Thank you, Trader Joe’s

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when the leaves start to crisp up, the air starts to smell a little more earthy, and the morning hours are cool and delicious.

It’s the time of year when stores are lined with pumpkin everything, and buffalo check print can be purchased in almost any textile you desire.

This is also the time of year, for this girl anyhow, where living in Southern California gets me the most…depressed.

I miss my fall season.

Like the real fall season… not just the time of year that Ross Dress For Less tells me it’s fall with the ridiculous amounts of different pumpkin and hazelnut scented candles, or the white painted ceramic pumpkins. 

Fall, the time when it’s supposed to be cooling down and excitement to wear blanket scarves and leather riding boots are deemed appropriate. Fall in southern California means wearing a sweater out your door at 7am, and stripping down to your underwear by midday because it’s nearing the triple digits. 

It’s ain’t right, folks. At least not for this girl from New England.

Buffalo plaid and smoothies… no, just no.

But for some reason, all is right in the world, at least for a moment, when I walk through the doors of Trader Joe’s.

Apparently in my sweet twisted little mind, nothing says fall like food. 

Apple butter, pumpkin coffee, figs and pears…

…and apparently also pumpkin pasta and autumn leaves shaped corn chips.

This past Sunday, at least one of the four bags of groceries that I purchased from Trader Joe’s was entirely autumn themed. Yes, I really bought autumn leaves shaped corn tortilla chips…only to be paired with the fall flavored salsa I got to go with them. 

What the hell does that mean, I don’t know…delicious? Judge me if you will.

So what that I spent at least $50 in fall themed foods.

So what that my son literally said as I was heading toward the check out line, “mom, you kind of lost your mind on fall stuff…” 

…this, from my not even 5 year old son…

So what that I felt the need to guiltily text my husband on the way home to explain my slight over in budget because of “fucking fall”.

All I’m saying is you best be getting out of the way of a New England girl who lives in southern California when fall season hits. Because this may be the only sip of fall I get…and trust me when I say this girl is thirsty.

You have been warned.

 

much love (and hopefully crisp mornings laced with pots of coffee),

Jen

Christmas babies and gratitude lists.

I have a feeling that these next three months are going to be excruciatingly long.

I’m due to have our third baby just before Christmas, and for the last month people have already started asking me when I’m going to have this baby anyway. My response of “Christmas” is often met with a look of surprise…and often also paired with a scrunched face and a “really???”.

I mean…what am I supposed to do with that? Anyone have any witty {but not total jerk} comebacks to these kinds of responses?

Although I have been feeling months more pregnant than I actually am, and apparently the size of my growing belly matches my feelings…here are a few of my favorite things getting me through…

Things I’m loving right now:

• This show. Seriously, I found out that season 3 came out just a few days into September, and it took me all of two weeks to burn through it. The characters are women you want to know, the drama is rich and the comedy is painfully real. Love, love, love.
• Even though it’s becoming more challenging to bend over to tie my shoes, these shoes are my saving grace right now. My feet have literally grown a half size in the last two months and are nothing short of bursting out of my sneakers. These shoes are comfortable enough to walk for miles in. Can someone tell me why I have never broken down to buy Birkenstocks until now?
• Anyone who knows me knows that I have a serious book reading habit. And how this lovely mind of mine works is I tend to hyperfocus on a particular topic for a short-ish period of time, diving as deeply as I can into it to learn everything there is to learn. Then…I move on. There are topics, however, that I revisit year after year…and the topic of french culture is one of those beloved niches. I recently finished this book after wanting to read it for 5 years. How I never actually got around to it until now befuddles me…but it’s done, and I would highly, highly recommend it.
• My go to podcast. This one I never get far away from for more than a couple weeks.
• Long walks…and compression socks. It’s been way too hot to wear compression socks, to be honest, but my pregnancy legs don’t really give a shit.
• Pumpkin spice coffee. Yes I know it is not even technically fall…but Trader Joe’s says it’s okay (because they’re selling it), so I’m going to run with it. I love TJ’s pumpkin spice coffee because it doesn’t have any fake pumpkin flavors in it…just coffee and spice. And since I have included my morning pumpkin spice coffee in every single daily gratitude list…I thought maybe I should mention it here, too :-p.
• Cheese. Just…cheese.

