I'm Not Ready!

But I don't think I'll ever be ready.
I'm talking about sharing this blog.  I feel like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade.

I just need to step out and see what happens.  And hopefully, I don't plunge to my death!  Not likely, right? Right?!?!

All kidding aside, I think getting this blog "out there" is good for a few reasons.
1. What's the point of having a blog if you're not going to let anyone read it?
2. I'm kind of tired of talking to myself.
3. (And this is a big one...) If I'm going to work on my new year's resolution of not worrying about what people think of me, this is a great opportunity.  It will be a good exercise in humility.  I think.

So... here goes...?

I've Got The Shakes!

Ha-ha!  Protein shakes, I mean.
I've been making some variation of these shakes for quite some time now, and I thought I'd share how I make them - my current version anyway.
I drink one of these for breakfast, and for the next week anyway, I'll be having another for lunch (or dinner, if the need to CHEW comes at lunch time).
Ingredients.

Protein powder - 1 scoop.  At present, I am using something I don't recommend.  It has a lot of good stuff in it, but it also has sucralose (splenda), and that's something to really stay away from.  But I bought it a long time ago, and I hate throwing away perfectly good (ha ha - you know what I mean!) stuff.  When it's gone, I'll probably be switching to Jay Robb Whey Protein.  A bit more expensive, but you get what you pay for, right...?
Chia Seeds - 1 Tbsp.  I use the Nutiva brand.  I bought them at GNC.  They were on sale for buy one get one half off, so I bought 2 packages.
Fiber supplement - (just under) 1 Tbsp.  I have some Medibulk from Thorne Research leftover from the cleanse I did with PEERtrainer, and I've been putting it into my shakes.  But I won't bother reordering any more when it's gone.  But I also won't be using the Metamucil I used to take.  There's 8 grams of sugar in one serving!!  I might replace it with ground flaxseed or just leave it out all together.
Spinach - 1 big handful (about a cup).  Fresh.
Mixed berries - 1 cup. I use Wyman's Triple Berry Blend.
Coconut milk - 1 cup.  I use So Delicious, unsweetenend.  I used to use the canned coconut milk, lite and  regular, but I prefer the much larger serving size of the kind in the carton.  It makes a better shake.
Water - 1 cup.  Without it, the shake would need to be eaten with a spoon.
Blend and enjoy!!

I use a stick blender.  I bought it a couple years ago to blend homemade vegetable soup into drinkable soup.  I put all the ingredients in the big cup, blend it there, and drink it right from that cup.  After trial and error, I've learned that the best order for adding the ingredients is this: spinach, dry stuff (protein, fiber, chia), berries, coconut milk, then water.  If you're using a regular blender, I don't know what order would be best.
Also, for quick shake-making, I pre-single-serve what I can.

The water and coconut milk, I pour as I need it, but the spinach gets put in ziploc bags.  The berries get put in 1-cup containers in the fridge.  Leaving them frozen makes the shake too cold for me to drink, but I know a lot of people would prefer that.  The protein powder, fiber, and chia seeds all go in to containers together, and I store them in the pantry.
When I'm running late - as I was this morning, and as I do OFTEN - it's nice to know I can make a shake in about 1 minute from start to finish!

At It Again...

Tomorrow I'm restarting a cleanse/diet/whatever.  Protein shakes, veggies, water, exercise.  Same ol' same ol.    I'd go into more detail, but I've tried and failed so many times, I'm a little leery of making a big deal out of it.  If I see some success and manage to continue on for more than a few days, I'll talk more about it then!

Is this what is meant by "It will blow your mind!"?

So, there are these things called "mashups" where 2 songs are blended together to make one new song.  I know these have been around for a while, but my interest in them has been renewed.
There's this guy, "Mighty Mike", who puts these things together, and it really is so cool!  My brain hears both songs individually - and together!  And I wonder how he knew they would work together and not sound like a big mess.
Here's my favorite one so far:

There but for the grace of God, go I.

