Spice it up

I (now) put that ish on everything.

Mr. Kitty

Starting a 365, so exciting!

Nothing could be more true. My cat Nip is the sweetest girl in the world. I never kne
w just how sweet a real lap-cat could be.

That's my birthday tea-kettle, and you can see Cain cooking in it, and me taking a pic. Cain's cooking a big pot of garlic sauteed

in olive oil, tomatoes, and basil. One of his little specialties.

This 365 is inspired by a fellow cyclist named Kevin who I met around mile 15 of the Sea Gull Century last Saturday. I was sick with a cold which started that day (did somebody say flu... ) but had brought my friend Whitney so did it anyway. I'm still alive. And it was a FANTASTIC ride. Whitney's first century. In fact she went from 7 miles EVER to a CENTURY. She is awesome! Back to the 365 idea- this guy Kevin and I talked about how we used to love to do photography and he told me a guy he knows started a 365 blog to get back into photography. And thus here we are. I'm excited.

These are my b-day flowers from Cain. So pretty!

And these are.......

.......

... mulberries!!!!!!!!!!! Well, some mulberries and some mulberry crumbs, near the bottom of the bag...

And, yes, EGGIES!!!!! Another obsession... I just love a good organic free- range hard boiled egg. They do NOT taste the same as conventional. Don't buy conventional. 'Nuff said.

SURF 'N TURF!!

Prawns, steak, and salmon with onions. Saliva is being produced as I write... My b-day dinner. Complete with brussel sprouts!

And, here is the Nipster, the girl who inspired this first post. She is just too sweet.

Missed ya... new things :)

First off, thanks for reading. I hate opening myself up on a blog, mostly because in person I am full of life, on a blog I am, well, full of words. I'll do my best to bring them to life.

Oh, and I take back my word on having this blog be a daily obsession. LOL. Who does that anyway? If you have a daily obsession with your blog you are awesome. I'm just not that awesome.

Last week I started going to a CrossFit studio here in Maryland with Cain. It was so cool, exactly what he told me it would be for so long, and of course, I love it.

http://diesel-gym.blogspot.com/

That's it for this post :) Just had a banana and Lara Bar with a little peanut butter for breakfast. And lots of H2O :)

A new beginning

Right now is like dawn for my spirit, for my soul. The sun is just oh so slowly beginning to rise, the darkness oh so slowly dissipating by the hour. Here will now follow the beginning of my blogging excursions, my documentation of things you will want to read, things you never thought you'd read, and things I won't believe I'd let you read. Day by day, yes, I wrote that correctly... DAY BY DAY, I will here-on-in be documenting my raw food life. My fitness crazed life. My life. I will struggle to be open here. It is hard to be open, this is a BLOG! How do I get past that? Well, maybe I will pretend there are no readers. There are none yet anyway!!!... well there may be a couple.

I've got goals.
These goals are very very real.
Some have been goals since I was 17 years old.
Some have been reached, if only for a moment.
And some have yet to be reached.

There will be several themes here on this blog.
One is my raw food journey, complete with recipes, truthfulness, and lots of emotion.
Second is my fitness journey. Supported by my nutritional choices, my fitness and weight goals will be tracked here, with honesty, and with efficiency. I will document all of my work-outs. Which brings me back to the first theme; I will also be documenting all of my meals and snacks.
Third is my career journey. The next 4 weeks are going to be particularly tough for me. You will read why...
And fourth, last but certainly not least, will be my spiritual growth as I recover from some old ghosts (LOL i really don't have any, spare the fact that I am a late-night snacker, that is my 'old ghost') and move toward my goals.

I will be complete with photos, oh so fun!

And I will always welcome feed-back. This is as much for you as it is for me. I have been inspired by so many blogs out there, countless numbers of blogs in fact. Hence my hope is that I can inspire you. My commitment to you helps me stay true to myself as well, specifically in the honesty of the content. Everything will be 100% from the heart, 100% reality. No sugar coating here.

So let's begin, no?

