A little over a year ago, I started a mostly vegan diet. I still eat honey-chipotle salsa on my soy chorizo/potato/zucchini Hugo’s Tacos on occasion, but otherwise no animal products (meat, dairy, eggs, gelatin, etc) for this girl. And it’s been great! Once I stopped leaning on processed foods and meat/dairy substitutes, I started feeling good and looking good (I’ve lost about 10lbs since).
With the wedding next year and winter laziness (aka no desire to exercise) setting in, I’ve been feeling the urge to try to eat even healthier. I decided that Alicia Silverstone’s macrobiotic-inspired The Kind Diet would be perfect for me. Reading her book made me feel like veganism was a feasible option for the long term, so I thought I could tackle her “superhero” plan. It’s whole grain focused and eliminates processed foods and sugar.
And… I hate it. I’ve tried to do it before, but I’m always done for my breakfast. My favorite breakfasts are not even unhealthy by conventional standards. I like whole grain cereal with almond milk, fruit and spinach smoothies, peanut butter toast, and oatmeal with fruit and nuts. However, as “Superheroes” are supposed to stay away from nuts and view fruit as a “treat,” these aren’t exactly in line with her plan. So what is? Millet porridge, leftover rice with seeds in it, steamed kale, carrot/daikon tea. In other words, gross.
A few months ago, I tried the carrot/daikon weight loss tea, which you are supposed to drink/eat on an empty stomach before breakfast. It made my apartment stink, took way too long to prepare before work (even with some prep done the night before), and tasted terrible. This time, I decided to try the millet porridge. Even though it had onions, kombu, and celery, I though the sweet kabocha squash would redeem the dish, so I made it last night. When I tasted it while cooking, it wasn’t bad, but come breakfast time, I could not stomach it.
I ended up having some sourdough toast spread with tahini and jam (superhero approved) and orange juice (not approved). I made it out the door to work without passing out, so let’s consider that a victory. My lunch was lackluster leftover chili (not approved-too many spices), quinoa with basil and sunflower seeds (approved) and sweet potatoes (approved). So far, I’ve been very cranky today, but some raisins from a co-worker made a world of difference… So maybe I have a sugar problem but, admit it, this doesn’t sound like an exciting day of food.
I’ve ordered The Hip Chicks Guide to Macrobiotics for a second opinion, but for now, I think I am going to incorporate the principles when I can and eat my usual healthy breakfasts. I guess this means more brown rice tempura bowls from M Cafe (above) and less sweet peach tea, mac & cheese, and cheeseburgers (all vegan) from The Veggie Grill (below).
Even though we’re still 271 days away from the wedding (thanks for the countdown Crate & Barrel), D and I decided to go to a Crate & Barrel registry party a couple weeks ago. Ok, I decided, but he totally got on board!
I wasn’t sure how often they had these parties (though I’ve since learned it’s once a month with more in October and February), and it sounded like fun, so we headed to Pasadena at 9 AM on a Sunday. D enjoys few things more than sleeping in on weekends, so that’s true love people!
Sure enough, it was fun. They had free breakfast, free vases, and free samples from their products. I most enjoyed the veggie chili from their slow cooker and the fresh apple juice from their juicer. We registered for what we felt was a lot of stuff, but is probably less than average.
We already have everything we need for our current place together, and we won’t be getting a house anytime soon, so it was mostly upgrades to what we already had, and a few things we thought would be fun to have, like a juicer and a grill pan. However, it was hard for us to justify asking for so much.
I really wanted to do a more charitable registry, but we knew people always just buy gifts anyway, so we’d rather have stuff we actually would use rather than accumulate waste with what we don’t need. Also, I tried to set up our registry through I Do Foundation (which helps give 3% of purchases back to charities), but it was hard to use and took more effort than most of our guests would probably take to actually get the charity credit.
It’s still important to us, so we will probably share our favorite charities on our wedding site and we have a fun charitable favor idea picked out, but we’re ok with this one of many wedding compromises we anticipate having to make. But, since that compromise involves us getting presents, I guess we can deal ;).
And of all the fancy stuff we could have registered for, this bedside carafe (image above via Crate & Barrel) is our favorite thing…
Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.
I’ve never felt compelled to watch Oprah’s new channel, but when I heard a documentary I was looking forward to, Miss Representation, would be aired, I set my DVR right away. I finally watched it on Friday night with my fiance, who is a cool enough dude to enjoy watching feminist films with me.
The documentary was produced, directed, and written by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of California’s Lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom. I’ve been following his career for a couple years, and have a lot of respect for him, so I am not surprised that he has such a cool wife!
The basic gist of the film is that the media’s depiction of women is distorted and leads to body dysmorphia, eating disorders, low self-esteem, and many other issues for young women. These are not new ideas to me, but I thought this film told that story in an interesting, compelling, and moving way.
