Beans, the devil's secret weapon

Okay, so I truly debated whether or not to share this one... But I just was going on and on about integrity and authenticity, so here goes. The menu I put together for this week had beans on it. So, when it's bean soup on the menu and when I saw bean soup mix at my favorite store, WinCo, I got about a quarter to a third cup and had a plan. The plan was this:

I knew from hearing people inpin  you have to soak beans before you cook them! So, my well-planned idea, looking at my menu for the next day... I put them in a bowl and, so pretty! I soaked them overnight :-) probably, I would say, 16 hours. Adequate, right?

Well, when it came time to eat lunch, I didn't know how long to cook them. I had sprinkled seasoning salt in the water, didn't change the water... Important to note...(read the linked article, that comment will make sense) And I figured 2 minutes, the water came to a boil... I let him sit for a while before I actually got to eating them, and then I ate them.

Some of them are still crunchy, but I thought, oh heck!? It'll be okay, it's a bean! Notice the many beautiful beans in this concoction. Lentils, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, lima beans, beans I probably didn't even know where beans!

A side note is this, a couple weeks ago I had sworn off beans. I had sworn them off because... I got clever. I decided I was going to make a bean salad! They are good for you. Fiber, protein, how can you go wrong with a bean? So, I dumped a can of black beans, a can of cannellini beans, a can of chickpeas... I don't really recall what else was in there to be honest, and I had this beautiful bowl of bean salad. Well... After about three days of eating a quarter to a half a cup a day... My digestive system was, unhappy to say the least. I literally felt like it must feel like to be 10 months pregnant. I was so bloated, it was ridiculous! At that moment, I swore off beans... That was until I saw this menu, that seemed so perfect..

So, on to today... I never believed that food could make you sick within an hour unless it was poisoned or something, because in biology you learned that it takes however many hours for stuff to get through your system blah blah blah...

After about an hour... I started not feeling so very well... It continued and continued and continued... I was so bummed because I was supposed to have a date with my niece, which I kept. We went swimming, but I literally was in the bathroom at some points every 15 minutes earlier in the day. The thing is, I don't get sick. Not like this. I might get a sinus infection, a headache here and there... Usually from dehydration, when I throw up... It's been two significantly abominably stressful times in my life that were the most difficult ever... Like EHHHVER!... I learned I get stress tummy, but other than that, I'm usually pretty golden, so... When my tummy started with the gurgling and had a lot to say... I was pondering what the heck was going on...

I knew that there was some stress in my life, but knowing that I deal with stress by puking... sorry if this is TMI friends, but I promised authentic! Haha... anyways, I was trying to figure out what was wrong. When I was with my mom, I finally asked her... I was going through what I had been eating... I explained that this menu I was actually more excited about because it's more food I would normally eat, just put together and creative ways. I knew it probably wasn't the vegetables because I've been consistently eating vegetables for months now! Not that I've not gone days without them, I have! But it shouldn't be a shock to my system at this point to eat a salad, for Pete's sake!

Well, then... We got to the bean soup... Like Linus and Charlie Brown Christmas, she said that's it! Maybe not that emphatic, but she was sure that it was the beans that were making me sick. Now, I don't know if it is every daughter or if it is just me, because I'm kind of this way in most aspects of life, my brother calls me Doubting Thomasina, actually... It's true, I am :-( So I didn't believe her. I couldn't believe that such good things that were put on this Earth, that when you are boiling the ham bone after Thanksgiving to make beautifully yummy delicious tootie bean soup, that that could make you sick! Like, SIIIIIICCK!

Said my good byes, kissed my niece, told her I loved her... Get in the vehicle and I googled it... And guess what? When you have a biologist as a mother, you should probably trust her... She has a scientific mind, years of experience over my own, and... She survived a lot.

Read about Deadly Beans

There you go! I, in fact, I'm currently suffering a bout of food poisoning because I wasn't patient enough, nor did I know better, to cook beans for hours... Not 2 minutes, but hours. (as long as I am better by my Sprite-a-saurus's baptism!)

I love you so much that I shared my story with you to prevent you from experiencing it yourself! Please don't be a Doubting Thomas or Doubting Thomasina. Your digestive system will thank you. Sparkle on.

Nuked Cukes

Greetings! It's been a busy week and a half, I think!

