Poverty

Today, I am grateful for my home. My warm home. I am grateful for my husband and his education as an attorney. I am grateful we are able to afford more than we need. I am grateful for our phones, that we may call whomever we need, whenever we need to. There are so many things that I feel are taken advantage of. I come home and worry that my home isn't clean enough, our food isn't nice enough, or that I'm a little chilly-when really all I need to do is put a sweater on. When really, I should be grateful I have a house to come home to, and this house will be there this month, and next month, and the month after. I should be grateful that we have enough food to feed our small family, and grateful that we can afford to heat our home, and don't have to worry about how we will do it.

I am grateful for these things, because I realize there are families who, today in the United States of America, don't know how they are going to pay their rent next month, or pay their utilities to heat their home, or make a phone call if they need to. Today their are families who haven't worked in 2 and a half weeks. When they go out everyday for 8 hours a day looking for work. Only to come home to a family of 5 empty handed.

Speeding

About a year or so ago, John told me about how the greater Portland area uses white vans parked in inconspicuous locations to photo enforce speed limits. I thought that was crazy talk! I can handle photo enforced intersections- you know where they are, and it's easily visible as to not run a red light. But vans that maneuver around Portland... you never know where they are!

I didn't think much about it until a few months ago, the day I was on my way to tour Daphne's new school, I raced down a hill in Beaverton and saw this white van flash at me a few times. My friend so nicely pointed out that I had just been caught speeding. I seriously doubted that was what happened, because it was just so weird and foreign I didn't think it would pan out to be anything.

A few weeks later, I got a thick envelope in the mail, with lots of pictures of me racing down that hill in Beaverton. Pictures of my car, close up pictures of my profile, everything. They even provided me with a link and a code so I could watch the video tape of it.

Me being me, I sent in the necessary info to put in a not guilty plea. You couldn't even see my whole face for crying out loud! After a month or so I looked up my case- dismissed! But I am sure to slow down whenever I see a white van parked on the side of the road and I haven't gotten my picture taken again since.

Tangent

This post is going to be a tangent of a tangent of a tangent. Of a tangent.

Recently, John and I have been sucked into the RedBox DVD Rental machines. I really loved the idea at first, and we used it ALL the time. I mean ALL the time. One month we totalled how much we had spend at RedBox and it was almost $30. Then, I noticed that the movies I really wanted to watch, were never there. I mean, do they only have one of each of the movies in that thing? Then there's the lines! If you get stuck behind someone, you could be waiting for like 5 minutes. I just don't have 5 minutes people.

That being said- we decided to reactivate our Netflix account. We got a great Blu Ray Disc player that has some kind of hook up so we can watch the instant play movies from Netflix's website right on our tv. It's pretty much like movies on demand that you get with cable! I have fallen in love with this set up. It's great.

The other day I was parousing through our Netflix Instant Que and came across the TV series category. I started watching this show called "30 Days". It's basically a reality type tv show where a person with a strong ethical/political/moral view is placed in a completely opposing environment for 30 days. I watched one last night about a guy who was a computer programer, but then was laid off because his company outsourced his job to India where they could hire someone there to do the same work for a fraction of the cost. The laid off man had yet to find another job. So, the show takes the laid off guy, and has him live with a host family in India for 30 days who all have American outsourced jobs at call centers and what not. In the episode, it goes on to explain how Indians go through extensive training to learn how to hide their accents and to sound more American. Pretty crazy.

Here we are today. I get home from work... pretty late in the evening. I see an envelope from Target. I open it. John and I had just paid off a pretty high balance on my Target card. I have had this Target card at a pretty high credit limit for a few years now. The letter inside the envelope stated that they were lowering my credit limit by 75% (just weeks after I paid off the balance) for completely bogus reasons. John and I weren't planning on using the card anymore after paying it off.... so I immediately called Target to cancel my account.

The person on the line sounded JUST like an Indian man trying to cover up his accent. It felt so good to cancel that stupid account. Fuck Target.

Good day today

I got some good exercise today!

I had a training at PSU today so I decided to ride my bike. Three miles there and back= 6 miles of bike riding. John was nice enough to take Daphne to her school on his way to work even though it is completely out of his way, so that I could do that. Thanks honey! I'll be doing the same thing tomorrow. I even stuck to a reasonable diet today. Smoothie for breakfast, then an apple, then a turkey sandwich (extra veggies, no cheese or mayo!), then an orange, and then a goat cheese caprese panini with roasted potatoes for dinner.

And then tonight John had band practice, so Daphne and I made a jont down to our local Trader Joes. I put Daphne in her stroller and jogged there and back. 2.4 miles of jogging total. AND- I got a BUNCH of produce and some other things and only spent $35!

The good ol' days

This is going to sound really odd... but I miss being a poor student. I miss living in Michigan, being a stay at home wife/mom and my biggest obligation was going to the gym for at least 2 hours a day. I was more in shape during that time in my life than any other time.

