Project: 21 Days

Well that didn't work out too well

2011-02-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

Not that I can blame Kris Carr or the Crazy Sexy Diet. I had my spinal tap 4 weeks ago when I was two weeks into the cleanse. I have to be honest with you I was struggling anyway. I wonder if the problem was tied to the weather for one thing. It was so very cold that all that raw food was not sitting well with me. I was freezing all the time and never feeling satisfied.

After the spinal tap I had the dreaded awful post-lumbar killer headache. Everytime I got up my head felt like a melon being split open. Not the most pleasant experience. It took two weeks to go away. Then I started back to work. I'm only doing 4 hour shifts at the moment but I'm coming home sore and exhausted.

Suffice it to say that the cleanse fell by the wayside :(

I simply must get back on track!!

The plan at the moment is to attempt the Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse again when it's summer. In the meantime I'll slowly revert back to a whole food diet. And on March 7, I'm doing the vegan whole food online course with Heather.

I'll just keep on keepin' on.

And keep on posting :)

Carolyn

Cookbook love

2011-01-21T15:23:00.001-08:00

I absolutely LOVE cookbooks. Sometimes if I'm in the midst of madly cooking my way through a favourite, burning through the pages, it's like I'm having a passionate love affair or something :)

I actually have about 4 shelves of cookbooks, counting the books above. But with a few exceptions these are the ones I use time and time again. They have so many dog eared pages, sticky notes and bookmarks in them that it's laughable. I love them. If the house was on fire I would be very upset to leave them behind. But obviously I would since the kids and the husband and the cat come first...ahem.

So without further ado, from left to right:

~Ripe from around here by Jae Steele
~Get it Ripe by Jae Steele
By far my favourite vegan cookbooks!! I use both of these all the time. There has not been a recipe that I've tried that I didn't like. And she has tons of info at the beginning of both books.

~Vegan Cupcakes take over the World (read our previous post and you'll see why it's here!)

~Thirteen Moons by Louise Racine. From their Ontario Wellness Retreat for Women. Again every recipe I've tried is a keeper. It's organized by seasons, which I like. My pumpkin scones are from this cookbook :)

~Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Need I say more?!

~The Family Dinner by Laurie David. Not specifically vegan, although there is a meatless Monday chapter. Many of the other recipes are adaptable and it is an altogether beautiful book that will inspire you to make dinner an event!

~Babycakes Cookbook by Erin McKenna. Vegan, Gluten-free, some are also sugar free. Good stuff.

~The Kripalu Cookbook by Atma JoAnn Levitt. Aaah Kripalu, how do I love thee..... One of my dreams is to go to the center on a retreat. Someday! In the meantime I use this classic cookbook alot! More vegetarian than vegan, it's still worth having. The black forest cake is to die for! And the miso cauliflower..yum!

~Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates by The Moosewood Collective. Arranged by season and holidays this book is wonderful. Another of my dreams is to go to Ithica, NY for the weekend and eat all my meals at the Moosewood. I've been using their cookbooks for years.

~Simple Suppers by Moosewood Restaurant. Nothing more to add here.

~The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. More macrobiotic than I want to be this is still a wonderful worthwhile book. Great recipes and awesome info. And I have a girl crush on Alicia :)

~Moosewood Restaurant's Cooking for Health. I bet your getting tired of seeing that name huh?

~Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. A great, never fail, got it all covered cookbook!

~Vegetarian Cookbook by The Green Door Restaurant. This one isn't pictured because my husband was using it at the time that I took the picture. This is my favourite Ottawa veg restaurant. If you have the cookbook you can make your own potatoes and kale! Do you hear me Mel?

So what's on your go to cookbook shelf? What are your favourites? Always looking for fresh inspiration here!

Peace and dream clouds
C xxoo

Vegan Cupcakes WILL Take Over the World!!!

2011-01-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

Who needs eggs or milk to make good cupcakes? Hell, who needs butter to make a good buttercream frosting!

Apparently nobody, as I learned today. For christmas I bought my mom Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero...two women who really know how to bake vegan! So today, I thought I'd try a recipe.

Tomorrow is the last day of first semester and then next week I have two exams...eeek! I'm not stressing over my english exam, because english is one of my strong classes, but I'm kinda freaked about the geo exam. Geography doesn't really stick with me...honestly, I couldn't care less about stupid time zones and types of preciptitation. Nonetheless, I don't want to get below an 80% so I'll be studying all weekend...sigh.

Anyway, since tomorrow is the last day, my homeroom class is having a party and as per usual, everyone brings something in. Since I'm on the cleanse, I didn't want to not get any of the snacks so I figured I would bring something yummy and vegan in! I decided on classic vegan chocolate cupcakes with vegan chocolate buttercream frosting. I threw in some white chocolate chips and called it Triple Chocolate Vegan Cupcakes. They were really amazing and moist! So I made 36 cupcakes and put them in a box all ready to bring to school tomorrow :3

Honestly, if you haven't bought this book and you're into vegan baking BUY IT!!!!!! This is the second time I've ever baked vegan, the first time being last summer when I made cupcakes from the Babycakes cookbook. They were good, especially considering that they were gluten and sugar free, which these, unfortunately are not. However, they're REALLY good and since its a class party I made an exception.

Adios!

-Maddie

One of those days

2011-01-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a good day. I did yoga and skin brushing and meditating and dealt with the emotional rollercoaster that I've been on. I ate really, really well. Made my afternoon snack my leftover morning smoothie.

I kept my lunch heavy on the raw side. Tofu and veggies in rice paper wraps with a spicy dip, salad and leftover steamed greens.

I was surprisingly still hungry so I had some dessert. Apple slices and a couple of medjool dates (soooo good!) with a cup of peach ginger green tea. The tea was thankfully really warming because baby it was cold outside!

Dinner consisted of Costa Rican black bean soup. Nice and easy with no added fat in the soup. I diced some avocado and sprinkled it on top for added colour. We had our usual soup day side dishes with it, crudites, hummus, veg dip and flax/sesame crackers.

So all was well. Until I woke up during the night with ridiculous pain in my sides and lower back. I managed to get back to sleep but felt awful in the morning. I had a fever and kept dozing off. And the pain kept getting progressively worse. I finally took myself off to the walk in medical clinic. Result: kidney infection. Therefore, antibiotics. Ugh!

I'll up my dose of Vitamin C and take some probiotics. Hopefully that will help my body deal with the darn antibiotics. I'm sure I'll feel better soon!

I the meantime I'll keep on

and be back with more soon!

Love, peace and green juice

C xxoo

Looking for ideas

2011-01-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

Before I get to the main point of this post. Let me assure you that I've gotten back on track. Thank goodness :)

Last night Maddie and I had Gardein's Chick'n Scallopini, sauteed potatoes, steamed kale and salad for dinner. The Scallopini was delicious. I will definitely buy it again. It's so hard to judge the faux meats. Some of them are horrendous.

Today started with green juice. Surprise!! We did add kale though and wow did that ever ramp up the green of it all! I hadn't added it so far because I was a little concerned that I would find it too strong. But it was still very tasty and drinkable.

I've been a sprouting fool since this started which is great; however, I discovered that sunflower sprouts are better sprouted in a tray rather than a jar. Trying to get all those little black shells out of the jar is a nightmare! I'll stick to alfalfa and crunchy bean mix sprouts until I get a tray. I'll just add these to juice.

For lunch I ate the salad leftover from dinner last night and GF toast with almond butter. A green juice snack this afternoon held me until dinner.

These portobello mushrooms are what Maddie and I had in our fajitas instead of steak. As good as they were I found it tough smelling the grilled beef. I had to keep reminding myself how horrible life was for those poor animals and how BAD eating their flesh is for me. I made sure to pile the veggies on my fajita and had two servings of salad.

Now for the main point of this post. I have to go for a spinal tap on Monday. I've been told that I may be laid up with a splitting headache for a couple of days. If this occurs I'll literally have to be flat on my back :)

I'm looking for ideas for vegan, GF meals that can be made ahead or are easy enough to put together. Any and all ideas are greatly appreciated!

Love and peace signs

xxoo C

Crazy Sexy cleanse...days six and seven...oh my!

2011-01-16T17:52:00.000-08:00

So day six was definitely my hump day. I had a lot of personal, emotional stuff smack me upside the head and was feeling physically really heavy and dead. On top of all that there was a nice little snow dump happening outside. Instead of doing the right thing, ie: feel the feelings, be good to myself, then let it all go I ate a pile of reindeer cookies and boxed macaroni and cheese. Sigh.
Did I feel better after? Honestly no. The thing I felt was nothing...numb. Just to make sure that numb feeling didn't run away anytime soon I took an ativan.

I could have done a long yoga session, walked in the swirling snow, painted something angry, had a hot epsom salt bath, got my friend to do some reiki on me. But I didn't.

Really and truly I have to let it go. Because if I don't then I'll really be in big trouble.

So this morning when I woke up, I meditated. After hot water and lemon, I had a green tea then made a huge bunch of green juice. I turned up the volume by adding broccoli stems and parsley to my usual mix.

I kept to the green juice all day, except for a GF toast with almond butter when I couldn't take it anymore :)

The afternoon was spent painting a new picture. The opposite of my previous painting titled "Oppression".

I made a heavy-on-the-veggies dinner. Total atonement for my sins of yesterday. Raw carrot and beet salad, steamed purple cabbage, roasted squash and arame seaweed, fried marinated tofu and udon noodles with red and green pepper, muchrooms, broccoli, baby bok choy, crunchy sprouts topped with Gomasio. Delish!

Time to go and kick back folks...here's hoping that we all have the sweetest of sweet dreams!
C xxoo

Meditation and casseroles

2011-01-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

I had a strange experience when I was meditating this morning. I've been extremely disciplined about hitting the pillow first thing every morning and I've managed to actually increase my time from 10 minutes to 15. I'm much less antsy and find that my mind is wandering less. However, this morning as I was settling into the meditation I felt this overwhelming wave of grief. It was the oddest thing. I have never before experienced anything like it before. At the same time as the tears started pouring down my cheeks I had a sensation of sitting outside of myself watching this display with compassion. I found myself wondering why I was feeling these emotions. Why was I so overwhelmed with grief? As I watched myself silently cry, it came to me that I was grieving for the self that I could have become.

People say that it's never too late. Actually that's not true. Sometimes it is too late. I'm 43 years old. For me to become a doctor at this point and work with Doctors without Borders is not possible. All the time I wasted! The wrong choices I made. Of course I know there are other things that I can do that are somewhat similar and could provide a sense of accomplishment but it's not the same is it?

The amazing thing is that I came out of the meditation with a sense of quiet acceptance. I felt okay with the choices I had made and the paths I had chosen. Consciously or not. I wasn't angry or sad. I wiped the tears from my face and got on with my day with adetermination that fromthis day forward I would be sure to actively CHOOSE, as much as possible, to fulfill my dreams and goals. To finally become the person I am meant to be.

The past two days have been good. I am still extremely tired and needing to nap. I figure it's the lack of caffeine and sugar. I don't know how long it's going to last but hopefully it ends soon. It's been really cold out so I've been doing yoga for my exercise. Not exactly shaking my ass, more like slowly moving it :)

But at least it's moving! I'm getting better with the neti pot but more about that at a later date. The green juices and smoothies are going strong and I am keeping to the food aspects of the cleanse. Yesterday I made a delicious vegan split pea soup for dinner.

Usually on soup night (wednesday's) I make homemade artisan bread with all purpose wheat flour to go with our soup. Obviously that's not possible at the moment!

So instead of bread I served carrots, broccoli and sugar snap peas with a tofu dill dip. As well, we had some hummus and great flax-sesame crackers. It did the trick everyone was nicely full after.

Tonight I made a ratatouille casserole with a vegan parmesan topping. I filled about a third of my plate with it. It was delicious! The other 2/3 of the plate was filled with lightly steamed swiss chard and beet greens and a raw carrot and beet salad that had a lemon vinaigrette and a sprinkle of gomasio. Again it was more than filling. I'm enjoying expanding my food repertoire even more!

So as tired as I am, I'm going to say adieu :)
Sleep well everyone!

C xxoo

Day Two

2011-01-11T15:26:00.000-08:00

A few negatives today: a bit of a headache and some dizziness. I know exactly what is causing it though, it's caffeine withdrawal. Oh and sugar withdrawal too. Even though I had reduced my caffeine and sugar consumption before yesterday, I was still ingesting some. And can I ever tell!! Yesterday when I was having the withdrawal symptoms I thought I was coming down with the flu. Ha!! The symptoms were still there waiting for me this morning when I woke up. As the morning wore on it slowly struck me that the problem was withdrawal not flu. Just as well, I'll get over it faster :)

Despite the little withdrawal glitch, I had an excellent day. I hit the meditation pillow first thing and had a great breakfast of a purple coloured green smoothie...1/2 banana, 3/4 to 1 cup of mixed frozen berries, 2 cups of spinach, a sprinkle of cinnamon and stevia and a splash of water. Blended up it was delish.

Later in the morning we walked to the library. Steve carried my books for me...so sweet, like high school in a fifties movie :) Our walk lasted about 40 minutes, which is a nice length of time. My lunch was made up of last night's dinner with the exception of the potatoes and the addition of flax crackers. I really piled on the salad!

