Juice Fast & More Jogging

Today starts my 10 day juice fast.  I will be taking a day off when Hubby and I see Coldplay on Wednesday but other than that I am all in.  I have been doing breakfast & lunch for the last 2 weeks with a normal dinner.  I figured that I would ease into it.  Today was rough.  Last night Hubby and I went out for drinks after the kids went to bed and this morning I was regretting it.  I felt horrible.  I only had 3 beers but this morning it felt like I had 12.  I went for a 2.5 mile jog to get over it.  I saw TONS of bicyclists and one of them had stopped to look at a map so I got to ask what the event was.  They were doing a 100 mile ride.  AWESOME.

After my run I mowed the lawn and weed wacked.  It was such an awesome day outside I decided to lay on the front porch couch... 45 mins later I woke up!

Dad was hungry for a pizza so they ordered.  I figured that if I could withstand the BLT's hubby made for lunch.. I could do anything.  Grrrr..  the pizza looked and smelled AMAZING.  Guess I will be meal planning for day 11!!!  9 more days to go!

Dog Sitting & Recovery

Luey is doing much better.  She finished her antibiotics and her incision has closed up incredibly.  She is still walking with a limp but a better limp than she had before surgery.  Im hoping that my bionic dog is on the up & up.  She is definitely in great spirits and her appetite is almost back to normal.  Im thinking that she likes being in her crate at this point... she has a dog bed she doesn't have to share... no kids climbing on her and she gets personalized attention when she is out.  Doggie Heaven.

One of Mike's friend took a last minute trip to Florida so we volunteered to dog sit.  The dog's name is John.  He was a rescued racing Greyhound and has the tattoos to prove it.  He is a very gentle dog.  He's 11 years old.  Such a good boy.  He's fitting in the house of estrogen well!

I'll post a great photo of one of my favorite summer time eats.  Flying Saucer Squash.  My BIL had gotten squash borer so Im not sure how many veggies he will get from his plant so I decided that, since it was my favorite, that I would grow some here.  This is my first plant and I have 6 more now going.  This is a photo of my 1st squash.... grow baby grow!  Yummy!!!!

TTA & Recovery

I've been away for a few days.  Still doing my juicing 2x a day and making some awesome meals... but now I am back to playing nurse.  This time for Luey.  Right when you think things are starting to settle down... WHAM.  She had right elbow surgery 1.5 years ago in December because of a limp.  They never saw anything severely wrong... but they cleaned out her joint hoping to find a bone particle and never did.  She recovered well and continued to limp for about 6 months.  Then she stopped and seemed to have healed.  About 3 months later she began with a limp again and we just automatically assumed it was her elbow.  Some days it didn't bother her but lately she was REALLY lame. Now it was obvious that it was her left hind leg.  Hmmm.  It was definitely worse in the morning and after being outside.  I called her Orthopedic Surgeon.

We saw Dr D on Tuesday.  He confirmed our fear.  Our big baby tore her ACL/CCL. UUGGHH.  This meant another surgery, another long period of crating, and lots of money.  Luey just turned 4 on July 9th.  Without saying, we would do whatever she needed, even if it were to the tune of $4000.  Dr D explained the different procedures available and gave me the option of doing it that day or waiting 3-5 days.  We opted to get it done ASAP.  He said that he would not know which procedure would be done until he had some X-rays done under anesthesia because the decision is based on her anatomy.  We had hoped for the TTA surgery vs the TPLO as the TTA has a shorter healing time.  She could be on leash walking in 2 weeks.  Now, we are talking about a 110# Rottweiler.  This isn't some chihuahua that I can carry under my arm.  This was going to be work.  We got a post op call at 5pm that her anatomy was suited for the TTA procedure and all went as planned.  WONDERFUUL NEWS!

Luey spent the night recovering and came home yesterday. I have been her full time nurse since.  Yes, she must be in the crate 24 hours and only out on leash to pee.  The fine print is that her leg must be iced 4-6 times a day for the first 3-5 days and she gets medications four times a day.  She has to be taken outside via leash but can't do steps so I have been slinging her with a towel under her belly to hold up her back legs.  Today the MIL offered us her doggie ramp which is pure heaven.  Helps 100% with the patio steps.  I only have to sling her down the 1st step from the house to the top patio step.  She is doing well. Not much of an appetite and VERY swollen but happy to be home.  I lay in her crate holding her ice packs and she continually gives me kisses and it makes everything worth it.  Gotta love unconditional love <3.

