April Is Full Speed Ahead!

HI!!!

Scrambling to stay afloat during this crazy busy week!  Baynanza, a Girl  Scout retreat, multiple birthdays (including one BIRTH day with a brand new nephew), school field day, Girl Scout Leader Appreciation Day, and more!  This week has been PACKED!

Today I finally had a chance to slow down and  B R E A T H E.  Even though I spent some time working, I didn’t have to run anywhere and that was relaxing in and of itself!

While I worked, FabHubs was busy on his new project!

We have composted for years  and have a huge bin full of rich compost ready to go.  We have talked for years about having our own garden but have never gotten around to it.

Our lovely compost bins (made from leftover fence posts when FabHubs rebuilt sections of our fence):

A couple of months ago, Eating Well ran this article, which I left in the bathroom for FabHubs to “discover.”

Garden plan, how to get started and all!

It worked like a charm!  For the last few weeks he has been so excited about planting our own garden, and last week he went out and got some seeds…and now we are the proud owners of these two lovely plots:  Yes..they may look like dirt patches…but they are our new edible garden!  the mounds are for cantaloupe, and we also are growing carrots, tomatoes, bush beans (what are bush beans?????), corn, eggplant, bell peppers, romaine, kabocha, and pumpkin.

The kabocha, eggplant, and bell peppers are not from seeds we bought, but saved from organic veggies we ate from my weekly produce delivery.

I am very excited to see how these do!

We also like to toss the crowns of pineapples into a section of our yard.  It is amazing how they take root and grow!  Earlier this week I went out there to check on them and was amazed to find these little guys!!! SIX of them in total!  These little baby pineapples are so cute!  Can’t wait to eat them…we DEVOUR pineapples in this household!  It is one of the rare fruits that all five of us are major lovers of!

Quite a few dinners this week have been in restaurants…something very rare for us.  I think we ate in restaurants more this week than we have in the past four months!

Aside from feeling not as healthy, that also makes it challenging to use up our produce before it goes bad.

Tonight’s dinner put a major dent in our produce stash!

First, since we were so hungry, I made a snack of some raw baby carrots, grape tomatoes, and sugar snap peas, all received this past Monday in the delivery!

Crunchy sweet and delicious!  I love sugar snap peas raw.  It is such a crime to cook them!!!!

We finished these in no time…

For dinner I roasted a large sweet potato alongside a few rutabaga I also received on Monday:       Some sauteed asparagus and broccoli… And the main dish of zucchini burgers…I had several weeks’ worth of zucchini that had to be used up!!!  I still have a couple left though.

The final result…

I loved how FabHubs about ketchup on his “burgers” (he is not a fan of zucchini) and when I suggested tomato paste or sauce instead HE WENT FOR IT!!!  And afterwards said he really liked it as an alternative!

Weekend is not done yet…My Birthday is tomorrow!  A fine wrapup to a full week!

Birthday Week…and Nature Is Calling!!!

Oh boy do we have a PACKED weekend!  This time of year, every year, seems to fall into the realm of chaos for us.

First of all…we kick off what we affectionately call “birthday week” in our family.  Starting with FabPreteen on April 20 (she will not be a preteen anymore so I guess I have to change her name!); my cutie nephew on April 22, and ME on April 25!  Plus, this year I am getting a brand new niece or nephew on April 21!  (traditionally in our family we never find out in advance!!!  This will be grandchild #10 for my parents…and none of us ever learned the sex before birth.  Can you believe people still do that!…it is actually fun!)

So…tonight we will have a family dinner for Ms. FabsoontobeTeen; tomorrow morning we head out for Baynanza:

(from the website):

What is Baynanza?

The early 1980's marked the beginning of a monumental effort by Miami-Dade County to save Biscayne Bay. The Bay was suffering from pollution its marine environment was in steep decline. Baynanza was created as part of a larger effort to save the bay.

Baynanza, now in its 28th year, is a celebration of Biscayne Bay as one of our most important ecological and economic systems. While Baynanza includes more than 50 great events spanning from March to April, the event that has become nearly synonymous with the celebration is the Biscayne Bay Cleanup Day.

On April 18, 2009, this event drew a record number of more than 8,500 community volunteers to the shores and islands of our Bay. They collectively removed more than 32 tons of garbage that had accumulated along from Biscayne Bay's shores.