Workout wise - I walked/hiked 7 miles last week and swam :-) I have to work out 3x/week otherwise I owe my friend, Moonyagi 20 burpees. To be honest, last week was hard!  We had a leadership weekend, and I was so tired before - thank goodness for swimming - I think tossing a child in the air and catching them is a high intensity strength training ;-)

THIS week, I've logged 4.8 miles..now, if you're not in AZ - the caveat here is - if you want to run, walk, hike, etc. and you're a Me - then you need to battle the Sandman and wake up early - so this morning at 5:30, as I was on my way to my destination, I at least got this beautiful sunrise - and I saw the elevation of this house and loved it! Forever ago, I had a dream that I moved into a house with a rock-brick front wall and when I saw this, it reminded me of that dream. Random tangent - it was with someone that wasn't my husband, and ...well, he gone - so - who knows! Maybe this is still in my future!

So - part of getting healthy and training is nutrition! My friend, KW knew I'd been documenting - so on Sunday, she laughed and said "don't forget to take your picture!"

This was today's leftovers - oops, I forgot I'd packed cucumbers in there and blindly shoved it in the microwave, which I HATE using - and....I accidentally nuked my cukes!😕😔😜😏😂

This beautiful-ness was breakfast yesterday!  1 egg, diced up mini peppers, some other stuff...8ish oz of almond milk, and I never ate the apple...

Me cooking the above!

This was the meal KW and I cooked on Sunday - WinCo had chicken breasts that were about a pound - I cut it into fourths, ate one that night - one last night, and two today. Zucchini, grilled with turmeric, caramelized onions, 1/4 sweet potato, and quinoa...oh, and FRESH cucumbers.  The nuked version was this meal, but..oops. Hey - cooked cucumbers, they weren't horrible...squashy. Never thought of cucumbers as a squash, but they are!

I think this was breakfast Sunday - eggs, avocado, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese, toast, sour cream...green onion, cilantro...

So - that's it! It DOES take some planning, FOR sure. But, so worth it! I don't like cooking because of how long it takes - but...I feel great with what I'm eating.  Each meal ends up being 300-600 calories - depending if there are added hemp hearts, flax seed (those little things are highly caloric, but good.)

If I could just kick my Nutella habit...I'd shed a lot of calories! Haha, it really is the sweets, or the occasional chips...but, deprivation isn't lasting, so - though I want to lose weight, and sure - there are those that say processed food is the Devil - I also like to celebrate the small wins! The HEALTHY calories I AM getting. 

Sparkle on!

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Breakfast		1 Egg. ¼ C Bell peppers. ½ C Mushrooms. 2 slices deli ham. ¼ C Almond Milk. Medium Apple.	1 medium piece fruit. Protein Shake w/ Spinach.	½ C Oats. 1 C Milk. 1 T Walnuts. 1T flax seed ¼ C blueberries. 5.3 oz Greek yogurt.	1 C Strawberries. 5.3 oz Greek Yogurt. ½ C Blueberries. 1 T Pecans.	1 WG Bread. 1 Fried Egg. 1 slice deli ham. ¼ C Bell peppers. 1 sliced tomato.
Lunch		2 C Mixed Lettuce. 3 oz tuna in water. 1 Avocado. 1 C Strawberries. 1 Hard boiled Egg. 1 T Sour cream. Dark Chocolate.	1 C  Lettuce mix. 1 String Cheese. ½ Cucumber. 3 oz roasted chicken. 1 Slice WG Bread.	1 Slice WG Bread. 3 oz Deli Ham ¼ C Bell Pepper. 1 C Veggie Soup 1 Slice of Cheese 1 Slice Tomato.	1 C Black Bean Soup ¼ C Shredded Cheese. 1 HB egg. 2 C Salad. 1 T Dressing. 5.3 oz Vanilla Greek.	1 C Lettuce. 1 Mozzarella Stick. 1 C berries. 3 oz Chicken. 1 Pickle. 1 T Dressing.
Dinner		2 C Green beans. ¼ C Shredded Cheese. 3 oz chicken breast.	Sunday Leftovers   3 oz Chicken Zucchini Cucumbers ¼ Sweet Potato Quinoa	6 oz Salmon. 1 Sweet Potato. 1 T Pecans 1 C Broccoli . 1 T honey	6 oz Shrimp. 2 C Veggies. ½ C Rice Medley	Clean Out Fridge
Snack (s)		Edamame Steamed veggies Celery and hummus Apple and nut butter 8oz milk Cranberries, raisins, pepitas (1T each)	1 HB egg 1 String Cheese 1 C Grapes			¼ C Rolled Oats 1 T Unsweetened Coconut 1 T Chia Seeds 2T PB powder ¾ Skim Milk

The Pollyanna Effect

The title of the post before this was really more for this notion - just know - we're not perfect as humans, we're trying our best with what we have. Sometimes, you have to make choices if there are people who aren't the healthiest - to let them go instead of holding you back. Does that mean you can't be their friend? Of course not - Jesus was PERFECT but that didn't mean he only hung out with perfect people, but he did spend time with those climbing the spiral towards their best self not descending further away from that self. He spent time with those that welcomed Him and those that rejected Him, He moved on seeking those with open minds and open hearts.

