Nutrition is a powerful thing and remebering the rest of my life.

It was a very cool, rainy day here yesterday. The temps did not reach the 40's , so it was another day of hall walking and Wii. It was the kind of cool damp where you began to expect the rain to turn to snow, but it never did. While the weather was miserable, we were pretty bubbly and began the day with the following

Steel cut oats with pears, apple , blueberry and pumpkin seeds. Oats are always a good way to start a day ! After breakfast, we hit the halls for our first walk of the day and then jumped on the Wii to get in almost a full hour of exercise before hitting the schoolwork. I was feeling quite energized when we began , and then suddenly discovered that an unwanted visitor made an appearance- she seems to visit most adult women ever 28 to whatever days. This made my energy go from peppy to
However, there is no sick day for mom's , so press on ! We jumped into ( okay...energetically stepped into ...err, slid into) school, then another walk, and then a break for lunch. I was feeling more droopy as the morning wore on , and suddenly so ravenous that I could eat floor tiles if not bolted down. Our metabolism changes with that visitor ( for some complex reasons) , and the ravenous hunger you get is your body demanding different nutrients as fuel or the journey. Instead of simply diving into anything, I thought about what fuel my body was in the greatest need of, and whipped up a creation I call scrambled eggs with stuff
I took some shredded cabbage, red pepper, scallions, mushrooms and kale, sauteed them in water and then tossed on some Mrs Dash and egg beaters. The veggies made it incredibly bulky, and immediately following lunch I felt back to my perky self. Yay nutrition !

After school was finished and a third was was taken I started looking or school materials , and stumbled onto two documents that many of you may be interested in about personal fitness action plans. First one is called Fitting fitness in ( click on the link to follow) and another called
Minimalist fitness- how to get in shape with little or no equipment .Both have some really handy tips about routines and exercise that can be done anywhere with little or no equipment. We are going to add many of these to our own daily routines.

Dinner was wholewheat pasta with roast vegetables ( zucchini, eggplant, butternut squash,broccoli, red peppers, asparagus) and chicken legs with mango glaze ( actually 100 percent mango papaya fruit spread that I found at our market with some garlic powder added).
The evening found me in a conversation with my middle sister about my mother. Mom has Dementa and Parkinsons Disease, and my middle sister is her caregiver. Lately mom has taken a turn for the worse and has begun to be physically violent with my sister whenever it is time to change her clothes or get her in the shower. Mom is fully incontinent, so changes happen often every day. Mom thinks that my sister means her harm and starts trying to defend herself, picking up anything nearby and beating on my sister with it as she struggles to change her clothes. Mom only responds to her, and it seems that it is time to look into a care facility for mom. She is only going to get worse, and if she progresses like most patients with this disease, she is going to begin to experience swallowing problems and more in a short time. My sister is feeling very guilt ridden about this, so I am trying to get her to see that this move is to be thought of more as the best care for her needs instead of failure or abandonment. Not going to be an easy argument. However, it does serve as a powerful personal reminder that no matter what the scale or clothing sizes or tape measurements say, your life is defined by a lot more than just these things. I am someones mom, daughter, wife, friend, sister, lover, counselor, Reiki worker, teacher,fiber artist, Blogger and a whole lot more. While the numbers on the scale may prove to be an indicator of how physically fit we may or not be for these challenges and roles, it does not define our abilities to preform them or even who we are. That lies with something much deeper, more far reaching and of greater concern to many. It is true for me, and every other person on a weight loss journey. We are not single faceted, one dementional beings, and it is important to keep that in mind. Life happens while you are busy executing plans based on your perception of your impact on the world.

Easter Vigil is a cooking vigil :-)

Incredibly busy day with shopping , ch0pping and getting Bob out the door on time for Easter Vigil mass. One of those days when those things are the only exercise you get in because it is all you have time for !

Breakfast was polenta with dried tropical fruit blend, topped with blueberries and pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds provide a good level of zinc to the body, which can help fight off colds and bouts of seasonal allergies amongst other things. Bob and Nick suffer from tree pollen, and now hat the trees are blossoming here, it's a preventative step.

Lunch was pasta primavera from the deli- I forgot to bring my phone , so no picture.

Dinner started off with a salad made from romaine and watercress, topped with a mix of pineapple, mango, papaya and one lonely very soft and heading south leftover pear from last week.

Following as a main dish was something I am calling Pasta primavera al fresco. I cooked 1 cup whole wheat pasta with kale, beet greens and spinach, and in a seperate pan with about a teaspoon of olive oil I sauteed 6 cloves of chopped garlic, then added a half cup of water and a chopped red pepper, green peper, pack of snap peas, 2 carrots , a half pound of mushrooms sliced, 2 diced roma tomatoes and a tablespoon of dried basil. I let it stir steam till tender and then drizzled it with a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Toss the pasta and veggies together and serve topped with a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. Very yummy !

