Soggy

After about a week and a half of really warm, gorgeous weather, it has finally clouded up and started to rain. Of course it would happen on my day off, but we really need the rain. The trees on my street have dumped their pollen all over my car that was once dark gray and now neon yellow. I went for a run outside on Wednesday morning (mistake) and after a while it felt like the back of my throat was powdered and I have to cut my run short. If the weather clears up I might go for one this afternoon, but who knows! I know I got a little ranty in the last post, but I'm just really bothered by what people know (or don't know) about what they're eating. I mean the kids on that show not only didn't know that french fries came from potatoes, but they didn't even know what a potato was and that is SAD.

Onto what I ate in the past few days! Since it's been warm, I've started transitioning over to breakfast smoothies from my usual oatmeal again. I usually do this every spring and fall because I just find warm breakfasts less appetizing in the warmer months and cold things don't really get me going in the colder ones. I made something I liked to call my "Chocolate Covered Greens" smoothie yesterday morning.
I used some Jay Robb Chocolate whey protein along with a scoop of Chocolate Amazing Grass, A whole navel orange and a HUGE handful of baby spinach, hence the green color. Whenever I make any sort of green juice the people around think it's totally gross and ask things like "Why are you drinking trash water?" or "What is that shit, oh my god it's green what's wrong with you!". Ease up guys, it's just fruit and vegetables and 9 time out of 10 the richer flavors of the fruits overpower the veggies so most of them aren't even noticeable. I've also eaten very little meat this week. Wednesday night I couldn't be bothered to cook my own fresh chicken after my hot yoga class so I bought a rotisserie one from the store. This was the first meat I'd had all week. We also had a sweet potato and some asparagus I needed to use up. It was pretty delicious.




I felt kind of weird eating meat after not having it for so long. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm trying to make my diet a more plant-based one because veggies are just good for you. I also don't like how the meat industry runs things and I love animals. Yesterday I got a book that I ordered called The Kind Diet in the mail. The book is by Alicia Silverstone (as if!) and it's basically a "diet" plan that emphasizes a plant-based way of eating. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but the recipes look awesome and I can't wait to try them out. I also received my order of all sorts of different skin care oils so that I can partake in my other passion, homemade skincare! Maybe, if my readers don't mind, I can share some of my tips and recipes for some of my favorite self-made skin products. Anywho, I'm off to the Fresh Market to get some veggies. The Fresh Market seems to be the only store other than the farmers markets that have really good produce. It's really sad that our area does not have a whole lot of places to go to get good produce. Maybe I'll share my purchases with you all later! Bye bye for now!

ILF= I Love Food

Now that the weather is warming up it's becoming my favorite time of the year not only because I can spend more time outdoors, but because many of my favorite fruits and veggies are coming into season! My mom and I usually plant a vegetable garden with peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini and various herbs. I love being able to bring home fresh veggies because not only is it better for me because we don't use and chemical pesticides, but also because I think eating real, fresh vegetables is really important. I've been trying to make my diet more of a plant based way of eating since vegetables, fruits and legumes are just bursting with good stuff. On a sort-of related note, I like to people-watch pretty much wherever I go. Maybe that's what drew me to poetry is the observational aspect of poems. I really like watching people at the grocery store. There have been more than a few times where I have seen a mom with kids-in-tow walking past the produce section. One of the kids will point to something like an eggplant or a sweet potato and ask their mother "what's that?". Usually these kids are between the ages of 5-10 and the mother can't recognize the vegetable either. It usually leaves me wide-eyed with my jaw halfway to the floor. The sad thing is that, like I said before, these aren't isolated incidents, I see it A LOT more than is necessary. Luckily, I grew up with parents who really valued fresh vegetables, especially my dad who grew up with a mother who kept her victory garden looong after the war was over. Unfortunately, when I got into middle school, most of what my parents had tried to do with fresh, healthy food got flushed down the toilet because bringing your lunch was no longer "cool" anymore. I was talking to my friend Kimmy about the stuff we used to eat at lunch in high school and how terrible it was. When I was in 8th grade, I had a bag of Sun Chips and an ice cream sandwich EVERY DAY for lunch. I look back on that and I'm embarrassed by it, but because of my struggles with processed foods I have gained such an appreciation of the fresh foods I eat today.

