green smoothie

part of my daily routine is my green smoothie. i feel actual guilt when i miss my green smoothie, so i try not to. these pictures are of the smoothie i had today. it's very green. the reason it's so green is because i used half a box of baby spinach to make it. the straw is glass. it's from glassdharma, check 'em out!

here's whats in my usual smoothie

• 1 orange


• 1 frozen banana


• 2 cups of no sugar added frozen fruit blend


• lots and lots of baby spinach. like i said above, i use about half a box of the baby spinach that you can find by the bagged salad.


• filtered water

sometimes i play with different variations. if i have fresh pineapple i add some. it makes the smoothie very sweet. yesterday i did blueberries, banana, orange, pineapple and spinach. yum!

green smoothies are an easy way to put good stuff in your body and it's a staple if you are eating raw. i highly recommend green smoothie revolution if you want to find out more about the benefits of drinking green smoothies and hundreds of recipes (even smoothies for your fur children).

you spin me right round, baby!

saturday brennah, kam, kass and mara headed to round rock for our first meet up with the austin hoopers. it was a blast. bren, kam and kass all suprised me with a natural hooping talent. the instructor also gave us examples of poi. of course, the girls tried their hand at poi and when they found out that fire is often involved, they were asking for poi lessons.


we are looking forward to our next lesson!

achieving peace

school is out, summer is here. time for deschooling! my foremost goal for this summer is peace. peace in the home. peace outside of the home. peace in our universe.

bip

i want to start this post with a shout out to larabar. about a month ago they announced that they were retiring pistachio and if you went to their website you could register to win a fare thee well pistachio prize pack. which i quickly did, and won! i love larabars. they have no more than eight ingredients (all of which you can pronounce) and are gluten free, dairy free, soy free, vegan and kosher. they are so delicious. try one. don't think, try. below is a picture of my prize pack that arrived in the mail today. it included 1) a uber cool rubber band with the larabar logo that will be worn by me as a bracelet. 2) a larabar pistachio tee shirt, also cool. 3) a larabar logo sticker (love it!) and 4) 4 DELICIOUS pistachio bars. i can't for the life of me figure out why they are retiring this flavor? i must believe that there are other incredible flavors on the horizon to make up for pistachio being gone.




it is already really hot here in central texas. this morning i sat out with my mom at her place (kinda like a retirement village, but with some younger people lightly sprinkled here and there) having a community garage sale. luckily we were in the shade as we listened to roger miller sing "king of the road" way to many times. at a quarter to 11 i told my mom that i was done (no one had come by in a while) and began to pack up, once again convinced that the effort put into a garage sale is not worth the profit or maybe my stuff sucks?

my personal goal for this summer is to try new things. i am really bad about not wandering out of my comfort zone, but i am ready to change all that. our town is pretty small and not very progressive. thank god austin is just down the road! i am already committed to hooping classes on saturday's in round rock. brennah, kamrynn and kassidy have graciously agreed to go with me. if they like it, there are enough of us to form a family hooping act. i will let you know if we decide to take it on the road.

there are other things that i would love to delve into, amature photography is one. i would love to be able to more beautfully document our family times. i am looking at several certification programs for natural/holistic health. in september i am going to train to become a birth doula. i would also LOVE to attend rethinking everything conference if we can come up with the bucks to fund a family of our size. i want to try vegan for a month (no cheese....will i survive?)

if i am going to impart a love of learning for a lifetime to my children, i need to model it.

1995

Close your eyes,

Have no fear,

The monsters gone,

He's on the run and your daddy's here

Beautiful,

Beautiful, beautiful,

Beautiful Boy,

Before you go to sleep,

Say a little prayer,

Every day in every way,

It's getting better and better

Beautiful,

Beautiful, beautiful,

Beautiful Boy,

Out on the ocean sailing away,

I can hardly wait,

To see you to come of age,

But I guess we'll both,

Just have to be patient,

'cause it's a long way to go

A hard row to hoe

Yes it's a long way to go

But in the meantime,

Before you cross the street,

Take my hand,

Life is just what happens to you,

While your busy making other plans

Beautiful,

Beautiful, beautiful,

Beautiful Boy,

Darling, Darling, Darling Nate.

