happy 2011!

happy new year friends! i'm feeling very well rested after a good little bit away enjoying time with friends and family. i hope you all enjoyed a fabulous holiday as well! 2011 seems to be off to a bit of a rocky start, what with the transmission in my car giving up today, but i've still got high hopes for this year ahead. with my sights set on the future i thought it only proper to take a moment today and enjoy some of my favorite moments from this past year. 2010 was one for the records in my opinion! here's my own personal highlight reel...

kicking off the year with a day of sleds, home cooking, and game nights...

learning to embroider...

swinging in our hammock...

lots of road trips with barkley...

my first oil painting in years...

the master cleanse. it may not sound like a highlight, but it was quite a bonding experience!

our first garden...

tons of salvage yard trips to hunt for cast iron...

my first trip to hooters. again with the bonding...

two of our bestest buds, adam & steph, got engaged! evan & i are in the wedding in a few months. so stoked!

a few highly memorable beach trips...

and another amazing year with my mister...

i'm not so sure how 2011 can top this, but i'm gonna do my best to make it happen! so again i'll wish a very healthy happy new year to you. i'm super grateful for all of you and can't wait to share another year!

mmm mmmm good!

happy monday, i hope a lovely weekend was had by all! the mr and i had quite a busy weekend and i must admit i'm pretty happy when my peaceful monday rolls around. i realize that i am one of the few folks in the world who enjoys this day, so i won't linger on that thought too long.

today i wanted to share one of my new go to recipes. i mentioned in my last post that one of my recent obsessions is zucchini pasta. not only am i in love with it because it's so stinking delicious, but it's also so super easy to make and clean up after.

as you may or may not already know, i've been making an effort to incorporate more raw foods into my diet. since doing the master cleanse a couple of weeks ago, i now crave healthy delicious raw foods pretty much every moment of the day. more raw foods = more living foods = more energy going into your body = a happier me! i can say without a doubt that i notice a difference in how i feel when i'm eating less processed foods and more whole, raw, delicious goodies! so without further adieu, here is zucchini pasta in all its glory...

this has become my raw food bible. the recipes are so easy, and so far all fabulous!

the recipe...

the ingredients...

bell pepper, tomato, onion, basil, oil, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, zucchini, salt, pepper, and a spiral slicer. i purchased this slicer to really do the job right. i absolutely love it and would recommend it to anyone! you certainly don't need one to make this dish though. you can use a veggie peeler instead and make wider noodles. just as yummy!

the sauce prep work...

chop it all up and throw it in a food processor or blender. easy peasy!

the finished sauce... mmmmm!

making the pasta...

this slicer makes it ridiculously easy to make long spaghetti type noodles. some ended up being about 3 feet long and i realized i should probably go ahead and slice them up a bit before serving. it takes all of about 30 seconds to turn one zucchini into a bowl of noodles!

beautiful!

then just pick out your favorite pasta bowl...

evan and i always eat pasta out of these super cute bowls our friend lesli made us for a wedding gift.

and just like that you've got an amazing raw, vegan pasta meal you can feel fantastic about devouring! we went ahead and ate ours at room temperature and it was amazing, but you can certainly warm it up a bit if you like. the goal of eating raw is to retain as much of the nutrients as possible without cooking them away, so you just don't want to heat it above 116 degrees F.

i've made the pasta for lunch a few more times since this, and just had it with fresh basil, olive oil, and chopped sun dried tomatoes. it's been amazing each and every time i've had it. you simply can't go wrong!

if you're thinking about working some raw meals into your diet this book is a great place to start. almost all of the recipes use about 5 or 6 ingredients, and they're often things that you would already have in the house. i'm the kind of person that gets easily overwhelmed by cookbooks, but i've found this one to be a great intro into the world of raw food. amazingly easy, and equally as tasty! you can also watch the author, jennifer cornbleet, make this recipe here, and some of her many other creations here.

also check out her "not tuna pate". it's the perfect thing to keep in the fridge for a quick healthy raw lunch. i especially love it on a simple bed of arugula, with a drizzle of olive oil, a splash of lemon, and a bit of ground black pepper. yumm-o!

master cleanse- day eleven... bummer!

after coasting through days and days of just drinking the master cleanse mix, i hit a brick wall. i take full responsibility for it though, because yesterday i was not a very good cleanser.