There's a show on ABC that has implanted Jamie Oliver, the famous British TV chef, into a West Virginia town named the unhealthiest town in America. His mission is to change the way people in that town look at food and has so far been focusing on school lunches, which from my experience, are anything but good for you. I really like this idea, though I tend to find Oliver a bit cocky for my taste. I think it's important to show a real place with real people and the effect that poor nutritional guidance has made on people's lives and health. We hear the statistics on news programs and the only visuals we really get are clips of overweight people being followed on busy sidewalks or people having their blood pressure checked. I think having a show with characters people can relate to will help people realize that they're not alone and there needs to be a change. I think The Biggest Loser has made a big impact in the realm of weight loss, but normal people don't have the time and resources to lose huge amounts of weight like that in a short amount of time, it's just not realistic and it doesn't really address peoples problems with overeating.

I hate to ramble on, but food and nutrition is something I'm really passionate about. In fact, for my Post-modern literature class I wrote about the commercialization of processed foods in post modern literature and had NO trouble writing 25 pages about it. I have a few friends who ask me how I can afford to buy healthier foods and voice their complaints about how healthy food is expensive. I make under $10,000 per year and I have no trouble buying fresh foods. The farmers market is my best friend. I can get fresh and organic foods way cheaper than at the grocery store. I also make my diet my number one priority. I don't buy a lot of clothes, I don't go on a lot of trips, I don't buy things I don't need. Most of my money goes towards food that is high in quality and good for me. I'm spending money on food now so I won't have to pay for health problems in the future.

Gotta love a good tea towel.

I had to share this with everyone because they're so freaking awesome. Today I received my much anticipated ToDryFor order of two beautiful tea towels! My parents have always had fun tea towels, many traditional ones with points of interest from across England or different species of flowers. I found ToDryFor in a magazine and they have the most fun tea towels I've ever seen. I ordered one for my mom for Christmas and I got one for myself at the same time, but it was so pretty I wanted to have it framed so I could display it in my dining room. I was pretty excited when they came out with a few book-inspired ones so I ordered myself a Virginia Woolf tea towel! They also had beach huts which are little huts people buy that line the beaches in England and there are a ton in Felixstowe where my dad lived before moving to Ipswich. Most are decorated to the point where they look like little doll houses and some even have a stove or a tv, why you'd need one at the beach I don't know, but my tea towel is awesome! All I need now is a windbreak and an ice cream!

I Ate Lots of Bread and Chocolate This Weekend!

There! I admitted it. It was Easter and seeing how Easter is a major British chocolate holiday I celebrated by eating Cadbury eggs. I also made bread in my trusty bread machine where I miscalculated the capacity of the machine and the dough rose to the point where it nearly pushed the lid off. The rest of my weekend eats had a lot to do with nachos and I must admit, they were freaking delicious. Look at how effing beautiful they are!



Anywho, that was about it food-wise for this weekend. I did have sushi with my parents on Saturday and had awesome spicy rolls. I could really eat sushi every day if I wasn't afraid of mercury poisoning. On the yoga front, I focused a lot on knee, hip and hamstring openers. Since I've started running again these areas tend to give me a lot of trouble when it comes to tightness. I'm also slightly knock-kneed so things like reclining warrior pose and full lotus are almost impossible. It's really hard for me to even lift one foot into my hip crease, let alone two because of my funky joints. I'm hoping more practice will help remedy this and I'm keep up with it! Now it's back to work. Tonight I'm seeing Kay Ryan, the US Poet Laureate speak downtown which is pretty exciting! It's like seeing a poetry gold medal winner! A lot of my MFA friends are going to the AWP conference in Denver and I'm totally jealous because not only do they get to go to a lot of talks about stuff I probably need to learn about, but Denver has MULTIPLE Whole Foods Markets AND a Lululemon. Why is Hampton Roads the last to get everything?! There are 2.5 million people here, where is our Whole Foods?! Oh well, I'm done ranting for now. I'm about to go out for a run so bye-bye until the next update!

PS- I thought I'd be clever and make my oatmeal with Nutella instead of my usual almond butter thinking it would be delicious. The outcome: not as good as I thought. Too sugary :(

Crap!

I was so good remembering to take pictures of my foods today (well I got two things) but I forgot to post them! I'm such a dummy. Oh well. This morning I had the usual Trader Joe's Oats and Flax oatmeal with cinnamon, a bit of coconut oil and a spoon full of almond butter. For lunch I had a Gardein Tuscan "chicken" breast with whole wheat angel hair pasta. The sauce is the tomato basil sauce from Giada DeLaurentiis for Target collection. I like to call it "Giada Sauce" which makes it sound really disgusting and perverted, but it's not! I tore up some fresh basil and added that in too along with some Parmesan cheese and it was good.

