Jump on the kale train.

On Sunday, we went to a potluck birthday party for a friend and it was amazing.  Not only because of the loveliest of company but amazing looking food. 

I say amazing "looking" because I was rude and didn't try all of it but those grilled wings, stuffed shells, and HOMEMADE Raspberry Chocolate cake looked/smelled incredible.  I feasted on mountains of fruit, kale salad, and three different hummus options (heaven).

 I got the recipe for the Kale salad with Tahini dressing from here...and it was really good.  At least I thought it was.  I like tahini (ground sesame seeds) though.  If you don't, peanut butter would probably be deliciously Thai tasting. 

Kale Salad 101.  Make sure you either massage the kale or let it sit for a while after putting the dressing on or it will be bitter and hard to eat. 

Would probably feed 4-6 people, but for a potluck, it served around 10-12 smaller portions.

Kale deserves a close up.

From my last grocery trip, I also got lots to juice.  And we've only made one juice.  I've been working more hours this week because of other people going on vacation (rude) and our FOUR DAY holiday coming up (not rude) and usually by the time I get home it's dinner time and no mid day juice snack. 

This one had loads of kale in it so it was a nasty brown color once it was all mixed up but it looked super fun before that.  Despite it looking like a mud milkshake, it was tasty.

Rainbow Juice:

One green apple
Two bunches of kale.  That's right, TWO.
Three carrots
Little piece of ginger
One small beet




This turned out looking pretty gross once I'd mixed it up, so I poured it into our pint glasses and pretended it was a stout.


The first meal from this weeks trip to the market was grilled veggies and BBQ vinaigrette.  I'm sure there is a more sophisticated way to make vinaigrette but all I did was put about a quarter cup of BBQ sauce in to a jar, a teaspoon of honey, and a half cup of apple cider vinegar.  It was super spicy so I added about a 1/8 of a cup of some ranch dressing for Matt's. 

Can we take a moment and appreciate how amazing vegetables are when grilled?

Dressed and ready.

Whole Foods had some of their essential oils on sale and I went a little crazy.  It was a good crazy because the ones that were on sale were the ones that are in a couple different bug spray recipes I'm going to try. 


Grapefruit, German Chamomile, Citronella, Cedar wood, Clove, Lemongrass, Lavender


I guess I thought the chamomile would smell like tea but IT DOES NOT.  Maybe because I got the "German" chamomile?  Not sure but I smelled like a big fat cigar.  Either that or they accidentally poured Tobacco Oil into the bottle. 

There's an oil for that.

Yesterday, Matt's flight was delayed and he'd end up missing his connecting flight so I had to go back to the airport to pick him up about three hours after I'd dropped him off. 

When I dropped him off it was storming, rain and lightning, really terrible weather.....

(I follow all of my local news personalities on Twitter like some kind of grown up fan girl.  My favorite traffic guru, Meredith Consuelos, posted this picture from Talia Landman.)

 But when I picked him up, the sky was clear, it was cool, the sun was shining and it was beautiful.  Summer afternoons in Tampa are pretty temperamental. 

So while I got sad dropping him off the first time, I was so stoked to have him come home, even for just one more night.  Too bad we slept through the early alarms set for this morning to get to the airport and had to get ready in 15 minutes so he could make his flight.

About a month ago, I'd been making fun of a friend and hurt my back.  I wish I'd been scaling a waterfall, or saving a toddler from getting hit by a car, but alas, I was injured via sarcastic dancing.  The pain went away but could have been brought back from the long time spent in the van for our road trip, my falling like an idiot in Lynchburg, or the spin class of death last Saturday.

I made an appointment for a chiropractor for Monday but my mother in law wanted me to try some essential oils until then to see if it eased the pain.  She has had loads of success with essential oils and while I'm not really convinced that they aren't just another fantastic pyramid scheme, they are much cheaper than visiting the chiropractor. 

For the pain, she recommended peppermint oil and another blend of oils for relief.  I guess I bought cheap peppermint oil (Whole Foods brand was $10.99, Aura Cacia brand <--the good stuff, was $27.99, Young Living brand <--you can't get at a store, must order through a rep or have a membership, $28.99) , and I bought the the Whole Foods version because everything they do is awesome and it was more than half the price of the others. 



Turns out that maybe their peppermint oil isn't as awesome because it did squat. 

Did my back all of a sudden turn icy?  Yup.

Did I smell like a peppermint patty?  Yup. 

Did I rub it on my dogs head, so he too would smell of candy?  Yup. 

Did my back still throb?  Yup.

So you if want a cooling sensation and smell like the North Pole, this oil has got you covered.  If your back hurts from doing something dumb, move along.  My MIL is bringing me some expensive oils to try and see if that makes a difference today. 

Next up was a really awesome condition that I inherited.  It's called spider veins and they are really beautiful.  Like the tattoo of the River Nile that I never wanted.  Lemongrass oil is supposed to help and because my mama gifted the beautifully colorful veins to me, she also so generously gifted the essential oil.  If it works, it's cheaper than the treatment for these.  Probably a lot less painful too.  Woof.