The afternoon was spent listening to my new "Chant" cd. It's excellent if your into that kind of thing. I find it hugely inspiring! I hear the chanting start and immediately want to pick up a pencil or paintbrush. This afternoon I did a picture including my goals for 2011. IT's at the start of this blog post. Much more inspiring than a plain old list!

I did a dry brush this afternoon and then took a hot epsom salt and lavender essential oil bath. Such a treat in the middle of the day :)

Taco Tuesday for dinner today :) I made a black bean base and cooked up some ground beef on the side for the carnivores. Maddie and I had some grated rice cheddar "cheese" which was actually palatable and tofutti "sour cream". I made a cucumber salsa and guacamole as well. The recipe for the tacos came from the book "Family Dinner" which is a great cookbook and lifestyle/idea book. Even though it's not specifically vegetarian there is a meatless Monday chapter and many of the other recipes can be adapted. We lit the candles and had a great dinner. I kept it to one taco and had two helpings of salad. I also piled the tomatoes and lettuce and other veggies on the taco.

As I write this I'm drinking a cup of "easy tea" which is good for digestion (hand blended), the kids are watching a movie and Steve is building a fire in the living room. I've taken my supplements and medication and despite my little "discomforts", I feel good!

A demain...

C xxxooo

Day 1 and stuff

2011-01-10T16:05:00.000-08:00

Yo. Maddie here.

I was vegan and stuff.

My cat threw up.

Dinner was good.
And I made banana sorbet.

I guess today went well and I know since its the first day your expecting a post of actual context, but since nothing happened today I don't feel like it. I'm sure my mom will write something good tomorrow...soooo yeah.

I guess the cleanse isn't as exciting as it was last time seeing as I've already done it, but whatever. I'm sure when I'm in a better mood another day I'll have something decent to say.

On another note, I am in love with the magic bullet. I DISCOVERED THAT ITS ALSO A BIG BLENDER AS WELL AS FOR INDIVIDUAL CUPS. And its a juicer. And stuff. Its fun, I throw in a bunch of stuff and make either juice or smoothies and its a lot of fun, plus theres a variety of things I can do. I made orange juice this morning but it was gross. Also, I've lemonade with stevia and its really yummy :) I tried using agave but it left a funny aftertaste.

For dessert I made banana "sorbet" (I USED THE MAGIC BULLET) and it was yum. I used frozen bananas and almond milk and some stevia because I like it when things are sweet. But bananas are already freakishly sweet so you wouldn't wanna put too much. I'm going to try this with other frozen fruits as well.

Anyway homework is piling up (summatives. fml.) and I should really be working on that instead of blogging so yeah. I would write more, but I won't.

-Maddie xD

Adventure Cleanse: Basic rules

2011-01-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

The basic rules for the CSD (crazy sexy diet) Adventure Cleanse are easy-peasy. Really, you are stronger than you think you are. And it's only for 21 days...not very long in the grand scheme of your life. But doing something like this could actually change your life for the better, so say yes!!

You'll be saying yes to:

-green juices

-green smoothies

-lots of fresh vegetables (some cooked, most raw)

-low glycemic fruit

-legumes, nuts, seeds

-whole grains (gluten free)

-healthy oils

-eating 60/40 or 80/20 raw (or lightly steamed/sauteed) to cooked ratio

-lots of water

-green, white and herbal teas

-agave and stevia in small amounts

-exercise. In whatever form you like, as long as it gets your heart rate up a bit and you get 35 minutes of it a day, 5 days a week.

-meditation/prayer. Working up to 15 minutes a day

-dry skin brushing

-certain supplements, if you choose.

You'll be saying no to:

-eggs, dairy and meat of any kind (yes this includes fish too)

-gluten

-processed foods, refined carbs

-refined sugar

-caffeine

-alcohol

-artificial sweeteners, flavourings and chemicals

-sitting on your behind day after day letting life pass you by

-looking and feeling older than your years

My intentions for 2012 are simple

1. Be well

2. Find my center

3. Say yes

I hope some of you choose to join me on the journey!
With love and gratitude
C

Dare you to try!

2011-01-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

I've remembered something about myself recently....if I try, there's a chance that I can do just about anything.

Last summer when my illness really started to take it's toll and I had to go off work on med leave it was tough. Especially because the first lung lesion was found at that time. Can you say stress? But within ten days I had myself turned around, quit smoking cold turkey and discovered Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Cancer crusade. Kris is wonderful and has tons of info in her DVD documentary and books. But at the time she didn't have any kind of full on nutrition related info out there so when I decided to do a cleanse I found Kathy Freston and used her as my guru.

And it was amazing. Transformative. I felt somewhat better and began to feel a measure of peace. Then the cleanse ended and after a time life, financial and family stress, illness and the discovery of another lung lesion intervened in a major way and I slipped off the path...right into the gutter. If there are any of you reading this who have been following me since the beginning you've seen me disappear into the nether world.

But around the time of the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21) I started to feel a small spark of my old self. My desire for change and my taste for the journey re-emerged. Then (just in time) Kris Carr's new book came out. Just what I needed to guide me and give me a good start.

My pre-cleanse week is almost up and I'm feeling really positive. Once again Maddie has decided to join me. :)

Monday we begin!

This morning I headed for the meditation cushion first thing and it started my day off just right. My timer is broken but I sat on the cushion and took a deep breath anyway. Funnily enough I opened my eyes at just the right time! (Ten minutes in and time to wake up my son)

This is my altar/meditation area. On the wall is the poster that my sister in law gave me for christmas. I'm going to have to get a frame for it eventually but I couldn't wait for that to happen before I got it up there. The framed 90 picture I found in a thrift store. It is made with flower petals and signed by a group of nuns. There is a postcard from an Irish cemetary, a couple of birthday cards that are special and a funeral card from my aunt Elaine who passed away from lung cancer in 2009. There's also a small framed print from Charleston leaning against the wall (most beautiful city I've been to-so far) I have a dream catcher hanging up there and a tag from France, a "green" tag...all funny little things that mean something to me :)

Must fly now...much peace, love and happiness to everyone!

C xxoo

The greening of the juice!

2011-01-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

I did it! After being unbelievably leery and unsettled about the idea, I managed to make, consume AND enjoy green juice. Which is a good thing since green juice is such an integral part of the Crazy Sexy Diet's Adventure Cleanse!

I aquired the juicer about 3 weeks ago. A super find at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. I don't think it was ever even used. There is no way I could afford one otherwise so it was like a gift from heaven. Especially since a juicer is something that I've wanted for a very long time. For three weeks it was sitting at the foot of my bed and I didn't dare use it. What if I didn't like the juice? That would kind of blow it all, wouldn't it? No Kris Carr cleanse. No image of myself drinking fresh juice being all healthy.

Thankfully, the juice was actually good! I made it with cucumber, celery, romaine and apple. It made a huge amount so I poured some in a small mason jar and refrigerated it to be drunk later in the day. I drank it after doing 40 minutes of yoga, having a healthy lunch and while re-watching "Eat Pray Love".

Today was a green smoothie day, which I've done before so nothing new there. Instead of berries though I made the smoothie with banana, almond butter, cocoa and spinach. Tasty :)

Then I ran errands and went for a long walk with my sister in law. (An hour and twenty minutes!)

So I'm on track in my transitioning. Down to one coffee a day, minimizing the bad stuff etc...

I'll just keep on keeping on :)

The call of cookies...

2011-01-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

In some ways today went fabulously well. I had a spinach and berry smoothie (with soymilk and flax oil) for breakfast and saved the remainder in a mason jar for an afternoon snack. I ate breakfast really late, so I had 2 slices of gf toast with almond butter alongside the smoothie and called it lunch.

Steve and I went for a great walk. An hour and fifteen minutes in gently falling snow. The weather was perfect. Not too cold and no wind. On the way back home we stopped at his parents and had a cup of tea and a nice visit.

I made two pasta sauces for dinner; one vegan and one with ground beef. Lit candles at dinner and used the nice dishes. Steve chopped all the vegetables for the sauces and we did the dishes together. Nothing to complain about right?

Well then, SOMEONE brought out a box of cookies we had received at Christmas. They were calling my name. Actually, it was more of a SCREAM than a call!! There was no way I could resist.

President's Choice Belgian chocolate cookies.

No they aren't homemade but for the longest time they were my favourite cookie, bar none! So I succumbed...I promised myself that I would be brutally honest here about how I'm doing.

Public confession over :)
The cookies called my name and I answered. I ate 5...So before I eat more, I'm grabbing my cup of herbal tea and getting outta here!

Keep on keeping on
C

The Pre-Cleanse begins

2011-01-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

I made my new vision board this weekend. Vision boards always get the creative juices flowing and ignite possibilities. If you've never made one, you really must!

The official date for the cleanse to begin is January 10th. That'll be the first day of my 21 day Adventure Cleanse! But today the pre-cleanse began. The rules for this week are as follows:

-Slowly remove coffee. Cut back to one cup a day by the end of the week.

-Cut back to no more than two alcoholic drinks a week and choose organic red wine.

-Drink lots of purified water.

-Reduce meat consumption to 3 to 4 ounces twice a week.

-Phase out gluten and dairy. Include no more than 3 servings of each over the week.

-Completely cut out processed sugar and refined carbs.

-Double up on the greens and have green juice a couple of times this week.

In addition I'm getting my cabinets in order, bagging up my supplements, making a couple of massage appointments, dusting off my rebounder and journal. Among other things :)

I'm using Kris Carr's "Crazy Sexy Diet" as my guidebook for this cleanse. I love Kris. She totally rocks!! I've watched her documentary "Crazy Sexy Cancer" over and over, whenever I've needed inspiration. I'll write more about her later.

More tomorrrow!

C xxoo

And so we meet again!!

2010-12-30T14:59:00.000-08:00

I've resurfaced from my self-imposed vacation in Hades and am now recently returned to the land of the living.

It's been a tough few months. Many, many medication changes, increased pain and depression and decreased mobility have resulted in many pounds gained. That weight gain created the perfect atmosphere for me to abandon most of my good habits. And so the cycle is created...

But I'm beginning to feel a glimmer of hope. That tiny shiver of a fresh start. And that sounds just right to me.

In honour of my resurrection I painted a picture today. First time I've painted since high school...that would be way too many years ago! Now I'm going to settle in and rip and tear, in preparation for the building of a vision collage tomorrow...

Peace and love my friends

xxoo

Still here

2010-09-28T05:42:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't forgotten you and yes, I'm still here. The pain that I have been dealing with has gotten significantly worse and is making it impossible to function. The neurologist had taken me off one of my pain meds because of the side effects that I was experiencing and I had to stop my other pain meds because of some tests that had to be done. Now my doctor is reinstating them all (plus a different one as well) but one at a time in an effort to get the right combination of pills and dosages. The project is put on hold due to this. Hopefully, within the next few days, my pain control will be better and I can continue the project where I left off.

Thank for your patience! And I'll try to get my superstar (aka: Maddie) to post in the meantime.

Carolyn

Maddie: Getting Involved

2010-09-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hey dudes.

As you know, my mom is getting back on track for the next 21 days. Since I'm already on track, I'm going to try to achieve the goals I want, and get involved in and outside of the school.

Last week there was a club showcase at my school. I decided to look around and join what I was interested. Though I'm dropping band, (and potentially music if I can get into a grade 10 art course...VOCAL MUSIC??!?!...hopefulllyyyyy) I've joined a million things in return.
SOOO, I auditioned for the school production of The King and I, and I'm in the chorus as a royal child and even though the chorus isn't good enough and I don't feel like accomplished anything I still have to stick with it. And I auditioned for Seussical at a local theatre, and call backs are Sunday. And I tried out for the improv team except I didn't make it which is just retarded because the people who just sat there and did nothing got callbacks and its stupid and I hate it and gah.

And I joined roleplaying club which is fun, and also very amusing because it's a bunch of guys, some girls (like 2 or 3), mostly geeky kids and then theres me, like this little preppy ninth grade girl (though I really am a dork at heart. Why else would I hve joined RPing? xD) .

Anddddd I'm trying out for Cappies Critics tomorrow. Which is where you like watch school plays and review them, and I'm hoping I make it because it's theatre and writing, two things that I really love.

And I joined creative writing though I haven't been going because the club days are always on wednesdays and theres usually girls singing rehearsals for The King and I.

To be honest, I'm feeling really lame and dissapointed with myself, because I suck at everything.

I'm in a bad mood.

Goodnight.

Day Three...back on track

2010-09-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

I left the house this morning at 10:00 and didn't get back until 2 or so this afternoon. Between being out and dealing with phone calls I didn't get much else done. Other than wash sheets and make dinner. No time for yoga or anything else today :(

I made some homemade artisan bread when I got home. I love, love, love this bread. There are only 4 ingredients: water, yeast, salt and flour. Unfortunately, it's made with white flour...which I try to avoid. I think I'll try playing around with it and see what I can do with different flours and maybe the addition of flax.

Along with the bread I served a leek and potato soup for dinner, carrot sticks and cheddar slices. I usually make dessert on soup nights and I made oatmeal, chocolate chip and raisin cookies while the bread dough was rising. I also made a chocolate "mousse" (made with silken tofu) to have with raspberries but I forgot to serve it. Ooops! I guess that'll be for tomorrow.

Well, that's it for today. I'm taking my tea upstairs so that I can stretch out with my book and hopefully drop off to sleep early!