I have been trying ever so hard to let my body naturally go back to being completely high raw. Problem? Obstacle? THE NON-RAW HUSBAND!!!! Baby you know I love you, but all the amazing cooked food you create, full of LOVE, spoils my efforts to be high-raw. The raw food buzz is so exciting and intoxicating to me. So pure and full of energy, truth, and powerful wisdom.

Back to my post. I have about 5 more minutes to write, whoops 4. In 4 minutes I get dressed and go to Tae-bo class. After just eating a bunch of cooked onions, peppers, asparagus, and a little basmati rice. Then I grazed on organic blue corn tortilla chips and lots of raw treats, including tahini and sunflower seed nut butter (the nut butter was not raw). I cannot even begin to write in the next now 3 minutes how what I just ate was 100% emotional and tied to the next 4 weeks I will be having at work. Tomorrow I start on a new internal medicine wards team, which will be fantastic, but it will be for 2 short hard worked weeks leading up to the cardiac intensive care unit. Basically I have 2 weeks to learn CICU material while working 80 hours per week on the wards. That spells for stress. That spells for a bit of self confidence wasting. That spells for some questioning of my committments.

I have one minute left.

I am going to Tae-bo. I will do the best that I can, that's all we can do right? Wrong. I know I can do better. That is why I am now committed to this blog.

Will post again soon.

Love and hugs, xoxo
Rach <3

Back in action!

I've just joined Raw Food Rehab and am back in action! I didn't get to write for over a week because I was insanely busy with work and Bikram- I have been going to at least 3-4 classes a WEEK and with that and working 80 hours per week (remember I am an intern, I have no choice in the matter) and going to get fresh veggies/fruit almost daily to prep, etc, I honestly forgot about this dear blog. But, fact is, I CARE! and i really LOVE to write here.
SO, to quickly get up to speed, my juice feast kept getting interrupted by my consuming food every few nights, primarily in the middle of the night when on call, and mostly things like bananas, chocolate, and avocados. SO, I took time OFF from juicing, and have been enjoying food again YAY! I made an amazing zucchini pasta/marinara last night that I made with juicy organic tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, balsalmic vinegar, garlic, EVOO, and S&P. That was it. And it was to die for.
My hubby and I had that with a miso soup we made to start with (no tofu) made with raw brown miso paste, water, carrots, onion, shitake mushrooms, and seaweed. YUM! He is not raw, but eats all my raw meals with delight and appreciation. And he is always willing to help me with raw food prep. I wanted to take pics of our meal but was too hungry!
My goal for this blog is to start getting picture/blog posting savvy so that by the new year (2010 WOW!) I can have a pretty blog for all of you to really enjoy.

So, I am on this 11-week challenge on Penny's Raw Food Rehab. And the challenge is to be as close to 100% raw as possible and to lose weight along the way. My goal is to get back to the weight I was 10 years ago by Jan. 1st. Yes, I'm talking about my 19 year old body. I am so going to get it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It means losing 20 pounds from where I am right now.

I am going to juice this week from Monday through Friday night since I am not on call this week until Friday. That should give me a good 2 pound start to my goal! :)

LOVE you!

Oh the signs

SOme signs from today- I have an assignment I'm working on so unfortunately have to make this short. but I must get it down!
found an awesome website today while drinking my lunch green juice:

http://www.suprememastertv.com/?langdir=1

Then, I left work with a superstar nurse, and we walked to our cars together and we bonded over our losses- her son at age 25 and my mother at age 52. I told her how losses make us value our time here more, help us pick and choose our battles and give us the insight to know when to let go and when to do things for ourselves instead of waiting for someone else to do it for us/motivate us. Then after kickboxing (i did bikram and kickboxing today hurray!) the original Golden Girls song was on the radio, some random channel. My mother and I used to snuggle together and watch the Golden Girls almost every night when she was sick, and even before she was sick.

I think that is all for today.
I shared my amazing green juice at lunch today and the 2 docs I shared it with LOVED it. Too bad they won't wake up and smell the fresh juice they could be brewing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love to you!
rachel