11 Rest In Peace, Cookie.

Today, I found out that one of my childhood pets, Cookie, died two and a half weeks ago. (I haven't seen my family since a couple days before she passed away, and they wanted to tell me in person.) She'd been really sick for a while, so we knew it was coming.. they said she died peacefully in her favorite spot under the piano. They think it might have been cancer. So I'm glad her misery is over, but I'll certainly miss seeing her scamper around my family's house!

To be honest, I was a little surprised by the way this news affected me. I knew I would be sad when her time came, but I didn't think I'd tear up over it, or that I'd need a few hours to sort of process it. So I guess that's why I'm writing this blog post; to honor a good pet. 

10 March Report Card

24 Day Juice Cleanse | A-

I'm really proud of us! We stuck with this through the end, and we mostly avoided making compromising decisions in moments of weakness. However, a week into our juice fast, we realized that we weren't getting enough vegetables; we were relying too heavily on fruit juices to sustain us throughout the day. Since the point of this project was to cleanse our bodies and retrain our tastebuds to want more vegetables, we knew we needed to rethink our cleanse to include more vegetables. So after a week of only juices, we revamped our plan. And we stuck with it!

Me and my vegetable juice

There was one weekend when Josh couldn't stomach vegetables after getting sick off of them. I took pity and got him a box of crackers. And a Clif bar (he specifically requested one.. and I couldn't say no to my poor, sick husband!). I wish I could say I stuck to the plan while he was sick, but those Luna bars were just too darn tempting! That's where the minus part of our grade comes in.

Get Back on the Envelope System | B
Sticking to the envelope system is proving to be TRICKY. I don't think this blanket budget I worked out at the beginning of the year is going to work for us; I think we need to reevaluate our budget at the beginning of each month according to our extra recreational plans. For example, the amount of food we needed for our cleanse this month was greater than our average monthly grocery haul, and even with the savings we experienced at the Farmers' Market, we ran out of cash a week early. Which forced us to use the card multiple times in our last week. Instead of being discouraged by that, I'm taking it as a sign that we need to tweak the budget.

Organize Junk Closet | A 
We had some tornadoes in our area at the beginning of the month, which forced us to pull out all the boxes so we could hide in our "safe place," the closet. That ended up being a blessing because it motivated me to get everything out of there. And the fact that it was cluttering up our living area in the days after the tornado motivated Josh to take care of the junk in one morning - he was almost completely done when I woke up! What a blessing. I wish I had a before photo so I could show you the transformation, but you'll just have to trust me that it was bad. And while it's not a shining example of perfect organization or anything now, it's much more functional (and the vacuum cleaner actually fits!), so I'm happy.

Paint 1 Canvas | A
I did it! This canvas art didn't turn out quite how I was hoping, but I'm still pretty happy with it. I learned a lot from the process - that's the goal here at She Learns As She Goes, isn't it? I'll post the tutorial in a few days!

Post Consistently | B
I'm still figuring this one out as I go along. We'll get there.

Overall Grade for March | A-
Is my math right this time, Aunt Becky? ;)

How did you do with your March Resolutions?

7 Hungry for Change

Did you know the commercial food industry KNOWS they're feeding you addictive, unnatural, and toxic substances? That they WANT you to eat these things because it means they'll turn a greater profit?

Do you really understand the way your food affects your life and body?

If you could heal yourself of illness and diseases by eating food, would you do it?

This documentary, Hungry for Change is available to view free for one more day.. It will no longer be available if you wait until April 1st. I wish I'd watched this sooner so I could share it with more people, but I figure in posting this, maybe one or two people can reap the benefits. I strongly recommend you take the time either tonight (March 30) or tomorrow to watch this.

Here is the trailer:



You can watch the entire movie HERE. It's an hour and a half, but trust me. It is completely worth your time!

If you do watch the movie, please let me know what you think in the comments!