 

What are you grateful for today?

love,

jen

 

 

the revival.

Someone recently told me that if you can’t get something out of your head, you should pursue it.

Seems logical enough…

Logical or not, I have spent the last 5 years trying to get back to writing on this blog with some crazy writers block following me around while I watch day after day tick by without doing anything about it. And it’s not like I haven’t thought of things to say. I literally think in blog post form. Call me crazy, but whether I’m any good at it or not, writing is in my soul.

So here I am, feeling a little bit like “Fuller House”… is this revival of my dead blog going to be better than the original (ghostbusters 2), or just super lame (sex and the city 2)?… I have yet to watch a single episode of “Fuller House”, so someone let me know how that turned out.

This time around the content will be along the same lines with a twist. Because well…life. Since I last wrote here consistently my life looks a bit different…

For instance, we now have two little ones with a third on the way. Yes, we meant to do that. And yes, we know how babies are made.

Crossfit has flown out the window with the birth of my first child. No matter how many times I tried to contain him to his car seat while I grunted and sweat to heart thumpingly loud music, he wasn’t having it one fucking bit. The last Crossfit workout I ever did in a “box” ended with me walking out in tears half way through the workout carrying Bennett out as he screamed his adorable face off.

So…there’s that.Trust me when I say I miss it everyday and I look forward to getting back to a gym regularly again someday. Can someone tell me why it’s near to impossible to find a Crossfit gym with childcare?

Since then, I have tried to go at it alone…which is near to impossible for me. The whole reason I started Crossfit in the first place was because I figured out the key to me sticking to working out was community and accountability. That was also why I started this blog.

But alas, 10 years into my fitness journey, I’m still plugging along. A little slower these days, with a little more waddle in my step (entering third trimester real soon)…but I’m still here. These days workouts are more strength based, a lot of walking and as of late, swimming. I’m a terrible swimmer, so look forward to some comedic relief when I recount my tales from the pool.

I’m still working hard everyday to feed my family the most nutritious food I can with the limited time I have to cook with two smalls kiddos and the budget we have created for ourselves while we fight to become debt-free (thank you Dave Ramsey). But things have changed a bit since having kids in that category too. Paleo just doesn’t seem feasible in my opinion these days, we’ve switched to more of a Weston. A. Price diet. This was not for the purpose of convenience, per se, but more dramatically for my sanity. What the hell do I feed kids who want to eat constantly, and don’t foam at the mouth for anything with protein in it?! So we’ve added raw dairy back in here and there, and I make homemade bread from sprouted ancient grains so I can slather almond butter or pile mashed avocado on top of it any chance I can.

Regardless of these small changes, some things have not changed one little bit…

I am still incredibly passionate about health, wellness, growing as a person, my family, and well…

…fucking coffee.

 

much love,

jen

 

 

A picture is worth a thousand words?

I posted a picture on Facebook a few days back of a woman, who in my opinion, is absolutely beautiful and inspiring. I was surprised, however, by the response it received. It was quite the little conversation starter, I must say. What I realized, is that A LOT of people have a lot of opinions on how other people should look…

Let me begin by saying why I DIDN’T post that picture…I didn’t post that picture to have anyone rip Andrea apart. That was in no way shape or form the intention behind that posting. This did upset me a little, for the reason that if I were to put up a picture of a woman who I felt was beautiful and inspiring, and she was by cultural standards “overweight”, how many comments of “she is disgusting/she is fat/she is a fat pig” do you think there would have been up there? If there were any (I would be surprised if there were), there would have been FAR fewer. Why then do we feel it’s okay to judge someone who is “too fit’ for your liking?