Sure, I thought it sucked at the time, but looking back it wasn't that bad. I was able to get a membership to a VERY near by YMCA for only $5 a month. I woke up at 6:00am everyday and was home by 8:00am so John could go to class. Most of the time when I returned home, John and Daphne would still be asleep. I thought it was so cute. I loved coming home and making them breakfast- even though I was disgusting, smelly, and greasy. It was even better when I would come home and John had made breakfast for me. John is so sweet like that.

I loved getting into nutrition and exercise. In November of 2007 I got into competitive weight lifting and had some huge guns (arms). By June of 2008 I was on my way to my second 5k.

We were too poor to eat out so I always felt slim. I hated this at the time, but looking back it was actually a good set up!

Now... I work 8 hours a day. I'm too tired to get up early to go to a gym, and don't have enough time to go when I get home from work. I am too busy to always pack the healthiest food with me when I go to work and am too tired to always cook dinner at night...

Maybe my job could be to work out all day...

I feel like somoene beat me up

OMG... I am so sore! My abs feel like jell-o. AND I have allergies. So every time I sneeze, it's cut off because my abdominal area can't work hard enough to get the rest of the sneeze out... I'm so pathetic! All this pain and suffering yet I'm going back for more! On Saturday I'm going to try their Core Pilates class followed by a Yoga Flow class. Something mellow to wind down with. I'm so excited!



And for today's green smoothie....


1/2 cup o.j.
1/2 cup water (I decided to cut down on the o.j. to save on calories)
3 tbsp flax
1/2 of a cucumber
2 blood oranges
1 cup blueberries
2 bananas
2 cups spinach
1 cup yogurt
ice


The texture was odd today though. I think it was because I added more yogurt than usual and more ice than usual. This turned out to be two servings at just under 340 calories per serving! Yay!

First Night of Kicked My Ass Yoga/Pilates Class!

Groupon has got to be the best thing ever created.

A few weeks ago I saw a deal for 5 mat classes and 1 personal session for a great price at Studio Blue and snatched it up. It was in the middle of hell John studying for the Oregon bar, so I had to wait until that was over to schedule my first class.

My first class was tonight and I tried a yoga/pilates sculpting class. I just have to give a big thanks to Bob Harper and his yoga/pilates/abs dvd that I have been doing on and off for about a year. The class was hard, but not as hard as it would have been if I had no idea what I was doing. For me, it was just the right about of intenseness that I like AND the last 5 minutes was totally zenful yoga.

The studio was amazing with an intimate class of only 10 people. I can't wait to go again, this will definetely have to be something I do all the time from now on!

SMOOTHIES!

Last weekend I went to visit my friend Andrea. Needless to say, I had a blast. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was learning how to make Green Smoothies. I decided to blog about my week of smoothie making since then- I just want to make sure I give credit to Andrea for the positive influence!

So the first smoothie I made was an exact replica of one Andrea made for me. Here's what's in it:

I'll call this... Cucumber Smoothie

-1 cup o.j.
-3 tbsp ground flax seed
-2 blood oranges
-1 cucumber (cubbed)
-2 bananas
-2-3 cups spinach
-ice

The thing I love about these smoothies is that they're so unconventional. Cucumbers? Spinach? Before you judge- try it! Once everything is blended together you would never guess there was spinach in your smoothie aside from the odd green color.

The next day I made one that was a little more reflective of my own style. I'll call this one the green berry smoothie:

-1 cup o.j.
-3 tbsp ground flax seed
-1 cup frozen mixed berries (I used about 1/2 cup blueberries and 1/2 cup marionberries)
-1/2 of a pomegranites seeds
-2 bananas
-1/2 cup yogurt
-2-3 cups spinach

I decided that these smoothies need yogurt. You just can't compromize that creamy flavor that yogurt gives you. This smoothie was a lot sweeter due to more fruit and less vegetables. I like the idea of just throwing spinach in your smoothie. I mean- why not? You don't even know it's there and it's super healthy for you!

Here's my third smoothie:

-1 cup o.j.
-3 tbsp flax seed
-3 blood oranges
-1 cucumber
-the rest of the pomegranite seeds
-3 strawberries (these were just lying around so I threw them in)
-1 banana (that's all I had)
-1/2 cup yogurt
-2-3 cups spinach
-ice

So John and I noticed that if there is a cucumber in the smoothie, it tastes a little more vegetably. I don't mind though.

This morning's smoothie was really good! This one is called Green Smoothie Exotica

-1 cup o.j.
-3 tbsp flax
-1 mango
-3 kiwis
-2 bananas
-1/2 cup yogurt
-2 cups spinach
-ice

It was a solid bright green and very sweet! Daphne asked for seconds! Daphne has been drinking the smoothies every day and always likes them. Could you imagine her reaction if she could comprehend that she was drinking spinach? We won't break the news to her yet...

Anyway- I love these smoothies! I just wish I had a better blender so they were a little more smooth. Right now they aren't as "blended" as I would like. Our blender is cheap- it was probably the cheapest one at Target and we got it when we got married... almost 5 years ago! We're kinda leaning towards getting those really cool blenders that can blend anything-the ones they demo at Costco. We'll see!