Day two...back on track

2010-09-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

Despite being out until almost eleven last night and having a heck of a time sleeping due to pain and a stuffy nose, I managed 20 minutes of yoga this morning. Quite pleased about that. I didn't think I'd be able to do it all (gentle or not!). I also dragged my way through the rest of my morning routine and my weekly chores. It's tough today because I'm tired and it's extremely cold and dreary outside.

After a veggie burger and a nap I tackled one of my bookcases. I only managed to cull a few books from it but that's okay at least it's something. Then I cleaned the bookcase out before returning the books, wiped down the walls and entry window and washed the rug. The entry suddenly looks better. And it took me less than 1/2 hour (plus the drying of the rug). We build these chores up in our minds until they are these huge gigantic jobs that we don't want to tackle but they usually aren't that big at all. Tomorrow is a pretty busy day so I don't know that I'll have time to do anything outside of my usual stuff. Thank goodness housework doesn't go anywhere. Lol.

On another note, I spent 10 minutes in front of my meditation altar this morning after the yoga. I felt such a wonderful sense of peace after sitting with the silence and just "being". It isn't always like that. Sometimes your mind won't co-operate or the grocery list plays in an endless loop in your head. But then other times, it really does live up to what it's sold as and you can feel it...Peace.

For dinner tonight I made a pepper and mushroom fritatta, then steamed some chard and seasonned it with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I also made roasted rosemary new potatoes, a perennial favourite around here.

There are three of us sick with a cold here. Amazingly, I am not one (so far!). I'm going to go and make sure everyone is on track to get to bed early tonight and get some extra sleep. Bliss!

Day one...back on track

2010-09-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

So I managed to follow my new daily routine this morning and have done my Monday chores. Given that this is such a heavy run around kind of day there was no extra de-cluttering happening but there's always tomorrow. I have tweaked my daily/weekly rhythms to better reflect the new school year. If you are interested, you can see it posted on my other blog: http://www.asfarashome.blogspot.com/

I've got some general guidelines to try and follow in regards to diet. I've done some serious backsliding in the healthy diet department and have really got to smarten up. I need to get well and feel better and following a healthy diet can only help. I'll be eating mostly vegetarian with some fish and meat once a week at the most. I'd like to get to the point where I can eliminate it entirely but I unfortunately like it too much, at this point in my life anyway. Who knows what the future will bring? The same with dairy. But what I can do is consciously choose to eat a lot less of these things and eat a lot more of the things that are good for me.

Every day I'll try to include:

~ 2-3 L of filtered water and 1-3 cups of herbal tea. Start the day with lemon/aloe vera and water again.

~ 2-3 pieces of fruit

~ a fresh salad or big plate of crudites

~ 2 cups of cooked vegetables

~ 1 cup of cooked legumes or a serving of tofu, tempeh or fish. Once a week a small serving of meat (if I want it, if not even better!)

~ 2 Tbs. of flax seeds

~ 1/8-1/4 cup of raw nuts/seeds or 2 Tbs nut/seed butter (I want to try sunflower seed butter next)

~ a square or two of dark chocolate

I've adapted these guidelines from the book "Get it Ripe" by Jae Steele, which is an EXCELLENT primer on vegan cooking and living. And she's a Canadian girl :)

I started off this morning with a 1/2 cup of greek yogurt with some grated apple mixed in and some wild blueberries and walnuts on top. It's been awhile since I ate such a healthy breakfast and it felt good. I wish that I could find a soy yogurt that I like but I've tried two so far and they're not been very pleasant. So for the moment greek yogurt it is!

I planned this week's menu with the sales in mind. I also checked what we already had in the freezer/pantry and based some meals around these things. I'm trying really hard to keep our food costs down. By the time we had made our three stops we had spent a grand total of $160.00. Not bad considering that this includes a ten pack of CFL bulbs for $20.00 and a 6 pack of recycled paper towels. We are feeding 7 people for that.

For dinner tonight I made a vegan chili and vegan corn muffins. I have posted about them before during the vegan cleanse. I served these with a quick and dirty tossed salad. I'm having a cup of blueberry white tea and then I'm off to an Al-Anon meeting. I'm in pain and I don't feel well but I really need this, so I'm going to go.

Sleep well everyone. More tomorrow...

Carolyn

New project: Back on track

2010-09-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

Our new project is all about getting back on track. This is more for me than Maddie. She's got it together pretty good! But we'll talk about areas she wants to improve on and she can go from there.

As for me...well, my house is a mess, I haven't been exercising in any way, meditating, eating right...For the most part I am like an alcoholic who has gone on a binge of depression and lack of motivation! Well, enough already! This is starting to make me crazy.

The most difficult part of all this is that I have no money. And we really need to cut the grocery budget for awhile. So this is going to be difficult. That's okay. A challenge can be a good thing. I'm working on the details today and we'll get started tomorrow. I'm tired of being so unhappy with myself. The details behind it don't even matter.

Carolyn

going, going, gone

2010-09-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I wouldn't call this last project a total success. But neither would I call it a total failure either. Despite not doing as much as we wanted to do, we were pretty successful at the things we did attempt.

1. I stopped buying paper napkins and we have been using our cloth ones.

2. Still not 100% with using cloth bags all the time but getting better.

3. We have been composting so much more and also recycling more. We've become a lot more aware of what is going into the garbage. Well, at least I have!

4. Nothing to say here, the shower curtain is still gone :)

5. Using the cloths for cleaning and wiping up, even using the lint free ones for window and mirror cleaning.

6. I posted a couple of days ago on my no 'poo results.

7. I'm still reminding the kids to use the timer for showers.

8. Continuing to replace our burnt out incandescents with CFLs. This is going to be a long term, on going project. I will tell you though, the bulb in our laundry room used to burn out every 3-4 weeks because it's on so much. It's left on all night because the boys sleeping in the basement use it to see the stairs and not break their necks going up and down! We switched over to a CFL bulb about 4 months ago and haven't had to change it as of yet...so nice!

9. I've switched to recycled toilet paper

10. I made some surface cleaner

11. We made our own laundry soap!

It was so very, very easy... I had Steve finely grate a bar of Ivory soap (he used the attachment for the Kitchen Aid to do it) and then I added 1/2 cup of washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax. We use 1-2 Tablespoon per wash. It even worked on the basket of clothes that a certain cat peed in...twice. I did use the 2 Tbs on that load though :)

It works wonderfully well. When your clothes are done they just smell clean. There's no soapy smell but no sweaty or stinky smell either! We are so used to synthetic fragrance saying "clean" when it's actually the absence of the stink that should say clean. Anyway that one batch lasted two weeks and cost almost nothing to make, so this is not only green but it's also going to be a huge saving for us!

Which leads me into our next project...stay tuned!

And I promise we'll be much, much better at posting...in sickness and in health :)

No 'poo update

2010-09-10T14:31:00.001-07:00

Time for a quick "no 'poo" update. The picture at the top is after my first no 'poo wash (august 24) and the one on the bottom is after my last (september 7). It looks the same doesn't it? Unfortunately it didn't feel the same. I found that it was much, much greasier but also coarser, at the same time. If that makes any sense. I'm sure my hair appreciated the break from products but the colour was fading. Anyway, I had an appointment with a specialist on the 7th and when I looked at my hair after no 'pooing, I decided that there was no way that I was going to her office like that. So I washed it. With shampoo. And used conditioner.

Sigh...

I know that some people have had fabulous results with this. But I wasn't one of them. Not that it was in any way horrible. Just not great, for me that is.

So for any of you that are curious give it a try. And let me know how it goes...I figure that I made it two weeks and didn't want to shave my hair off. So it can't be THAT bad!!

Even though my health problems have not resolved and some days are better than others, I promise to try and update more regularly.

Carolyn

Day 12: Summer's Over! :D

2010-09-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

Hey dudes, it's Maddie! Most of you probably think "Oh no! Summer is over!" but I for one, get sick of the hot weather and boring days pretty fast. Plus, I'm pretty excited to go back to school. Of course, two weeks into school, I'll want summer again, but oh well :)

Today I:

Slept in until like 12:30 pm (totally by accident! I set the alarm for 9:30!)
Biked to the library and got myself some books :)
Stopped at a friends house on the way home
Wrote an introduction to another story
Organized the last few things for school
read

I didn't really do much, but I didn't do nothing either, and I got some stuff done which I'm glad about. Sometimes I sit around and do nothing, which makes me feel disgusting and so bored that I could run a mile!

School is starting on Tuesday, and as part of the eco-friendlyness of this project, my mom picked up some recycled notebooks and paper which they sell at the grocery store, but not Staples. Where's the logic in that?

I'm still 100% vegetarian, which is all good. I plan on bringing my own lunch to school for the most part, but when I don't have time to make one, I think I'll see what I can dig up at the salad bar in the cafeteria or hopefully theres a lot of other veggie options.

At the barbecue I went to one wednesday for the grade nine orientation, we got our homerooms, but not our full schedule. I think that's just ridiculous, because now instead of only bringing the binders and stuff I need, I'll have to bring it all. Anyway, I have gym for homeroom and first period every day first semester which I also think is ridiculous. I won't even be awake! Gym should not be aloud first period. What're they trying to do, torture the poor students? And what kind of homeroom is gym anyway? Other than that, I hope I have atleast drama first semester. I love drama class 8)

Like I said before...there isn't really much to talk about. We're just doing all the little things we can to be as eco-friendly as possible for this 21 days, and it is making a difference. It's funny because people think that it's so much work to do this, when really it isn't. And if it's hard to find eco-friendly products of anykind, make your own!

Speaking of making my own, I'd really like to learn how to sew. I think it'd be really cool to make a lot of my own clothes.

Well that's it for now! If you're doing anything exceptionally to help the environment, leave a comment about it! We need all the ideas we can get!

-Maddie

Day 8: Apologies, Plans, and Hairdye.

2010-09-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

Hey readers! Maddie here.

It's been too long since I last wrote...mom has been feeling really sick lately, and I know that we're supposed to post every day, but with this project, it's hard to because there may not be a significant change each day. So since mom isn't her best, I'm going to post as often as I can, which may not be everyday, with school starting and whatnot, but I'll post the most I possibly can. I'm really sorry that we've gone 5 days with out a post, and I apologize to all you readers who weren't actually reading anything :)

Anyway, since then I've done as many green things as I can. Things as little as walking to a friend's house instead of getting a drive, taking public transportation, and picking up garbage as I see it, as well as not littering myself. I plan to carry out these little things, as well as finding new ways to be environmentally friendly. I'm pretty sure mom made some cleaning products or something so look for future posts about things like that. Also, even though it's doesn't necessarily have to do with going green, I will continue to post pictures and recipes of vegetarian meals (not so much vegan), and mom will continue to do so.

Since the green project is a little dull to write about, I think I might just babble about life and whatnot. Today I went to this barbecue that my highschool had for all of us little minor niners :) Fortunately, there were veggie-dogs, that were exceptionally tasty. For the most part, veggie dogs are gross, but the one I had was really good! My friends and I chose our lockers and then just hung out. Also, since it was my older brother Josh's birthday, my mom made chinese food, and carrot cake. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken :(

Something a little more green though; I dyed my hair. Doesn't sound exceptionally eco-friendly (though it isn't not eco friendly lol), and it's not really, but instead of destroying my hair, I used Garnier Herba-Shine, a hair dye made from all natural ingredients, including bamboo extract to take the place of the ammonia. It turned out really well! I was going to post a picture of the out come, but I don't have one that I like yet...haha. I had a better angle of the box, but my camera card decided to destroy it :(

Well thats all for today! I'll post as much as I can, and once again my mom and I are sorry about not posting for a while.

Day Three...going green

2010-08-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be quick and dirty I'm afraid. I'm going to make my way to bed after this and I may not get up at all tomorrow. I've been forcing myself to get through the days and get everything (even on a reduced schedule) done but I'm feeling pretty finished and fried. So I may just keep my pajamas on and stay in bed all day tomorrow.

On to today's green news:

7. I brought a timer upstairs and told everyone that it must be set for 10 minutes before they even turn the water on in the shower. No excuses and no exceptions. There are people in this house who take showers that are 20-30 minutes long!! What a waste of energy and water.

8.I'm replacing our incandescents with CFL bulbs as they burn out. I went on a mission today trying to find some that would work in our dining room chandelier. It took me awhile...2 different stores and 3 returns but I finally found some that fit at Loblaws.

That's all for today folks.

-Carolyn

Day Two...going green

2010-08-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with our green changes I made a few more today.

4.I got rid of the ripped, still moldy no-matter-how-many times I wash it, PVC filled plastic shower liner. I resurrected the terry cloth shower curtain that I had tucked away and put that up instead. Yay...no more toxic fumes in the shower!

5. I've got 1 1/2 rolls of paper towels left. In the interest of making those last as long as possible and hopefulle not buying anymore I cut up a bunch of older stuff to make cleaning cloths. Then I cleaned out the space under the sink and reorganized it to make room for the basket full of cloths. I don't know how well this one is going to go over with the husband and the kids, but they aren't the ones who launder the darn towels anyway...so there!

6.I'm going no 'poo for the duration of this project!! Everytime I say this to someone their reaction makes me giggle. Needless to say it's not what they think it is. I've gone NO SHAMPOO people. Ahem!