Well then, why DID I post it?  I posted the picture because so often I hear women say they don’t want to get bulky doing Crossfit. I hear ya, neither do I! When I think of bulky, I think of female body builders. I am not saying that is not beautiful, it is what it is…those are women who are literally building their bodies for the sake of a competition…and I will go out on a limb here and say that those women are probably using some unnatural “supplementation” to get that way. So, when I think of bulky, THAT is what I think women are worried about becoming, not a lean, cut woman who is probably a size 4/6.  Let me also reiterate something that has probably been said 1000 times over…you will NOT become anything by ACCIDENT. If you WANT to look like a female bodybuilder for instance, you can…with A LOT of work…and probably “supplementation”… You will not, however, go to the gym 4-5 times a week, do the WOD of the day, eat a Paleo diet, and start looking like a female body builder…it just WILL NOT HAPPEN.  You probably won’t even be able to go to the gym 4-5 times a week, do the WOD of the day, eat a Paleo diet and start looking like Andrea Ager (the beautiful lady in the picture)! She didn’t get that way by accident either!

Now, before going into this further, I also need to cover my arse and say that Crossfit competitors are not necessarily HEALTHY. They are pushing their bodies to an unhealthy standard for the sake of competition. Their results are based on a LOT of hard work, a particular diet (not always Paleo…some of the competitors eat some pretty unhealthy things, and still kick ASS…like WIN…the Games…), and dedication to winning and becoming “The Fittest on the EARTH”; 99% of Crossfitters are not ever going to be at that level.

There were some pretty great, interesting comments on the Facebook thread, one of which was “I think there is a line between being body obsessed, chasing a cultural ideal of beauty or strength, and what is reasonable, balanced and healthy.” I couldnt’ agree with this more. The question here is…what IS ‘reasonable, balanced and healthy’? I think as women, we are a little confused on this… There is not a week (or even a day!) that goes by without some image of a woman being put on display in the public eye as “too fat’, “too skinny”…and now, “too fit”. There are poor women who have lost a bunch of weight after hearing over and over how “fat” they were by critics, only to be criticized for being “too skinny”. Luckily, most of us will never have to worry about being scrutinized publically this way, however, we are often victims of this in another way.

As far back as I can remember, I fantasized about being “skinny”. I literally would think, “oh man, if I were skinny my life would be so much better”. I had some pretty dark, negative thoughts about my body on a daily basis (some as horrible as “I wish I could cut off my legs!”, how terrible is THAT!?). I’m not saying any of this was right…I was younger, and “body obsessed” and had some pretty horrible self talk going on. I tried every diet under the sun, and literally never got “skinny” until I was basically starving myself (not on purpose…I was diagnosed with IBS and it was more out of necessity) and got down to a bony (for me) 140 lbs (which by the way, is still considered “heavy” to some people). It was literally not until I found Crossfit that my negative self talk stopped. I stopped thinking about calorie counting (completely!) and started actually eating MORE and ENJOYING food! I started exercising and not only starting changing my body, but changing my MIND! Exercise has done wonders for my moodiness…seriously, it’s amazing. The coolest part, however, has been the amount of RESPECT I have developed for my body. I no longer look at my body in the mirror and pick it apart (“my thighs are too fat, my boobs are too small” whatever it may be), I look at my body with complete respect and gratitude for everything it allows me to do. Thank you for my big, strong legs for helping me squat my BODY WEIGHT…Thank you for my bigger-than-it-used-to-be butt for allowing me to drop it like its hot 100 times over in a workout. I am GRATEFUL for my body now, and to me, there is NOTHING more “reasonable, balanced and healthy” than that. In my strongest opinion, this is all what Crossfit is REALLY about, isn’t it? In addition, I have been on this journey now for 3 years…and it is 100% SUSTAINABLE for me, I have much more balanced moods, and I feel the healthiest I have ever felt in my entire life…hell, physically AND mentally. As a bonus, I am SMALLER than I was at my “skinniest”…and not at all starved or deprived! Bonusssss!

