Fruity Friday

     A few weeks ago, my mom and I were at Sears when we stumbled across a refrigerator on sale for $175 ! This was an amazing opportunity since I had been on the lookout for a refrigerator for my fruit. In the winter time it was ok to leave half of my fruit out on the counters when we ran out of space in my mom's refrigerator, but in the summer fruit can rot and/or fruit flies and spiders come into the house to get at them. Most refrigerator with any sort of decent storage space had been way out of my price range. 


     In the end I bought the refrigerator and about two weeks ago it arrived safe and sound. However, in all the joy of finding, buying, and recieving this refrigerator, I had forgotten in considering where I was to put the thing! Up So up until last Friday, my poor refrigerator sat in my mom's kitchen, laying dormant, awaiting to be used. 


     Last Friday was Farmer's Market day and there were lots of good deals in bulk buying organic fruit this time around, so I really stocked up. When my mom and I got home I knew that we weren't going to be able to fit my groceries and my mom's groceries into her refrigerator. It was then I convinced my mom to let me get her to move the refrigerator into the garage. 


Behold my brand new refrigerator and its first load of fruit and veg!! 

     It didn't take me long to devour all of this! My mom and I split the figs and oranges between us, but the rest was all me. Sunday is whe I get to replenish my supplies. Luckily my Mango and Dragon Fruit order came in over the course of the week. I also bought a watermelon today at my local Publix so I should be good until Sunday.

The fridge was filled with:

- A large Yellow Watermelon!

- Organic Black Mission Figs

- Organic Navel Oranges

- Organic White Cherries

- Organic  Georgia Peaches

- Organic Strawberries

- Belize Papaya

- Organic Grape Tomatoes

- Cherry Tomatoes

- Organic Iceberg Lettuce

- Organic Asparagus

- Organic Radishes

     As for today I had a completely clear schedule! I was so excited at the prospect this morning and decided to use it by spending most of the day exercising in whatever way I felt like! I didn't have to rush through the workout because there wasn't anything I urgently needed to get done and there was no one that I had to meet at a specific time. 

     When I finished working out, I was able to take my time in the showers and getting dresses, and I even stopped off at Starbucks to buy a water and eat my lunch (a bunch of bananas) in the sun! During my lunch, a few people looked at me as if I were mental! However, I might have misread their facial expressions and they might just have been jealous of my yummy bananas! LOL.

My lunch set-up (from left to right): Garbage baggy with banana peels inside, organizer, yet to be eaten bananas, journal, and Runner's magazine.

In summation of my day. . .

Sleep: 8 hours (getting better) 
Sunshine: 2 hours 
Water: So far 2 liter (working on my 3rd liter at the moment)
Food: Dragon Fruit, OJ, Bananas, and a giant Mango/Banana/Peach smoothie
Exercise: 22 minute run 6mph pace, 20 minute 3mph walk with my mom and the dogs, 10 minutes lifting weights (tried a new routine and felt muscles I didn't even know I had!), 18.5 mile bike ride (approx. 80% of the course being uphill) at an average 15 mph pace, and 22 minutes swimming laps freestyle as hard as I could!

I hope everyone enjoys there weekend and that it is filled with warm sunshine, a cooling breeze, refreshing water, and juicy fruit!! =D

Welcoming Autumn with Activity

September is gone and October is here! Here in the South the weather is finally lovely! Last week we had a bunch of flash floods so all the bridges had to be closed down (I live almost right next to two of them) which made getting around town quite difficult. But now the temperature high is in the upper 70z, there is sunny and breezy weather with clear blue skies, and almost zero humidity. Yesterday was the same and I spent a couple hours outside doing my CSNN studies while drinking a decadent Spirulina Smoothie of my own spontaneous concoction!

So I haven't really written anything for a few weeks but honestly I've been quite busy adding things into my schedule. I now swim for 30-40 minutes at Johnson Park about 3-4 times a week and I've started attending my brothers karate studio to finish my advanced brown belt training and hopefully test for my 1st degree black belt by nest Autumn. At the house I've been trying to cram as many hours of CSSN while still keeping the house clean, the laundry done, keeping my brother and mom fed, running errands. . . just life in general.

Despite all this life for me is going alright. Just yesterday the two books I ordered from

Amazon.com came in, the 2010 Poetry Market and Sarma's new raw food book! I love buying

raw food recipe books for when my mom or I has company to blow them away with the delicious

and nutritious wonder of raw food. I bought the Poetry Market book because I am hoping to publish

my book of poetry that I have been working on for 4 years now.