Anyways - I had a moment of frustration with the world - there's an organization out there called CISV which I got to be a part of - and it teaches of tolerance, love, understanding, empathetic listening, and other values.  It was born from war, actually, and fosters and encourages seeing each other as ONE, as humans, as people with feelings, beliefs, ideas - and in times of divergence, CISV teaches to be respectful and honorable in those trials.  Because of the frustration I had been feeling at the chaotic state of the country, the - disgust, even - of people hating on each other, pointing fingers, blaming, etc. my heart was heavy. I felt helpless and didn't know what to do. SO I started something that I had seen done before - 100 days of gratitude.

I honestly think because I had switched my focus over the past week, I had the perfect day yesterday. I got to spend the afternoon with an incredible 10 year old who taught me about grace, humility, maintaining standards, and love.  Towards the beginning of our adventure together - I caught this panorama:

I don't often have many beautiful things to say about the crock-pot known on the map as Arizona - but just look - through the never ending construction - there, you see the landscape that looks like a painting my grandparents would have in their home.

The day continued with perfection - I got asked to be a witness at a baptism for one of the kiddos who has me wrapped pretty tightly around her finger 💖 She also made me a customized Pokemon!

Something fun and important to note, so that you are able to understand the fullness of how my heart completely melted - she's SUPER obsessed with Pokemon right now - and this Pokemon, she named after me.  There are 3 on this earth who call me "Panda" and this, friends, is a "Pandagrove" - she (I'm guessing she) is a Panda - Mouse combination.  Her ears are that of a mouse and the poof on the end of her tail is that of a cute Panda tail.

There were many moments throughout the evening that were like this.  After everyone left our Independence Day celebrations, I was sharing with my mom some of my gratitude.  See, there are times in the stillness where my heart breaks because I haven't been blessed to have children of my own. I often question why people who haven't lived rightly by the Lord are blessed with children, and yet I have been "overlooked" for this blessing. However, what I was telling my Mom - if I had my own little ones, I wouldn't have the 15 that I do. Yes, you read that right - I have 15 kids.  I don't know that they all recognize that I call them my own, but I do.  I try to spend quality time with all of them (which can be a challenge!) I listen to them, hear them, offer a safe space to talk, be silly, etc.  At least, that's my goal and my hope.

I just want to be like Pollyanna.  My grandparents once shared that it didn't matter what was happening in their world, they always loved hearing from me and were elevated from that - I HOPE I get to continue that. I want to be like Ammon and serve with a pure heart, to be like Pollyanna and see the silver lining in all things, to change a town - to change a life.  Now, there is that one over the top of example from the Friends series who was sickeningly positive - and I say - ya know? That's ok if I get that way.

It's not that I don't get grumpy - I do. I was just grumpy earlier and felt the disgruntlement within my being of life's responsibilities that never seem to end, I was also probably hangry - but I'm not perfect.

I know I won't EVER regret giving too much, loving too much, smiling too much, being kind too much, praising too much - but I do know my heart gets sad for being grumpy too much, or ungrateful too much. Wonder Woman. Love.

Pollyanna changed a whole town through the Glad Game - can't we come to an agreement and learn that we could come together and change the world? There's a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln in this Disney film (though I learned that the attribution was fabricated for he film)  "When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will," So - I guarantee, if we started looking for the good, like the Reverend noted, we surely will.  This timeless story teaches simple truths that Wonder Woman and Pollyanna exhibit through loving their neighbor as themselves  - it's truly about WWJD. Sparkle on.

Perfect from Imperfection

Greetings! Happy Independence Day! It's still the 4th of July in Hawaii :-)

I often wonder what people eat when they're trying to "be healthy" so, to be transparent - here's an example of my lunch:

Believe it or not, that meal was 717 calories - the cucumber was zero - or 10. That is 1 oz of nuts, I weighed it, that is 170 Calories - the bulk of the calories came from my smoothie - why? Well, the Almond Butter - 1 T - was 190 calories, the banana is sugar, the blueberries, protein powder, almond milk, flax seed..I think that's it.  I don't think we realize how many calories we actually consume and the "empty" calories that are going towards nothing.  I WAS starving by the time dinner came along - but it had also been about 4-5 hours since I had eaten - which, some theorize isn't good and that we should be eating every 2.5 - 3 hours -so, I failed in that realm.  Breakfast this day was 3 eggs with chia seeds, half of a small avocado, and that was it!

SO - that's how this ordinary girl plans, cooks, eats.

I just got really sleepy - so I'm gonna publish this and then save the rest for tomorrow.