Crossfit is MOST inspiring when a 70-year-old woman walks in and decides to start a fitness regime for the first time in her life; when a 15-year-old boy starts to build confidence; when a regular ole’ person like me, who has never been an athlete in his/her life starts Crossfit, it completely changes his/her life and he/she finds PASSION and ENTHUSIASM in something for the first time in his/her life.  Yes, Crossfitters can be a bit evangalistic…that is absolutely, 100% true…but why do you think that is?! People only rave and rant about something that has worked for them; that has changed their life in some way. I am no different there. Crossfit is for everyone, and can absolutely be life changing…if you WANT it to be; it does not HAVE to be, no one is pushing Crossfit on you here. This is my platform, to talk about how Crossfit has changed my life; just like there are platforms to talk about how triathlons, or marathons, or tattoos, or art, or heck, heroin, has changed people’s lives… I choose to be inspired by specifically Andrea Ager because it helps me set goals for myself. I am a person who is not self-motivated (which is why nothing else WORKED for me); I thrive off visual motivation, and community support. Boom, Crossfit! Looking at an image like I posted helps me create fitness goals for myself (I want to look like Andrea Ager to some degree, so, what does Andrea do? In order for me to look like Andrea, I need to do what Andrea does…).

I am grateful for all of the comments on the picture, it really helped me recognize all over again how passionate I am about health and fitness, and really what this whole blog is about; my project to become beautifully strong.Beautiful is different to every single person…to me, a woman with strong, healthy muscles, who works REALLY hard in the gym and isn’t afraid to get really sweaty, and grunt her way through a WOD…is beautiful. I do not, however, live to Crossfit…I Crossfit to live; to make my life easier, longer and happier. Thank you for your comments, and I will step off my soap box now 🙂

Have a most fantastic day!

“Fall” in love with food

Taken by Wayne Nadeau

Autumn is almost upon us, and it is my ABSOLUTE favorite season, hands DOWN! I grew up in a little town in northern Maine, and our claim to fame was that in the 60’s we were the number one exporter of potatoes in the country (world? I’m not sure on that one…)…yes, even ahead of Idaho. In high school, we would start school in august, but then have, pretty much, the entire month of October off for “harvest.” Back in the day it was absolutely imperative to close down the high school to get as many students as possible to help pick potatoes and work the harvester. Now a days, the harvesters do all the work, but we still reap the benefits of the three weeks off in October (look at me acting like that actually still benefits me, pff!). I remember this time of year in Maine still as clear as day. It was the first time of year, after the hot sun of summer (yes, it gets hot in northern Maine in the summer), that you get to slip on your favorite sweater, turn on the heat (anyone else love the sound of the furnace turning on in the wee hours of the morning?? AHHH, I miss that!), light a fire, and drink a hot cup of cozy. I remember getting out of my car after school, in the early evening, and smelling the INTOXICATING (to me, yes, intoxicating) smell of EARTH. Fall. Harvest. Autumn…whatever you want to call it…it rocks my damn socks off. It is the one and only reason I am sad to live in Santa Barbara; there really is no such things as seasons here (according to people who know what seasons look like…people who live here long enough disagree with me). This fall, however, I am going to live like I am in New England…I am going to ROCK this fall 🙂

This morning I got up and wanted a hot, autumny cereal-like meal, and perfectly enough, I bought a new cookbook the other day that had the just ticket!

I got the recipe out of Practical Paleo…hot damn I love this book! My friend Jess left it in our office the other day, and immediately I purchased my own!

Now, before I write out this recipe, I am going to say that I changed it a bit due to the availability of items in my house. I am ALSO going to preface this recipe with the fact that my rendition may NOT be 100% paleo, as a matter of fact, I’m sure of it. I will in closing say this…if the worst thing you eat all day is chia seeds and peanut butter…you go girl.

The original recipe:

“Grain-free Porridge”

Coco-nutty

2 tablespoons almond butter

1/2 cup shredded coconut

6 tablespoons warm water or coconut milk (full fat, people!)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon raw honey or maple syrup (this is optional)

Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl. Transfer to a sauce pan, and heat over a low flame until it reaches your desired temperature.

