Chris and I are still drinking at least one juice a day – generally breakfast – although mine today is a lunch juice as I was running around all morning and forgot about eating.
Today’s juice:
For Chris – 2 pears, 1 green bell pepper
For Raine – 1 beet, 1 cucumber, 4 carrots
My baby is officially five today. Look at her! I can’t believe I had a hand in creating such a beautiful, confident, smart, kickass creature! I knew this girl would be tough, even in utero she tortured me with her kicking morning, noon, and night. I told her this yesterday and she said, “That’s why I’m good at kung foo,” and immediately demonstrated her kicking prowess (when she should have been eating her dinner). That’s my Katie – thrilling me and vexing me all at the same time.
You know I'm serious about purging when I get rid of my Ayn Rand and my Photoshop books.
I held the mother of all yard sales this past weekend. It was a fundraiser for a church mission trip I am going on in a few weeks. Because of that many church members gave their castoffs to be sold. We had men’s clothes from size small through 6X. I think over a hundred pairs of shoes, tons of housewares, a whole lifetime’s worth of clown collectibles and many things I couldn’t even identify. The sheer mass of the stuff was overwhelming and my yard sale cohorts and I quickly reduced the price of almost everything to a quarter. We made just over $300 – selling most things for a quarter!! The mind reels at how much stuff we had and sold. That $300 was hard-earned but worth the effort as the money is going to a great cause.
As things wound down we discussed what to do with the leftovers. Keep for another sale? Give to Goodwill? Maybe some to the Re-Store? Maybe some other worthy charities? In the end we decided to give all of the clothes to Goodwill and everything else we put out on the curb with a big FREE sign. We posted on Craigslist about the yard sale leftovers and left. My husband and I stopped by in the afternoon to see what was left – and the answer was a small boxful of items and a large mirror. We dropped those things off to Goodwill and were done. I hope all of the stuff that went out into the world through us goes to places it can do the most good.
Cue Sunday and Monday and I’ve already filled two more bins of stuff plus a box of books. It seems the more I purge the more I realize I don’t need. I gave the books to a friend who will give them to her preschool’s book sale fundraiser. But those two bins – are they the start of another yard sale pile? Some of the stuff is worth a few dollars, some a few pennies. Some of the books I gave away could have made a few dollars on Amazon. But is the time and effort worth the return?
My new answer is no. My new mantra is “Give it away, give it away, give it away now!” I’m just going to release this stuff to the world and move forward – lighter and happier.
Goofballs
My friend, Stacy, is conducting a family experiment this month – going as car-free as possible for the month of August.
They are walking/biking/bussing/carpooling everywhere including school (for three of their kids), work (for her husband), errands (groceries, appointments, hardware store runs) and entertainment (playdates, festivals). We live in a very car-oriented area – public transportation is spotty, sidewalks can be non-existent in places, and cars rule the road. But, it also has several walkable neighborhoods and a good downtown core. Reading about her family’s victories and setbacks has me thinking more about our own transportation situation.
I’ve never had a driver’s license. Most of my adult life I’ve lived carless or car-lite. It started as a random circumstance (I took Driver’s Ed in high school but never felt confident enough to take the test), then became a conscious decision during my 9-year stint in Seattle – one of the most walkable cities in the country. Having a car there seemed like more of a hindrance than a help. My stays in Dallas, New Orleans, and Dayton I lived car-lite as my then-husband and I owned a car. I still walked or bussed to work in those places, but we used the car for grocery-shopping, errands, and entertainment.
When Chris and I met and started our life together he brought a car into the relationship and I brought a lot of shoes. We lived in Albuquerque for six years and again I walked, bussed, and carpooled to work. I also walked for most of my retail shopping and entertainment. Cue our move to Huntington, I walk to my little job and with the kids to our various activities.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about as I’ve followed Stacy’s car-lite experiment. I mostly live as a car person. The things that I HAVE to do carless I do – those things that occur during the times that Chris is at work or out of town on business. We do arrange our errands so that he will do many of them on his way in from work, which cuts down on running out as a family (and saves on gas) to do simple things like picking up dry-cleaning or toothpaste. But, during the time that he is not working, we always use the car – even if it’s just going four blocks to the park. Lame! This is something we need to work on.
Currently I walk the kids to school in the mornings. This is something I choose do to as we do have school bus service that is half a block from our house. Last year the kids were at two different schools with two different bus stops about an hour apart – walking was not an option. This year they are both at Southside Elementary. They ride the bus home in the afternoon. Again, this is a choice – and my daily trip is 2 miles roundtrip. I also walk twice a day Monday-Thursday to my dog-nanny job – 1.4 miles roundtrip. And on Tuesdays I walk to pickup my CSA bag – 1.4 miles roundtrip as well. Throw in a few trips to my local produce stand, the corner store, church stuff during the day, medical appointments for me and the kids, downtown for library runs and I look like a walking machine. But again, I don’t walk as soon as Chris gets home. Groceries, Sunday-going-to-church, socializing stuff – it’s all done using the car.
What can I/we do to incorporate more car-lite ways into our life?
Ideas:
Groceries – this is huge – grocery shopping with the whole family can be a drag and definitely cuts into our family time – there is a Kroger close to the kids’ school – I can drop them off and then head over there. I’ll need to obtain a little rolling basket thingie first, as a 1+ mile trek home carrying groceries does not sound fun.
Online buying – some of our food and non-food grocery items can be bought online in bulk – less packaging, less heavy stuff to carry home
Church – we can walk to and from church as a family
The park – we like to go to the park in the evenings after dinner – we usually drive over – but can walk the four blocks easily.