Today Hubby was home so I got to do some serious cooking.  I had never tasted Chilean Sea Bass before and decided it was time.  As a backup I made some Mahi but the winner hands down was the Sea Bass.  I made this with some broccoli cheddar rice, swiss chard and I made Caprese fresh from our garden. YUMMO!

Seared Chilean Sea Bass with Lemon Butter & Capers

2 4oz pieces of skinless Chilean Sea Bass
2 cloves garlic, Minced
1 whole Lemon, Zested And Juiced
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 Tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons onion, finely diced
1Tablespoon capers, diced
Kosher Salt And Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 375.  Heat olive oil in oven safe pan.  Salt and pepper fish on both sides.  Place in hot oil.  DO NOT FLIP.  Allow to crisp on one side only which takes about 5 mins in high heat. Once crisp put pan in oven.  Cook for 10 mins per pound.  Next take 3T butter and melt in small pan.  Add garlic, capers, onion and lemon zest.  Once onion is translucent add lemon juice (no seeds).  Mix well and take of heat.  Serve fish with seared side up and dress with Lemon Butter.  Enjoy!

My Zen & MORE JUICE

If there were no bugs in the world I would sleep on my porch.  I love the sound of my waterfall.  This week we somehow sprung a leak.. in a major way.  For this reason, I am glad I built the entire pond myself.  I know where everything is and how it is all laid out.  Problem was that it basically emptied all of the water from the pond.  The entire time I was scrambling to fix the problem I was apologizing to both my frogs & fish.  I'm sure that I looked pathetic.  Nonetheless, I got everything solved in about 30 minutes and I left everything open so that I could see that the problem was fixed for good.  Today I sealed everything up again.  There is peace in the world and I can go back to listening to my Zen.

So I am on day 6 of juice. STILL LOVING IT.  I did have one day that I had a headache but who knows what that was from.  Saturday I went to the market and got an overload of fresh organic veggies.  Its always a wonderful feeling to buy directly from the grower.  I am fortunate that I get much from my BIL the organic farmer, but I still purchase a lot.  I just wish I could grow everything.  It has really made me want to expand our garden for next year.  I got fresh beets, kale, cucumbers, a loaf of sourdough, some cheese, baby summer squash, green apples, and a ton of basil.  I went right home and conjured up a new recipe.  Its my favorite to date.


1 carrot
1 beet
6 stalks Kale
1 golden delicious apple
1/2" slice of ginger
1 cucumber


I am now doing 2 juices a day and a reasonable dinner.  Reasonable to me means that I have an average portion and its not fried or smothered in cheese.  Yesterday I made Chicken Enchiladas and tonight was spaghetti.  I had to find something to do with the boat load of basil I had so I figured that some pesto would go PERFECTLY with the sourdough.  ITS HEAVENLY.  I swear I could eat the whole loaf along with the entire bowl of pesto.  Oink oink. This, my friends, is why I will NEVER be skinny!


I was talking to a friend tonight and it has kinda stuck with me throughout the night.  I think if I am going to be AWESOME to my body and give it a ton of vitamins and minerals all day.. I am not going to completely throw the day out of whack for dinner.  I LOVE to cook... but it has given me more clarify about what I want to make for my meal of the day.  I now look forward to making a great meal.  I have made AWESOMELY good choices so far.  I know that I don't want to 'blow my day' on PB&J or some crappy cheesesteak.  I'd rather enjoy a fresh bowl of pesto and some great pasta.  Makes sense, right?

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts (I USE WALNUTS)
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

METHOD

1 Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.

2 Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

NOTE.... if you are going to freeze this (as I do) do NOT add cheese.... wait until you are ready to use it. 

Green Juice & Aquarium

So today marks 4 days of green juice.  Monday was lunch then I switched it up Tuesday and Wednesday and did breakfast as we were traveling on Tuesday and Hubby and I saw the Warped Tour on Wednesday.  Today I did breakfast and lunch.  These are the recipes I have tried:

Mean Green Juice (original)

This is the official recipe used by Joe Cross and Phil Staples according to the Reboot Program.