In the perrier bottle is what I will be washing my hair with: baking soda and water. I mixed 2 Tbs. of baking soda with 2 cups of very warm water and shook to dissolve the baking soda. I used about 1/2 of the bottle in the shower today. After I rinsed really well (important since you don't want to leave a gritty residue behind) with water I used the second bottle. It contains about 1/4 apple cider vinegar and 3/4 water. To this I added a few drops of lavender and rosemary essential oils. It helped me to smell less like a salad :) I used about 1/3 of the bottle.

The results were good this time around. My hair looks and feels clean and is soft. Supposedly the first week or so of doing this you can end up with greasy hair but after that your hair adjusts and looks and feels good. Time will tell. I'll keep you all posted!

We ate dinner early tonight because there is an Elder Blessing Ceremony tonight at the Beaverpond. I'm hoping I won't be too tired to go. So I just made quick sweet potato fries (oven roasted) and fresh tomato sandwiches. Summer is so sweet...

-Carolyn

Day One...going green

2010-08-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

The first day of going green went okay. I set a few tasks for myself and did them all.

1. No more paper napkins: Since our cat had been using the cloth napkin basket to sleep in there was no way those napkins could be used without some TLC. So they all had to be washed and a drawer had to be cleared out where they could be kept without fear of cats. LOL

2. No more grocery bag collecting: I actually do own cloth bags I just always forget them either in the car or at the house. Except at Costco because they don't have any plastic bags...but today I actually remembered. And I put the bags back in the car so they don't get left at home.

3. Compost: We have a compost bucket under the sink. We have a compost bin in the back yard and Ottawa has a green bin program. Do we remember to compost? No we don't. So I put a sign up above the sink and I'll put one up above the garbage too. Hopefully this will help jog some memories :)

While the carnivores in the house had BBQ'd steak I cooked up some meatless beef strips (that's the actual name. The boys had a good giggle let me tell you!) along with onion, garlic, red pepper and mushrooms. For the sides we had stir fried summer squash, roasted beets and turnips and mashed potatoes with vegetarian gravy. First real meal I've had in a few days. So very, very good.

See you all tomorrow!

-Carolyn

Ready, set...we're going green

2010-08-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

We're getting geared up for our next 21 day project: Going Green. When we were looking at our list of 25 or so project ideas we wanted to choose one that would tie in to the Vegan Cleanse and going green certainly fit the bill.

Now Maddie is away for the week, she'll be back on Saturday so I'll be flying solo for the first bit on this one :)

I've read (or am reading and highlighting!) some books in preparation for this:

-No Impact Man by Colin Beavan
-Better off by Eric Brende
-Sleeping Naked is Green by Vanessa Farquharson
-Do it Gorgeously by Sophie Uliano
-Go Green, Get Lean by Kate Geagan
-Happy Go Local by Linsly Donnelly
-Go Green, Save Green by Nancy Sleeth

Each week will have a different focus. I'm trying to get as many changes done in the 21 days as possible but don't want to work myself into the ground or drive myself crazy. Trying not to do too much is especially important at the moment as my neuro symptoms continue to get worse. But there is some good news on that front...I'm getting my MRI done on Tuesday and see the neurologist on September 1st. So we are all crossing fingers, toes and eyes over here that I might finally get some answers and solutions.

So, back to the weekly focus. At the moment, I think I'll divide the time like this:

1. Home and special events
2. Transportation and entertainment
3. Food and sabbath days (in whatever context works for you)

I'm really excited about this. There is so much more we can do in this area. I'm hoping we can make some changes that really stick.

Now as a follow up on the cleanse...I've allowed myself to backslide a bit this week. Not good in more ways than one. I've drank Diet Coke (more than once), ate cheese and used butter (more than once) and ate homemade chocolate chip cookies (and threw up, but you didn't really need to know that did you?!). As a result I'm bloated, mucousy and have less energy. I'm looking at the new project date tomorrow as a perfect time to reboot my diet and get back on track.

I'll keep you posted!!

-Carolyn

btw...If you have any book or DVD suggestions or any ideas I'd love to hear about them! Please leave a comment, they all get read :)

Announcing our next project

2010-08-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

This was the dough for my pizza...everybody else had the regular white dough. I tweaked my regular dough recipe to come up with this. Mine was a mixture of whole wheat flour, a small amount of all purpose flour and a 1/4 cup of ground flax. Instead of sugar I used agave nectar when I proofed the yeast. It took a much longer rising time than my white dough. If anyone is interested in the recipe let me know and I'll post if in full.

I parbaked the dough then topped it with a sauce that I made out of my canned tomato puree, minced garlic, salt and basil. I layered green and red pepper, red onion, mushrooms, sliced yellow and red tomatoes. Then a mixture of mozzarella and dayia "mozzarella" cheese and a sprinkle of Italian seasoning. I had to use the two cheeses because I truly can't handle the dayia or any other "cheese" alone (other than the vegan cheese slices). But if I mix it with regular cheese, well it's not so bad then ;) I'm hoping to slowly get more accustomed to the vegan cheeses.

After baking in a 425 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, this was the result. Perfect, colourful, healthy, delicious totally homemade vegetarian pizza.

This beautiful flower represents our new 21 day project...

Starting on August 23, 2010 Maddie and I will be Going Green!! We are really looking forward to this new project beginning!

I'll post this weekend about this new project and continue to update you about ongoing aspects of the vegan cleanse.

Much peace, love and happiness

-Carolyn

I can't believe we made it!!!

2010-08-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

Well we've made it. And I feel that I came through much improved. Maddie wrote an excellent summary of her experiences and now it's my turn.

These are my lovely anniversary flowers that I received yesterday. I love fresh flowers and wish I could have them in my house all the time. Unfortunately, that's kind of cost prohibitive.

This was my lunch today. Leftover vegan pad thai with baked tofu and extra vegetables. So yummy! Even the next day it was delicious.

Homemade raspberry and lemon iced tea sweetened with a bit of agave nectar. I've discovered the most refreshing summer beverage ever :)

Dinner was good and I held true to the promise I've made to myself; no longer gluten free but mostly caffeine and sugar free and of course, mostly vegan. Vegan is the goal but I'm willing to accept an occasional lapse into vegetarianism. The meal I ate reflected this perfectly. Local corn on the cob, tomatoes and cucumbers. A veggie dog with a vegan "cheese" slice on a normal bun. I made two potato salads. A normal one with eggs for the masses and in mine I added steamed green beans and diced red peppers to the potatoes. Of course, I substituted vegenaise instead of mayo in mine.

And finally...I made dessert to celebrate my newfound way of eating and making it through the 21 days. Chocolate brownies. Vegan with just a smidge of fat. A little evaporated cane juice to sweeten. Moist and oh, so chocolatey :)

I found the recipe here: http://littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com/2010/07/chocolate-nutty-brownies-with-vanilla_19.html

Check her site out...every one of this woman's recipes sound great. This one sure is a keeper!!

I'm proud of myself for doing this. It may not seem that large but for me the sense of accomplishment is huge. For these 21 days I not only focused on getting the garbage out of my diet but also adding so many good things. And those good things aren't only related to food. Exercising (as I can) six days a week. Doing something that brings me joy, every day. Nurturing myself in ways I didn't take the time for before. And discovering how much I love to be creative in the kitchen! How important colour has become in my meals...

Even though my health has deteriorated in some ways, in others there has been some improvement. There has been improvement in my energy levels as well. I feel more in tune with myself, nature, spirit and the world. For all of this I am grateful. The journey has been so very worthwhile.

As we move on to another 21 day project, Maddie and I will each be taking aspects of the cleanse with us. I will occasionally still be posting about meals and food related discoveries.

I'll be back here on Thursday to announce our next project which will begin on August 23rd....

See you then!!

-Carolyn

Day 21...The Last Day

2010-08-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

My mom has gone out for dinner with Steve because it's their wedding anniversary today. Today in particular, was not eventful. I woke up at nine in the morning but didn't leave bed until about 2, because I was reading. So when I woke up, I fixed myself a classic tomato and avocado sandwhich, and sliced a peach. Around 5:30, when mom left I made dinner for everyone. I forgot to take a picture, but it was good nonetheless. I made tacos. Refried beans for me, and ground beef for everyone else.

Other than that nothing happened. But this particular post isn't about today. It's about the past 21 days.

People keep asking me "how do I feel" and stuff like that, but I don't really feel any different. I know thats not exciting and what your expecting to hear, but I don't feel energetic, or healthy. I feel like I always have. That doesn't necessarily mean that I don't feel energetic or healthy, but it I don't feel an added bonus. Today, I didn't wake up and feel like "YAY! It's my last day!" nor did I feel all "Boohoo, it's the last day." This whole experience has yes, given me something to do, and changed how I felt about eating animals but my personal changes and whatever? The same. You should probably ask my mom how she feels about it, because I think that she feels different, healthwise.

I've decided to become vegetarian because a) If I could do this, and have no trouble, then being veg is only going to be easier and b) I've changed my views on eating animals.

Did you know that chickens are genetically modified to grow faster and weigh more? They are also put in rooms where they turn the lights and heat up and down to make the chicken think that it's spring so that they'll lay more eggs. They're also put in "battery" cages where they have about 1 square foot to live. And did you know that "downer" animals, (animals who cannot walk on their own) are usually just left alone to die? How cruel is that?

What does any of this have to do with the vegan cleanse? You're thinking. Well, the cleanse sparked an interest in this type of thing because for one, I wanted to know why people chose to become vegan in the first place. Then, because I began to watch shows and movies like 100 mile challenge, and No Impact Man, and they mentioned stuff like this alot. I was watching Oprah with mom and it kept showing clips from Food Inc. and that really got me interested. Plus I began flipping through the book Eating Animals.

Anyway, in the end of this whole 21 days, I've decided to be vegetarian. Vegan is a bit too much for me; but the thought of eating meat kind of grosses me out now. I guess I just got so used to...well, not eating meat.

Well, it's been a fun 21 days and keep reading for the next project (but I'm going to keep my mouth shut about what it is ;] )!

-Maddie :3

Day Twenty

2010-08-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

Breakfast, lunch and dinner...that's about all today amounted to. With massive thunderstorms and great deluges of rain I really didn't want to go out anywhere. And with the pain in my body increasing as the day wore on the "didn't want to" quickly turned into couldn't have if I tried.

I managed 15 minutes of gentle yoga this morning and that's about all I have to say about this day other than to talk about food and a couple of other things.

The components of my breakfast nice and early this morning. Cooked steel-cut oats and raisins with cinnamon in the bowl and on the cutting board: a diced granny smith apple, a handful of blueberries and a few chopped walnuts.

Put together and topped with some soy milk. By far, the perfect breakfast for such a cool and rainy Sunday morning.

This was lunch (which I ate in bed and watching the Simpsons). I let my husband have a few nibbles :)

Cucumber, red pepper and carrots from the farmer's market. A handful of organic tortilla chips. A dollop of tofu ranch dip, hummus and guacamole. And finally a sliced perfectly ripe peach. Colourful and delicious...Colour is becoming more and more important to me as I cook and put together meals. I think it's being around all that fresh produce weekly at the market.

There's no dinner pics because I just ended up taking some of our veg bolognese out of the freezer and having it on top of quinoa spaghetti with a side salad of market greens. Nothing too exciting and a picture you've already seen before.

I moved on from "Enlightenment for Idiots" to "The Blue Bistro" by Elin Hilderbrand. Another light read but interesting because it's set in Nantucket (someday...sigh), the food descriptions are marvelous and one of the characters has health issues. So new purse book to read :)

This is the pile where I got the new book. It's my "books to read" pile. Generally I go through at least 2 or 3 books a week but these books have been piling up for months. My concentration and focus haven't been great so i haven't been reading much :(

I'm still working my way through "Eating Animals". It's very good but very, very heavy. Tough to read. It's going to take me some time to make my way through it.

Well, one more day...and the cleanse will be over! I won't be posting tomorrow because it's my wedding anniversary. My husband and I will be going out for Thai food. I checked the menu and there are quite a few vegetarian/vegan options. So I'll leave tomorrow's posting to Maddie. She's making dinner anyway. I'll be back to post on Tuesday...

-Carolyn

Day Nineteen

2010-08-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

Another summer's day has drifted past...It was such a beautiful day today. It's hard not to feel inspired when mother nature is displaying such glorious splendour!!!

So I made a great smoothie to start the day. For this one I put in a ton of blueberries, a wee bit of kale, ground flax, soymilk and 1/2 a frozen banana. So very, very yummy!

After my daughter got up and had some breakfast, we headed out the door and drove off to...

The Garlic Festival in Carp! It was packed and you could enjoy the smell of garlic wafting all the way out to the parking area. At least I could, Maddie says she couldn't...but I think she has a stuffed nose ;)

We saw this beautiful porcelain pottery. It's by Glenn Dunning of Embrun Pottery. He can be found at http://www.embrunpottery.blogspot.com/. There you'll find info on his store in Embrun, directions and beautiful photos of his pieces. They are microwave, dishwasher and oven safe. I've already put in a request for Christmas. The dishes are truly lovely and functional.

Maddie and I had these great baked potato wedges for lunch. They were nicely seasoned and I resisted the garlic dip. I had to dig deep for the strength to not succumb but I managed.