Ok, those sound like a good start – and now I’m going to bed. Catch y’all later.
The juice fast is over! I lost 8 lbs. and felt really good the whole time. Considering I just ramped up my activities and walking this is a really good indicator of how healthful the fast was. Chris and I have decided to “stay on the juice” for breakfast and lunch for a while. We’ll see if the weight loss continues or levels off.
It was really great to be cooking again. I used a wild rice blend that’s been sitting in the pantry for a while and the children looooooooved. Fabulous, more whole grains they’re into! Corn from our CSA. And the stew-y looking stuff is my version of quick ratatouille – I just threw in some veggies I had in the crisper, the tail-end of some homemade tomato sauce, and a can of navy beans, add some italian season and bam – dinner is done.
You’ve probably heard of “energy vampires.” Things like your cell phone charger, some appliances that have clocks in them (microwave!), cordless gadgets like dustbusters. I’ve been very vigilant about making sure our cell phone charger is only plugged in when we’re using it and I turn off and unplug my power strip that handles all of my computer and computer-related cords. Yesterday I went around and found a few other energy vampires – a cordless vacuum, a cordless screwdriver, the power supply for my netbook. I unplugged them all and will use said items until they run out of juice and then plug them in to recharge them. Katie has a computer, but rarely uses it so that power strip has been unplugged for a while. If she wants to use her computer we’ll plug it back in for her. William’s computer happens to be the computer that is connected to our modem and Wifi router. I would like to turn his power strip off at night, but he goes to bed much earlier than I do so I’m a little stumped on that one.
A HUGE energy vampire and also the largest time vampire in our house is our TV/satellite box/DVR. I’ve read that these babies, due to the fact that they are always on, can actually use more electricity than an energy efficient refrigerator. Crazy! You can turn them off, but the satellite company sometimes sends “updates” in the middle of the night, the DVR records some stuff in the middle of the night, and it can take a while for it to power up completely (because it searches for updates).
Last night I turned off the power strip to all of our TV-related things (TV, Wii, satellite box/DVR, and DVD player). This morning I turned it back on and timed it to see how long it took to power up. And the answer is 10 minutes. Not bad! I think we can handle this. I also deleted a lot of the series I record out of habit. Seriously, I don’t need to watch every Cold Case there’s every been. A lot of the shows I record I use as “background” while I’m running around the house cleaning/reading/computering. I’ve been consciously choosing to not turn on the TV or play music just to enjoy a little silence and I think it’s made me more productive and less scattered.
So the TV-stuff power strip will officially be turned off every evening and not turned on until we want to actually watch something, not just have some background noise.
Saving money, saving electricity, and saving my sanity – cool.
When I was doing my “big purge” a few weeks ago I went through my jewelry. I loooove jewelry, I even make it on occasion. But have found that I don’t wear much these days. One reason I don’t wear much is that I have so much in such disarray that it’s hard to find what I’m looking for and also it’s a pain to untangle it from the mess on top of my dresser. A jewelry purge was in order!!
I found the earrings I wore to a Sweetheart’s dance in high school (my 20-year high school reunion just happened to give you an idea how old these earrings are), two engagement rings (one from a marriage that never came to fruition), two wedding rings, and all sorts of random stuff that I can’t even remember accruing. Some nicer jewelry that I have not and will not ever wear as they are just not my style, but I haven’t gotten rid of them before because I received them as gifts. Blech!!! Such a lame reason to hold on to things, they mock me every time I see them!
I made a huge pile to go into the yard sale, and a smaller pile of actual gold jewelry to go to the pawn shop.
Bam! Instant cash, and a whole lot of emotional baggage gone!! To borrow a phrase from my pastor, “I love everything about that!”
Since the purge I’ve found myself reaching for jewelry more often. Today for instance I’m wearing earrings and a necklace – and received compliments on both. The earrings are cool, but the necklace is one of my favorite things – made my a friend of mine in New Mexico. It is my “window to the universe.”
What things are you holding onto that are adding emotional noise to your life? 
136!!!! Only two pounds away from my goal for this juice fast. And we even fell off the wagon this weekend.The original end day was tomorrow, but now we’re going through Friday because of our weekend binge (it really wasn’t much of binge – but it definitely wasn’t juice).
This morning I made Chris the broccoli juice I had last night and made myself a veggie-only juice.
1 beet
1 cucumber, peeled
1 bell pepper
small knob of ginger
Even though it has no fruit it’s still rather sweet and the ginger jazzes it up.
Hello broccoli juice!!
This is dinner. And it’s surprisingly good.
2 trees of broccoli
3 stalks of celery
1 pear
1/2 lemon
I’m trying to increase the amount and variety of veggies while lessening my dependence on berries to keep things yummy.
So our juice fast was broken on Friday. Life on the weekends is just too crazy for us – and we discovered a leak under our sink (behind the wall). Friday night was an art exhibit opening and a birthday party. Saturday was helping a friend move and a housewarming party. And Sunday was church and a cookout. We weren’t home much, and when we were we tried to avoid the kitchen. Cleaning juicer parts (and all of the rest of our dishes in the bathroom really sucks!
We are back in the saddle again with the juicing today. I think I’ve got the cleaning-dishes-in-the-bathroom thing down. And life is back on a normal schedule with school and work.
This morning I am having a carrot and cantaloupe juice. 4 carrots and then enough cantaloupe to fill up by glass. Easy peasy. And I cleaned the juicer before sitting down to my drink so I have nothing to dread when I get up from the computer.
Last Monday I weighed 144 pounds. Today I weigh 138. No bad.
Viva el jugo!!