Is there an oil to get rid of spiders?  I saw this guy in our bathroom last night and by the time I ran to get something to smack him with, he had gone back into his hiding place.  Please tell me he is a good spider that eats all of the other spider (that's what my dad used to tell me about the GIGANTIC brown spiders that lived in my room in Lutz).

Hurts so good, still hurts.

The only pitfall of shopping locally is the hours of a store don't match my extremely forgetful brain and it's ability to remember my dog has no food to eat right after they close at 3pm on Sunday and remain closed on Monday.  Luke is so stoked to get gourmet meals though until they open back up today.  He is grain-free because he's a little prima donna so I steamed some carrots and pumpkin, sliced up a banana, and tossed in some dried salmon pieces that smell the worst.  He was a happy little camper the past two days.  He's going to be pretty shocked when he gets kibble again this afternoon. 

PSA for this fabulous Tuesday:  Get your annual skin cancer screening ASAP!  I go every year and they take no less than three biopsies to test for cancer.  The last time I'd gone, there were a couple that needed to be removed (scary) and the office I had gone to (which was a plastic surgeon to boot) did a terrible job with the stitches.  My stomach looks like Frankenstein Brides'.  Boo hoo for bikinis.  So I decided I was never going back there again and found a new AWESOME dermatologist.  Her name is Brooke Baldwin of Suncoast Skin Solutions in Lutz, which is kind of a drive but worth it.  My appointment was on time (a small miracle, in my experience at the old dermatologist, a 45 minute wait was expected) and for the first time in my adult life, I walked out with no biopsies.  And she did a thorough check and I felt bad for her because I definitely did not shave my legs which was a shame.    She also checked my feet which also too bad for her had been crammed inside of stinky ballet flats all day.  My favorite part was that they have cloth gowns to wear instead of the paper ones.  Thank you so much....the paper gowns are terrible. 

I have a super hero friend named Liz who spins probably 9 days a week.  She was going last night and I decided to join her, after which she laughed and said "I was in for a treat".  "Treat" to Liz does not mean the same thing as "treat" does to Rachel.  It was tough and I felt sweat dripping from my arm pit which has never happened to me before.  I wanted to shower after the first 15 minutes.  The teacher was kind of hilarious though and made fun of one of the girls in the class because she posted a picture of some lava cake the night before on Facebook.  I love that.  He was very motivating even if he decided that we were too fit for crazy things like "breaks" or "resting".  He probably said "last song" three times.  I hate pushing myself though and I feel like spinning with Liz is helping me overcome my mental block when it comes to that. 

My Strange Addiction: Jillian Michaels, Ryan Gosling, and Coke

So I shelled the fresh chick peas.  Finally.  Good to know they have a long shelf life.  They were still bright green and crisp too.  Too bad it took one episode of Biggest Loser to shell them all for about a cup and a half.  And everyone knows one episode of Biggest Loser is like an hour an a half.  Seriously, they are are seriously serious about changing lives.  Except Jillian, she's serious about making sure people are seriously throwing up daily.  If you don't watch the show you don't even know. 

A terrible segway from watching Biggest Loser, I found a great thing at Whole Foods on Sunday.  Matt was feeling kind of blah and he SWEARS by some capsule called "Wellness Formula" that is of course like $200 a bottle and you must take 600 pills a serving, 3 times a day.  I need to buy stock.  (It is actually $18/bottle and you take 6 pills/3 times a day, but I was close).  I've never taken them so I can't vouch for their miracle powers but he combines this with mainlining Emergen-C and he hasn't made it out of the "first symptoms" phase in a while (aside from the norovirus bug we caught in New York).  I've bought about 6 bottles this year so far (they don't last very long so buy the biggest one the sell) but of course, Matt got a "first symptom" very early Sunday morning and I get up pretty early so I won the "awesome wife" award (first time!) and picked some up for him.  Everytime I buy this for Matt I get a "in the know" nod or comment from an employee at Whole Foods that says "she knows how to feel better fast with her Wellness Formula."  And everyone knows nobody can make you feel good about your health like the approval of a Whole Foods employee (maybe Ryan Gosling).  It's like a badge.  And I've got one.




photo from www.imdb.com


Back to the great thing at WF that was not a pharmaceutical... while I was walking around the store I passed the bakery and saw they had vegan donuts.  Actually a whole case full of almost all vegan pastries.  There weren't any other cases so I thought it was cool that Whole Food carries so many options for vegans that they seem to think non-vegans will like as well. 

There was this beauty.  I almost got it but another guy swooped in and bought all they had.  Rude.  He let me take a picture though without judgement which was nice.  Rude.

Ministry update!  We have an FCA office!  And it's great!  Not in a looks great way but great because it's a super exciting thing for this fledgling little ministry!  We are trying to bring our new space into the 2000s by painting and removing the amazing furniture it came with.  I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture last night, it is so ugly.  We had our first painting party last night and I can't wait until it is a usable space we can work out of. 

That Coke isn't mine.  Okay it was.  Ugh.  No more Coke this week.