We ran into this beautiful display of summer squash. Who knew there where so many different varieties. I bought some of the bi-coloured variety and a couple of the delicata squash, along with the usual zuchinni and yellow squash. Can you tell how much I love it?

These are elderberries. Maddie has seen some recipes calling for elderberries and neither one of us had any idea what they were or what they even looked like. Well, lo and behold we found someone at the market who was selling them. He patiently answered all of our questions about the berries and what could be done with them. I think he found our naivete quite charming :) After speaking to him we decided to make a tiny batch of jelly with them. We'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

This was our dinner tonight. The colorful cauliflower that I roasted the other day, baked tofu in tomato sauce, sauteed swiss chard and garlic and the piece de resistance: steamed rainbow carrots with agave syrup and earth balance. So colorful and quite good.

After dinner I finished up some canning. This pot is the result of 2 baskets of tomatoes; skinned, seeded, pureed in the food processor and cooked down. The kitchen smelled like Italy. I'm going to ask my Dad to give me any of his extra tomatoes so I can continue the process.

btw...yesterday my extra for the day yesterday was going to the movies and today I read outside.

Now I am going to watch some more of the 100 mile challenge. This is something that I would love to do...you can find out more or watch for yourself at http://www.100mile.foodtv.ca/

-Carolyn

Day Eighteen

2010-08-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

I did the blueberry jam test drive this morning for breakfast and man, was it ever good :) Perefectly jelled with enough chunks of blueberries to make it taste like summer! I tried the recipe again this morning but substituted strawberries that I had in the freezer. We'll see how this batch turns out.

Late in the morning we went out to the Beaverpond for a forest walk. We didn't get too far in (a slow 15-20 minutes) before I had to turn around but still, at least it was nice and cool in there. It makes me kind of sad though when I think of the shape I used to be in and how I could do whatever I wanted (pain free). Sorry to seem so morose but I think I've really overdone it the last couple of days and I'm just exhausted.

After our walk Maddie and I went to the movies to see "Eat Pray Love". I know a lot of reviewers haven't been that kind but I really enjoyed it. It was visually stunning, Julia Roberts shined in the roll of Liz Gilbert and I thought it stayed quite true to the book. Maddie, for some reason, likes this photo of us in the theater but I don't. It's probably because she's wearing makeup and I'm not :)

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE avocados!!! They are so good for you and so delicious but mostly they are so beautiful!! Look at that colour...how could anyone resist?

This was dinner. Veggie nachos and our first real try with Daiya "cheese". I put black beans, fresh pico de gallo, diced red pepper and the aforementioned cheese on the chips before baking them in a hot oven for a few minutes. The cheese only kind of melted. And it tasted...okay. Not bad but just okay. At least it wasn't horrible like that other stuff we had in the first week! Alongside the nachos I served some guacamole, tofutti "sour cream" and more pico de gallo.

Now I realize that it's only 6:40 but I'm taking myself off to bed. I must be getting old!

Love and peace my friends

-Carolyn

Day Seventeen

2010-08-12T15:49:00.001-07:00

Whew! Today was a long and busy day but it did start off on a high note because I actually slept until 6:30 this morning. What a treat! Now I'm praying that it happens again tonight. Wish me luck :)

I did something different with my smoothie this morning. I mixed frozen banana and mango, a fresh peach, some soy yogurt, a bit of water and a big spoonful of ground flax seed. It made a nice change from the usual berry and banana.

After breakfast I got to work on the jam making. These are the ingredients I used along with about 4 1/2 cups of blueberries. I mixed it all in the pot: the blueberries, 1 cup of the unsweetened not from concentrate apple juice, 3/4 cup of agave nectar and the package of no-sugar pectin.

As it boiled I crushed the fruit slightly. Once it reached a hard boil I let it go without stirring for about 4 minutes. Then I took it off the heat, stirred it and let it sit for 5 or 6 minutes. When I canned the jars I had them in the water bath for 7 minutes. I made two batches for a total of eight jars.

Maddie's breakfast, heavy on the fruit and easy on the waffle. For lunch she was out with a friend and had a french fry from New York fries.. She checked and they use non-hyrogenated vegetable oil for their fries. I was pretty proud of her for checking.

The finished product. The jars look really pretty and they've all jelled and the lids have all "popped". I'll let you know how it tastes. Hopefully good :)

While I was on a roll I did a few other cooking projects before I cleaned the kitchen. I had some broccoli that was reaching it's end days and I didn't want to waste it. So I steamed it briefly and put it together with this vegan "cheese" sauce that I came up with.

***Vegan "cheese" sauce

I mixed 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill baking flour (or regular, unbleached all purpose) with 1/4 cup nutrional yeast flakes and 1/4 cup vegan "parmesan cheese" with a little bit of water. Then I added more water (1 to 1 1/2 cups) and cooked it on medium, stirring it all the time until it was the right consistency. I made mine pretty thick. Add 1 Tbs. of melted earth balance spread and a smidge of cayenne and pepper. Since I had the Daiya "cheddar cheese" I tossed a large sprinkle of that in as well.

I liked it. As long as you're not expecting conventional cheese sauce the flavour is good and the texture is right. After mixing this with the broccoli I let it cool and then stored it in the feezer.

I didn't want the pretty purple cauliflower to spoil either so I roasted it, along with another funky head of cauliflower. These I stored in the fridge to have with dinner on Saturday.

Messing around with art supplies was on my to do list today as my fun thing to do. Please don't laugh at my poor little peach. I'm awfully proud of it, since I haven't picked up any kind of art supplies in a good 7 or 8 years at least...I know my perspective is a bit off, my shading isn't great and I know that I could truly go on and on about everything that is wrong with this sketch but I really ENJOYED doing it. And after all, isn't that the point? I also think that I should get points for posting the darn thing on this blog :)

I did my yoga and went for my massage today :)

Then I went to the doctor's :(
Then I cooked dinner.

I made meat chili for everyone else and a veggie chili for Maddie and I. In ours I put canned diced tomatoes, canned kidney beans, 1/2 package of Yves ground "meat", sauteed mushrooms and garlic and carrots. Then I added a handful of corn, a little kale and some chili powder. Let it cook until it was a beautiful dark sienna.

On the side I served a salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette and...are you ready? I figured out how to make cornbread vegan free!!

Much excitement and happy dancing in the kitchen. I didn't want to use a recipe that was untried so I figured I'd come up with my own. Smart ?!?! It could have been a real kitchen catastrophe. Luckily it wasn't.

***Vegan Cornbread

Set the oven at 425 degrees

Oil a 8X11" glass pan (that's what I used)

Mix:

2 1/2 Tbs. ground flax seed and 3 Tbs. water. Set aside.

Mix:

1 1/2 cups cornmeal

2 cups Bob's Red Mill baking flour or unbleached all purpose flour if you eat gluten :)

2 Tbs. baking powder

1 Tbs. salt

Add:

2 cups unseetened soy or rice milk
The soaked flaxmeal

1/4 to 1/2 cup applesauce (I used 1/2 cup and it really didn't taste like apples.

Blend until smooth, then stir in:

3 Tbs melted earth balance and 4 tbs. olive oil.

Bake in the prepared pan for 2o-25 minutes, depending on your oven. It should be a light brown on top and a toothpick should could out clean.

Now I'm going to take an epsom salts bath and going to bed.

Sweet dreams everyone

-Carolyn

Day Sixteen

2010-08-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

Now that we're almost done day 16 it's really hitting home that we've just about made it through. In 5 more days we'll be done!! Mostly it feels as though this project has taken on a life of it's own. We seem to be sliding along pretty easily on momentum. Instead of giving you a run down of all three meals that we ate today, I thought I'd do something a little different. Let's talk about....books!!

The book on the left is my daily inspirational reading at the moment "Be the Change you want to See in the World" by Julie Fisher-McGarry. Some days give you information, others have you read an inspirational quote, on others you might find a recipe to try or an anectode from the author's life. I'm really enjoying it. I keep it on my desk, by my laptop in the kitchen. That way it's the first thing I reach for when I come downstairs in the morning. The book on the right is what I call my "purse book". It's the book that I keep in my purse just in case I get stuck waiting somewhere for more than two minutes. The book is good but not so in-depth that it requires steady reading. It's funny though, which is nice just in case I'm getting aggravated waiting in line behind the person with a million coupons who drops them all over the floor...you know?

This is my current read. Well, I'm actually only eleven pages in so I can't really give any kind of review at this point, but I've heard all sorts of great things about this book and have been looking forward to reading it.

This is the vegetarian/vegan cookbook section of my library. Now holding pride of place in the kitchen (not in the hallway with the rest of the cookbooks). A few of these were borrowed...thanks Melanie and I will get them back to you, promise! I had quite a few before this started but I have added a few others. I'll keep you updated on which ones I like best as I use them more.

This is our animal companion. Her name is...ahem, cat or kitty if we're feeling cute :) She's a year and a half old and she kind of landed in our laps. She's also an elegant egyptain princess. I swear she had to have been one in a former life, she's got the attitude and everything. And she is so very, very elegant! Here kitty and I are playing peek-a-boo.

And here's Maddie getting some kitty love.

The one excitement we had today (food wise) was this beautiful, extravagant, bodacious cauliflower! When I saw it at the farmer's market I had to pick it up, since I had never seen a prettier cauliflower in all my life!

So I cut some up and served it with red pepper strips and broccoli. I made an herb dip to go with it using Tofutti sour cream, which I actually quite liked...thank goodness because I was getting kind of worried that I wouldn't find anything that was palatable.

I served it with GF bread spread with earth balance and a lovely leek and potato soup. I did walk (slowly) for 45 minutes today so I'm on track with that. I was supposed to watch a sunset tonight but as I've been awake since 3:17 this morning I watched the sunrise instead. I also got some supplies because I'm going to attempt an agave sweetened blueberry jam. Hopefully tomorrow :)

Wishing everyone well

-Carolyn

Day Fifteen

2010-08-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

I want to start today off by thanking everyone who has offered support, encouragement and advice both on this blog and on facebook. You guys all rock!!! I'm so grateful to have such an awesome posse of ladies in my life! (And gentlemen, I certainly am not excluding any of you!)

My day started off pretty good. I did one of my "feel good jobs". I turned on the ipod and sang good and loud, bouncing in my chair. So it wasn't dancing around the kitchen but it was the best I could do :)

Maddie offered to make breakfast....that's the kind of sweet girl that she is. I accepted some of her excellent home fries.

This was Maddie's plate but she ate a bit of her toast with organic/no sugar strawberry jam before she snapped the picure. She also had home fries and a sliced peach.

I did some yoga today. I really need to get a yoga strap. Back when I practiced yoga regularly I never had this problem of lack of flexibility and proper body alignment. But I did the best I could and thoroughly enjoyed the practice today.

This was actually my lunch. I know it looks like it should have been my breakfast but since I didn't really have any this was what I felt like eating. A fruit salad with peach, banana, blueberries and apple. I ate 2 slices of GF toast with almond butter along side it.

I actually accomplished everything set out in my "Rhythm" plan, including the weekly chores. I have to go at it a bit more slowly though because rushing wears me out. So that can be solved by spending less time on the phone. Then I won't have to multi-task which I'm trying to stop doing or rush to get stuff done after being stuck on the phone for an hour with someone. In case you missed it and are interested I posted my daily and weekly rhythms at www.asfarashome.blogspot.com one of my other blogs.

I was hungry this afternoon so I made myself this snack. The hummus I spoke about yesterday with cucumber, carrots and tortilla chips. I had a glass of raspberry herbal iced tea with it.

Something new at dinner. I saw these cute little eggplants at the market last Saturday and just had to get a couple and try them out. Aren't they sweet? I can't remember what they are called though.

This was dinner. It was very, very yummy and filling. I stir fried green beans, carrots, the eggplants and a few mushrooms, along with some garlic. On the side we had quinoa pasta with a basil/sunflower seed pesto. A little sprinkle of vegan parmesan finished it off. Tasty and filling!

Now I've got a question to throw out there. I'd like to make some blueberry jam. Has anyone had success doing this with agave or another gentler sugar substitute? Any help would be appreciated.

-Carolyn

Day Fourteen

2010-08-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

Day Fourteen...woohoo!! We've made it a full two weeks. Feeling pretty good about that, let me tell you. Overall I have more energy, clearer skin and have lost a bit of weight. I'm much more focused on doing what I can to be healthy: mentally, physically and spiritually. I've also regained some long lost discipline :)
By this point, 14 days in, it's just easier overall. The cravings are pretty much gone and when one sneaks in, I can just ignore it or think of the reasons why I don't want to eat whatever it is and it goes away. End of story. In the end, it truly can be as easy as that...most of the time.

This was my breakfast today: a slice of the leftover apple-cinnamon toastie loaf (those roasted apples in the loaf are soooo good!) and a handful of blueberries.

This is what inspired my lunch. A big, beautiful heirloom tomato that I got at the market on Saturday.

You guessed it: a mile high tomato and avocado sandwich :) That tomato was perfect and deliciously juicy.

Grocery day. Before Costco and Loblaws we went to Rainbow Foods which is one of my favourite health food stores here in Ottawa. I picked up a few new products to try that I'll post about as I use them. For an afternoon snack I had vegetable juice and a new hummus with roasted artichokes and garlic (tasty) and a few corn tortillas.

