Green Pool

When I get my own apartment (hopefully with a balcony), I would love to do something like this:



Smaller scale, of course, since I wouldn't have a pool or need chickens and fish, but still an awesome idea.

Blog 2.0

Welcome to my new and improved blog! While I will still be delving into raw food adventures and culinary exploits, I also want to focus on re-dedicating myself to veganism and spreading vegan goodness. I have really been concentrating on the Jain/Buddhist principle of ahimsa lately, and I think one of the best ways to "do no harm" is through dietary choices. Ultimately, I think 100% raw would be great, and I very much respect raw foodists.

Right now, though, I want to focus on fresh, unprocessed, clean vegan food. I have no doubt that vegan food in general is a great way to respect life and the planet. While I may be using energy to cook some of the food I eat, I'm not partaking in an industry that pollutes, wastes water and ultimately disregards and disrespects the lives of sentient beings.

Anyway, that's where I am right now. I'm so grateful for all the support I've gotten from everyone, and I invite everyone who stumbles across my blog to stay for the ride.

Here are some of the principles I want to follow from now on. Whether or not I'll be 100% successful, time will tell. I hope that just introducing some of these things into my life will have noticeable positive effects:

• Daily meditation. Right now, I'm really researching Theraveda meditation and its benefits, and I'm thoroughly impressed. I figure that by incorporating this practice into my mornings, at the very least I'll start out the day on a positive note.
• No processed foods. If I want tofu, I'll make it myself. If I want almond milk, I'll make it myself. I want to avoid chemical additives as much as possible. Lately, I've been slipping back into my awful Diet Coke habit, and I want to get away from that and as many chemicals I can.
• Daily reading. My students are encouraged to read eight books a quarter. If they can do it, so can I.
• Yoga. I've always wanted to start a yoga practice. If taking a shot means setting my alarm an hour earlier, I'm willing.

 Henceforth, today will be known as the day freshness was born. Here we go!

Mechanically Separated Chicken

Thank you, Snopes.com, for reminding me why I don't eat processed chicken.

Mechanically Separated Chicken

Freakin' nasty.

Dietary enlightenment, take two.

What have I been doing the last two weeks? Struggling. A lot. I contemplated just abandoning this journal and starting over, but then I decided that the journey to dietary enlightenment is just as important as actually getting there, so here we go... again.

I did get two days at almost 100% raw. However, let's just say certain digestive functions indicated that I wasn't actually digesting anything. I don't know if I went for too much fiber, or too many greens, or what, but something wasn't working out. I'm not sure how much was detox and how much was what I chose to eat, but I fell off the raw food path, hard. I mean, we're talking not even resembling vegan food hard. And the sad thing is, one of the classes I'm teaching is even doing a unit on environmentalism. Several of my kids chose to write about how diet impacts the environment, and I definitely fell off the low-impact eating train.

Now that confession time is over, here's the new plan. I'm going to keep up the green smoothies for breakfast and hopefully lunch, too. I think something about blending everything up helped my stomach out. For later meals, I'm going for vegan, with a twist -- everything (almost) needs to be made from scratch. For example, if I want tofu, I make it myself. Almond milk? Homemade. The only exception I've come up with is pasta, because any homemade whole wheat pasta experiments I've attempted in the past have fallen apart. So, I told myself that whole wheat pasta with NO ADDITIVES is okay. That means whole ingredients only, and no egg. So, that's the plan and I'm sticking to it.

Another thing I want to do is re-name this blog. I haven't really thought of a good name, so if any of my wonderful readers have suggestions, suggest away! I have some other ideas about life in general that I'm going to post about later, but I did want to let everyone know I hadn't dropped off the face of the Internet.

Okay, so that's that! I'm off to take advantage of some bookstore teacher discounts. Adios!

T-minus three days.

Eek, getting close! This week, I weighed myself to get my grand starting weight (not pretty). I'm going to attempt to do 90% raw until Friday, or at least as raw as I can, with a few cooked whole grains interspersed.