6 Kale Leaves
1 Cucumber
4 Celery Stalks
2 Green Apples
1/2 Lemon
1 piece of ginger

Mean Green Juice #2

handful spinach
3 stalks of kale
2 golden delicious apples
small handful parsley
1 lemon
1 cucumber

I like juice #2 better but Hubby likes #1.  So I modify it a bit each time. I like the ginger taste a lot.  I did get some different apples at the grocery tonight to add variation.  I feel like I can do this.  I'm not snacking half as much and I know that I can get 1.5 juices out of each batch.  Right now I share with hubby.  When I do the total cleanse I will make larger batches so that I am full and Hubby still has his share.  I plan to hit my BIL's farmers market on Saturday and load up on kale, cucumbers & celery.  My garden is coming along but I have definite plans to make it larger next year.  I can really tell you that I feel GREAT.  2 people have already asked me about juicing this week.  I'm very excited to go full throttle and see how I feel.  Can't wait to get started... but I have to be realistic and plan around the obligations I already have.  Soon enough!  GO JUICE!

D1 is in love with fish.  She loves going to the Cleveland Aquarium... she loves going to the zoo to see the 'fishes'.  Yesterday I threw out an idea to get her an aquarium of her own.  She wants a nightlight... and so I mentioned it to Hubby and of course he said "sure"!  I went today alone (great idea!) so I could scope everything out and decide without her wanting everything in the store.  I got some 17 year old kid that knew EVERYTHING about fish.  Score!  Problem was that he said that I should not buy the fish today.  Grrrrr.  I knew he was right but I KNEW D1 would not see it that way.  I went in with the intension of getting a 10 gallon starter tank.  When I was told that I would have to clean it every other week I easily increased the tank size to 20 gallons.  The larger the tank, the less maintenance.  I'm ALLLLLLL about lesser maintenance.  Hubby, D1, D2 and I got everything washed, rinsed, and filled.  The filter set up, the gravel and plants in place and we are golden.  Tomorrow (as long as we are a good girl) we will be getting some fish.  17 Year old suggested tetras.  We can fit more fish in the tank (and therefore if one goes belly up... she won't notice) and they are friendly and stay small.  WISH US LUCK!!

Challenge & My Water Garden

Today I pose a challenge to anyone who reads this. Watch a movie.  Yes, a certain movie in particular.... Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.

My husband and I like to think that we live a fairly healthy lifestyle.  We eat 90% of our meals at home, we eat organic when appropriate and available, don't drink soda regularly and we have cut out the majority of red meat.  We are FAR from perfect but we try.  We try for our kids.  I have always had a weight issue and therefore I don't want to pass these body-ism's onto my kids.  D1 & D2 have rarely eaten fast food and have never had soda touch their lips.  Again, not prefect but we try.  We have watched movies like Food, Inc, King Corn and Supersize Me.  After each one we have taken something additional out of our diets.  Not that we ate bad before, but there is just too much to consider when eating.  If you look at food as fuel (which it technically is) then you tend to eat better.  Todays movie struck home.

It was a fluke. Hubby and I sat down after putting the kiddos to nap for a 5 minute rest before heading outside to do chores (which never got done).  I bought a Roku and Hubby wanted to check it out.  He was perusing Netflix and happened to stumble on this particular movie.  After watching the first 5 minutes we were both hooked.  I don't want to give away any parts of the movie.... but all I can say is that its just amazing how the human body works.  The documentary inspired us to try a fast.  We have my BIL the organic farmer to help us with produce (and he is an AVID kale smoothie-er), its summer and I have my own garden as well, and we already own the same juicer as Joe has.  We are in business.

The challenge is to do a 10 day juice fast as in the movie (sorry had to give a tad away).  We have now been discussing the option to chew SOMETHING.  Hubby suggested that we would be allowed to eat any raw food, i.e. carrot sticks, celery, even a salad but no dressing and I think its acceptable.  I will be just doing juice, but whatever helps him!  Tonight I had already planned a grocery store run so I added some of the ingredients to make their green machine juice..... found this site: http://myjuicecleanse.com/juicer-recipes/mean-green-juice-recipes/  I plan to do lunch juices starting tomorrow.  Our official start date is July 28th.  I will blog about it as we go and I hope it does us well.  I have a feeling it will!!

  My water garden is in full bloom.  I had had several lilies pop up in all colors, white, red and pink.  Yesterday my lotus bulb decided to open.  All I can say is AMAZING!!!!!!!  I am enamored by it. The best part is that its a hardy plant and will continue to return every year.  Once our lake is excavated I plan to put some in it as well.  I just love summer with all of its floral beauty!!!

