Everyday Road to Healthy

Well you would think between Deena and I, we could manage more than 1 or 2 posts a month, but apparently that’s not the case!  So here I am for my monthly blog post, although I really do have good intentions to write more.  Deena and I were just talking about it today, in fact.

I’ve been in a bit of a health rut.  Not sure "rut" is the right word.  I’m just stuck facing so many things I WANT to change and know I SHOULD change, that it is almost overwhelming to the point of just not doing anything at all.  It’s much like house cleaning.  I look around my house at all the things I need to clean or organize and I just become overwhelmed that I don’t do anything at all.  When instead I should be tackling one thing at a time.  Baby steps.

So I’ve done that.  I’ve decided to make one change every couple of weeks, or at least until it’s become part of my lifestyle, then I move on to the next thing on my list.

One thing I’ve wanted to do for a while is buy a juicer.  I’ve been hesitant for many reasons…do I want to invest $100+ in another appliance?  Would I actually use it?  Will it be easy to use?  Where would I put it?

But I followed on Facebook as my dear friend, Jessica, bought a juicer.  She would post pictures of her ingredients and then report back on how great she felt juicing.  She encouraged me, without realizing, to just do it! 

And so I introduce the Breville Juice Fountain Plus:

I compared prices and found that it was $150 pretty much everywhere. So armed with my 20% off coupon, I headed to Bed Bath & Beyond for my purchase.  I mentioned to the cashier that the coupon indicated in the fine print that Breville was excluded, but he kindly gave the coupon a try anyway, and the register took it.  Score!   All signs were pointing to me owning this appliance.

It’s about the size of a large coffee machine or Keurig, but honest to The Man Himself, it has become a permanent fixture on my counter.  I’ve made a lifestyle change, yay me!  I was juicing every morning, but I’ve cut down a bit to maybe 4 or 5 mornings a week.  It’s not that it’s time consuming to make the actual juice, but clean-up takes a few extra minutes that I sometimes don’t have.  I could leave clean-up for later, but then the pulp dries and it makes clean-up twice as long.

So what do I juice?  Here’s a sample list of ingredients for my morning juice:

So far I’ve stuck to fruity, green drinks.  Main staples are apples and/or pears and bananas.  Then I add a green or two to get my servings of veggies.  Kale and spinach are my favorite adds.  They pack a nice dark, leafy green punch without altering the flavor of the drink.  Other greens I add, but in smaller amounts, are cucumbers (I usually cut one in half) or a few stalks of celery.  These two veggies have a strong flavor so only add more if you REALLY like them.    Finally I will sometimes add a lemon and some ginger for a little medicinal kick.  Both of these ingredients have numerous health benefits so I like that I’m starting off my day on the right foot!

The juicer in action:

In order to get 2 full glasses, I have to use 2-3 apples or pears, 2 bananas, and a large bunch of kale or spinach.  Pineapple is another great add and will result in a large amount of juice.  I just don’t buy it as often as I do apples and pears.  My next experiment will be more of a vegetable flavored juice (think V-8).  I’ll report back on how that one goes!  I’m open to suggestions as well so if you have a great juice combination you like, please share!

So far I’ve been able to rely on a full glass of juice for breakfast to give me the energy I need to get me through a gym workout.  I am usually hungry before the lunch hour, which works with my schedule, because I am home in time to eat a healthy snack of some sort in the morning.  But there have been days when a juice will hold me over until lunch.

I am very happy with my purchase and feel good about my choice to get more fruits and vegetables into my diet.  You should definitely give it a try!

Happy Juicing!   

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Easter snuck up on me this year.  I think because it’s been unseasonably and unbearably COLD lately (it snowed earlier this week…what?!)!  It just doesn’t feel like spring.  But Easter is only a couple days away and, as is our annual tradition, we dye about a dozen eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide.

Every year I, along with millions of others, buy the commercially and chemically processed egg dye kits.  I remember using these kits as a child, and for the past 9 years, have used them with my own kids.  I’ve never considered looking at the ingredients before and certainly never considered it to be bad for you….until this year.  I made a conscious effort to look at the ingredients and did not like what I saw.  How could I have never looked before?

So I guess the argument is that it’s just on the eggshell, which gets peeled away anyway.  But what about this one?

How many times have you dyed an egg with a crack in it?  And how many times have you peeled said egg and found the egg white tinted the color of the dye?  AND EATEN  IT ANYWAY?!  Yup, been there, done that.