Salad for dinner. I started with a bed of romaine and spinach. Then I layered on tomatoes and mushrooms. A layer of quinoa, sauteed baby patty pan squashes and some diced red pepper. More quinoa. Then...

I poured on some three bean salad and vinaigrette. :) Maddie and I loved this. The boys said it was "okay" (except my youngest who wanted nothing to do with it but I forced him to eat some anyway). Then after dinner all the males went and made themselves bagels and tomato sandwiches. Lol

Oh well, at least they ate their veggies first!

Third week begins tomorrow. Stay tuned...

-Carolyn

Day Thirteen: Maddie

2010-08-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

Introduction, blah blah blah blah, today was boring, blah blah blah blah, nothing happened, blah blah blah blah.

Banana bread was good!

Anyway, since I a) have nothing to write about and b) I don't really feel like writing; I'm just going to make my list of things I love to do, and then I have to them all this week or whatever.

1. Go to the movies
2. Write a story
3. Cook
4. Scrapbook
5. Go for a walk with Josh, Sam and Nate
6. Go for a bike ride (except I might not be able to because my bike died)
7. Organize stuff.

It seems kind of vague, but once I actually do these things I'll explain.

WELP, nothing else to talk about.

-Maddie

Day Thirteen

2010-08-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

Today was fairly interesting. I managed to sleep until 6:20 which was a great accomplishment. I only hope to replicate that again tonight! I made myself my usual smoothie in the morning then did some blogging, cleaning and gluten free, vegan baking. I used the Babycakes cookbook for both of these loaves.

This is the apple-cinnamon toastie loaf. In it's entirety!

Freshly sliced. This was an amazing loaf. It was great, dense yet moist and it had pieces of roasted apples inside!

This was the banana chocolate chip loaf sliced. It had an almost fluffy texture with pieces of melty chocolate chip and chunks of banana :)

By the time I was done cleaning and baking I didn't have much time to eat before I had to run a couple of errands before my cousins arrived for a visit. So I just had some leftover fried rice and called it lunch. I also made two bottles of herbal iced tea -one raspberry and the other lemon.

Rachel and Rejeanne arrived for a really nice visit. I served the fruit loaves and they were loved by all. It seems that most people liked the banana one best but personally I preferred the apple.

Rachel's kids were a blast and just adorable. I hope I don't have to wait another 6 or 7 years (I can't remember how long it's been) before we get another visit!

Sorry for the blurry quality of the picture here. For dinner I steamed carrots and broccoli and mashed potatoes with garlic and kale (that was REALLY good). I served the boys of the house BBQ'd pork chops and did BBQ'd tempeh for Maddie and me. I didn't follow a recipe and had never cooked or eaten it before so I was kind of flying blind. I just plopped the big square in the pan and fried it, then slathered it with BBQ sauce and cooked a bit longer. It was...just close to okay. I will try it again though. This time I'll follow an actual recipe :)

I have a question for those of you trying to fit everything in. Cooking from scratch, exercise, meditation, being creative, blogging, working etc.. How do you fit it all in? I've worked out a schedule or rather a "rhythm" to my day and week and posted it on my other blog. It's at http://www.asfarashome.blogspot.com/. I'm going to try and follow it and see how it goes. But I'd love some idea of how others deal with organizing/scheduling everything.

In her cleanse book Kathy Freston asks us to make a list of seven things that you love to do and make you happy. Here's my list:

1. go to the movies

2. go out for lunch or dinner

3. mess around with art supplies

4. sing and dance around the house with my ipod

5. walk in the forest or by the water

6. see the sunset

7. read outside

Now I have to slot these things into each of the seven days of the week. It's a matter of lightening up and keeping our joi de vivre. Sounds good to me!

Excitement via e-mail

2010-08-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

I sent an email to Kathy Freston last Monday. Who knows why...it was just a spur of the moment thing. This what I wrote:

Hi Kathy
I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know that my teenage daughter and I are doing your Quantum Wellness Cleanse together. We are on Day 7 and feeling good! We're also blogging about the process. If you're interested in checking it out we are at www.project21days.blogspot.com We'd love to have you drop by!
Carolyn Bateman
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

After I sent it I didn't really think anything more about it. On Friday though I got an email in return!!

Dear Carolyn,
I love your posts! Your meals look fantastic, and your voice is so authentic and compelling... kudos to you for doing the cleanse, and doing it so creatively!
I have a feeling you will have some breakthroughs that will stick with you... it's an amazing process.
Wishing you all the very best going forward and always!
Kathy

Is that not sooo cool!! I got an email from a New York Times best selling author and she read my blog. I just might swoon :)

More tonight. I'm getting ready to head out on my walk. And yes, I HAVE followed my workout plan this week. Next weeks plan is as follows:

S-walk
M-off
T-yoga
W-walk
Th-yoga
F-walk
S-yoga

Much love, peace and blessings to everyone

-Carolyn

Day Twelve

2010-08-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was up at 2 am again but was able to get back to sleep around 5:30 this time. I got up at 8:30 feeling so-so. I did some yoga this morning and I think that helped center me and truly wake me up. After my 20 minutes of yoga, I meditated. I'm still holding at 5 minutes but that's okay. It's a start. The wall that my altar is on, is slowly becoming my wall of dreams and inspiration. Maybe I'll take a picure and post it if anyone is interested.

Breakfast was 2 Van waffles (Vegan, GF and sugar free) topped with some earth balance spread, a drizzle of agave nectar and a nice pile of peaches and blueberries. Delicious.

Today we hit the farmer's market on Main St. Everything there is local. Which is great to see. There's plenty of parking and a beautiful atmosphere. Although it's smaller than the market in Carp, I think I really like this one too.

Entering the market from the parking lot.

One of the exuberant and friendly vendors. The prodauce at this stall was beautiful and quite reasonable.

A pile of luscious peppers.

Maddie and me. I don't particularly like myself in this photo but Maddie really likes it (no wonder, she looks great!). She insisted I include it :)

Beautiful display.

I love the name of this: "Harvest Moon Farm"

Sitting guard for the "Blue Crane Yoga Classes"

One of my favourite health food store is "The Wheat Berry". It's wooden interior is beautiful and it's clean and well organized. The staff is very friendly and really knowledgeable.

This is the kind of thing that makes the Wheat Berry special!

My favourite vegetarian restaurant. The Green Door on Main St. Mind you it's the only vegetarian restaurant I've been to...

$60 worth of produce and goods. Including a bucket of raw, unpasteurized honey and fresh canned pesto. Look at the colours of the food!

From the babycakes cookbook, "Banana Chocolate Chip Bread". There is a little left over after you 1/2 - 2/3 fill the loaf pan so they tell you to put some parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put the remainder on it and spread it out thinly. Bake it for 12-15 minutes. We put the loaf aside but ate the extra warm....Wow! Was it ever good. I couldn't believe that it was vegan, GF and sugar free :)

These are the roasted apples I'm going to need for the apple loaf I am making tomorrow. We are having company for tea so I'm getting ready. These were pretty tasty too.

Dinner was something quick and easy because I was so tired, as well as emotional drained from something that had happened earlier in the day. Freston has a recipe called Texas Bowl in her book and I took the idea from that. I put two cans of black beans, a can of tomatoes, a bunch of salsa and some hot sauce in a pot and warmed it up. It was simple and served over brown rice.

Day Ten (AKA Mom's Birthday!) and Day 11: Maddie's Perspective

2010-08-06T15:20:00.001-07:00

I know I don't post much...but it's mostly because I don't want to post about nothing. But about yesterday: There's a lot to post about. It was my mom's birthday yesterday, and I really hate watching people have bad birthdays. Probably because I hate having bad birthdays of my own. Anyway, as a present I made her chocolate orange body butter, which is actually by accident. I was planning for it just to be orange, but since I mixed cocoa butter in with the oils it smelled like chocolate. Once I added citrus essential oils, it smelled like a Terry's Chocolate Orange. I also made her sugar body scrub, bath oil, and bath salts, all citrus scents.

Another thing I did for her, as you know, was make a 3 course meal. My older sister's best friend helped with the cupcakes and decorations. You can read her blog here: http://www.minimartha21.wordpress.com/.
For the first course I made snow pea and mint salad and bruschetta on fried baguette for the fam jam, and fried millet rice bread for mom and I. The picture above is from when I was frying the baguette. Funny story actually; I took this picture just before I dropped one into the oven underneath the rack, and nearly started a fire. I got it out using a plastic spatula, though in retrospect I probably should've used something metal. After that little fiasco, oil spat all over me when I dropped a piece of bread into the pan and burnt myself. Then, I put my hand under cold water, but I didn't dry them. This was unfortunate because the water from my hand went into the pan and the water was really hot and splattered all over and I burnt myself more. So now I have 5 little burn marks on my hand. It hurts.

The final product of the first course; with the millet rice bread of course. Gluten free!

The second course was pasta primavera. I sauteed asparagus, red pepper, zuchinni, and mushrooms in olive oil. I threw in some garlic, dried parsley, sea salt, and pepper. I cooked spagettini for the non-vegans and quinoa spaghetti for my mom and I. I put the veggies on top of the pasta.

This is what it looked like when it was done. My original intent was to make angel hair primavera, but we couldn't find any angel hair pasta, so we got spagettini, and there spaghetti is the thinnest that the quinoa goes. We topped the pasta with soy parmesan "cheese". It's actually not bad, the parmesan.
The 3rd course was dessert! These are surprisingly good vegan, gluten free, and sugar free cupcakes topped with almonds. They're pretty dense cupcakes...almost heavy. They're really really filling.

As for Day 11, nothing related to the cleanse really happened. My mom and I found really good meltable rice cheese slices, and we had veggie burgers tonight, so I didn't cheat! I went to the library today (finally I have a bike lock) and got myself like six million books, which is good because it'll keep me busy. I found the new Anne Brashares (author of The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants novels...one of my favourite series) book, and I'm glad because that means I don't have to buy it! They didn't have the next book in the series I'm currently reading, which sucks but according to the website it'll be back soon.

Well, nothing else really happened today. Unfortunately all my friend's are on vacation...so I have absolutely ziltch to do. I'm spending most of my time either biking, or finding myself in bed with a good book.

My friend was thinking of starting a blog. I've inspired her.

Well...I guess that's all for now. Unless you want to hear me rant about more random things that have nothing to do with the project.

-Maddie

Day Ten and a birthday

2010-08-06T03:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry I'm late with this one. I was so tired last night that I went to bed and just crashed. It was after eight by the time we were done with dinner and I had been awake and up since 2:15 am!

I had an amazing birthday. I made myself an awesome brunch: fruit salad with peaches, bananas and blueberries. Fresh home fries with vegenaise for dipping. And my new favorite sandwich: Gf bread toasted, with mashed avocado, vegenaise, tomato, celtic sea salt and pepper. Yum!!

After brunch I went for a massage. I had won a complimentary massage back in May at work and this was a perfect occasion to use it :) The massage was wonderful! It felt so amazingly good. My doctor thinks that I should go at least once a week and I'm going to try. After the massage I went to a local day spa. My husband had given me a gift certificate for the spa as my birthday present. (Thanks honey!) I got my eyebrows waxed. It has been, literally two years since I've had this done. So it was way overdue. They look so nice when they're done. I'm saving the rest of the gift certificate for massages...

After that I took a couple of coupons I had and went to a hairdressers. I was just going to get a trim but they were having twenty percent off colouring and boy, did my colour need to be redone! Plus I had a coupon I could use for that as well as one for the cut. In the end I got my hair coloured and trimmed :) An awesome and lovely day of pampering!

These are the decorations the girls made. Aren't they cute? Emma (my eldest daughter Hardynn's best friend, who the family has known for years) made them. She got the idea from Martha Stewart. Emma has just started her own blog where she writes about her attemts at being a (sorta) domestic diva. You can find her at http://www.minimartha21.wordpress.com/

This was the first course. Maddie made it. She browned a slab of millet/rice bread in olive oil (which is how we do it, we don't brown it in the oven. I got the idea from watching "Julie and Julia") then topped it with a homemade bruschetta mix. The salad was lightly steamed snowpeas, slivered peppers, mint from the garden and a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice. She did a great job. It was really good.

The main course was quinoa pasta topped with sauteed asparagus. red peppers, zuchinni, mushrooms and garlic. Topped with vegan parmesan (we found a parmesan we actually like!). It was fabulous. I was really proud of the kid!

Then the piece de resistence: vegan, GF, sugar free chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing from the Babycakes cookbook. It's a famous bakery in New York city.

These cupcakes were sooooo good. Seriously. They weren't dry, which can sometimes be an issue with gluten free. They were moist, they had substance and they were intensely chocolatey. All in all an amazing experience :) Thanks Emma and Maddie!!

Here are the chefs: Emma and Maddie! On top of making me dinner they gave me some great gifts. Maddie made me some wonderful bath stuff. A chocolate and orange body butter and citrus sugar scrub, body oil and bath salts. All made with love and care. Emma gave me a huge tub of detox bath soak with calendula and a cute window garden kit with flowers from France. She also made me lovely card. My son Sam drew me a great superhero picture for my inspiration wall. My step daughter drew me a picture and made me a card with an inspirational quote. My Mom gave me some money I was supposed to spend only on myself and my son Josh gave me 2 movies I love ("An Education" and "The Last Station") and he lent me his buddha to use on my altar until I find my own :)

The only thing missing was my eldest daughter who is living 6 hours away and couldn't come home for my birthday. This is Hardynn with her boyfriend Johnny. I spent a lot of the day thinking of her. I also spent a lot of time thinking of my goals for the coming year. Once I have them all figured out, I'll share.