Long Time & Garlic Scapes

So its been awhile since my last post.  Sorry.  Just a TON of stuff going on here.  Mainly it was my father moving in and the kiddos birthday bash.  It required me to do all sorts of cleaning, reorganizing and outdoor work.  This left little time for much else; including blogging.

Dad has easily moved into the guest bedroom and basement.  Pretty uneventful to tell the truth.  He has his bedroom upstairs and his 'shop' set up downstairs.  He deals in antique toys and sells on ebay.  Mostly Tonka and old cars & trucks.  My future basement bathroom is filled with inventory and my exercise room now holds his computer/desk and tables of stuff to photograph, wrap, and ship.  My treadmill is in the midst of all of it and as long as it doesn't get buried, we are ok.   We are settling into a routine which is music to my ears.  Its nice to have someone here at night so that if I/we want to go out, its fair game!

The outside work has been busy.  The garden is in full growth pattern and I pretty much weed on a daily basis to keep everything under control.  I also planted grass around the patio where it got ripped up from the build and watering it every day has been painstaking.  My routine of starting the sprinkler, walking around the house and pulling a weed here and there, moving the sprinkler, deadheading my flowers, moving the sprinkler, skimming the pool, and moving the sprinkler is tedious.  My routine pretty much takes the entire nap time depending on what I do.  I do this EVERY day.  I do bonus self and get into the pool most days until I hear a wailing baby.  I also decided that instead of spreading weed killer (ie. chemicals) on the lawn that I would try to pull most of the broadleaf weeds.  This has taken HOURS.  My compost pile has LOVED it, my back has NOT.  I am going to do an organic fertilizer here in the next week or so, and we will see how that goes.

The birthday party weekend has come and gone.  SO much planning went into it.  I had said about a dozen times that I am not sure why I do it to myself, yet I am sure that I will be doing it again next year.  The main issue is the D1 ASKED for the princess party.  This was the 1st time that she has been into it.  Hubby has also always wanted to have a pig roast.  We joined these two events into one.  We had a princess party with a pig roast and rounded out the evening huddled around a fire watching fireworks.  It was great.  One of my brothers (I am the oldest and only female of 3) brews his own beer and brought a mix of 6.5 cases.  Mark my words, he is the next Sam Adams.  The stuff is amazing!  I also had our Mom's club's bounce houses set up so the kiddos were nice and tired by sunset.  It was awesome to have my whole family here under our roof.  My niece and nephew did amazing.  You always have to worry with 4 kids under the age of 3 in one house but it was great.  They all behaved and the 3 year old girls just love each other dearly.  They ate together, slept together and bathed together.  They were each others babysitter which was amazing!  Now I am taking the week off before assuming the role of President of our Mom's Club.  That is sure to be a blog entry!

raw garlic scapes

Trim and add to the food processor

chop 'em up with some walnuts, salt and EVOO

BAM!  Garlic Scape Pesto!
(from the above you must add some parmesan cheese)

and into the silicone mold to freeze!

Garlic scapes.  What are they?  Well.  When you grow garlic, as my brother in law does... it is planted so long (you plant in fall for a summer harvest) and then goes to seed.  This seed pod at the top of the garlic plant is called a scape.  They have many uses.  You can steam them, fry them and add them to soup.  If you cook them the garlic stinginess goes away.  I decided to try my hand at scape pesto.  Let me tell you how awesome it was!  Now, I usually make a TON of pesto in the food processor and freeze it into cubes before I add cheese (cheese does not freeze well in pesto) with the over abundance of basil and garlic from the farm.  Making scape pesto was simple.  Olive Oil, scapes and walnuts (you can also use pine nuts- but they are expensive).  No need for garlic because a raw scape is VERY garlicy and no need for basil.  Now, you have to LOVE garlic as we do.  We can't use enough of it so it suits us well.  I then freeze the balls and take them out and add a bit more olive oil and parmesan cheese and add it to pasta, soups, or just as a dip.  I actually put a thin layer on top of my turkey burger tonight for dinner!  YUMMO!!!

We steamed and then sautéed a few with mushrooms!

GARLIC SCAPE PESTO
Garlic scapes
EVOO
Salt
Parmesan
Walnuts

Mix in food processor to taste.
***If you are freezing do NOT add cheese.  Defrost and add some EVOO and the Parmesan