[I'm not sure where I'm going with this...yet.]
There's been a lot of talk in the last few days from various bloggers* and online articles and status commenters about not being judgmental of other people.  This, of course, is not a new concept.  "Judge not, lest ye be judged," and all that.  I know all this.
Yet, we - - we, as Catholics; we, as Christians; we, as plain old good people - - are called to be discerning, to figure out good and evil, to have opinions about who and what we encounter in the world.
My new year's resolution last year was to be less judgmental.  To me, that meant I was to feel less superior about the various choices I had made which differed from those of other people.  It meant being less snarky, and having less of a knee-jerk reaction of thinking, "Well, THAT'S stupid!!" when faced with someone who didn't make the exact same choices I would have.  To be honest, I think the year went quite well.  I do think I've become less judgmental.  And I feel good about that!
My new year's resolution THIS year, is to feel less judged.  So far, this is proving to be quite a bit harder.  It is very difficult for me to say, "I don't care what others think of me" and actually mean it.  But I am working on it.
I read an essay a while back called "What you think of me is none of my business."  It's good to re-read this once in a while.
Ok... so I'm in a weird place now.  Not judging people, not feeling judged...  How the heck am I supposed to use Facebook??

*Disclaimor - I almost didn't want to link to that article.  I'm worried that there's some back-link system that will bring people here from there and this blog isn't ready yet, and I'm just yammering on and haven't gotten serious about my writing yet, and <sigh> I'm trying to feel less judged.  : /

Crap! I Missed a Day! : (

Booo.  I missed a day in the 30-day challenge.  Grrr.
And I thought of writing two entries today to make up for it, but it's already 10pm, so it'll be just one.
Here's the reason I didn't write yesterday...

I won tickets to the Matt Nathanson concert, including passes to the pre-show sound check.  It was really cool!  But the whole day needed to be orchestrated carefully so I could go, and I was busy from the moment I got up in the morning.
But go I did and had a fantastic time!  I got to spend time with my sister on her birthday, have a night out sans Mommy duties, and listen to some great music!  Fun fun fun!

(non)Dairy Delight

Today marks day 7 of little to no dairy for me.  I didn't plan on cutting it out, but it kinda happened, so I just went with it.  Last month I did a cleanse - not a stupid, unhealthy cleanse, but a healthy, nutrient-rich, non-allergenic cleanse - and it was stated by one of the people conducting it, that excluding dairy from her diet really cleared up her skin.

Well, I only made it through 10 days of the 14-day cleanse (and maybe more about that another time), but I did notice my skin was fantastic!  So smooth and clear!  And my skin isn't normally too bad, but washing it in the shower, I could really tell the difference in how it felt.  Like glass, I tell ya!
So the cleanse didn't go exactly as I hoped (ok, yes - I will talk about this some other time), and I kind of fell off 4 wagons at once, and that was one of them.
But last week, unlike me, I tried a new diet.  I don't like "diets."  Anyway, I did 2 days of the Dukan diet (protein only) and then planned/tried to go back to my pre-cleanse diet of protein, veggies, a little bit of healthy fat, and small portions of rice, beans, lentils, etc. With that there is no dairy.  After a few days, before I really noticed dairy was missing from my diet, I noticed that my skin felt awesome again!
Oh, yeah!!  No dairy = clear skin, apparently.
The true testament?  I got my period today and my skin didn't produce one speck of a blemish!  Amazing!!
So, I'm obviously not lactose intolerant - and I'm not swearing off dairy forever (isn't ice cream made from dairy??) - but it's definitely a good little piece of info to possess.  Don't ya think??
Oh, and another thing.  I take calcium supplements for the couple weeks before my period to alleviate pms symptoms and reduce cramping.  So, ironically, increasing calcium and decreasing dairy helped me this week.
Have any of you (you know, "you" - you phantom readers I hope to have some day...) had any experience with foods affecting your skin like this?