-Carolyn

Day Nine

2010-08-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a quick post. I've had an emotionally trying and exhausting day. And the doctor has added another medication to my arsenal in order for me to cope with the pain and hopefully get some decent sleep. I'm getting a little concerned about the amount of medication I am on but that's a topic for another day.

Breakfast this morning was quick and easy. GF toast with almond butter and 1/2 a banana, with a sliced peach on the side. I did 20 minutes of restorative yoga and 10 minutes of meditation after. For lunch I cut up some veggies (yellow pepper, tomato and cucumber) with chipotle hummus (spicy!!) and GF crackers and a few organic corn chips.

Today's cold drink of choice Raspberry herbal iced tea :)
I've been making a different flavour every day. So far, this one and peach-ginger are the best. Tomorrow's flavour is Lemon Zinger.

Dinner tonight was a made up on the spot quickie ratatouille over brown rice with a sprinkle of vegan parmesan "cheese". On the side I made a salad with romaine, spinach, tomato, avocado and blueberries. I dressed it with some GF, vegan sesame dressing. The carnivores had some sole with lime on the plate.

That's it for today. I really need to go and lie down.

-Carolyn

We break for this important announcement

2010-08-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Eat your VEGGIES...
and SHAKE your ASS.

Lovingly made by Maddie for my birthday :)

-Carolyn

ps: I wrote a post about making a coule of homemade facial products on my other blog www.asfarashome.blogspot.com for anyone who is interested in that kind of thing.

Have a happy day everyone. More tonight.

Day Eight

2010-08-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

Today I was supposed to write about eating on the run or while traveling but I've been awake since 3:12 this morning and there is no way that's going to happen. It'll have to wait for another day. Maddie says she doesn't need to post today because she ate the same exact things as I did except she only had a brown rice cake for breakfast and 1/2 a Lara bar for a snack in the afternoon. We ran around doing errands and getting groceries most of the day. We left around 11 am and I dropped her off at 3 pm. We put the groceries away then I was back out until 4:30. I am so wiped.

My breakfast was a little different today. I took some raw oats and mixed it with soy yogurt. I topped it with diced apple, wild blueberries and walnuts. It was really yummy but totally filling.

Lunch was on the run with Maddie...not a good place to be!! Especially considering what I had read just that morning! Anyway we got french fries. I checked to make sure that they weren't fried in lard, so they were vegan but oh so unhealthy. I really felt kind of crappy afterwards. I don't think that I'll have a repeat on this for the rest of the cleanse even though, technically speaking, we were still within the guidelines.

Dinner was relatively simple although I am getting tired of cooking two meals. I made a vegetable fried rice, steamed fresh green beans and yellow squash sauteed in Earth Balance and sprinkled with thyme. I used soy sauce and eggs in the family pan, while Maddie and I had ours without eggs and seasoned with wheat-free tamari. I topped off the rice with mushrooms and garlic sauteed in olive oil. It was tasty!

So now the dishes are done and I've got raspberry herbal tea steeping to make iced tea for tomorrow. I'm going to stretch out with my latest book and some pomegranate tea. At the moment I'm reading "Enlightenment for Idiots" a novel by Anne Cushman and so far it's pretty good.

-Carolyn

Day Seven

2010-08-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today was a strange day. Especially because the chapter for Day 7 is about rest. Which I didn't get much of. The pain woke me up at 4:07 this morning. Of course, I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't fall back asleep. I did try until 5 am, when I gave up and got up. I like the quiet of the house at that hour but I was really tired as I hadn't been able to fall asleep until close to midnight last night.

I think that I need to incorporate some of Freston's helpful tips for Rest. I know that they can't help with the pain but they may aid me in falling asleep more easily and maybe getting a better quality sleep.

Things I'd like to try: get outside everyday (even if it's not a walking day I could sit outside while I journal), play some meditation music and catnap for twenty minutes (I have a terribly hard time sleeping during the day so this may help). I've also read that you should cut off all media at 10 pm at the latest to prepare yourself for sleep (I'll have to convince Steve of this one) and sleep in a darkened room (this I'd like to do. I know I sleep better in total darkness).

I did 20 minutes of gentle yoga this morning. I was really pleased with myself as I didn't have a whole lot of energy but once I was done I found I wasn't quite as tired. I was so "off" though from not sleeping much that I didn't eat breakfast until after 11. I used to do that all the time but during this cleanse I've maintained three meals a day plus snacks if I need them. That means breakfast in the morning! Early! Maddie made me a spinach and strawberry smoothie. I liked it but she didn't. She's really not a fan of greens and seeds in her smoothies :)

Around 1pm I ate the same tomato sandwich that I had for lunch yesterday. I didn't get around to taking my morning supplements until 3 (??!!), my green drink at 4. I had 2 plums in the late afternoon because I was a little hungry.

I do really think I have more energy though. Normally so little sleep would make me a zombie. I'm tired for sure but I'm not the walking dead. A definite change. I've also lost 2 lbs! Kind of a nice little bonus, since weight loss isn't my primary reason for doing this.

I've made my decision about my birthday...I'm sticking with the cleanse! I appreciate all the input, on facebook and here, it all helped. Maddie and I have designed the menu and we're shopping tomorrow. The one thing I will allow myself is the cupcakes. They will be vegan, GF and sugar free but they're chocolate. I am getting fair trade organic chocolate though :)

For dinner tonight I roasted sweet potatoes, white potatoes and rainbow beets. I also sauteed the rainbow swiss chard, garlic and the beet greens. Then I drizzled on a tiny bit of balsamic. I topped it with a seeded diced tomato and slivered almonds. It was beautiful and delicious! I drank a glass of vegetable juice along with it.

Here's the plate:

So that's all the news for today. We've made it to Day 7 and we're feeling good!!!

-Carolyn

Day Six

2010-08-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to plan my workouts today. Freston recommends 4-6 days a week and starting where you are. Where I am at the moment isn't very far along. Due to pain and numbness I'm going to have to take it slow and easy. This is what I've decided for my schedule for this week:

Sunday- walk (which I did but really, really slowly. What would have normally taken me 15 minutes max to walk took me 30 minutes. But that's okay because I did it.)

Monday- yoga (I have an extremely gentle one with a 15 minute workout on it. That's where I'm starting.

Tuesday- off (I'm running errands and going to be tired)

Wednesday-yoga

Thursday- walk

Friday- yoga

Saturday- walk (doing the farmer's market rounds)

We'll see how it goes. I promise to keep you updated and I'll be honest, cross my heart :)

My smoothie before blending. I used the same ingredients as last time.

Post-blending and pre-drinking!

Honestly the best tomato sandwich I ever had! Toasted gluten free bread, mashed avocado on one side and vegenaise on the other. One tomato purchased from the market yesterday waiting to be sliced and sprinkled with celtic sea salt...

Ready to eat. It tasted exactly like summer, but better. I ate it with more 3 lentil and cranberry salad. I could eat that stuff by the bucketful. I had cherries and my green drink for an afternoon snack.

Here is Maddie's spaghetti sauce served over quinoa pasta. It was really amazing. Actually better than regular spaghetti I have to say. For the sauce she sauteed zuchinni, yellow pepper, mushroom, garlic and carrots. Then she added a jar of spicy roasted tomato organic sauce and 1/2 a package of Yves italian ground tofu. the quinoa noodles were great, extremely hearty. A simply delicious meal!

So far I'm feeling better in many ways. Yes, I'm still dealing with neuropathy and pain but my digestive issues have actually improved. I'm a little less tired and my skin is clearer. I think I've lost a bit of weight but I'm not sure. I'm going to weigh in tomorrow.

I still haven't quite decided what to do about the birthday thing. Do a tiny splurge or stay the course? I'll keep you posted.

-Carolyn

Maddie: Day 6

2010-08-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

So today, nothing really happened. Yesterday, I went to the farmer's market with mom, but once again not much happened. I would've been posting but there hasn't been much to post about. Anyway...

I had vegan gluten free waffles smothered in strawberry jam styled spread. It was good. I was kind of afraid of the "jam" but it was good.

For lunch I had this pad thai instant stuff and it was good for like the first two bites but then it was disgusting and I am never eating it again.

For dinner, the fam jam ate spaghetti while mom and I had delicious quinoa pasta with a vegan sauce. I cut up the vegetables and sauteed them at the same time mom was cooking the others' meal. The sauce itself was jarred, but I cooked the vegetables and stuff.

On another note: Thursday is mom's birthday. I'm going to be making her vegan, sugar, AAAAAAAAND gluten free chocolate cupcakes from the Baby Cakes cookbook with the help of a family friend. We're still not sure what's for dinner, so suggestions are appreciated.

That's it for now!

-Maddie

Looking for input...

2010-08-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for input from anyone out there who is reading along. My birthday is on Thursday and I was honestly going to go all out and cheat. Totally cheat. Eggs for breakfast (Benedict please with no hollandaise), steak for dinner, poutine for lunch. BUT...there's a part of me that really doesn't want to do that. I'd really like to maintain the integrity of the cleanse. So what I'm looking for are some suggestions for "special" dinners. I'll probably make my cake out of the "Babycakes" cookbook which is awe inspiring. I'm sure Maddie will be more than glad to help with that. I'd go out to eat but unfortunately I'm broke.

So any and all suggestions are welcome...HELP!!! :)

Day five

2010-07-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

Death by chocolate...that's what today's post should actually be titled. Sigh. I was bested by my nemesis once again :(

The day started out really well. I warmed up some oatmeal from yesterday and added a chopped apples, walnuts, ground flax and the usual splash of soy milk. We headed out for the farmer's market in Carp around 9:00.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, but not too hot and with just a few clouds in the sky. Maddie hadn't been to the market in years and I hadn't been since last summer so we were pretty excited.

We started with a run through of the market. Strolling along and checking out each stall, seeing what each one had and what the prices were. Lots and lots of vegetables were on offer but very few fruits which was a little disappointing.

The market itself.

Absolutely, beautiful rainbow swiss chard from one of my favorite produce sellers: Rainbow Heritage Garden. You can check them out at http://www.rainbowheritage.ca/

Another offering: rainbow carrots! We didn't get any of those but we did get some rainbow beets :)

Anyway, we did fine while we were outside it was when we went indoors that we ran into a problem. Every second stall had baking...groan. I asked at almost every one "Do you do gluten free? Do you do vegan?" Of course the answer was always no but apparently there is lots of interest. Then we came to a booth which offered beautiful paris macaroons. They were stunning, the next time I go I'll get some photos because they actually were gorgeous. We asked if they were gluten free and they were! We asked if they had dairy and one kind didn't! Maddie and I looked at each other, so excited...we could eat one of these stunning confections. Small mouthfuls of sin. As the seller was packaging them up she commented "It's a good thing you're not allergic to eggs because if you were you couldn't have these." Shoot! What to do? They were already in the bag. They were already within reach. So we reached, banishing the guilt with thoughts that it had been too late, they had been in the bag and paid for therefore it was too late. They were sooooo good. Chocolate hazelnut Paris macaroons...Wow. So it was a triple whammy really: the eggs, the sugar and the chocolate. But really it was the chocolate that seduced us.

When I met my cousin Melanie for lunch later we ate at "The Green Door" a fabulous vegetarian restaurant on Main Street. It's honestly one of my favourite places. Melanie shared a lot of vegan/raw diet wisdom with me while we ate. I had a small plate made up of tofu and broccoli, eggplant ratatouille, potatoes and kale, dilled green and yellow beans and snap pea salad with mint. I know it sounds like a ton of food but there was really only a spoonful of each on the plate.
Dessert time came along (this was why we went with the small plates, an excellent weight control trick). I ate (Lord help me!) a slice of Chocolate-Raspberry Mousse Cheesecake...Now before anybody shoots me please know that it was vegan, gluten free, sugar free; however it was not CHOCOLATE free. It got me again...I fell from my cleanse high ground.

I tried to repent at dinner. I had salad with seasoned black beans, corn and red onions. Maybe it'll help me get back on track. The thing about a cleanse is that you are supposed to be strict. Otherwise you're kind of defeating the purpose of doing it at all.

Thank goodness tomorrow is another day!

-Carolyn

Day four

2010-07-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Nobody told me there'd be days like these

(sing along now)

What a day. I hate days where all I do is run from one place to another, back to the first, on to the third. Ad nauseum. I am totally wiped. But before I go to bed I have to blog and watch "Big Fish" with my son. I love that movie and can't believe he hasn't seen it. Don't know how that one got by me. If you haven't watched it yet, then do so, it's a fun one :)

This was my breakfast this morning: a bowl of whole oats with wild blueberries, 1/3 a banana, a few walnuts, a drop or two of agave nectar and a splash of soy milk. It was absolutely delicious.

Lunch was ridiculous. Because I was busy doing all of that to-ing and fro-ing, I didn't get any. I did have half of a cacao crunch bar in my purse from last weekend before this project began. I checked the ingredient list: sprouted buckwheat (wheat free), sprouted sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, sprouted quinoa, cacao powder, agave nectar, himalayan salt and love. There actually is a little heart after the end! Cute eh? So it was all vegan and organic so okay...but cacao does contain caffeine. I decided to just suck it up.