12 Banana Almond Spinach Smoothie

This is one of my all-time favorite smoothies. The frozen banana makes it creamy and sweet enough to make this regular dessert in our house (and I'm not talking about while we're on this cleanse... This has been a dessert staple since long before we started retraining our taste buds). You don't have to make it with spinach, but if you do sneak some spinach in there, I promise you won't be able to taste it. And you're that much closer to reaching your daily dose of veggies!

This smoothie is comparable to a milkshake. But unlike a milkshake, nothing in this baby is bad for you. In fact, it's all really good for you. It's full of Vitamins B6, A, C, and K; iron; potassium; and important minerals such as calcium, folate, manganese, and magnesium. The insulin-like properties of both cinnamon and almonds help protect against "sugar crashes," too. Can your vanilla milkshake do that?

All together, this smoothie is a great mood- and energy-booster! 

Banana Almond Spinach Smoothie

12 oz non-dairy milk (almond and coconut taste the best)

3 Tbsp chopped almonds (do not use whole almonds unless you have a high-powered blender)

2 frozen, cut up bananas, the riper, the better (if your bananas aren't frozen, add a small handful of ice)
1/4-1/2 tsp nutmeg, to taste

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon, to taste

1 small splash of vanilla extract (omit if your milk is vanilla flavored)
1-2 generous handfuls of spinach (optional)
1 squirt of honey (optional; I only do this if my bananas aren't sweet enough)

In blender, combine non-dairy milk, almonds, bananas, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and spinach. Blend on high until completely smooth. (Don't be afraid to let it run for a long time. I usually blend for at least two minutes because I like the spinach to be completely liquified.)

Viola! A healthy, delicious treat!

What is your favorite smoothie combination?

4 Bigfoot On Campus

My siblings-in-law took part in a really cool project this past weekend, and I wanted to share it with you guys. My husband has already explained everything really well, so I'll just let him take it from here:

If anyone notices that this week's Messy Mondays video was up a little later than it usually is, you can blame it on Trevecca's 72 Hour Film Festival. 

For those unfamiliar with the rules of a 72 Hour Film Fesitval, each video team is given a genre, and certain phrases and objects that must be present in the final product. They then have 72 hours to write, shoot, and edit their film. 

All the films premiered last night at the historic Belcourt Theater in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. 

Jordan, along with Stephens Hiland, our sister Amy, and Sarah Bonham signed up, and were given the genre “Comedy.” Here is the finished product. 

Bigfoot on Campus from Stephens Hiland on Vimeo. 

The guy at the end is Trevecca Nazarene University’s president Dan Boone. His reveal earned the biggest applause of the night. 

“Bigfoot on Campus” easily took home the trophy for Best Film, and in fact, swept the entire Festival- Sarah took home the award for Best Actress, and, you guessed it, Bigfoot won Best Actor.

I'm so proud of them!

20 Josh and Games

My husband LOVES playing games.

Josh grew up playing pick-up games of football and tag in his family's yard with the neighborhood kids. He also played a lot of video games with his siblings. His family wasn't too big on board games, but they did play the classics like Monopoly and Scrabble from time to time. As he's gotten older, his love for games has grown to include every kind of game imaginable. Board games, strategy games, card games, ball games, yard games, arcade games... if it's a game, he's game. Ha! 

Having a husband who enjoys playing every kind of game means I've had to learn how to control my competitiveness a lot. Playing all these games with him and our friends has showed me the ugly truth that I can be a brat if a game isn't going my way. It's been good for me! Games aren't worth getting so worked up about anyhow..

The following is a ton of photographic proof of Josh's love for games: 

Arcade Games - I believe they were playing Tekken. This is his bachelor party! That's how much he loves arcade games. (photo c/o David Smith) 

Our newlywed game stash, circa early 2011. This has grown considerably since this photo was taken - now we have an entire bookshelf full of games!

Pool (Don't mind the off-target cue ball. I told him to shoot it crooked for a joke)

Ping-Pong with Jordan!

Rack-O (one of our favorite two-player games)

Wahoo! (Josh MADE this board! Isn't that awesome?!)