We are big nature lovers and really enjoy camping and the outdoors, so we are looking forward to doing our part in this major South Florida event!

Speaking of nature…Did you know that this week is National Park Week?  All entrance fees to the 392 National Parks will be waived from April 17-April 25.  We have the Everglades National Park  down here…and we go several times a year.  Not sure I will be making it over there this week though.

So then after Baynanza, we rush home to get FabPreteen ready for her reward trip for selling 1000 boxes of cookies…then after taking her there I will head over to a blogger meetup (so excited!!!)…and then home to rest…until Sunday!

Sunday I will join FabPreteen in Day 2 of her reward trip, which is spa day!!  Manis, Pedis, Massages..and more! 

Then home for a quick dinner…and off to a play with the family!

WHEW!  The rest of next week looks pretty much the same as the weekend. 

We almost never eat out but this week with so many activities will bring lots of eating out!  Let’s see how I do among all of the temptation!!!

Spring is here…what kinds of things will you be doing this weekend???

Spring Break 2010, Part One Continues…..

Sunday morning we had another full day planned.

We started off with a hearty breakfast.  Somehow over the last few weeks we ended up with over 10 pounds of organic russet taters and needed to start making a dent in them.   FabHubs packed them so we could use them…and use them he did!  He made these ridiculously massive (but delicious) potato pancakes!  We had those with the organic eggs I order alongside my weekly produce delivery.

Can’t forget the coffee!  We are double-fisted coffee people…Espresso in one hand and French press in the other…camping or not!

The rest of the day was spent shopping in the old part of the city!  My favorite find was some vegan organic deodorant which so far seems to be working really well! 

I didn’t take many pictures of us shopping..too busy browsing!

We had a ghost tour planned for the evening, so we decided, instead of eating dinner out, to eat lunch out and eat our snacks and sandwiches for dinner while we waited for our ghost tour.

I found a great little restaurant on the street we were on…I had some very unhealthy but delicious coconut shrimp.  I ordered the fruit salad alongside and I was very excited about this…but it turned out to be canned!   A big let down.

By the time we reached the end of the street the trolleys had stopped running and so we had a long but scenic walk back.  This is the day my pedometer logged my 6 miles!  Maybe!

We were early for our ghost tour, so we go the cooler out of the car and sat in the parking lot and had our sandwiches, fruits, and snacks while we waited. 

The kids had begged and begged for this ghost tour but I was not really thrilled about it at all.   It took us all around the city after dark…and (gulp) back into the jail at night.  I didn’t mind the city tour, but I was seriously not into the tour back into the old jail.  At night.  This was a place of horror that already creeped me out during the day…at night it took on a whole life of its own!

Thankfully we survived!

We got back to the cabin and while the kids zonked to bed…we had an adult beverage by a campfire!

The next morning was checkout time.  Breakfast was simple this day..cereal and fruit.  I had pictures of these but I can’t seem to find them!

After packing up, we went back to the old town to visit the fort!       After the fort we took a final ride on the trolley to hear about the reset of the historic parts of the city…then back to our car for the long ride home.

Leg one of the trip complete…we will be home for two days and then down to Key West for another few days of sightseeing!

Check out more of our Spring Break 2010  Sites and Eats:

Spring Break Part One, St. Augustine

Spring Break Home Again Intermission

Spring Break, Key West Day One

A Sublime Meetup

I do love meetups!  In the more than (gulp) 15 years since I have been using the internet I have had the occasion to make and meet many great friends online!

I have one group I met online at least 12 years ago, most of whom live in my city.   After getting together many many years ago we became fast friends and while we don’t get together often enough, we do try for at least once a year…and still keep in touch regularly online.  

I also recently had a fun meetup with some other local Miami healthy living bloggers…meeting people for the first time you feel you “know” because you have been friends online or at least following them online is so much fun!

So recently when one of my favorite bloggers, Angela from Oh She Glows announced she was coming to Florida, and was going to have some blogger meetups I was seriously excited!

Since she was coming to Ft. Lauderdale, not Miami, it was going to be a bit of a drive for me.  She wanted to meet at Sublime, THE vegan restaurant to go to in South Florida, taking my excitement level up another notch…I had been looking for an excuse to drive all the way to Ft. Lauderdale to try Sublime for a while!

I emailed her and offered to make the reservation for our group…when she emailed me back and told me to go ahead, she had me make the reservation for 15 people…meaning I would also get to meet 7 other South Florida bloggers!  This was getting better and better!

