday - Tuesday and I just wanted to go grocery shopping once so I will be going after work on Wednesday and dropping my groceries off there. That being said... the first few days of this cleanse will likely be boring as I work off of the little food that I have in my house but I'll do my best to pull it together! I guess maybe that'll be part of the challenge ;) Then I'll have some really yummy, fun meals to show you!

I hope that you are all doing well! I'll be back to share my meals with you tomorrow!

<3

Quick Update/Announcement!

Hey everyone! I hope you have all been having a nice week so far! Mine has been going pretty well and I'm excited to be babysitting for my favorite fur children next week :)

Today's post will be short and sweet. I just wanted to let you know what's going on in my near future. As I've mentioned I have been feeling a little yucky, most likely as a result of straying too far into the processed food world since the winter so I've decided to start a cleanse. I'll be doing a high raw/crazy sexy diet-ish type cleanse chock full of greens and fruits and veggies and alkalizing foods. It will be gluten and coffee free.. Basically it will be high on fruits and veggies and will include some whole grains and nuts and seeds. No processed foods and no added sugars. From past experience I know this is how to get my body feeling great and my energy back so that is what I am going to do. My goal time frame for this is three weeks.

Why am I announcing this on here? Because I will be blogging the whole thing. I am looking for accountability here and I think that sharing it here will be a way to keep me honest.

I will be using the rest of this week to meal plan and make grocery lists. I'll start on Monday of next week and I'm really excited about it! I hope you will all come on this journey with me!

<3

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Things I Put In My Face

Hey everyone! It has been a while since I did a post of what I ate so I decided to photograph some meals I've been eating! There are some meals that are typical to my summer diet (watermelon anyone?!) and a new meal I tried when I was out to lunch with my mom.

For breakfast I like to eat giant containers stuffed full of watermelon. You can't tell the size of the container in the picture (and you can't see the difference in size between this container and the one below - which is much smaller) but trust me, my belly was full of sweet, hydrating watermelon. I've decided that watermelon is definitely my favorite food ever :)

This was a delicious serving of  Un-Fried Rice rice that I made for a lunch. This is simply brown rice, mixed veggies and "Roasted Soy Protein Nuggets" from the Whole Foods Salad bar. It is basically the same protein source that they use in the General Tso's Soy Protein stuff that they make minus the sauce. I like the plain version better and it was perfect to add into this rice dish.

For an afternoon snack I decided to try this Fruit Chia bar that Isobelle included in her amazing and generous package!  It was really good, I definitely enjoyed it! She included lots of delicious raw treats and I'm excited to try all of them!

I finally tried my Justin's dark chocolate peanut butter cups and oh man!! I LOVED these things. I love that they use dark chocolate because they aren't sickly sweet. Definitely a really great treat when you need a chocolate fix (which I definitely needed).

My mom took a vacation day today and we had a fun girl's day which included lunch at Noodle's and Co.  and it was really good! I got the Japanese Pan Noodles which is vegan according to my Vegan Xpress App and I added the organic tofu to it. It was so good and I LOVE the texture of udon noodles so I was extra happy that this dish was made up of udon noodles. I liked the slight heat in the sauce although it was a touch sweet for my taste. I have a big portion of it leftover for lunch tomorrow as well.

I went grocery shopping today and picked up some fun things like lots of zucchini for zucchini pasta (I'll try to remember to photograph) and mangos! I have been craving mango like crazy lately so I made sure to get some to satisfy the craving. I cut one up to bring with me for lunch tomorrow (with my leftover noodles) and it looks so perfect, I can't wait!

Delilah graduates from Pre-K soon (I can't believe she is going into Kindergarten!) and has been asking me to make her a necklace so I did to celebrate her graduation. I made her this adorable skull necklace with green stones because green is her favorite color. I can't wait to give it to her! I'll make sure to take a picture of her wearing it.

So that's all I have for you right now. Not a ton but I've been trying to get better about taking pictures of my meals. Things have been a bit crazy here but I'm trying to think of some fun posts to put up. It's been super hot and humid here lately but maybe if it gets a little better I'll be able to get out and start exploring some of the places I saw in the Fun Book. I definitely want to go to the Israeli Market soon too to check it out and see what kinds of fun things they have. If I'm understanding correctly they have a hummus bar which is very exciting, ha!

OK friends, I hope you have a great night!

Grocery Haul

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was busy with work on Saturday then the jewelry party on Sunday. It turned out really well and I was really happy with it but it was a lot of work and I was definitely exhausted after! I dragged my butt out of bed early this morning to grocery shop in peace but I've been enjoying a relaxing day for the rest of the day. I was laying around and noticed another Disney movie on so I watched Mulan for the first time and loved that one as well! I don't know why I'm so far behind on them, I need to catch up because I've been loving the ones I've seen lately!

Anyway, I just popped on here to share my grocery haul and post grocery haul breakfast! I went to Trader Joe's first, then Whole Foods and then I came home. I have each haul pictured separately.

