treat night

So in the past friday night has traditionally been the night that I would get home from work, get in pajamas, sit on the couch, put on a movie, and order in vegan pizza so that I didn't have to go anywhere. Friday night was pizza night. Kinda like a special little ritual I had. Maybe because it is my wednesday and I am half way through the work week, but probably just because when you are a kid friday nights are TGIF and staying up late and eating pop corn and rootbeer floats. It is a celebration day, a symbol of two more whole days before you have to go back to school. Two days with no obligations but homework (which I never did anyway)... Well I know I am about to turn 27 and I have been dragging out the celebration of friday nights long past their pull date, but you know what?! I like it. It is called emotional eating and I am just fine with that. It makes me feel GOOD. At least now I am eating healthy raw foods instead of dead vegetables, over processed soy foods, and worst of all WHEAT! If I can have my cake and eat it too why not?
Speaking of cake, my birthday feast is taking shape... mmmm it's gonna be good.

For dinner tonight I made zucchini pasta with pesto (fresh zucchini, tomatos, and basil from the farmers market), garlic cheese bread, and a green salad (greens also garden fresh). It was delicious. It felt like a treat. Maybe I will have ice cream next. Believe it or not I haven't had ice cream ALL WEEK! Contrary to popular belief Ice cream isn't the ONLY THING I eat and talk about. Just one that makes me really excited! I made a whole bunch monday, but that is for my birthday so I haven't touched it. I have a tiny bit of vanilla left from last week that I will probably finish off tonight.

vitamix

I did it. I took the plunge. Bought a refurbished vitamix for a birthday gift to myself today. It was a lot of money. I am feeling a little guilty about dipping so far into my savings, but I know I will use it every single day. Ugggh. Oh well, what's done is done.

My haul

So yesterday I had the good fortune of visiting the RAW VEGAN SOURCE store in redmond. Holy shit.
That pretty much discribes it.
As you can see, I did some damage. I got so many super foods I should be able to fly by next week by my estimate. Probably have xray vision in a few weeks. Seriously though, out of control. So new things to try are mesquite powder, msm, cacao butter, raweos (which used to have honey but are now VEGAN!), purple corn, carob powder, hemp seeds... Also got a ton of raw nuts, some delicious greens fresh from the garden, gojis, olives, vanilla... mmm

It has been raining so hard today and a little cool... On my ride home from work the sky opened up and gave me a shower. The wettest ride I have had all year probably. It was kind of awesome and crappy all at once. Awesome to be out in it and be cleansed by the earth, not awesome to have wet pants rubbing against your skin every time you pedal.
I got home and made a cup of hot tea (not raw) and ate a raweo (tea and cookies, such comfort food) and alex fell asleep on the couch sitting up next to me.
Dont worry, that is a tattoo on his chest, not a massive clump of chest hair ;)

my kitchen

It has come to my attention that I am not the only one who likes to look at other peoples kitchen... here's mine

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you see my kitchen is shared with my adorable cooked vegan food eating boyfriend. He likes to eat my raw food too. Especially when I count out exactly how many olives I want in my salad... then he steals one off my plate! jerk!
I have a low power blender and have already burned out two so I started getting the same type so I could reuse the blending jar. If anyone wants to get me a vitamix for my birthday I will take it :) Our fridge is very mess right now but you can see the giant salad bin on bottom, where I store my greens... Also all the nuts and seeds are in jars on the top shelf. I posted these charts we got from bastyr on the cabinet that list good sources of calcium and iron... Also you see my dry good inventory I post for alex so that he stops buying more rice. We have SO MUCH RICE!
Tomorrow I am going to the raw vegan source store with chris, of "bitt's husband" fame. I am going to spend SO MUCH MONEY!