So, I decided this year to experiment with some natural dye ingredients.  I didn’t make a special trip to the grocery store for anything, but used what I could find in my pantry.  Here is what I came up with:

Left to Right:  turmeric, coffee, paprika and red wine

First I boiled my eggs.  I normally get organic brown eggs, but I didn’t think they would take to dying very well, so I caved and bought conventional, white eggs.

Then I prepared my egg dyes (since I was only experimenting with one egg per color, I made a small batch of each, but these can all be doubled):

For yellow:  1 Tbs turmeric, 1/2 cup boiling water, 1 tsp white vinegar

For brown:  just use a brown egg….kidding.  1/2 cup coffee, 1/2 Tbsp vinegar

For red/orange:  1 Tbs paprika, 1/2 cup boiling water, 1 tsp white vinegar

For lavender:  1/2 cup red wine (you can substitute grape juice but I only had wine in the house, duh), 1/2 Tbs vinegar

Place eggs in dye mixtures and forget about it (meanwhile let kids use the store-bought dye kit for the rest of the eggs just in case the natural dyes are a total failure…okay, just this once I did this since I was only experimenting!).

You can’t see them, but the eggs are hidden in these beautiful earth tones…2 of which I drink on a regular basis, and it’s not the turmeric and paprika!

After almost two hours, I took the eggs out and rinsed them under cold water.  And the results were….

As you can tell, the turmeric and coffee dyes were definitely the most “vibrant”.  The paprika came out very lightly speckled, and the red wine was very light.

I did read, during my research on ingredients, that they could be left overnight in the dye in the fridge, but I wasn’t too thrilled with my eggs sitting in liquid all  night for some reason.

So would I do this again?  Absolutely!  Every ingredient I used was natural and something I could pronounce!  The kids probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much because it doesn’t give the instant gratification and vibrancy of the chemical egg dye kits, but I’m willing to experiment with more colors next year to get better results.

Has anyone else tried natural egg dyes?  What ingredients have you found to work best?

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No, no, not my baby…well sort of.  My brother and sister-in-law’s baby….so kind of like mine, but not really.    My baby brother (10 years younger than me!) is going to have a baby….waaaaahhhh!  How can this be when it was just yesterday he was a 10 year old twerp and I was a young and fresh 20 year old college student?!  But alas, it is true.  He and his wife are having their first baby this spring, and it’s a girl!!  So naturally, I was thrilled when given the opportunity to host their baby shower.

I love hosting parties, I love being creative with the decorations, and I love “setting the scene” in the house.  I do not love it enough to do it for a living.  Holy moly I was exhausted by the time everyone left.  I think I stress so much about everything being perfect that I mentally just crash when it’s all over.  But I think it turned out perfect for a perfect couple to celebrate their perfect baby, if I do say so myself.

The color scheme was purple with an organic twist and I made most of the decorations.  First the tissue paper pom-poms I tacked to the ceiling (shhhh, don’t tell the hubby!):

I covered recycled food cans in craft paper and burlap and tied purple raffia around it to make flower pots:

Yes, that would be a dessert assortment platter!  In lieu of Hostess (boo!!) we had to go with Little Debbie!

And of course a homemade banner:

I made thank you notes for my sister-in-law and asked everyone to write their address on the envelopes:

And my favorite contribution, courtesy of an idea from Pinterest….a hot chocolate bar, complete with add-ons such as caramel, chocolate chips, crushed peppermint candies, cinnamon, coffee, marshmallows and whipped cream!

My new favorite additions to hot chocolate?  Cinnamon and peppermint!

But some things I know better than to attempt myself, and that would be cookies.  Sure, I could make a mean chocolate chip cookie, but nothing I could do would come close to the artistic talent of my friend of 2 Sweets.

The dots are a dangerously, perfect bite-sized cookie…next thing you know you’ve had 10 “bites”!  Yikes!

And the cute contribution of my sister-in-law’s best friend, a diaper buggy (so cute!!):

And my own crafty gift (of which my favorite part was ironing the itty, bitty, cutie patootie 0-3 month onesies!!):

So all in all, I think the party was a success.  Now we just need the baby!  9 more weeks to go!

The parents-to-be (look at that cute baby bump!):

And the hostesses with the mostesses:

I hope you enjoyed my weekend event as much as I did!

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