Listen to Your Inner Voice

Do you ever get that little voice inside your head telling you to do something? Sure you do, we all do – but do you listen to it? I mean actually pay attention and listen to what it has to say?

Image courtesy of Mr Lightman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sometimes we find it easy to ignore those inner voices, however, we know that what they have to say can have an impact on our day – heck even on our life. How often do we find ourselves ignoring that little voice to find out later on that if we had listened to it we could have avoided <insert crappy scenario here>?

So the next time you have a nagging little voice telling you what to do, stop and listen for a minute. It might actually make your day a little easier.

The Importance of Vacation

We all need a vacation, period, full-stop and whatever else you use to illustrate a point.

Maybe not all of us need to forget someone, in two weeks… but we certainly need the time to rest, regroup and regenerate.

Vacation is like sleep, when you sleep your body works it’s magic replenishing and doing all those things it can’t focus on while you are awake. Well when you are in vacation mode you (should) have less stress and anxiety, you know, no alarm clocks or crazy commute to deal with. It can also help your body take a break from the germy world of keyboards, airless offices, subways, trains, and in my case, hospitals.

Can’t afford to go anywhere, no biggie, staycations work just as well. Day trips to local parks or historic sites and cozy dinners at home sound pretty awesome too.

Why I Like to Compost

I can’t really take credit for starting our compost heaps, that was all Jared’s doing. Also his doing putting it in one of the garden beds, figure if we rotate that each year to a different bed we will have excellent results in that bed, and maybe a little extra gifts too.

Main Compost Heap w/ Kabocha Squash

I have come to support it for a few reasons:

• We have less food waste going into landfills
• It adds rich nutrients to the soil
• It recovers lost soil in the garden due to erosion
• Best of all – seeds get spread around the garden so we have extra veggies growing

My very first year of planting I planted a ton of tomato seeds, very few if any germinated – that’s what I get for buying “survival seeds” on eBay… anyway the compost came to the rescue! We had several rogue tomatoes thanks to the compost. Right now we have a giant kabocha squash growing in our main heap that has about 4 – 5 squashes on it – most we have ever had!

We also have another squash growing in the garden proper, I don’t what variety yet but I have a feeling it’s another kabocha Yippee!!

Unknown Squash

One cool project would be to spread the compost and see what comes up!

 

Mindfulness

You hear a lot about mindfulness but that can mean anything really.

From our Hong Kong Honeymoon in 2007

Yes for some it can include a meditation practice, however mindfulness can come from other places as well. I think of mindfulness as an awareness, and having an awareness of what happens around you, what others feel around and what you project to the world.

I prefer to think of mindfulness as a sort of awareness. It makes understanding the basics a bit easier in my opinion. And the beauty of awareness boils down to the fact that we can have an awareness of so many things. Things happening around the world, injustices to people (and animals) and injustices we see right in our own backyards.

But before you have expanded your awareness to the rest of the world, I ask you to focus the awareness on yourself.

Garden Update

I figured it was about time I gave you guys a garden update.

This spring I didn’t have a chance to get my seeds started early so I pretty much planted as late as I ever have. As I was telling my friend Nelson, who does an awesome job running the Metuchen Farmer’s Market, my gardening philosophy is to take whatever I have and throw it in the ground…

So here’s what has come up

Kabocha Squash

Kale and Mystery Squash

Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Borage

Calendula

Asparagus

“Permaculture”

I also have these wild flower looking weeds that have really come in, thanks to my lack of weeding and making it more of a “permaculture” type plot. If anyone knows what these are please let me know!

Mystery Flowers

What do you have growing in your garden??

LIEBSTER AWARD:

I want to thank my friend Charanya from Yes I’m Vegan 🙂 for nominating me. Below are the rules and questions to answer:

Rules for this award:

• Thank and link back the person who presented the award to you.
• Have the award on your post.
• Answer the questions that has been asked.
• Award the same to other upcoming blogs.

Charanya’s Questions

1. What’s your favorite cuisine? Too many! Middle Eastern Maybe
2. What would be the last meal you will love to eat? Something Indian or Falafel
3. What is your favorite vege? Changes every day!
4.  Do you watch Game of Thrones? Yes, though I am behind but have read through book 5
5.  If you are vegan, why? If not, do you think you could be one for few days? at first it was fr health reasons but as I did more research my reasons became more ethical and environmental
6.  Is there anything your life wont be the same without? Nope not really
7.  What’s your favorite movie? Too many to name! I love bad movies!!
8.  Is there any color you loved as a kid? Green, now my fave is red
9.  Is there anything you would change in your life if life had a rewind button?
10.  Do you own an iphone or an android? iPhone
11. 3 words that could describe you: Passion, Loyal, Independent

My nominees are:

1. Vegan Flavorista
2. Earthpages.org
3. A Lazy Girl Goes Green
4. Veganomics
5. The Novice Gardener
6. Vegan Muffin Woman
7. Epicurean Vegan

My questions are:

1. What is your favorite book?
2. What gets you up in the morning?
3. What color best describes you?
4. What do you do for fun?
5. If you could make one thing in the world right, what would that be?