It’s really hard to convey exactly why, but I was very inspired by it. I want to make an effort to be more conscious of my media consumption choices and of my life choices too. I took the pledge on their site, and they sent a helpful email reminder with steps you can take to make a difference:
1. Tell 5 people about the film and share one thing you learned from watching it.
2. Parents- watch TV and films with your children. Raise questions like “What if that character had been a girl instead?”
3. Remember your actions influence others. Mothers, aunts and loved ones- don’t downgrade or judge yourself by your looks. Fathers, uncles and loved ones—treat women around you with respect. Remember children in your life are watching and learning from you.
4. Use your consumer power. Stop buying tabloid magazines and watching shows that degrade women. Go see movies that are written and directed by women (especially on opening weekend to boost the box office ratings). Avoid products that resort to sexism in their advertising.
5. Mentor others! It’s as easy as taking a young woman to lunch. Start by having open and honest conversations with a young person in your life.
I truly intend to take these steps to heart, it’s not that hard to do these little things.
I hope you get a chance to see this movie and are as inspired as I am.
I had been feeling antsy for some wedding crafts (or for any creative outlet really), so, two weeks ago, as soon as we booked our wedding venue, I headed to Michael’s Crafts. My first task? Coming up with a creative way to ask my wedding party to be a part of the wedding…
First, I started with the “minis” as my mom has dubbed them: the flower girls and ring bearer. I re-used pouches I got from my friends’ wedding favors and filled them with fun stuff for my nieces and nephew- Kung Fu Panda pencils and cards and a Ring-Pop. At Michael’s, I found these cute wooden shapes and some alphabet stamps, that I can already tell will be used a lot in the wedding. I stamped out their names on the shapes and a message on some cardboard left over from an old craft. I hot glued the shape to the cardboard with some sage-colored ribbon and sent them off to my excited flower girls and ring “burier” as he calls himself.
My fiance even got into the action, by making a man craft for his groomsmen. He made tags with a silly pun and tied them onto mini bottles of Knob Creek whiskey.
My biggest challenge was my bridesmaids. I didn’t know what to do for them, until I saw these cute mini-chalkboard stakes and everything clicked. I bought mini-succulents at Lowe’s and wrapped them with strips of a recycled grocery bag stamped with our wedding date and my bridesmaid’s names. This was harder than it looks. It took awhile to get the strip size right and I had to hot glue them to the pots. The other challenge I ran into was writing neatly with chalk on a tiny surface. After one came out looking like my ring bearer wrote it, I switched to a silver permanent marker, which worked great!
Everyone loved their gifts and, despite the hard work, I really enjoyed making them.
When I was a little girl playing house, I always pretended to be 25. I’m not sure why, I just thought it was the perfect age. In my version of house, sometimes I had two babies, sometimes just a boyfriend, and one time, around Christmas, I was dating one of Santa’s elves…
Yes, I was a weird kid, but here I am, on the eve of my 25th birthday, thinking about why I held this age in such high regard. Now, I’m not concerned at all that I don’t have two babies or any elven love-interests, but I do feel that this is a milestone year, and I should make the most of it to make my little girl self proud.
And this will be a big year. The biggest thing I have to look forward to this year is getting married to my best friend. Yes, my little girl self would be pretty stoked about that. I have a lot of wedding planning to do between now and next July, but I want to make sure I don’t neglect the rest of my life during that time. So, I’ve put together a list of some goals for this year.
Some of them will be boring (coming from a girl who only asked for a salad-spinner for her birthday) but some of them will be fun (coming from a girl who received silly straw glasses for her birthday). This is more for me than for anyone, but I hope that if anyone is reading this, you’re inspired to set some goals for yourself or tackle these ones along with me. Here we go…
GOALS
- Set a regular cleaning schedule for the apartment.
- Make a creative space for myself in the apartment, besides on the couch in front of the TV.
- Volunteer more. Once a month minimum, twice a month ideal.
- Try different workout classes and find something I enjoy doing to stay in shape.
- Keep a better budget. Rather than just be thrifty, actually know what I’m spending.
- Keep this blog up to date. Ideal goal- posting three times per week.
- Figure out more easy weeknight dinner options, so we’re not eating tacos and pizza all the time.
- Read more, independently of my Kindle, by going to the library.
- Learn a new skill.
- Get one of my posts/writings published on a website other than my own.
- Make more time for girl-time with old friends and new.
- Go to the dentist (yes, I’m embarrassed, but it’s been awhile).
- Go to the chiropractor and figure out why I’m so creaky all the time.
- Eat less white flour and white sugar.
- Floss more.
- Organize my closet and find a better way to store my shoes.
- Be more on top of our laundry situation- this includes putting clothes away right way!
- Fix the pair of shoes that have been sitting under the bed for 2 years.
- Organize our files/paperwork.
- Sort through the box of mementos my dad sent months ago.
- Tackle the unending pile of clothes in my hand wash pile.
- Figure out what I want to be when I grow-up.