Before this project I would have just stopped at whatever restaurant was handy. Tim's, Subway, Wendy's. Now it feels like everything is a minefield and nothing is an option. I need to talk to my vegan/gluten free cousin Melanie, to get her input and some ideas on what is available out there.

When I got home I had a glass of vegetable juice and a few organic corn chips. For dinner I made brown rice and a vegetable and tofu stir fry. It was pretty yummy. The vegetables I used were asparagus, red, yellow and orange peppers, garlic, carrots and mushrooms.

So that's it for me for today. Not sure if Madison will have anything to say since she is at a friend's house and I haven't really seen her all day. I'm going to watch "Big Fish" now.

Until tomorrow!

-Carolyn

Day Three

2010-07-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

A bit of a tough day. Not foodwise, that was fine. More about the goodness found in foodland later :)

I was in a lot of pain today. I'm having vicious peripheral neuropathy and muscle and joint pain. Makes it hard to type sometimes...Anyway some days are just rough. I'm now being referred to a neurologist, for an MRI among other things. This has happened before back in 2006, although it wasn't as bad as it is now. I am in pain, frustrated and depressed.

So today Freston wrote about visualization and meditation in Chapter three. I used to meditate religiously. I also did "Vision boards". Funny but it seemed like my life operated a whole lot better then. It's also funny that I set up an altar in my room on the weekend as my meditation space. This is the third morning that I've meditated and it does help. I tmakes me feel more centered and at peace.

This is a photo of my altar. Altars are highly individual and distinct. Someone would look at this and wonder about half the items on here but that's okay, they have meaning for me. I'm only meditating for five minutes in the morning right now but I'll try to slowly up it to 15-20 minutes. That's the goal anyway.

Today I started off my day with 2 oz. of aloe vera juice in water with a good squeeze of lemon. I figure it can't hurt :)

After my aloe vera drink I had 2 gluten free vegan waffles (Maddie is right they ARE far superior to Eggo's!!) with a smear of Earth Balance margarine, a drop of Agave Nectar and a nice mix of fresh raspberries and blueberries. It was an awesome breakfast.

I wasn't that hungry at lunch time. Probably due to pain issues. So I just had a brown rice cake with almond butter, a large glass of vegetable juice and some cherries.

In the afternoon I made my green drink, I described it yesterday but here it is! It tastes...ummm...green!!

By the time I got back from the doctor's and pharmacist and grocery store I wasn't in the mood for cutting up a ton of veggies for a tofu stir fry. So I popped a GF vegan pizza in the oven. Maddie was not very impressed but I liked it. Although it didn't taste much like pizza :)

Now I am off to bed. I know it's only 7:10 pm but the pain is driving me to take my medication and climb into bed. So I'm going to listen...

Good night all!

-Carolyn

Maddie's Perspective: Day Two

2010-07-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have to make confession:

I cheated.

You know how everyone has those little things, that they seriously can't stand doing, or not doing? Well, I'm seriously OCD, and I have alot of those things. One of them? Eating burgers without cheese. It sounds weird, but I can't do it. I start feeling nauseous, and it's like eating soup that's only broth. You aren't eating soup are you? It's not complete! Not only that, but I really really really hate the taste of ketchup, but I have to put a little bit on my burgers or else it the mustard is all unbalanced...Anyway, I really hate ketchup so I use cheese to cover up the taste.

Unfortunately, soy-rice-vegan-unmeltable-grobely-whateverthechunkitis "cheese" is disgusting.

Not only that, but my veggie burger was on a bun. Which is still vegan, but not gluten free so that's kind of breaking the cleanse. Though, my mom put the veggie burger on the bun without asking me, so I really had no say...

Well, the bottom line is; I could NOT stand eating the burger without cheese. So I caved. But it's only day two, so it doesn't really matter anyway. It's not like it's half way through or anything.

Other than that, the day went well. I had a smoothie mom made for breakfast (which she secretly destroyed by adding spinach...sheesh mom, you could've warned me!), bean soup, gluten-free and sugar-free crackers, and hummus for lunch, and then the unfortunate cheese incident happened at dinner.

And I warn all you vegans...that cheese is DISGUSTING. Maybe we should've gone with the other one...

Oh well, tomorrow's a new day!

-Maddie :)

Day Two

2010-07-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

Well, today was a little tougher. I had a headache all day, presumably because of a serious lack of caffeine. But, I didn't cave. Proud of myself for that :)

When I got around to reading the day two chapter of Freston's cleanse book I was in for a bit of a shock.

She gives some good advice: substitute 10 to 30 minutes of exercise for your morning coffee, drink more water and get lots of rest. Then she gives a list:

what to avoid

- coffee, tea, caffeinated sodas (or sodas with guaran), green tea

- energy drinks

- dark chocolate

- coffee-flavoured desserts

- over the counter medications containing caffeine

enjoy

- herbal tea

- decaf coffee

Did you read that??? Decaf coffee!!! After two mornings of teeccino when I get up the thought of even decaf coffee is unbearable. I should have read all of the chapters of the darn book ahead of time :)

This has been my morning breakfast drink. Teeccino made in the French press, with a teeny tiny touch of stevia and some soy creamer in the cup. I had to get the creamer. I'm used to drinking my coffee with half and half and the Teeccino was so strong and dark I couldn't drink it. I think tomorrow I'll mix the Teeccino and decaf coffee half and half. I do like the Teeccino flavour but a touch of coffee would be nice...just for the taste.

After my morning brew I made a smoothie with a frozen banana, some frozen mixed berries, almond milk, ground flax seeds and a big handful of spinach. I was worried that it would be all green but it wasn't. All I could see were some tiny green flecks and I honestly couldn't taste a thing. I drank half and left the other half for Madison when she got up. She drank it without knowing about the spinach...she was nicely surprised when she found out. HA!

These crackers are so very, very good! Wheat free, gluten free, sugar free and organic. They taste like savoury sesame snaps. I enjoyed some of these with hummus and a bean and vegetable soup for lunch.

In the afternoon I made a green drink out of organic apple juice, water and some "Perfect Greens" powder. I was a little hungry in the afternoon so I had some cherries after the green drink and that did the trick. If it didn't I would have had a brown rice cake with almond butter or something.

This is the salad that I invented and made up for dinner. It's a roasted vegetable salad served over mixed greens and it was yummy!!

I roasted cubed sweet potatoes and halved red new potatoes tossed with olive oil at 400 degrees . When they were almost done I added a bunch of cut up asparagus. While they were still warm I mixed in (gently so the potatoes wouldn't break up) my dressing. This was made with garlic, grainy Dijon mustard, 1/2 a juiced lemon, balsamic vinegar,celtic sea salt, thyme and parsley. Don't ask me about the measurements because I didn't use any. Just add, mix and taste until it's right :) Before serving put mixed green in a bowl. I used romaine, spinach, parsley and a tiny bit of fresh basil. Dump the potatoes and asparagus on top, making sure to include any dressing left in the bowl. I topped it off with red pepper, cut in a tiny dice.

Madison, her friend Holly and I had this salad with veggie burgers. The rest of the crew had real burgers. I had vegenaise, mustard and fresh tomato slices on mine. We tried the soy cheese I had bought. Good grief that stuff was awful!! The texture was strange, the flavour was yucky and the after taste made me feel sick. Needless to say it didn't make it onto my burger, which was Yves brand and tasted just fine :)

Well that's it for tonight.

More tomorrow!

-Carolyn

Another Perspective

2010-07-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

My first post. I would've written earlier, but mom pretty much covered it all... :)

Today went really well. I missed out on cookies at a friend's house though, which was unfortunate, but I did get to have a popsicle because it was one of those all fruit bars and I checked the ingredients.

For breakfast I had gluten free, vegan waffles and I must say, that they are FAR superior to Eggo waffles. You don't get that eggy taste (obviously) and they're sweeter, which I like. I had 2 with apple butter and raspberries on top. Yum!

For lunch, I was at my friend's house, but fortunately she's vegetarian and their family is a big fan of Rainbow Foods, so there was no problem there. I had these things that are like rice cakes only they're thinner and made of corn (and quite frankly, better) dipped in homemade hummus my friend's mom made. We also munched on cucumbers and red peppers, but that's nothing new. Later on the others had ice cream, but I satisfied myself with a frozen fruit bar, strawberry flavoured.

A lot of my friends are shocked about me being vegan...even when I tell them it's just for 21 days. I get a lot of reactions like "I could never do that!" and "wow, that sounds so hard!". Except for from my vegetarian friend, she's all for it...and even wants to go vegan permanently!

Honestly though, I didn't have any trouble or whatever...I don't drink a lot of coffee (sometimes I'll make myself iced coffee though, if it's really hot) or anything caffeinated in general, so that's not a problem. I'm going to miss chocolate and cheese, but I'll deal. Actually, I'm really scared of trying vegan cheese... Sugar is kind of difficult...I've got a sweet tooth, but 21 days isn't a lot time, and gluten isn't hard either because we've got alternative stuff, and even though some gluten free stuff is nasty, I know for a fact some of it is good because those gluten free vegan waffles were delicious!

I'm looking forward to trying out new things over the next 21 days...

-Maddie

Day One

2010-07-27T15:51:00.001-07:00

So we have survived our first day on the Vegan Cleanse! It actually wasn't too bad. I did develop a headache at around 2:30 or so. Brought on by lack of caffeine I'm sure. But it's not horrific or anything so all is well. I haven't been starving either so that's good :)

Other than dinner, Madison ate meals different than mine but I'll let her tell you about her experiences herself.

For breakfast I had a big handful of cherries, some GF toast with almond butter and 1/2 a banana sliced on top.

For lunch I made a salad with romaine, cucumber, red and yellow pepper and tomato topped with a 1/3 cup of "3 lentil and cranberry salad" mix that I picked up at the health food store. It was good but extremely filling!

Before dinner, I was feeling a bit peckish so I had 1/2 a Lara bar.

Dinner was so very yummy!! None of us had ever had quinoa before so the meal was a bit of a surprise, we didn't know what to expect. The recipe came from "Quantum Wellness" by Kathy Freston and was called "Summery Quinoa". I marinated the portabello mushrooms, then Steve barbecued them. I cooked the quinoa in vegetable broth. When it was done I mixed in steamed asparagus, peppers and red onion. So tasty...

I know it was just the first day but I think I'm going to be able to handle this!

See you tomorrow.

-Carolyn

Get ready, get set...

2010-07-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

So the big, bad, basic rules for the 21 day vegan cleanse are as follows:

Refrain from:
1. caffeine
2. alcohol
3. gluten
4. animal products
5. sugar

Easy peasy right?
Well....

Alcohol: no problem, I hardly ever drink anyway.

Animal products: a little tougher but not too difficult. We eat vegetarian quite regularly. I will sort of miss steak and eggs though, together or served seperately, it doesn't matter! The harder part will be the dairy. We are going to be trying soy, rice and almond "dairy" options.

Sugar: this is where it starts to get hard. I'm a baker. I just love to make cakes, cookies and pies. And put sugar in my coffee...oh wait, no coffee for me! I'm going to be using agave nectar and stevia exclusively.

Caffeine: NO DIET COKE. NO COFFEE. No stimulants. Until I detox, it's going to make for some very sleepy afternoons and grumpy mornings! I've picked up a package of Teeccino, an herbal coffee alternative, in Java flavour. I'll let you know how it is.

Gluten: gluten-free (GF) is tricky. Some products and recipes taste great. And others not so much. It's probably going to take some disasters before I get this one figured out. I am going to pick up the "Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a day" book since I know there are a lot of GF (and hopefully some sugar free) recipes in it. The original book is my go-to bread bible. Which I will get to eat again in 22 days :)

I'm hoping that I will feel so good that I end up staying with many of these changes after the cleanse is done. We'll see...

As for cookbooks, information and menu ideas I'm using:

"Moosewood Restaurant: Cooking for Health" by the Moosewood Collective
"Ripe from Around Here" by Jae Steele
"Perfect Vegetarian"
"Babycakes" by Erin McKenna (just got this one and haven't tried any recipes yet)
"The Kind Diet" by Alicia Silverstone
"Skinny Bitch" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
"Go Green, get Lean" by Kate Geagan
"The Gorgeously Green Diet" by Sophi Uliano
"Food Matters" by Mark Bittman
"Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips" by Kris Carr
"Quantum Wellness" and "Quantum Wellness Cleanse" by Kathy Freston

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please leave a comment. We'd love to have your input.

We're ready to go!!

-Carolyn

In The Beginning...

2010-07-25T13:12:00.000-07:00

It all started with the idea of doing a vegan cleanse, in order to get healthier. I had the book "The Quantum Wellness Cleanse" by Kathy Freston, which has a 21 day vegan cleanse in it. My daughter Madison decided that she wanted to come along for the ride. As we talked about the whole idea of a 21 day long eating adventure, ideas started to flow about other projects we could undertake. Projects which could change or improve our lives in some way. Or projects that could be done for fun and to achieve goals. Each project will last 21 days with atleast one week (or maybe more) in between each project. We've come up with a list...but we're not sharing it :)

The first project is the vegan cleanse, which will begin on Tuesday, July 27.

More tomorrow!

-Carolyn