Josh's favorite classic game: Monopoly

Halo: Reach

Tennis

Settlers of Catan

What's your favorite game? I'm thinking about letting Josh do a guest post to highlight three or four of his current favorites. Would you guys be interested in something like that?

7 May the Force Be With You

Drinking my hot lemon water in my Star Wars mug today in honor of the birthday girl, Amy Skywalker. Here's to starting the day off on the right foot - with Luke and the Rebel Alliance! May the Force be with you on your birthday, Amy!

I've come to the point in this cleanse where I'm feeling worse than when I started, not better. It's a phenomenon known as a 'healing crisis' (GREAT article on the subject: Is Healthy Living Making You Sick?). As discouraged as I'm tempted to be, I keep telling myself that feeling this way means I'm on the right track! I just need to stick with it. 

Have any of you experienced a "healing crisis" in the midst of a health overhaul? Any tips or encouragement? Lord knows I could use it. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about everybody's favorite Star Wars characters! Mine's Han Solo. Who is yours?

3 The Nashville Farmers' Market

As I've mentioned, Josh and I took our first trip to the Nashville Farmers' Market last week. I also mentioned several times how much we loved it. Loved. It.

It takes us about 25 minutes to get there (I know because we listened to an entire episode of Adventures in Odyssey on our way there - "The Joke's On You." Classic Dwayne...).

The Nashville Farmers' Market is set up in three buildings: two covered sheds, and the Market House. When we went there were only four produce vendors in Farm Shed 1, and one gardening vendor set up in Farm Shed 2. But on weekends in peak growing season, I've heard there can be up to one hundred vendors set up. I can't wait to check it out then. The four produce vendors were all so kind - we bought from all of them - answering all our questions with smiles and jokes. Over our two trips, we got seven bags of produce for $30. Obviously not all of it was locally grown - tomatoes don't typically grow in Nashville in March - but the vendors are local farmers, raising money to support their local farms.

Inside the Market House is a big "food court" with a bunch of shops that had me drooling. I can't wait to go back and try AM@FM's cured salmon with lemon crema. Or a Chicago Gyro. Or Common Ground's all-natural specialty breads. Holy cow, I'm drooling just thinking about it! We'll definitely be back for lunch after our cleanse is over (11 more days, whoop whoop!). The Flea Market portion wasn't open either time we went, but I'm interested to go back on a weekend and check that out as well.

We stopped at Kroger on our way home to pick up some almond milk and carrot juice, but while we were there, I wrote down the prices of the items we had bought at the Farmers' Market for a price comparison. We saved almost $13! That's a good amount of money, just for an extra 20 minutes of drive-time. Those extra 20 minutes would have been worth it if all we gained was the knowledge that we were supporting local farms, but with the addition of these savings, I'm sold on the idea of the Famers' Market.

Any other Farmers' Market shoppers out there? Do you have any tips for a beginner like myself?

9 Currently Digging

Kirbyeveryday
These videos are described as "A day in the life of an after school program intern, condensed to four minutes." There are only two right now, but they're both hilarious. Josh and I have been quoting one-liners from these since the moment we watched the first one. Here's hoping she makes this a consistent weekly project! If you can't see the videos, here are the links: March 7, 2012 and March 15, 2012.

Tetris Battle on Facebook
Tetris. Is. So. Addicting.

The Hunger Games
Josh and I are reading them together in preparation for the movie. We're a hundred pages shy of finishing the first book; the second read-through is just as good, if not better.

Instagram

I mean, obviously. I only recently got into Instagram, so you'll probably see a lot more instagram'd iPod pics on the blog in the near future. You can follow me @krftaylor if you'd like.

The Nashville Farmers' Market
We've been twice this week to pick up a bunch of fresh produce. I love it. I'm working on a blog post to go up in a couple days with more details (and pictures!) so keep your eye out for that.

What are you enjoying these days?

8 Mid-Month "Progress Report"

March is just flying by, isn't it? 