i woke up feeling fabulous yesterday, lots of energy, cleansing business as usual. i was so busy all day though that i neglected to drink much of the lemonade. by not much i mean i had three glasses all day. as a point of reference for you, you're supposed to have about 8 to 12 minimum! this was not smart. a total of just shy around 200 calories in an entire day, a busy day too, is probably going to bring anyone down pretty low. this morning, day 11, i woke up feeling like poo! i was nauseous, and uncomfortable, and upon realizing that i needed to get some calories in me quick i started to make my way into the kitchen. this is when it got ugly. i started sweating, shaking, and slowly but surely blacking out. i grabbed a glass of water, dumped some maple syrup in it, and sat on the floor right there. after a few sips i was able to make my way to the couch, where i proceeded to spend the next 5 hours. no energy to move, just enough to put on the first season of arrested development and veg for awhile.

i full on intended to go for 12 days until this morning and it bothers me that i had to stop early. however, the reason i started doing this was to get a healthy new start, clean out my insides, and feel great! losing some weight was definitely part of the equation, but starving myself was most certainly not! if i'm not doing this the right way, then it's time for me to stop. this whole process has really taught me to listen to what my body is asking for, and right now it's asking me for some food! so i'm swallowing my pride and giving in a day early. i went to the full 10 days which was my original goal and i do feel great about that. i'm really excited to start working on my new plan too, incorporating lots and lots more raw foods into my diet. steph and i have been researching raw meals and i'm stoked to start working on some of those!

so for today it's onto orange juice. later steph and i will be making a large pot of fresh veggie soup and i'll also get to drink some of the broth from that. breaking a fast correctly is just as important as the fast itself, so i'll be sure to at least do that part right.

let the cleansing come to an end...


photo found on flickr

master cleanse- day seven, and some weekend goodies!

the cleansing is still going strong! it's day 7, and after a slow start to the day, i'm feeling fabulous. steph (my cleanse buddy) and i did a little fabric shopping earlier, and even hit the gym after that! i haven't updated in the past few days because on days 4, 5, and 6 i was pretty much just coasting through it. with the exception of some really low energy on day 5, it's been pretty uneventful. the weekend was a little bit tougher though, simply because it was beautiful out and it would have been so lovely to have a little cookout, and most weekend get togethers tend to revolve around food or drinks. somehow we all stayed strong and made it through!

i'm still thinking about going for 12 days instead of 10. i'm already at 7, and the thought of being done in 3 days is quite appealing, but i feel like i could really benefit from just a couple more days. it is after all, just two more days out of my life, not eating solids. in the grand scheme of things, not too big of a deal at all.

all cleanse business aside, check out what evan built in our backyard this weekend. a raised garden bed! lots and lots of veggies await!

she's a beauty!

on saturday we drove out to blue max and had them dump a ton and a half of soil in the back of evans truck. that baby was riding low!

then it was time to fill her up!

perfect!

barkley discovered that the soil was a nice cool spot to lay out...

...and take a much needed nap. gotta love that pup!

hope everyone enjoyed a lovely weekend as well!

master cleanse- day three

i don't have much time to write but i wanted to squeeze in a little update.

it's day three of the cleanse and things are still going pretty smoothly. definitely not as hungry today, and the headache has been gone all day. the headache has really been the worst part so far, so i'm really thankful to not have to deal with that today. i woke up this morning feeling fabulous, great energy level and no more brain fogginess!

an interesting thing started to occur today though, which i hadn't really noticed on any other days. i'm not hungry, yet i still have the urge to eat something. the past two days it was most certainly the hunger making me want to chow down! it's weird and i don't really know how to describe it, but i'm guessing that it's like what a smoker might feel when quitting. you have these habits that often revolve around cigarettes (or in this case food), and your body still just wants to go through the motions. it would appear as though i've arrived at the part of the cleanse that is mostly the mental struggle now. seeing things that look good, and smelling things that smell oh so yummy, it's all about the discipline now! it's tough, but i really enjoy challenging myself and pushing my body to see exactly what it can accomplish. it's not unlike the feeling i have when getting tattooed. only this will be lasting much longer. having your mind tell your body to do something it really doesn't want to do, and doing it successfully, is pretty amazing. challenging, but rewarding in both cases.

well i've got to head out. i'm delivering some more maple syrup to steph who had to work all day. i'm so thankful to have good friends along for this ride with me. it makes it a whole lot easier!

night folks!