This is what I want to encourage everyone in, stay busy! I find whenever I start feeling depressed

or alone that if I go for a swim, a walk, or pick up a book, start a project, just do SOMETHING productive,

I can temper or even completely eliminate the down feelings I have. We are human and we crave stimulation.

When people don't receive physical and mental stimulation we don't form any new muscles in our

body, and the synapses in our brain don't create new connections. This result in a deteriorated mind and body,

who would want to live like that? I can't think of anyone.

When life is dull and you wonder what's the point, that is the moment you need to reach out

and make something out of nothing. We are the dominant species of this planet. Why? Because we

are smart and resourceful and we have zest for LIVING not just EXISTING. We what to do things better,

we want to do things better, we want to learn, and we want to discover. Society today wants to shove

us in a box with a label and have us stay there for the rest of our lives. Not me, and hopefully not you!

Peace out everybody! Until next time. SMILE!! :)

P.S. And here are some recipes and pics:

My New Book!! I really admire Sarma.

She is an amazing woman.

A kiwilicious breakfast. Did you know that kiwi, along with blackberries, are actually a great source of zinc?

My mom wanted pudding so she asked me to make her a raw pudding. We only had the bare minimum of food left since it was the end of the week, but a managed to whips this up for her breakfast.

Tropical Mousse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 large ripe banana

1/2 cup of fresh coconut meat

1/4 cup of dried coconut flakes

1/4 cup cashews (pre-soaking is optional)

1 1/2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped

1 tbs. agar agar flakes soaked for 10 minutes in hot water

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/4 tsp. real salt

juice from 1/2 a lemon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 tbs/ coconut water

Blend the 1st five ingredients until smooth, add the rest and blend until smooth and refrigerate overnight.

Serve 4

I made this smoothie as a little treat for my breakfast that same day. Not much left in the house but I'm a resourceful raw smoothie loving girl! ;)

Coco Cacao Beauty Smoothie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 cup coconut water

1 cup chopped frozen banana

1 rounded tsp. raw cacao powder

1 rounded tbs. raw cacao nibs

1 tbs. raw honey

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Blend until smooth

Serves 1

While studying this last Thursday afternoon I got really hungry. It was quite warm out so I decided to invent a new smoothie. OMG, I made this tried it, had my mom tried it, and we have both had this every. single. day. for the past three days. This smoothie tastes amazing, is incredibly satisfying, and gives me the most incredible burst of energy and mental clarity that I have ever experienced.

The Green Peachy Keen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 large peach (about 2 cups)

11 frozen strawberries or 7 fresh strawberries

2 frozen bananas

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp. Hawaiian Spirulina

1 1/2 "scoops" of stevia ( I use the Now brand)

1/4 cup water

Blend until smooth

Serves 1-2

Tuesday: Insurance, Lettuce Wraps, and CSNN

Today got off to a good start, with my usual morning quart of lemon water followed by 4 cups of freshly cut up sweet pineapple. At 11 o'clock (a.m.) my mother accompanied me to our insurance agency. Now that I am officially an adult it was time for me to get my own insurance. After some thought I finally decided on the 5 year renewable term. 

Being an a legal adult is feeling a bit . . . surreal. I was just a few weeks ago that I was still 17 and under the authority of my mom. Now I alone am responsible for myself, my actions, and the rewards or consequences that come with those actions. I guess I just haven't really gotten used to it yet.

When lunch time rolled around my mom and brother had gone out to TCB (our local cafe) so I got the whole house to myself. :) I decided to throw together whatever was around the housefor lunch and wound up with this:

The filling was made up off locally grown tomato, cucumber, red onion, minced garlic, dried basil, and real salt. Simple, fast, and tasty! After putting it together I sat back and enjoyed an old episode of the T.V. show Monk while ate. Afterwards was just spent doing various chores around the house: laundry, sweeping, emptying the dishwasher, etc.

At about 1:30 p.m. I grabbed a banana and headed out to run a few errands. I headed over to Johnson Park to renew my annual pass so that I can start swimming laps in the morning again, and visited a few local establishments to ask about any part-time job openings. I'll be filling out some applications for a job tomorrow, wish me luck!

After picking up my brother and dropping him off at karate I headed over to TCB to meet up with my mom after she finished teaching at PCLA, and to work on my correspondence study work for the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition (CSNN), I just finished the chapter covering water pollution. Most of it I already from independent research, but still, it blows my mind on just how many chemicals and metals that out in tap water. Yikes!

When I got home I settled in with my nightly quart of smoothie to relax and enjoy the rest of the evening. Tomorrow I'm aiming to work on a few projects as well as some more of my CSNN work. Hopefully all will go smoothly.

My new favorite smoothie! 

A combo of mango, banana, peach, raw honey, and cinnamon!