KD's Doll Shop

There's a lot going on here, but I have to take a minute to give a shout out to a friend of mine, Kristi. She makes these wonderful Waldorf inspired dolls, and I just bought one for a sweet child in my life. As you can see by the pictures, she LOVED it!

Check out Kristi's shop if you have a need for a beautiful handcrafted gift. You won't be disappointed!! The dolls are absolutely WONDERFUL!

My Raw Experirment

Good Saturday afternoon to you!

I've been nearly raw now for about four days. I've been trying smoothies for breakfast and dinner (fruit and green leafy veggies - sounds horrible, looks gross, tastes surprisingly good!), raw fruits and veggies for snacks, and something cooked for dinner - mostly brown rice and steamed veggies.

It's been surprisingly easy and satisfying. I'm still having my coffee in the morning with a small splash of milk, and I did have popcorn two nights that I didn't have rice and veggies - air popped with some buttery spray (gross, I know).

I'm still in that 'inspired' stage of change, where I'm all gung ho and happy about it, so I harbor no illusions about this being a permanent change. Only hopes that I can incorporate it into one.

My weight has dropped a few pounds, I've still felt great energy wise, and my salt and fat intake has (obviously) dropped dramatically. I'm still making sure to add a little bit of salt and fat into my daily diet, but at a much healthier level. I'm still hitting the gym at least three days a week, and trying to swim on the other days. I'm still having a hard time with the exercise. I really don't *want* to do it, but I'm doing it. Maybe one day I'll find something I can somewhat enjoy.

I think living in Phoenix helps a lot with the eating - we have a lot of access to local produce and no harsh winters where nothing can grow. Our garden is producing, but not as well as we'd like. I'm hoping to be able to grow a lot more of my own foods next year. There are plans of a green house attached to the side of my mom's place to protect our garden from bunnies and quail, cute little thieving bastards that they are. I keep threatening to buy a pellet gun and add a juicy quail breast to my dinner, but the thought of eating it raw has ruined that little fantasy.

Nothing else is really new here. MM is enjoying his new toy, I'm still waiting to hear on the future of nursing school, and hoping all my transcripts get there in time to find out this month - I've sent three requests to Texas and have yet to receive anything from them. If I don't get them, I have to wait until August, which will piss me off. BW is enjoying the waterpark and all our outings. All is well!

I'm off to enjoy the rest of my weekend - and hopefully everyone else is, too.

Going Raw ... Again

I know I've blogged about this before, and I so wish this could be the last time, but, I know it won't. I am a food addict. I truly believe that I have an emotional and physical addiction to eating in a way that is damaging to my mental and physical health. I'm not sure how to cure it. I'm not sure where that magic switch is that I can flip to change my eating habits for good.

Until I can find it, I'll be on the eternal quest to take better care of my body, to figure out a way to eat that I can both stick to and love. I keep coming back to raw, or mostly raw as a solution. I believe that it's the kind of change I'm looking for. It's fairly simple, it's better for both my body and the environment (I've been eating such unhealthy foods, and foods produced in such unhealthy ways), and if I can get over the cravings and keep on top of the shopping for fresh produce, it should be easy to implement and live with.

It sounds good in theory, anyway. In practice, I've tried this three or four times and I've never been able to stick with it for more than a month. And the month long trial only happened once. So, yeah, here I go again.

I have been going to the gym at least a few days a week for the last couple of months. I've been doing better with my eating, but not well enough. Again, always a struggle, always a challenge. The exercise has helped, though. I've found a few muscles I didn't know existed (well, hello there! so nice to have finally met you!!), and while my knee has been hurting in different ways, the grinding while going up the stairs thing has all but quit - I can feel muscles in my legs actually working as I go up, which relieves a lot of the stress on my knee. So, success on that end. Yay, me!

As for eating, I seem to have no will power. And I don't know how to fix that. I always promise myself to do better tomorrow, to start eating healthier next week, to just get through this weekend and then I'll eat nothing but cabbage to make up for it. It's much like my misspent youth. Lots of promises to straighten my shit up, but no real change for years. Until I was just ready to change. And I did. I found that magic switch to flip.

I'm not sure I'll ever do that with eating.

Goooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't you just love the way the announcer yells that during these soccer games? It has absolutely nothing to do with this post, I just couldn't think of anything else for a title. Sorry.