Exhibit A!
Afterward, Brian and I enjoyed my new favorite grocery store find: Oikos fat-free chocolate greek yogurt. That stuff is freaking delicious!

Today Was a Good Day

Holy Charizard I have followers! I know one of them and her blog is super fun so go read it (Hi Kelyn!) and the other person is a stranger which makes me excited because it means that I'm not the only one reading this! Today in Southeastern Virginia it was sunny and in the mid 70s. Since I don't work on Fridays I tried to stay outside today as much as I could. I went for a run around noon which lasted about an hour. It was great, there were a lot of people walking around outside. I ran through a pretty wealthy area of Norfolk where all the landscapers were getting their work done and I must have inhaled a pound of cut grass which was a bit unpleasant, but I still had a nice time. I saw a lot of cute dogs that were happy to be out after a stupidly long and COLD winter. I didn't think winter was ever going to end. In Hampton Roads, winter is usually dotted with unusually warm days every once and a while, but the winter all we got was snow and nor'easters which sucks more than anything ever. I had some serious SAD where all I did was watch videos on YouTube of soothing tropical beaches. All that did was make me want summer to come even sooner. Now that the warm weather seems to be here to stay I'm in a MUCH better mood. I thought about going to a hot yoga class today and making it three days in a row, but it's so pretty I just don't want to be stuck in a dark room when it's so fabulous outside. I took lots of pictures so I'll end this and move on to the visuals. Have a good weekend/Easter!

Update Fail

Lets face it, I'm pretty bad at updating this thing. In my defense, last semester was like being in Hell while still having to work and go to school. Everything that could have sucked sucked more and I just couldn't bring myself to exert effort onto anything other than what needed to be done right at that moment. Well that was long-winded, Ok I'm done now. The truth is I have stuff to say that Brian would really rather me type out instead of forcing him to sit and listen to my "problems".

Speaking of "problems" that's one thing I have issues with. I don't think I have problems. I've always had the idea that other people have bigger issues happening to them every day that I'll never have to experience, making my "issues" irrelevant and petty. I shouldn't complain because honestly my life is pretty good, directionless, but good. Is this healthy to feel as if I don't deserve to have problems? I guess it keeps me positive to an extent, but I do feel the occasional only-child rage with not being able to let them out without someone saying "You have a great life goddamnit, now stop whining".

Anywho, upon starting my foray into much higher education (grad students really are the worst people on earth) I've really tried to tie down what I want to do with my life and I've come up with a few things :
1. Travel- who doesn't? This probably won't make a fabulous career choice seeing as it's not really a career that exists for pretty much everyone (Damn you Samantha Brown/ Rick Steeves!)
2. Yoga teacher- In a perfect world where everything I did was awesome and ice cream was a health food, this is what I would want to do all day. I always said I didn't want to be a teacher, but in yoga classrooms no one else is allowed to talk, and that is greatness. My problems at the current moment with making this a reality are:
-My spare tire. I'm not afraid to say I have a muffin top and I'm also not kidding myself when I say it really effects my postures. If I could have it surgically vacuumed out of my midsection or wake up to it magically gone I think I would be much better at most things.
- Funds. I'm a broke as college student. My salary at work is int he 7th percentile for dental assistants with my experience level. That's WITHOUT counting my bachelor's degree. FML. Teacher training is not donation based, it's based on how much money they can get out of rich white girls like me.
- My parents may kill me or disown me. I'm one of those people whose parents have saved to put me through college and grad school. For some reason they see many opportunities for someone with an MFA in creative writing who has worked in a dentist office for 5 years to find something related to my field. I just want to do yoga mom and dad, and I wouldn't mind you funding it either..... :(

Where I'm going is kind of a white background with "NOWHERE FOR NOW, ENGLISH DEGREE. I MEAN REALLY? C'MON!" written in big rainbow letters (to soften the blow). I'm not saying it's "an open road full of lanes of possibility" because that's just fucking retarded (yes I do yoga and say 'retarded' without regret). I know I'm lost, my undergrad adviser said I could be whatever I wanted with an English degree because most people will take you just because you have a degree. I don't want to hate my life, but I also don't want to live in a trashcan that I'm too poor to insure. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if you want to give me $40million it would make my life easier, but I'd still like to provide for myself.

Well that was a rant. Oh well, hopefully I'll actually update this with useful things seeing as how my semester is almost over and I have NO SUMMER CLASSES. Booyah.