~photo found on flickr~

master cleanse- day two

half way through day two and i'm still feeling pretty good. i definitely woke up quite hungry this morning, and the idea of drinking that quart of salt water didn't exactly sound like the most appealing breakfast in the world. then i did my morning weigh in and the day got a little brighter. i'm down 2lbs since yesterday... woohoo! after that bit of motivation i chugged that salt water like a pro!

today has had its tough moments though. all of that food from our celebratory last meal is now completely out of my system, so my body is really just adjusting to running off of the lemonade. i've had a little bit of a headache since last night, which i'm guessing is from the lack of caffeine. i was drinking around 2 to 3 cups a day previously. i also had a hint of nausea earlier, which i think was just from not drinking enough. i mixed myself up a nice fresh glass of lemonade and i'm feeling a little better now. other then that, my energy and mood are just fine. i of course don't have the energy i would had i had my 3 cups of coffee today, but i'm fine with that.

one thing that has been helping are these videos that adam (a fellow cleanser) found on youtube. it's just always so motivating to hear, or in this case watch, other people who have done it and survived. this woman ended up doing it for 40 days and not only survived, but had a whole change of lifestyle because of it. if you're thinking about doing the cleanse, or have done it, or just want to see a video talking about it, you can check it out HERE... she's just adorable and it's amazing to see the change in her face and body as it goes along.

that's all to report for now. i hope to have the hunger feeling go away come day three. i remember last year when i did it days 3 through 7 were a breeze. fingers crossed for that feeling again. i'm actually toying with the idea of going a little bit longer then 10 days, but we're going to have to see how this goes first.

master cleanse- day one

and so it begins...



my friend steph and i had been talking recently about doing the master cleanse. if you're not familiar with it, it's the one where you just drink the lemonade, cayenne pepper, maple syrup concoction for 10 or more days to completely clean out your system. you also happen to shed a few pounds in the process. while she and i are very excited at the prospect of some nice squeaky clean innards, it's the thought of melting off a few inches that is currently quite appealing to us. we have a good number of beach trips already scheduled for this summer, and we've been having a few to many big dinners and movie nights to feel good about it.

i'll be documenting this entire process start to finish, mood swings and all. i think it will actually be a motivating part of this next week and a half. i've done the cleanse once before, last year about a month before our wedding. i wanted to look and feel my best for the big day, and nothing makes that happen like 10 days on a liquid diet. i actually ended up needing to have my dress taken in again, which excited me, but didn't excite evans mom who was doing my alterations. she gave me a light scolding for doing something so drastic oh so close to our wedding. woops!

so last night we decided to go out and stuff ourselves silly in celebration of our last meal. we somehow even managed to convince stephs boy, adam, to join in with us. he wasn't sure how he felt about it then, but i just received word from steph this morning that he's stoked on it today. woohoo! no amount of convincing would get evan to join our little gang of cleansers. he tried it with me last year and only lasted around 10 hours. one day i'll get him to take part...

apparently you're supposed to ease yourself into the cleanse, but we decided to take more of a jump through a brink wall at it. we'll see how that goes i guess...

last drink... beerlao (thanks to steph for the recommendation)

last appetizer... tofu with sweet and sour dipping sauce

last supper... red curry with tofu, pineapple, and veggies. delicious!

we made sure to clean those dang plates!

adam made up custom jugs (leftover from last weekends sangria party, and that's one reason why we need to cleanse) for he and steph to take the mix to work with them in.

a small sampling to see what he's in for. the verdict... yummy!

i just drank my first liter of salt water about an hour ago, which you drink every morning to keep things moving along. is that too much info? it was gross, i won't lie. i don't really like salty things in general, so drinking a liter of warm, salty water in one sitting is not ideal. it's an important part of this though and it's all just mind over matter. we'll see how much my mind is conquering my matter come day 7...


in completely unrelated news... as you may already know from my previous post, yesterday was my one year etsy anniversary. what a fabulous day it was, i mean you already saw the celebratory meal! well, one of the etsyversary gods must have smiled upon me yesterday because Monkey & Squirrel was lucky enough to land a solo feature on OhDeeDoh! that's Apartment Therapy's childrens site! there might have been a happy dance or two around the living room. i can neither confirm nor deny that though...