I can't believe how warm it's been. We're not supposed to see 70s and 80s for at least a few more months! Winter isn't even officially over for another five days! But, as perplexing as this weather is, I'm enjoying the chance to break out my shorts and leave my sweaters to themselves. I hope this doesn't mean we'll have a crazy hot summer, though..

Our juice fast is going well. We are one-third of the way through - only 16 days to go! However, we're taking a good hard look at the reasons we're doing this. The point is to cleanse, to bring healing, and to be healthy in general. This time around we've neglected the all-important vegetable juice side of things, in favor of the yummier fruit juices and smoothies. This isn't inherently bad, but it doesn't really fit our reasons for doing this fast in the first place. So! We've decided that we're going to incorporate a small amount of solid vegetables into our daily diets. At least for one week, then we'll go from there. Can you blame us when our alternative is this:

It's not unbearable, but who would choose this over pineapple juice or a strawberry/mango/peach smoothie? Admittedly, we're mostly just ready to eat. So for our own health (mental and physical) we've got a new plan in place. A new plan that includes the addition of simple, raw salads. Yusssssss. That development, and a trip to the Nashville Farmers' Market have me excited again about what we're doing. (You can expect a post about our Farmer's Market experience within the next week!)

In other news, Josh has been on an Ebay-ing frenzy this week, selling things around the house that we don't need. I'm pretty sure he has 6 auctions open right now. Two auctions ended today, and they both went so well for us that I was jumping up and down when I heard the final total. Making money for our future house is fun!

How is everyone else's March going? Have you ever had to switch gears in the middle of a project or plan?

8 Dry-Erase Goal Board

A group of my girlfriends got together last weekend for a craft night, to make "goal boards." It was so much fun! You can see all the different approaches represented in this photo by our lovely host Emily. I'm on the far right - notice that I used a black picture frame for my goal board (I wish I could say I had planned on using that because of the dry-erase option, but I really just couldn't find the clipboard I was going to use. In the end, I'm glad it worked out this way!)

Well, once I was finished, I didn't like the way the black frame looked with the brown scrapbook paper I used. So on Saturday, I painted the frame in this faux-distressed-wood style. I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out! I forgot to take a "before" picture, but you can just look at Emily's picture again to get an idea of what it looked like before I painted it. What do you guys think?

Supplies:

1 frame

cardboard or foam core poster board, cut to the size of your frame

scrapbook paper

glue stick

paint for frame, if needed

dry-erase marker(s)

Just glue your scrapbook paper in the desired formation onto the foam core or cardboard, throw it in the frame, and viola! Your very own dry-erase Goal Board!

What I love is that I can use dry-erase markers with the glass that came in the frame, which makes crossing off and replacing goals each month really easy. I also like the idea of having my goals on display where I can see them. Last month it was too easy to forget about my resolutions, especially the smaller ones (for example, I completely forgot about wanting to keep track of our grocery savings on paper last month). If I'd had them displayed in real life instead of just on the internet, I think I would have been more successful. No word on whether or not I would have still procrastinated though, haha. I suppose time will tell.

Anyway, thanks to Jen for the idea and to Emily for hosting a great girls' night!

How do you guys keep track of your goals?

1 Daylight Savings Time

DIY Asterisk Clock. Source.

Don't forget to set your clocks ahead an hour tonight!

6 March 2012 Resolutions

This Month's Resolutions:

• 24 Day Juice Cleanse. We tried this at the end of 2011, but we only made it through one week. Now that we have a better idea of what to expect, we're more prepared, and I think we can really last for 24 days this time.  I know that a juice fast is kind of a controversial choice, but please trust that we know what we're doing! :) A big part of staying healthy will be to take the necessary vitamins every day. I've never been good at taking pills consistently, but this has to be a priority.

