my nose is running and my feet smell

Hey you guyyysss! My face is in full-blown cold-mode right now. I've gotten up twice in the last two nights to eat a cough drop at 3 a.m. and just used 4 kleenexes blowing my nose (kleenex? klenexi?), and getting up too fast gets me super dizzy. I'm such a pathetic sick person. In fact, that's the reason I'm not up working out or getting my brakes checked like I should be. I'm still in bed, although I did get up to get myself some breakfast earlier. My mom prescribed me rest & oranges to eat today, so I'm taking full advantage of that and will probably work my way through the bag of cuties I bought yesterday. Cuties are NOT just for kids.

image source (http://steamykitchen.com/6926-crispy-kale-recipe.html)

Hey look! Kale! sorry, I couldn't come up with a better transition with that in my mucousy state. Also, I would have used my own picture, but lets be honest, the robbers stole my camera. One time I made kale chips. I was super excited because everyone raves about them. By everyone I mean some blogs I read. Bottom line it tasted like I was eating crispy paper. Maybe I should eat someone else's kale chips before I just make my own next time. Anyway, I bought some yesterday at the store (just kale not the chips) hoping to branch out in my use of the suspect cabbage. No really, it's in the cabbage family, Wikipedia told me so. I decided to make myself a KALE SMOOTHIE.

Ingredients:

• some kale
• strawberries (washing totally optional because I think dirt is okay and I'm LAZY)
• blueberries (i used both fresh and the leftovers of a bag of frozen berries I had)
• a banana
• soy milk

Here is where it gets interesting. I get everything ready and get out our blender, which I've had an iffy-relationship with since the beginning, and the thing won't lock on to the base. This Waring Pro Bar Blender should, in theory, be totally functional and awesome, but its not. My husband was home, he can't get it to work either. I try to make it blend even though it's not locked on, and it basically just spins around enough to blend the bottom two kale leaves into pulp.

Finally, I give up on Waring and move on to my trusty Oster hand blender that sounds like its pulverizing the blades when you turn it on. It's frightening but generally gets the job done. It's not as blended as it would have been in a blender but honestly the kale smoothie was DELICIOUS.

I offered some to my husband and it said it smelled like grass. More for me, I guess.

Observation Tuesday: Volume 17

Observation Tuesday Continues!

• I have been asked how to spell my name more since I've been married than ever before. I had no idea Knox was so challenged. From now on I'm going to respond with "like the Fort"
• In my mind I miss school. But I realize what I miss about school is studying what I want to, not what I was forced to. I'm getting my ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) certification and just don't like studying for it.
• Its been too long since I've crafted. It's on my to do list for my days off this week.
  
• Now that I don't have my nice camera I wish I had an iphone with an 8 MP camera on it...
• You've Got Mail is a quality movie. It gets better every time I see it. I don't think I ever knew Dave Chappell is it in....
  

A little change

A few weeks ago I watched a documentary called "Forks over Knives" on Netflix. Here is summary from the website:

"FORKS OVER KNIVES examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods. The major storyline in the film traces the personal journeys of a pair of pioneering researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn."

I was totally inspired.

As a medical professional I work in a hospital where most of our "curative" efforts consist of giving people a new pill for every new complaint they have. Unfortunately due to lack of time/resources/education most people accept this and go on and generally don't make any lifestyle changes. I find myself getting endlessly frustrated with our medical system (although sometimes it's the individuals or doctors or myself) because of this. In the documentary they feature several doctors that help people with reversible diseases (like hypertension, heart disease, diabetes type II) stop and even reverse the disease itself with diet and exercise.

And last week I finally picked up a book called Anti-Cancer by Dr. David Servan-Schreiber. (It's been on my book list for months & don't worry, you'll get full review when I finish it). The author was diagnosed with a brain tumor and ends up researching ways to help our bodies and modern medicine fight off cancer (and prevent it) with diet, habits and lifestyle changes. I'm about 50 pages in, but I'm also completely inspired by this as well.