There have been all sorts of happenings here lately. We've sold a car and bought a car - I promised MM a sports car for his 40th, and he found a 1999 Corvette with less than 20,000 miles on it. I posted some pictures down below from my phone.

BW went away for two weeks to camp and to his cousins' house. He had a good time, but was getting pretty homesick by the end. He doesn't feel he needs to do camp again unless it's secret agent camp or we go as one of the counselors. He was really uncomfortable not being able to call us at all (so we were), and he said it was fun, but not that exciting.

We went to the Musical Instrument Museum, which is even cooler than it sounds. We spent nearly three hours there this afternoon and still didn't get to see all of it. They really have a great set up, you learn lots, hear lots, and there's a great hands-on section that we all had fun with. If you're even in Phoenix, I highly recommend it.

We hit the new aquarium at the Arizona Mills Mall a few days ago. It was fun, but pricey. And aquariums always seem way too small for the amount of money you have to pay to get in. We did have a good time, though, and BW learned some cool new facts, so it was worth it.

We went to go see both Avatar: The Last Airbender and Prince of Persia this week. Prince of Persia was very Mummy/The Scorpian King-esque. It was entertaining and fun, but not spectacular. The Airbender movie, on the other hand, wow-ee. It was BAD. Horribly, shockingly, spectacularly bad. Did I mention it was bad? The dialogue was bad, the special effects were bad, the acting was, ok, not BAD, but not really impressive either. The only good thing was the fact that I saw it with M1 and had somebody to make fun of it with. I was so sad and embarrassed for M. Knight. I really expected more from him.

I made reservations to go camping near San Diego for my birthday in August. I'm very excited about it. I think a few days in San Diego will do us good.

I got new glasses and ordered a box of contacts. I can see while swimming again! Yay, me!!!! I haven't worn contacts for years, so I'm happy to go back to them. At least part time, anyway. I still like my glasses for every day use, but, it's nice to use the contacts as a backup.

I've realized our dog is dumber than a box of rocks. We've lived on the third floor for months and she still stops on the second floor every single time we take her out for a walk. So, four times a day, times six months, the dog heads to our downstairs neighbor's door.  I'm not even sure what to say about it, I honestly thought dogs were a little brighter than that. I honestly thought she was a little brighter than that. I was sadly mistaken.

I'm addicted to Facebook Scrabble. It's the first thing I do when I get up and the last thing I do before going to bed. If you're my FB friend, you need to start playing with me. NOW. I'll wait while you sign up.

.....

I've been posting on FB but not blogging. I'm not sure why, I guess I've had a short attention span lately. Sorry about that.

I've applied - like officially applied, sent my transcripts, took the entrance test - for nursing school. For my BSN. I'm nervous about the whole thing. I'm hoping I get accepted, but I won't know more until mid-July. I'll let you all know when I find out. Wish me luck.

I'm still working out three days a week or so. I can really tell a difference, finally. My leg muscles are finally getting stronger, and I can feel a difference when I go up and down the stairs. Apparently my doctor wasn't kidding when he said improving my muscle tone would help.

MM's been the perfect husband lately. Affectionate, happy, in a great mood, etc. He spent much of last night telling me how much he loves me, how he wants to grow old with me, that I'm the only one for him, etc. Granted, he was a teensy bit drunk, but that was only last night. He's being supportive about me quitting my job if I get into nursing school, says he'll get a second job part-time if necessary so I can finish. He even cleaned the house today while I went out to lunch and the Musical Instrument Museum with BW, Catherine and her son. Without my even asking him to. I figure he's either cheating on me or still really grateful for the Corvette. I really think it's the 'Vette, but I'm going to keep my eye on him for a while anyway. He has been working out of town for the last several weeks....

So, that about summarizes all the happenings here in our household lately. Like I said, lots of stuff going on. It's been a flurry of activity. Lots of fun things, though, which is always good. And lots of learning, just in our every day life. I think I'm more sold then ever on some form of home schooling or unschooling for the boy - I just hope we can make it work schedule-wise. After learning that we're 49th in terms of education spending per child, I'm having a hard time justifying any reason to send him back to public school. I think we'll just focus on what we've been doing since school ended. Playing, reading, going to museums, watching interesting things on television, traveling, and being together.