New collaboration with yellowbrick.me

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Hello dear followers, I have entered into a new collaboration with the fine folks at yellowbrick.me and I am sharing my first post from them!  It is about healthy eating and juicing, which you all know is near and dear to me. If you read it, which I highly recommend that you do, you will know that I didn’t write it, because it mentions a husband and I don’t have one (not yet anyway!).  However, I did make a long-term commitment to a blender and it has been a happily-ever-after juicing story.  Enjoy this piece and try the recipe!

Healthy Eating: A delicious way to keep your family healthy!

fruit

I posted a carrot-based juice recipe this past Sunday and got some great responses to it.  This makes me really happy.  It means that I’m not wasting my time blogging. Also, it means that I’m helping other families with their healthy eating!  This is really important to me; healthy eating is a lifestyle, rather than just a response to guilt from a bad week of snacking.  Juicing has been one of the ways to keep a healthy eating lifestyle maintained with as little fuss as possible.  I’d like to share another inspiration that I had yesterday.  This one comes in the form of a beet-based juice.  For those wary of the mess: just be tidy, this one’s worth it!

Healthy Eating:  Beautiful Ginger Beetroot

  • 1 beet, washed, peeled and diced to size
  • 1 apple (I prefer Granny Smith), washed
  • Between ½ and 1 whole Tbsp of fresh ginger
  • 2-4 medium sized carrots, washed and skinned
  • DRINK FRESH!  This fresh vegetable juice has no preservatives, which means the beautiful concoction you’ve just made will spoil easily.  Serve it up and make use of all those raw nutrients!
Healthy eating has never been so easy.  This particular juice recipe is sure to tantalize the taste buds of any family member.  My husband’s eyes light up almost as much as my kid’s when he hears our juicer whirring!  Honestly, I might have to start making this one by the gallon.  Beets, while they can be messy if not handled properly, are an amazing source of nutrients.  Most of us don’t get enough of these minerals in our diets and opt for daily multivitamins.  I prefer to get my nutrients from raw and whole sources when possible, so the fact that this tasty recipe helps me do so is another reason to keep making it – enjoy!
This post has been provided by Yellowbrick an online educational community for parents.
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The weight of the matter

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Weight is a big deal in our society, right?  We are on what seems like an eternal quest for the perfect figure.  More than a year ago and a few extra pounds, I wrote a piece called ‘Thin as a rail’.  It is linked here but the main idea was that when I was heavier, most people did not mention my weight.  The person (a stranger, actually) in the ‘Thin’ piece just had no filter, shall I say?  However, now that I have lost weight, it is essentially a free-for-all of weight comments from anyone who is in the mood to make a comment.  Some people act like they are genuinely concerned about me. And maybe they are.  I also realize this may not always be the case.  I just don’t say anything.  Are you feeling okay?  You have lost a lot of weight, huh?  Others say something caustic like You could afford to eat a sandwich, if I order a soup, for example.  And the same people mention my weight every time they see me.  They often depart with the words, Don’t lose any more weight!  Oh, okay, thank you….just for you, I won’t.

The truth of it is why does anyone care what I weigh?  Who cares?  I don’t care what anyone else weighs.  I don’t even know what I weigh.  Or when the last time was that I weighed myself.  And just to set the record straight:  I don’t have an eating disorder, I am not sick and no, I am not on a diet.  There.  I got that off my chest.  I feel better.  Well, not really.  Because I guess what bothers me the most about weight talk is that I wonder if we all forget about the person inside the body.  Whether I am heavy or thin, I am still Mary.  And I have feelings and a heart.  And a brain.  At least I don’t think I gave birth to my brain when I had children.  My Dad tells me repeatedly and I know I have told you before, “Mary, in one ear and out the other.” He says this in his stern, gravelly voice and I can hear it in my head.  This is sage advice from a man almost 85 years old who seems unfazed by careless comments that come his way but for me and I am sure many of you, insensitive comments still travel through our brains and often the comments or behavior of others sits there longer than we would like.

So as I sit here sipping coffee from a mug with the inscription ‘Let it go’, I guess I am going to have to do just that.  Let it go.  However, I am almost wishing I had a ‘Let it fester’ version!  I recently told a friend how I felt in regard to this subject and she replied, “Don’t be so sensitive”.  Ha!  That’s a good one.  I do not consider myself sensitive.  I worked for years in the business of advertising.  I am raising two children alone; one is a teenager (need I say more?). I was raised in an Irish home.  And I could go on and on.  But I won’t.  I would be a human piece of Swiss cheese if I let everything get to me.  Wouldn’t we all?  So what things are people saying about you that bother you? Please weigh in and let me know.  Because the weight of the matter is really the heart of the matter.  Hmmmm.  Food for thought.  No pun intended.  Seriously.  Until next time…..

See? I don't look like Swiss cheese, right?

See? I don’t look like Swiss cheese, do I?

 

 

 

 

I can see again – in style – thanks to firmoo.com

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Sometimes the right product comes along at the right time.  It was like mental telepathy when the fine folks at firmoo.com reached out to me to try their on-line eyeglass website.  I wanted a new pair of eyeglasses for some time. Truthfully, I have a minor lens prescription, but I have been struggling with road signs as I am driving.  It is particularly noticeable at night.  My old glasses were so dated and frankly, hideous that my vanity would only allow me to use them at night (for safety reasons, of course!) And with the holidays right around the corner, I didn’t have the spare funds to appease my vanity.  Notice I am discussing my vanity as if it is a third party acting on it’s own accord.

Firmoo.com is a user-friendly site – easy to navigate, simple to set up an account and you can upload a photo and “try on” different styles.  There are no trips to the store and since I know what I like and don’t like, the site requires no engaging with “helpful” salespeople who may or may not be on a commission, if you know what I mean.  The hardest part was choosing a frame because there are so many wonderful choices.  They have every shape, style and color.  So you choose the one that is right for you and you can have your order finished in less than 10 minutes. I am not kidding.  Firmoo.com  provides you with a comprehensive tracking system so you can actively and accurately follow the trip your eyeglasses make to your doorstep.  Then one day before you know it, you go to the mailbox and voila! – the eyeglasses have arrived.  For me, it was like an early Christmas.  The case is covered in a cool map pattern, the glasses fit perfectly and the prescription was done correctly!  What can I say?  A seamless transaction and another happy customer!

The famous or in some cases, infamous writer Dorothy Parker once quipped, “Men don’t make passes at girls that wear glasses” but I beg to differ. Well, I don’t really know yet but you can see my new look below and be the judge of that.  So get yourself over to firmoo.com and update your look.  After all, eyeglasses are an important accessory and the glasses are so affordable at firmoo.com  that you can afford to buy more than one pair!

New glasses - bolder, more stylish look. Great case too.

New glasses – bolder, more stylish look. Great case, too.