After going back and forth a bit with the restaurant and the party size, they told me our large party would be at two tables side by side in the back of the restaurant.

Wednesday night I piled my family into the car (we usually come as a package deal!) and up to Ft. Lauderdale we drove.

Our reservations were for 8 p.m., but because we had such a long drive and knew were going to be hitting major rush hour traffic, we left really early!   So we got there really early!  We were the first ones there!

Other than Angela and her husband Eric, I had absolutely no clue who else was coming!

As we walked up were greeted by these beautiful windows…the water falls down them on the inside, although you can sit and watch the water stream down the outside.  FabPreteen has declared she wants these in her room.  I told her I would see what I could do.

First to arrive after us were Eliana and Marc from Not All Who Wander Are Lost.  I heard them ask the front desk about the table and the front desk pointed to me and told them their party was here…so they looked at me and since I didn’t look like Angela, they seemed like they thought the front desk might be wrong!

I went up to them and asked if they were with our party, and when they said yes I introduced myself and asked who they were…their names didn’t mean anything to me, but when Eliana had told me about their blog I knew who they were right away…I had visited their blog!

Pretty exciting!

At this point the hostess seated us and we chatted while we waited to see who else would arrive.  It was like a continuous blind date…the hostess would head towards our table with someone who would look sort of lost (the only one we all knew was Angela!) and we would introduce ourselves and ask who she was…and what her blog was!  Not everybody had a blog though…some people just followed Angela’s blog and came to meet her.

When Angela and Eric arrived everybody was very excited…yes, she looks even more glowing in person!  She sat down at our table, which by now was getting a bit crowded.

But even though our table was for 8, as people arrived we kept scooting over, closer and closer together (and ignoring the second table), until we had 12 people seated around our table.  I noticed that even though the restaurant had specifically told us we couldn’t put the tables together, they kindly overlooked us all cramming into the one table and eventually even seated another party at it!

Here we all are…our server was great with the pictures.  She  happily took pictures with at least three different cameras…and even looked to make sure they came out good, retaking when necessary.  She was so patient with it I wondered if she was a blogger herself!

Here we all are around the table…starting with FabHubs, Me, Marc, Eliana, Lesley, Angela, Eric, Jelena, Stacey, and Kelly. 

It was so much fun…and I was excited to find out that everybody else was actually from Miami (except Stacey who is from Boca but lived in Miami) so I know a Miami blogger meetup is in our future!

Now on to the food….FabHubs knows I love eggplant, so he ordered the eggplant rollatini for me, filled with “ricotta.”  This was really delicious and I thought the filling was remarkably close to ricotta…if I didn’t know I never would have guessed!

FabStepson and FabPreteen each enjoyed a Caesar salad.  FabSS devoured what he told me were tofu croutons, but FabPT didn’t like hers…when I tried one I found it wasn’t tofu but artichoke!  No wonder Miss Picky didn’t like them!  I was happy to relieve her of those…I love artichoke! The beers all had some funky names like Hazed and Confused and more.  I love dark beer so I ordered a Mocha Porter Rogue which was so good! A surprise from the kitchen, compliments of the chef!  Pesto Polenta!  We passed this around and shared (two plates of it).   This was really good as well.   I have been wanting to make polenta for a while…this reaffirmed for me and I know I will be breaking out the cookbook to give it a try.My unadventurous family all ordered the same thing…Margherita Classico.  Yes…all three of them.   The same thing.  I did try a piece and while the crust was a little thinner than I normally like the pizza was excellent. Looks like cheese, doesn’t it?  

It was rather humorous to hear the discussion going on between these two about the cheese.  FabPT (who always seems to get what’s going on..she is a girl) told FabSS that it was not real cheese.  He, on the other hand, insisted that yes, this was real cheese, real mozzarella.  They went at it for a little while on this issue.  But again, if you didn’t know, you probably wouldn’t guess…it was that good!!

I ended up going with the “Four Sides” dish,  because I loved all the sides.  I am surprised I ended up being a bit disappointed!

The sides I chose were the grilled asparagus, whipped potatoes, blackened tofu, and garlic broccoli.