*Yields one large portion

 

Sounds delicious right? Okay…here’s what I did…

 

Jen’s “in a grocery crisis pinch” Version 🙂

2 tablespoons peanut butter

1/2 cup chia seeds

6 tablespoons of full fat coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon raw honey

Mix it up, heat it up…DIZ-ONE! I then sliced some banana’s on top, and seriously rolled my eyes into the back of my head with every bite. Yes…it was that good.

*Yields one large portion, FOR WHO!?    I doubled mine to accommodate both Nick and I. The portions were very, very small, but it IS pretty calorically dense…so…I think you’re good!

 

That’s it folks 🙂 Try that one out, and eat it with your pumpkin coffee that someone who loves you from the east coast sends you in the mail 🙂 PS: I am on tea now…however, with the bag of pumpkin coffee in transit to the west coast right now, I could NOT POSSIBLY be so RUDE as to NOT drink it…obviously :-p 🙂

 

Love you guys 🙂

Jen

…AND The Winner Is?!…..

..ADDIE KOLM!!!!!

 

Congratulations Addie!!! Primal Life Organics will be sending over a fresh batch of primal goodness to you, ASAP! 🙂

Thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway!

 

Mucho love,

 

Jen

 

 

 

Amanda Cannon on “Paleo”

Oh boy, do I ever have a treat for YOU today!!! Today, there will be a guest post by my soul-sistah, Amanda Cannon. Amanda and I met back in Massachusetts through Nick…and to say that it was love at first sight is a MAJOR understatement 🙂 Both Amanda and I consider ourselves “wellness warriors”, and through her journey she has had some MAJORLY AMAZING changes due to Chiropractic, Crossfit and Paleo which she shares on her AWESOME blog Sozo Life, which you should definitely check out!

Without further ado…Miss Amanda Cannon :)…

Yep…this is us…on the reg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paleo. Ah the word brings up so many emotions inside me. Passionate about Paleo….my friends would probably sum me up by that. Well maybe  just passionate in general but being Paleo happens to be one of my favorite things.

So let’s rewind to 2008. I was in rough shape. I had chronic back pain, allergies, sinus infections, fatigue, hormonal imbalance and overall no direction for my life. Along came Franson Family Chiropractic…..(I am sure you may have heard Jen mention this place once or twice.)

My dear friend Alexis introduced me to this place and I can honestly say it changed the direction of my life. I had no idea about well living, Paleo, or Crossfit. From starting to go to Franson my interest was sparked. I started doing screening’s for them and met Mr. Nick Araza. (whom through  I met Miss Jen who became one of my soul sisters very quickly.)

Nick and I had a conversation one day about food. He asked me what was holding me back from taking control of my health. I didn’t understand what he meant. He asked me what my favorite things to eat were. I told him bread and cheese (ha! oh me…..). He then asked me now what if I knew that those morsels of bread and cheese were laced with arsenic. Just a little bit. Would I still eat them? That stopped me right in my tracks. Well no! He then proceeded to explain to me the effect that certain foods can have on the body and how when you change your thinking about food to fuel and what it does inside your body it can override the craving for toxic food in general. This was a big deal for me. I struggled with food for most of my teen years. I had constant battles with it and would go on frequent emotional eating binges. I disliked my body and my secret battle with food.

I began to do all sorts of research on this so called Paleo diet. What in the world was this all about? I read multiple books to learn all about it. I had always loved to cook and was excited for the challenge to come up with tasty and creative Paleo dishes. I began to see all sorts of results in my life. My chronic back pain went away. This was a big deal for me from being in multiple car accidents. My joints were pain-free! My allergies and sinus infections went away, my skin began to get clear, and most of all I finally banished my emotional roller coaster with food. I found myself in control of it instead of letting it control me. I felt FREEEEEEEEE! I began to cherish my little bod and see the results big time! I joined Crossfit in October 2010 and began to put it all together. I used to hate working out and now I found something that I absolutely loved!