First up is the Trader Joe's haul! I got some tofu, these amazing looking tomatoes that I can't wait to try, Light Coconut Milk, chickpeas, basil, bananas, spinach, avocado, sweet potato and dill. These are more staple items... they are so much cheaper at Trader Joe's.

These were some more splurgey items (and organic lemons and limes) from Whole Foods. On the far left is a container of some of the most beautiful figs I've ever seen, two Orgain chocolate drinks, coconut milk, WFs Meatless Burgers (to have on deck for family BBQs), Tofutti, Larabars, Justin's dark chocolate PB cups (I've never tried these!) and the organic lemons and limes. If I'm using the zest I always get organic and TJs didn't have any.

After I got home I put my groceries away and made myself breakfast. Today I enjoyed a bialy with tofutti and enjoyed every bite of it! I'm going to be starting to transition more towards raw foods but I figured this would be a good treat breakfast before doing so ;)

How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?! What's on your grocery list this week?

Hope you are all doing well, I'll be back soon with another post.... hopefully of beautiful raw food from the week ;)

May 2015 Favorites!

Hey everyone! I know it is a few days late but I figured I would pop in with a few of my favorite things from the month of May. Let me know what some of your favorite things were!

First up is probably a no brainer but it was the return of summer produce!! This bowl of berries and cherries is one of my favorite things that I ate last month and I'm definitely looking forward to more summer produce as we get further into the season!

I'm sure some of you remember the lovely Isobelle that used to run the VGAN JAR blog (now sadly defunct, wah!). Anyway, she and I have kept in touch over Instagram and Facebook and we decided to do a fun swap. I included a box of apricot vanilla creme tea in her box and the minute I sent it off I regretted not getting a box for myself. Well I went back to the store and got a box and oh man am I glad I did! This tea is really lovely and perfect for the spring. I definitely recommend you try it!

I will also let you know what fun things are in my box when it arrives :)

My friend went to Japan for a vacation with her husband and brought me back two gifts that were so sweet and I LOVE!!! First up we have this adorable set of chopsticks (ahhh owl, so cute!!) and a case to hold them in. I'm so excited about these and will be sure to get a lot of use out of them!

The second part was this bar of soap from Lush in Japan! I love all of the Japanese writing on it and they could not have chosen a better scent! It is called "Rock Star" and it smells like sweet candy. I haven't unwrapped it yet because I love the packaging too much but when I do I'll let you know how it is!

Up next I have these super yummy Tomato Basil Lentil Snaps. They are basically the same as the Snapea Crisps that I love so much but these are made of lentils and are in a super yummy tomato basil flavor. I definitely recommend giving these a try if you are looking for something to snack on!

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My final favorite of the month is a Disney Pixar movie called Brave. It may be a surprise to you that I really love Disney movies, mostly old school ones though. I haven't seen a lot of the newer films (nope, haven't seen Frozen!) but it is definitely something that I plan to catch up on. I was home one evening feeling a little under the weather and decided to watch the move Brave (read about it here) and oh man did I LOVE this movie! It has definitely climbed toward the top of my favorites list!  The animation is just adorable as all Pixar movies are. I mean check out how cute Baby Merida is!

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I can't even deal, she's too cute!! I highly recommend this movie if you want to see something cute :)

OK so that's all for this month!! I'll be back next week after the jewelry party is over! I plan on going grocery shopping on Monday so maybe I'll be back with a haul then :)

Have a great weekend!

Life

Hey everyone! I hope you have all been well! Things have been the same here. We are in our busy season now at work so it has been a little crazy but I'm keeping my head above water :) I have my first jewelry party this weekend so I've been in a jewelry making frenzy (more on this later) so I've been very busy with that. I have done my best to take a few pictures here and there to keep you all in the loop!

Let's see what I've been eating and what I've been up to!

Can we talk a little bit about this summer produce?! It has been amazing already. I thoroughly enjoyed this bowl of organic strawberries, blackberries and cherries.

I made this pita for lunch one day. It had hummus, lettuce, tomato and dolmas in it and it was really good. I never thought to put dolmas in a pita until now and I have no clue what I was waiting for! This was delicious!

Sometimes you just need some ramen noodles. I actually really love ramen noodles. I always add some organic frozen mixed veggies to it to add some bulk in the form of veggies and I enjoy it every time.

As I mentioned I have been a busy bee making my jewelry for this upcoming party. I wanted to have my jewelry done yesterday so I wouldn't have to stress about it after work during the week so I made all of the jewelry pictured above yesterday. I also made a bunch of chains as well. I am so proud of myself, I've been very productive! I have about 100 pieces made and I'm really happy with that.

I'm also really proud of how my business cards came out! I'm absolutely in love with them :)

On Sunday the girls headed over to a street fair in my brother's neighborhood. It was very hot out but it was nice to walk around and see what was going on. Afterwards we had a little BBQ at my brother's house and I got this picture of my little cutie :) 

I'm really excited about some things coming up on the horizon like the jewelry party, fur baby sitting later on this month and another project I'm working on (and I can't wait to share with you!).

That's what I've been up to lately! I should be back by the end of the week to share my monthly favorites for the month of May!

I hope you are all doing well!