That said, I decided that I'm going to actually post my starting weight. While embarassing for me, my reasoning is that I won't weigh that much for long, and I might even inspire myself with how well raw food works to make my weight healthier. Plus, I figure that if I do lose weight, I can more easily show how great raw food is if I keep close tabs on my starting weight, and my weight from week to week.

So, there you go. You'll be able to find my weight ticker by clicking on the navigation bar at the top of my blog. That will take you to my special ticker page, which I'm about to create.

Tomorrow morning, the plan is to get up at 5 in the morning and at least walk... possibly run. I haven't been able to sleep past 5, so I figured I might as well get up and do something productive. I guess it's all that increased energy I keep hearing about!

This will be my first official raw-as-possible day. Instead of thinking about all the foods I'm not eating, I'm trying to be thankful for discovering a pathway to health and vitality. I'm also trying the meditation thing. Honestly, I never thought I would be the "meditating type," but now, I look forward to having some time to center myself each day. If all else fails, this raw food experiment will at least have taught me that much!

T-minus five days.

Dear Diary,

Today, I made it through the Chick-fil-a drivethru without ordering ANYTHING for myself. I just kept thinking about the nice smoothie I was going to make when I got home, and listening to Jason Mraz to drown out the hypnotic crinkling of Chick-fil-a paper bags, and I made it!

Oh, and I'm going to try raw spinach in the next smoothie I make. This will be monumental, diary, because as you know, I hate raw spinach. Hopefully, though, if I blend in enough fruit, I'll be able to get all the wonderful spinach vegetables without the taste. I also got some blueberries (yum!) strawberries, black pears, and more kale. I'm pumped. For breakfast this morning, I didn't get my kale and I could seriously feel it later. It's good stuff.

My energy hasn't been that great today, but I think that's mostly to do with the fact that it's that special womanly time of month, if you know what I mean, diary. I have a little headache behind my eyes, and my ovaries feel like they're going to explode, but I'll survive, just like I do every month. One exciting thing, though! While my jeans are normally too tight to be comfortable because of water weight, now they fit just right! That must mean I'm doing something correctly! Yay!

I'm debating whether to post my actual weight on here when I weigh myself on Monday (that will be a week of being about 60% raw), but I figure I should probably just suck it up. Maybe I'll be glad I did, if I do end up losing the weight I need to. (I mean, WHEN! WHEN I lose the weight I need to! Thinking positively, here, diary!) Plus, I think there are actually people reading this, so maybe I'll inspire someone to join me on this insanity.

That's another thing, diary. I've had a lot of people ask me how the raw food thing is going because they've been keeping up with this blog. I'm seriously motivated to keep going now, and extremely grateful that I have a little audience. Thanks to them, diary, I think I'll be able to avoid the merciless siren call of the drivethru from now on.

Oh hey, diary, should I have been capitalizing your name through this entire post? Oh well, hopefully the grammar police will be kind.

Next up, Case 39. My dad and I are ringing in the month with a scary movie.

Talk to you soon, diary.

Erin

T-minus six days.

I've been a bad little blogger! I have a lot to report, but I'm going to make another post this evening (hopefully) about all of that. Meanwhile, my half-aunt (is that right?) Anne Marie suggested I post a donations button, since I'm trying to save for several raw food appliances, the first of which being a Vitamix Blender.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I know most of the people who read this blog are either students, teachers, or student teachers, so I sincerely hope that none of you feel pressured to donate at all! Even if you don't fall into one of the above categories, please, please, please don't feel obligated to give me money. Seriously, that's not my intention to pressure anyone.

However, if you happen to have an extra few bucks (or cents, or Euros, or Yen, you know, whatever) lying around, I would sincerely appreciate any contribution you can make. I promise that every penny will go toward a juicer (hopefully used, if I can find one... save the environment, and all that). And, anyone who donates (really, anyone in general!) is welcome to some fresh, raw juice at any time at all. I would be more than happy to share the fruits (har har) of this endeavor.

So anyway, please feel free to send a few pennies this way, and if not, again, that's completely okay! Thank you all SO much!