saturday soapbox

when i was a child i played outside. i would wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, put on my seafoam green, ultra short sports shorts, a shirt and no shoes and head out the door. i would magically reappear at lunch, ravenous from play. with my appetite sated, i would be back out the door, my mom telling me to be back before dark.

i would freely roam my familiar neighborhood. sometimes alone, sometimes with a pack of other urchin children. most times these hours of open abandon would be on (bare) foot, others on the back of my purple bike with the banana seat. there was little to no supervision, no boundaries, no limits to how far i could go. i just had to be home by dark. i remember it as a magical time. free and innocent.

this afternoon tim and i were sitting on the front porch watching my brother tim's (my brother and my husband are both "tim") kids and mara playing in the sandbox husband tim just made and set in our front yard. everyone was playing peacefully after being admonished gently to not dust sandy hands off over each others head.

i am embarrassed to say that we don't know our across the street neighbors very well. it is a rent house that has a pretty high turnover. normally tho, we do make it a point to be friendly with the people around us. so, as we are sitting on our porch preaching peace, here comes the across the street neighbor.

the reason for her visit was to report to us that she had been researching sex offenders in our town and wanted to let us know that we have several that live mere blocks from us. she even had a hand written list of the accused to prove her case. she said that she knew that our girls (referencing the twins) are always outside and that if it were her girls that were roaming the streets, she would want to know. we politely looked at her list, told her thanks for the information and that we would pass it on to the girls.

i am so not about fear. i am not about living in fear. i am not about putting fear into my children. i am about information. i am appreciative that my neighbor is concerned for the safety of the kids in our hood. i will remind the girls that there are people close by that could do harm to them. what i wont do it keep my kids in the house in an effort to protect them from the bad people. bad people could be anyone, not just the sex offenders. i wont scare my children out of their wits, making them completely phobic to come out from under our wing for fear of some horrible, terrible demise that must surely be awaiting them right out side our door.

talk to children. let them know that everyone is not kind. that everyone does not have their best interest at heart. that there are people out their who will hurt them. push play on "stranger danger" and rewind/repeat often. don't live in paranoia. with all the bad that is constantly thrown at us it is easy to forget all that is wonderful about our world. a world kids need to get out and live in. would i sanction kids leaving the morning with only "be back by dark" as their only guidance? no, probably not, but i am not going to over parent either.

hair and omelettes

i have had my dreads close to four weeks now. and it is a love/hate thing. i love not having to "fix" my hair. prior to dreads, i didn't exactly have a taxing hair routine. i washed my hair. i blew it dry. i put some stuff in it (not expensive stuff, more like mid-low priced). then i would straighten it with my mid-low priced straightener. i never got my hair cut every six weeks. counting the frequency of my hair cuts in months would probably be more accurate. needless to say, i have never been a hair girl.

now that i am no longer working and have (baby) dreads, i spend even less time on my hair. having 4 other girls in our home, they were more than happy to take my brand new blow dryer, the mid-low priced straightener, my brushes, and even the cheap product off my hands. i replaced those items with 1) my bottle of almond liquid dr. bronner's, 2) a bar of knotty boy dread shampoo, 3) a various array of bandanas and head wraps and a slew of heavy duty ponytail holders. i wash with either or both soaps every 3-4 days or until i just can't stand my scalp itching anymore. good bye conditioning, brushing, straightening, drying, and good riddance to caring.

all that seems so positive (to me at least) what could possibly be the negatives? uhhh, i live in texas. it's hot. it's may and we are already hitting the mid 90's. my head is hot. there is also the aforementioned itching. dread's have zombie tendencies and like to eat their neighbors, so i have to make sure everyone is separated and playing nicely. you don't even want to see me with out the head wrap and the rubber band. as my brother put it "melissa, your hair is really fluffy". it's beyond fluffy, it's enormous (that's what she said).

i am cool with the negatives. the positives far out way them. to not have to deal with my hair is groovy. it is time i can spend doing something else that is far more worthwhile, like julia childs showing me (via youtube) how to make the perfect omelette. julia, i followed your instructions and my omelette turned out perfect, thanks dreads and thanks julia.