The asparagus was great…everything else was actually kind of bland and looking back I wish I would have chosen the tofu grilled instead of blackened.  The “blackening” was actually a dry powder coating on the outside, not blackened like I am used to.  Next time I would try one of their signature dishes instead. After dinner, Angela passed around her Glo Bars as a wonderful treat for everybody.  The kids promptly tore into theirs…FabHubs and I waited…until the drive home where we shared ours!

Leaving the restaurant we had a couple more photo ops, and then very slowly chatted our way out to the parking lot.

It was sad to say goodnight…but it was late and we had to go…kids still had to get up for school tomorrow and they were dragging.

What a fun evening!!!! 

Two more blogger meetups I one day hope to have…with my Losing To Win buddies (mostly out in Utah and Colorado) and my SBI support group, spread all over the eastern part of North America!

Blogger Giveaways

Since so many great bloggers give away so many fun things, I have decided to add a little giveaway section at the bottom of my posts. 

Click through to check out some new blogs and enter some giveaways:

Gliding Calm is giving away a raw food book to try some new raw food recipes!

Tricia at Endurance Isn’t Only Physical has an amazing Kettleworx Essentials package to give away.  I sure want to win this!  While you are there read her incredible story of how she lost over 100 pounds.  She is very inspirational (and since she lives in Ft. Lauderdale I was quite disappointed she was out of town and not here for the meetup!)

Good luck!

Eating On The Road

Whew!  What a weekend!

Saturday was spent at Girl Scout Day at the Kennedy Space Center.  We woke up at 3:30 a.m. in order to be at the chartered bus by 4:45 a.m.

There was an organized day for Girl Scouts with all sorts of activities and we had to be there by 9:45 a.m.

The night before I made a list of things to pack, and put into the cooker whatever didn’t need refrigeration.  I also put some water bottles into the freezer as well as some O.N.E. coconut water.

I definitely wanted to be prepared for the long bus ride and for the day at KSC.  I knew we had veggie burgers available for us in our included lunch…but I also knew the other stops on the road would probably include fast food of some description and I wanted a healthier alternative for FabPreteen and myself (only of us was excited about that preplanning…the other was really hoping for a rare fast food indulgence!)

Once again I was lousy with the photos!  But I packed:

• Two organic pears
• A thermos of coffee
• Waters
• Coconut water
• Two organic apples
• Organic sweet mini bell peppers
• Organic carrots
• Laughing Cow cheese
• Stacey’s Pita chips
• Larabars:  Two minis and one regular
• Cliff bars, for FabPreteen
• almond butter packets
• Peanut butter and jelly sammies for the FabPreteen
• An incredibly awesome wrap for me which consisted of an organic avocado, some of my amazingly delicious homegrown (by me!!) sprouts,  organic tomatoes, organic scallions, organic cucumber slices, and some S&P on a multigrain Flatout wrap. 
• A gigantic salad…with all sorts of veggies, feta crumbles, and chickpeas
• A square of Ghirardelli dark chocolate for yours truly

Before we left in the morning I filled the thermos with coffee and made us some Mom McMuffins!  (scrambled eggs and cheddar slices on an Arnold Sandwich thin).

By 8:30 I was starting to get pretty hungry.  I thought it was kind of early to be eating…but as I started to think about it I had eaten breakfast at 4:30 a.m.!  We weren’t scheduled to be there until 9:45 and I knew lunch would not be served until noonish of course…so I broke out the snacks!

Over the next hour I had a pear, some Stacey’s, and a miniLarabar!  This was enough to get me by.

When the bus stopped for the rest of the troops to get coffee and snacks, I loaded up a mini backpack cooler I brought to tote around inside NASA.

I brought with me one of the coco waters, regular waters, pears and apples, carrots, Cliff bar, and Larabar.

FabPreteen and I arrived looking quite haggard after only a few hours of sleep..hair crazy blowing in the wind!  My hat went on right after I saw this!

While there we got to talk to an astronaut…..

….stand underneath the actual Saturn V rocket that was flown as part of the Apollo program.  We looked and felt really insignificant under this….it is 36 stories tall and lying on its side here…it goes down the length of this very very very long building!!!

…and see the Discovery shuttle already out at the launch pad ready to go up on April 5!  The picture doesn’t do it justice with my little point and shoot!

Lunch was a little eventful…I had called to find out about vegetarian options and was told lunch would be a choice of hot dogs, hamburgers, or veggie burgers. 

But we were the last group to get lunch and by the time we got there, they only had hamburgers and ONE veggie burger.  NOT COOL!