We are going to gather with my family for dinner today and I am bringing two vegetarian , low fat dishes to share. I will get to meet my newest grand nephew and catch up with my siblings and nieces/nephews. It will be good day- may you all have a wonderful Easter with you and yours !!

You only THINK this is what you are going to do today !

Ever have one of those days where you make plans and it seems that the whole world works to get you to change them ? Such was our day yesterday ! The plan was to go to the DMV so I could renew my license, then head over to the store to look for a new pair of shoes and other sort of uninteresting but necessary things. I heard what the weather was supposed to be like and I got this attack of irresponsibility that said "I don't want to be a grown up- I want to go play in the woods", and so we decided to head out to a new to us forest trail that leads to a waterfall. My glassess decided it was just too exciting and broke in excitement ! The temple piece sheared off, which is the universe's way of telling me "You will get in for an eye exam and new glasses NOW". Ugggh !

I wear glasses , but I hate wearing them ! I also have a serious thing about anything touching my actual eyes and a deep mistrust of lasik surgery , so I put up with them. I went through life fine until I was 16, forced to take Drivers Education as part of my public school education, went for my learners permit and discovered I had a vision problem. A visit to an eye doctor revealed I had astigmatism and no depth perception , as well as being nearsighted. I got my first pair of glasses, and with the sudden inclusion of the ability to judge distance, I spent a few weeks feeling seasick and about 6 feet taller than what I was. I tried to NOT wear the glasses at every opportunity possible, but eventually resolved myself to wear the darn things. I am terrible about routine eye exams ! I keep telling myself my vision is fine and it works till I break the frames. One time I was able to convince the eye department to just pop my old lenses into new frames, and that became my back up pair. Last pair I got were coated for non glare and I learned that I have something in my skin chemistry that eats away the coating, and it took 4 return visits to get them straightened out. My skin oil ate through the wire frames, they snapped and I have been wearing my back up pair for about 3 years now. The lenses in this pair are 20 yrs old. It's gonna be fun. I was able to glue the temple piece back on, went the day without my glasses , and decided to pay a visit to Visionworks on Monday to get new glasses. Nick will come for his very first Eye exam as well. He has eagle eyes, but considering both his dad and I wear glasses, odds are great that he will sometime in the future as well.


Breakfast was apple blueberry oats with goji berries and pumpkin seeds. Goji berries ( the red things) are an antioxidant that help boost immunity, circulation,protect eyesight and more. They have a semi sweet taste with a slight mild bite at the back.They are also called wolf berries, and are used often in Chinese medicine.

We headed out to the waterfall, but once there discovered that the trail was flooded. We had a very wet winter and a lot of rain in the past weeks, and several places have flooded as a result. Darn ! After some debate on what we should do instead, we headed to The National Shrine of St Theresa to walk their outdoor Stations of the Cross ( a Catholic devotional) and so Bob could get a needed item from their bookstore. Once there we discovered that the station area was filled with mole hills and fallen branches, so we did a slow sort of mosey and spent a lot of time watching chipmunks scurrying to feed their young and semi religious geese protesting our proximity to their nests. Critics !!!

Lunch wound up once again out and at sweet tomatoes. This time pictures

I call this Mount Green with romaine, baby spinach, zucchini, red onions, butternut squash, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes, red beans , garbanzo beans , black olives, raisins and sunflower seeds. I am really changing ! Some people drool when they pass a bakery- I drool and want to jump in whenever I see any veggie !!

Second plate with a sampling of a few of the current signature salads- Joanne's Broccoli madness, Chicken Won ton Happiness, Citrus whole wheat pasta salad, French Bistro salad and another one I cannot recall the name of. All of them are SOOOOOOO good !

We made our way back home as Bob had to go sing at the Holy Thursday services. We were all too full for dinner ( again) but knew he had to eat something to get him through the evening, so about dinnertime we all opted once again for yogurt, blueberries, seeds and granola
In the evening Bob was off to sing, Nick decided to watch the Holy Thursday services on EWTN as well as their numerous reflection type programs and I took advantage of the time to do some of my distance Reiki work. Afterwords, I considered for a moment how odd our household is . Nick has said in the past that he wants to be a Minister ( and in the very next breath say that he wants to be a game designer or a chef), and I am beginning to think that he may indeed go into ministry in some capacity. He has a great respect and sensitivity to all things spiritual ( advantage of living in a mixed faith household I believe), and has a very high level of compassion for all living things. He was the one who suggested we head to the Shrine yesterday , and it was his decision to tune into mass on TV. He was offered the opportunity to go , but because Bob's choir rehearses before the service it makes for a long evening , so he opted to observe in his own way. I finished my work before the service ended, and he asked me different questions about symbolic gestures and such of the service as it unfolded, and I explained to him the why and meanings of them. I did a lot of studying of Catholicism before Bob's ordination, and it's good to have those details stored in my memory bank.

Today there are no plans for anything other than Good Friday service and a sacred concert, so the day will be a little more back to normal with eating.