It's Hot

I know... I shouldn't complain since our warm weather is so rare, but as a seattle native I must say 90 degrees is just TOO HOT. Now if I am on the coast and their is a breeze 90 is still ok, but here in the city I prefer 70-75.
I came home from work and took a cold shower then took blanche out for a quick potty break. She thought it was too hot also. I didn't eat a whole lot today because I was super busy at work and, well, hot. So I have kind of been scavenging my kitchen to find something. I ate a date, put a little bit of cashew butter on it, I couldn't resist. Couldn't decide what else to eat. Drank a big glass of water thinking maybe I needed to hydrate before my body could properly register what it wanted. All I can think about is watermelon juice, but no watermelon around my house. I decided to make a juice. Which I never do because it takes so much food and I usually add something that makes it taste gross. I was thinking about this good juice they have at chaco which is apple cucumber and basil. Then I thought, I should add celery because it has lots of electrolytes. Then I did and it tasted gross. So I thought, maybe an orange will drown it out. No, still gross, just spicier. I pretty much downed it, didn't want to waste it. I know you are supposed to drink juice slow but I just couldn't do it. I had another date to wash it down. Now I feel pretty content.
Someone give me some good juicing tips??? It should be easy, I think where I go wrong is in my proportions, oh and adding that extra thing because it's healthy, even if it doesn't go with the other things.

Last night my dad didn't make it to my house until after 10. We were planning on going to get food but by then everything was closed. Instead we all just hung out and visited for about 40 minutes. They met my uncle billy in federal way (about 40 minutes from my house) and left the motorcycles at his house and drove up to seattle. On the right is my Uncle Billy (obviously not biologically related), then my Dad, his daughter (my half sister no one knew about, not even dad, until about 3 years ago. She's nice, you can see the family resemblance), and her husband. Alas, I am not in the picture as I had to take it, but you can picture me a good 6-8 inches shorter than anyone else standing in the front.
I think I will try and take a nap. Maybe when I wake up it won't be so hot!

friday night lights

Got these new shoes today which will make it totally safe to run in the evenings being that the neon colors will reflect car headlights and keep me from getting hit. At least thats my theory. Having a white dog probably does the same thing. I usually get all my shoes from the sneakery a local woman owned shoe shop by my house... with a cool name... and lots of vegan shoes... but I wore through my old pair of tigers and wanted more just like em. Except a new color. I got them online through zappos and since I was already SURE what size I needed I didn't worry like I would normally if I were ordering shoes or clothes online. They came the next day. Gotta love zappos overnight service with no extra charge. Now I just have to figure out in any of my clothes actually match these shoes. Maybe I will just go naked, they look great with my tattoos ;)
haha
My dad is gonna be blazing through town tonight with some other family members and we are gonna get some dinner. He is at the tail end of a 3 week motorcycle road trip and is stopping here on his way home to ellensburg. No, I am not from ellensburg, don't worry. We are going to a burrito place so my plan is to bring a giant "taco"esque salad and maybe if we eat on the patio they wont notice. Or maybe they wont say anything with my gigantic dad and 6 ft tall uncle there... I mean, bikers are supposed to be scary, right? I will get a family picture.

The end of a long day...

Thanks for your kind words about the "incident" this morning. I was clearly more bothered by it than blanche as she promptly rolled over onto her back and fell asleep after our run. Dogs are amazing.
Work was long, and hot, and only my Tuesday. Tomorrow should seem like a slightly shorter day as I have (dun dun dun!) another coffee tasting. So donuts and coffee tasting (and spitting out) for me tomorrow. Even with swallowing very little of the stuff I felt like I was buzzing last time after we were done. It will go fine though. I was so worried last time and it really wasn't a big deal. Well the coffee tasting will take up a good portion of my morning and then I have a ton of stuff to do around the bakery. I think the only reason today seemed so long was because I had to stay til 5pm and I am normally of by 4pm these days so my routine was different.
I made a yummy dinner tonight to make me feel rewarded for my hard work. Lasagna and a salad. I didn't have any cheese, which was fine because frankly I have had way too many nuts lately... and a little bit more fat than my body can handle as well. For the next few days I am trying to lay off the denser fats (nuts, seed butters, coconut butter gasp!!!) I can feel that for me nuts are not my best friend. A little on occasion seem to be ok, but if I am eating them everyday I start feeling bloaty and my skin begins to get a little itchy (candida anyone?). Seeds seem to be a little better, especially if I am getting lots and lots of greens. I should probably pay a little more attention to food combining but I gotta say fruit+fat=love.

I think I shall retire to bed with the dog and a book. The mountain was looking especially beautiful last night so I took this photo for everyone to see how lucky I am to live where I do. Alex went with friends to western Washington to the hoh rainforest. I am anxious to see what he thought since he hasn't spent much time in the dense woods being a socal native. Click on the photo for a better look :)