I was just not going to eat and give the veggie burger to FabPreteen…but she ended up eating a burger (which she has not had in at least six months) and gave me the veggie burger. 

I was not happy at all and found that to be quite unreasonable!!!

In addition to the burger, they included a drink (we chose bottles of water…although FabPreteen did beg for the soda!); a bag of chips (which I ate); and a bag of cookies (which I ate).

No fresh fruit..no salad..no veggies.  So I broke out my carrots and munched away on those!  I try to make it a goal to have some fresh fruit or veggie at every single meal!

Otherwise…the day went well and we were back on the bus by 6 p.m. to head home.

At dinnertime, sure enough they made a rest stop/fast food run.  I broke out the PB&J for dear daughter and I had my wonderful wrap!  Which I even remembered to photograph!

With flash and without…lighting on the bus was awful!!!!      We finally arrived a little after 11 pm.  totally exhausted!!

Foodwise the day ended up working quite well for me (other than the veggie burger incident) because I packed and planned…but I have to say that quite a few people commented (with wry humor) on my packed cooker and the backpack I brought in…as if I had packed for a longer trip.

I am not sure why I am expected to settle…at the rest stop many of the places were closed and someone mentioned to me that there was very little available for someone who didn’t eat meat…I was content because I had brought healthy food that I really enjoyed..plus I saved a whole bunch of money by packing my own.

On trips do you usually take your own foods or do you get whatever is available?  What are some of your favorite easy to pack meals and snacks?

I Love Oats In A Jar!

Remember that empty jar I forgot to use last week?  Well I continued to forget to use it for oats in a jar a la Kathy and every day I would kick myself when I remembered it, as I went hunting for the almond butter to put in my already cooked in a bowl oatmeal! 

Yesterday morning the light bulb finally went off at the right time!!  YAY! 

Here was my empty jar of almond butter all ready to go!

Into the jar went half a chopped pear, a handful of blueberries, 1/3 cup of oats, 1/3 cup of almond milk, and 1/3 cup of water! Into the microwave it went for 3 minutes at 50% power and it came out like this!  Really it looked just the blueberry version of the artificially flavored and sugared up instant packets…but it was 100% natural and mostly organic!  (only the oats were not organic).

Can’t forget to add the yummy scrapings off the lid! This was absolutely delicious.

Along with my second dose of espresso for the day!  One day I will be giving this up….but not yet!

Lunch was fresh and enjoyable too!  I saw that Karilynn started a water challenge on the Losing To Win site so I decided to jump on in.  I need to be drinking four of these gigantic 18 ounce glasses a day!  (Card added for your comparative viewing pleasure)

I downed this…but then I was freezing!  So I dug into my Oh She Glows winning box (yes…that is still going strong) and warmed myself up with a yummy cup of tea!   I also snacked on an unphotographed Larabar…apple pie flavor.  This was deeeevine!

I was still hungry though, so before long I broke out the organics to fix myself a gorgeous salad.  Butter lettuce, escarole, Roma tomato, daikon radish, scallion, carrot, red bell pepper, chopped mushrooms, and a reheated piece of kabocha! I am out of my beloved peanut dressing and didn’t have time to make any fresh (which I want to do) but I remembered I had this in the fridge. I bought it a while back but didn’t really like it…so I decided to try and doctor it up to make it into a salad dressing.  I added some agave and fresh organic lemon juice. Isn’t this lemon just gorgeous! I ended up with this!  It was passable but just okay.  I need to tweak some.I finished off lunch with this!  Yummy.  Not organic and only 60% cacao…low on the healthy scale for chocolate.  But the cranberries, blueberries, and yum factor made up for it, right?

After a lovely day of fun and fresh eats….dinner was far less than rewarding.  We had a pot luck at our boy scout Court of Honor ceremony (awards banquet).  To FabPreteen and my great disappointment, there was no salad and no veggies!

The best we could do with no meat was some mac and cheese (that was really good); past salad; and some other undisclosed fettuccini that I ended up giving away.  I had some yellow rice that I picked the chicken out of as well. 

At least there was dessert!  (no photos though).

I definitely need to remember to start packing dinner for FabPreteen and myself to these potlucks!

On another note, my organics arrived today!  (yes I know it is Wednesday, not Monday but better late than never!)

Stay tuned to see what deliciousness I got!