This sent me on an epic search for more knowledge about Health and Wellness. I came across another book that impacted me big time. It was Crazy Sex Diet by Chris Karr. It was basically all about her journey through cancer and how changing her diet saved her life. I got really excited if someone could beat cancer through their diet this means that diet alone could certainly help others with other health problems. I started to pass this information on to my mother who had been battling MS.

I began to realize how passionate I was about this subject. I decided I loved helping people too much to just sit back and not do something about it. I began to pursue a career in Health and Wellness. I finally found my calling. I feel alive when teaching people how to be healthy.  I think my favorite thing is to work with young girls and women to help them understand the importance of a healthy body image. I spent so many years being insecure and battling with food and my body. I want to teach young girls what true beauty in general is from the inside out. Not just making healthy choices but in their character as well. It’s taken me years to convince my mom to switch to Paleo. She finally did a few months ago and has seen major results and is out of her wheel chair and walking around again! That truly was amazing to me. I cried tears of joy!

Paleo is not just a diet, it is a way of life. It is a lifestyle and a life changer. I have become part of an amazing community of people who eat together, do life together and live an amazing life. I want a partner who thinks this way. I want to raise my kids this way. It is more than just food it is a mindset of living simply, the way we were meant to live.

This is the thing, once you understand what is going on in your body, and the effect certain foods have and you begin to feel the difference you just can’t go back. You can’t go back to your previous way of living. You know too much, and have seen the results. It is hard to explain to someone without them experiencing it for themselves. Really the motivation for health has to be the issue. If it’s just you and your will against the cheese cake, the cheese cake will win. But if you really begin to understand what the cheesecake does inside your body it stops you and makes you think. So many of the clients who come to see me at the Y aren’t really ready to make the change unless they have been in some big health crisis. I say don’t wait! Do it now! Invest in your health.  It’s just like a car…if you continue to put bad fuel in the car, eventually it will break down. You put the right fuel in your car, why wouldn’t you put the right fuel in your precious bod?
Health is a journey, I myself have faced some battles of late and had to fight HARD to make it through.  It is worth it though and in the end you don’t know what you have till it is gone. Don’t let your health slip away from you.  You are either moving towards health or away from it in every choice you make. So grab some people who want to be on this journey with you and move towards health together.

Much love,

Jen & Amanda

**GIVEAWAY**PRIMAL LIFE ORGANICS BODY KIT!

Happy Monday loves!! I have a special treat for you today, as promised on Friday…

…we’re doing a giveaway for a whole BODY KIT from Primal Life Organics! The kit includes:

• Dirty Mouth Primal Toothpowder
• Primal Pitstick (one of PLO’s best selling products!!)
• Primal Hand Repair
• Torn-Up Primal Skin Repair (for those nasty boo-boo’s from all those pull-ups!)
• Grunt Primal Lip Balm

How awesome is that?! The giveaway will be going on until Wednesday at 3pm PST. Here are the rules to enter:

• You must “like” Primal Life Organics on Facebook (here).
• You must “like” The Beautifully Strong on Facebook (here).
• You must share the link about the giveaway in order to enter.
• Finally, leave a comment on this post letting me know you’ve completed those steps! PS: if you’ve already “liked” either my page or Primal Life Organics, just do whatever you haven’t done already, and let me know you’ve done it!

That’s it! I’ll choose one of the comments on Wednesday at 3pm, and the package will be mailed out to you FRESHLY MADE!! Lucky you! 🙂

Have an awesome day guys…and good luck!