I've thought about changes I need to make for awhile. I'm pretty consistent with exercise, I do the gym thing most days a week and try and do some yoga at home, but I've always been challenged when I think about what I eat/put into my body. Bottom line here is I think I'm going to move away from eating processed food and I'm going to cut down on my intake on animal products. At this point I doubt I will ever be 100% vegan (lets be honest, I had bacon on my breakfast burrito today) but I've started drinking soy milk (which is actually really good) and trying to eat less animal products. We'll see how it goes.

There is a lot more I could expound on related to these topics, but I'll leave it at this for now. I'm still processing and learning most of this myself and I'll have to see where this goes from here.

Observation Tuesday: Volume 16

1) Being robbed is super inconvenient/pretty depressing/annoying. Our house was broken into this past weekend and the robbers did a number. They got most of our electronics (except the giant old TV we were trying to sell on Craigslist), my husband's guitar, some of his clothes (including a pair of underwear), and my makeup.

2) I am incredibly grateful for several things in this though. First, we have renters' insurance! Praise the Lord! They didn't destroy anything in our house. They didn't find my old HP laptop in the closet. I still feel safe in my house. It happened at a time where I was able to come home from work early. We have pictures on Facebook.

3) Carrot muffins are delicious.

4) I don't really like parsley, although I love this recipe for Spaghetti Squash with Mushrooms in spite of it.

5) We truly live in an electronic age. We got a copy of our police report online.

6) I've never prayer for someone to be an idiot before, but I'm hoping the people that took our stuff are stupid enough to try and pawn it or put it on craigslist!

p.s. sorry this is kind of a debbie downer

Everest, Sisters & Midwives: Book Reviews

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Okay, so I listened to this and didn't read it, therefore I will only count it in the end of the year total if I don't make my goal with books I read :)
Anyway, this book mostly confirmed my lack of desire to climb mountains that present any real danger. Krakauer recounts his experience climbing Mount Everest in the spring of 1996 (I was 8...). It was one of the deadliest years for Everest ever and in his story I think 12 people die. It was incredibly interesting to listen to and mildly horrifying to hear about the altitude illnesses and injuries that occur throughout his 6 weeks there. I definitely recommend this one.

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveria

This is the story of a motivated midwife in the midst of the American Civil War. Mary Sutter longs to be a surgeon and goes to great lengths to do so. Her family suffers great loss as her brother and brother-in-law go off to war, her sister gets pregnant and Mary leaves her family to be a surgeon in the war despite her mother's pleadings not to. Oliveria even brings in famous political figures (hello, Lincoln!) and stories of battles (and horrific war injuries) into the story line. Not the best book of the year but a compelling read. It also made me glad I work in the 21st century where we wash our hands.

The Sisters by Nancy Jensen.

I read about this book in Entertainment Weekly (don't judge me!) where it got good reviews, so I decided to pick it up. Jensen tells the stories of two sisters whose lives are ripped apart by one horrific misunderstanding. There are some really dark events in the story, including rape and a lot of anger, and the whole time I wished I could just tell the sisters what happened so they could get over it. Overall its a well-written novel that I finished in about a week, but not one to pick up if you're in the mood for some light-hearted reading.

Weekend Away in Abq

Our view from the top of the Sandia Tram.

Seth & I drove back in through icy roads and a snowstorm about five hours ago. We came back to a house that was a frigid 47 degrees! Anywho, on to the point of this. Our weekend in Albuquerque was lovely. Lots of delicious meals, fun outings and a little shopping made for a fun weekend. Oh! and we had the luxury of TV in our hotel room. Fantastic.

This door was in Old Town, where we had a fantastic lunch at Le Crepe Michel. Unfortunately my camera card went on the fritz so the pictures of us there, and of my french onion soup and ruby peach & lavender creme brulee are MIA.

The best meal from the whole trip. My croque madame from The Grove Cafe. I wished we had eaten there on Saturday morning too so we could have eaten there more than once.

Us. Windblown on top of the Sandia Tram.

Why I can spell Albuquerque

We're heading there today! And all the googling really got annoying until I learned how to spell it. Until next week...