A simple breakfast too yummy not to share

Here’s a yummy breakfast too quick, easy and yummy not to share.

Ingredients

2 Kiwis
1/2 Cup Strawberries
1/2 Cup Blueberries
2 Tbsp Walnuts
2 Tbsp Dried Coconut Chips or Flakes

Chop the kiwis, strawberries and the walnuts and combine in a bowl, add coconut. Mix well and enjoy!

Variations: You can use any nuts or seeds and fruit, including frozen fruit.

What happens when you lose your mojo

Every once in a while I get a deep sense of mojo loss. The best way to describe mojo loss is a feeling of what you are doing, or not doing, is not that important and you would much rather watch a marathon of episodes of Angel on Netflix.

As much as I would love to watch Angel all day – and I have! It’s important to get back in the swing of things. Here are few tips to help you get your mojo back:

1. Talk to friends, colleagues, peers, anyone that knows what you want to do and are about. Chatting can help you articulate any fears that may be lurking that is subconsciously trying to squash your mojo.

2. Have a heart to heart with yourself. We are often the harshest to ourselves, would you say the same things to another person that you say to yourself? If not, then stop it – be nice.

3. Do something that pertains to your mojo, sometimes we forget why we do what we do and getting back to the roots can help center you.

4. Take it easy, it’s possible that you are feeling burnout, if that’s the case then take a vacation, if you can’t go away then take a mini-vacation, even an afternoon off spent with family and friends or alone at a great spa can help re-energize you.

Reflect, reawaken and remember, you won’t be happy if your mojo is out of whack.

Before you recycle, reuse

Recycling is all the rage now, that’s a good thing though I think people should also consider reusing before recycling. We have so many things that get thrown away that can be used. Most of my furniture is “reused” Aka, antiques and thrift store finds. The beauty about that is that you don’t have to worry about off-gassing materials. So the next time you go shopping think about what you have at home and ask yourself if you really need that.

If you are looking for ideas to reuse items, take a look at this Pinterest page.

I may use that toilet paper roll seed starter next year!

Please feel free to share any creative reuse ideas!

What are you grateful for?

Plenty of times we lose sight of the important things in life. Sometimes I like to joke about first world problems, let’s face it, most of us are lucky to have those kinds of problems. You know, that difficult decision about what drink to get or what outfit to wear…

Grateful for my flowers

Every once in a while I like to focus on what is important to me and what I am grateful for, here’s my list:

I am grateful for the wonderful friends and family I have
I am grateful for the opportunity to do something different
I am grateful for the fur babies in my life
I am grateful to be able to live a life of compassion
I am grateful to live in a time that women can do so much
I am grateful for the rain we get since it will give me a beautiful garden
I am grateful for spell check

What are you grateful for?

Why the fuss over iron?

During my Diet Tech program we saw a big fuss over iron and as a vegan I’ve seen a big fuss over iron, should there really be such a fuss? Well yes, actually there should be.

Image courtesy of Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Iron is a trace mineral that aids in carrying oxygen throughout the blood cells and in metabolic reactions in all cells. There are two types of iron, heme that you get from animal flesh and non-heme that you get from plants. Iron deficiency is a real problem in the U.S. (it also happens to be the most common nutrient deficiency on the planet) and not just for those who abstain from animal products. Approximately more than 1.6 billion people have iron deficiency anemia, may of them preschool age children and expecting moms. Iron absorption is key to preventing an iron deficiency. While the heme iron is better absorbed dietary factors could inhibit some absorption, these include phytates, some vegetable proteins, calcium, and polyphenols.¹

So does this mean that you shouldn’t have anything with your iron-rich foods? Nope, cause that’s going to get old really fast. If anything, you should have a variety of iron-rich foods, and make sure to eat them with a vitamin C source. I love to put lemon juice on my dandelion greens. Raw peppers are also a great source of vitamin C, they go very nicely on a spinach salad.

The iron needs for vegetarians are higher than for non-vegetarians. Since people that abstain from meats are not getting as much heme iron, the more absorbable form, they need to up their intake of non-heme iron (plant-based) by about 1.8 times more. The DRI of iron for men is 15mg and 33mg for premenopausal women. Good sources of plant-based iron include: fortified cereals, spinach, sea vegetables, beans, tofu, nuts and seeds.²

Iron deficiency, symptoms include fatigue, lethargy, decreased mental alertness and pale lips/gums, however, the one thing you should NEVER EVER do is self-diagnose or treat iron deficiency on your own. Is there such a thing as iron toxicity – you bet there is and guess what? The symptoms are similar to deficiency.

So if you suspect you may have any kind of deficiency please go to your practitioner of choice and get the appropriate tests.

Sources:
1. Understanding Nutrition by Whitney & Rolfes, 12th edition, 2011.
2. Vegan for Life by Norris & Messina, 2011.