Much love,

Jen

Friday Fave’s

Happy Friday loves!! I’m going to make this short and sweet so that I can hop on my bike and head back home for the WEEKEND!!! Here are a few of my favorite things THIS week:

 

1. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I just finished this book for the second time last night, and I honestly feel like EVERYONE would benefit from reading this book. It focuses on marriages/love relationships, but knowing the “love language” of friends could make your friendships a whole lot better as well. Look for a post on this book in more detail next week…

2. Dayglow. We loved it in the 80’s, and we’re loving it now!! I dont’ know if I watched too many 80’s movies about California as a child, but for some reason, this is how I always FIGURED Californian’s dressed…dayglow, all day long 🙂

3. Finally, my last favorite thing for today is the Primal Life Organic’s Infiniti face line. First of all, I can’t say enough awesome things about the owner of this company. I emailed her looking to affiliate with her, and she sent me some awesome products to try. Not only did she send me awesome products, but she made it fresh!! I am in LOVE with the face line…absolutely in love. There is a face wash, toner, serum and a moisturizer. Every single ingredient in the line is “Paleo” and definitely au naturel 🙂 Nick tells me almost every single day that my face smells like brown sugar…sweet side benefit. The best benefit of all is that my face feels a baby’s ass, and I have pretty much gone from running into Sephora in a panic for someone to teach me how to wear makeup because I felt like I was scaring little children, to now reverting back to my original stance of sans makeup most days (except for maaaaybe a little mascara). Whether OTHER people think I should be wearing makeup or not is irrelevent…I feel so much more comfortable and confident in my own skin again…I love this stuff!!

So, good news for all of you! Monday I will be doing a giveaway from the Primal Life Organics BODY LINE!! I will give you all the details on Monday…but you DEFINITELY want to try for these goodies… *hint, there may even be a Primal Pit Stick in there…;)*

 

I hope you all have an amazing weekend. I’m looking forward to doing sweet NOTHINGS!!!

Much love,

Jen

I think I may have found my dog’s flaw after all…

This morning, McMillian and I were taking our daily walk up the hill, while listing our (by our, I mean my…) gratitudes. It was GORGEOUS out this morning…so peaceful…the sun was bright and hot. We get to the hill, and I let McMill fly free…I was loving every second of watching him run like the wind up and down the hill, while I sipped my hot tea. It was awesome…every bit of it was. He was tearing through the tall grass stirring up all the birds, and his jowls were flopping in the wind. I whisper, “I’m grateful for McMillian and I’s little game…”. We have this game where he runs ahead, and then I yell, “Come!” and he runs to me, sits down, and waits until I tell him “GO!” which is when he’ll tear up the hill at full speed. I love it, and he get’s a good workout in a time pinch. Just as I was whispering this under my breath, I see him tearing toward me (no different than any other time…) and before I know it, I find myself staring up at the sky, head pounding, covered in tea.

…yup…that happened.

Let me put it this way…I was NOT happy.

Believe it or not, however, once I got up and realized what had happened…told him “NO!” while he smiled and wagged his tag at me (I think he thinks he won the game or something…), and clipped him back into his leash and walked down to the road…I literally TRIED to continue my gratitudes anyway. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the kindness in me to succeed at that…but A for effort? 🙂

When I got home and was covered in tea, my glasses included, and I didn’t look one bit grateful for shit…Nick wasn’t too happy to find out what happened either…and mumbled something about that being his fault for a little game him and McMill play…we’re learning everyday people!

Oh well, besides that, my morning was pretty awesome…and it started with the most delicious, nutritious, quick and easy breakfast EVER!!! Check it out:

Paleo Granola (from: PaleOMG)

Ingredients

• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup pecans, chopped
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (or other oil)
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 cup dried cranberries OR blueberries OR raisins
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Add all ingredients to a large microwavable bowl, except the fruit.
3. Mix well. If the honey is thick, heat up in the microwave for about 30 seconds and mix well.
4. Place on a baking sheet (use parchment paper for easy clean up).
5. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally to help it not burn
6. When you pull it out of the oven, mix in dried fruit. Let cool.

Isn’t it dreamy?

…I poured delicious hemp milk over the granola and sliced half of a banana on top; paired with a hardboiled egg and a (almost drank) cup of tea…I was ready for whatever the world threw at me…including my 70 pound dog.

 

Much love,

Jen