• Get back on the envelope system. February was a pretty full month: my birthday, Valentine's Day, and a few unexpected expenses pushed us over the budget and found us using our card more than we'd like. The good news is that we saved enough extra money in January to cover our overspending in February, which means we're still on track for our yearly savings goal. The bad news is how easy it was to fall off the wagon. We can't do that!
• Organize the "junk closet." This has needed to happen for a very long time. There were a few tornados in our area last week, so we had to pull out all the junk to hide out 'til the storm passed. Now all that junk is just cluttering up our dining room! What a great opportunity to go through the junk and do some organizing in there. 

Minor Goals:

• Paint 1 canvas. I got a bunch of canvas for Christmas, and I haven't even thought about what I want to do with them. Isn't that sad? I want to change that this month. (And of course I'll share what I come up with!)

• Post consistently (about 3x/week). This is a repeat goal - I really want to get into the habit of posting at least three times a week! Y'all gotta keep me accountable!

Do you have any goals or resolutions for March? I'd love to hear about them!

5 February Report Card

February Resolutions:

• Go through all of our clothes: B We got it done, but were a little bit late (I procrastinated like mad and didn't even START going through my clothes until February 28th - good thing I had an extra day this year!). I still consider it a success, though, seeing as we were able to donate 4 bags worth of clothes.
• Continue to meal plan: A I think I've found a system that works for me. And Josh made me a coupon sorting box for my birthday to help with the coupon clutter! I completely forgot about writing down our savings, but we stayed under budget for groceries.
• Read 1 book: A+ I read all three books in The Hunger Games trilogy this month. LOVE THEM. 
• Post consistently on She Learns As She Goes: B I only managed to do this half the time in February. The reason was that I let myself get too overwhelmed with the writing of each post. (And that's why this post is so far into March instead of at the end of February!)

Overall Grade for February: B-

It feels really good to get rid of clothes that we weren't using. There's more space in our closet/drawers, it doesn't take as long to find clothes I want to wear, and of course, giving to those in need always feels pretty good. I hope that our old, outdated band T-shirts and ill-fitting-on-us clothes will be a blessing to someone.

Doesn't it feel good to get organized, little by little? How'd you do with your February goals?

16 Make It a Date 02/12: February

Josh tried so hard to convince me to open February's envelope early. But NO DICE. Because I know that man! He would open every envelope early if I let him. As it was, I swear he had that envelope in his hands by 12:01am on February 1st. I couldn't help but smile. He's loving this gift!

This month's surprise date packet: 

"Your Favorite Color"

"Happy February! In honor of YOUR favorite color (and Valentine's Day), our 2nd surprise date is completely RED! We will dress up in RED attire, dine at RED Lobster, and then head home with a rented movie from REDbox and RED snacks from Kroger to munch on while we chill. You make my RED heart happy! ♥ 

       xoxo, Your Keener"

Contents: $25 gift card to Red Lobster, $10 gift card to Kroger (for snacks), and a $1 bill to reimburse a rented movie from Redbox.

I had a lot of fun coming up with "the rules" for this date. I know that red in February is kind of cliche, but I decided to embrace it anyway because, if you haven't already guessed, RED is Josh's favorite color!

In keeping with the theme, I wore his favorite (red) dress and he wore my favorite red shirt. We were lookin' hawt.

At Red Lobster, I ordered the shrimp-heavy Sailor's Delight and Josh enjoyed a Spicy Shrimp Po' Boy. Not exactly a healthy lunch, but it was definitely delicious! Speaking of "not healthy but delicious," Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits are soooo good. Saving room for the meal when those puppies are sitting in front of you is near impossible. Especially when they're fresh out of the oven!

The first Redbox we tried didn't have the movie we were hoping to rent (In Time), but Josh had a free code for that location and he wanted to see Take Shelter. So we agreed to check Kroger's Redbox kiosk for In Time after lunch. Their Redbox didn't have it either, so we used the dollar from this month's packet to rent Moneyball. (In case you're wondering, Moneyball was very interesting and entertaining - I'd recommend it! Take Shelter was strange, but after some discussion we both decided we liked it. I thought that the portrayal of the husband-wife relationship alone was worth the watch!)

We don't eat junk food very often, so we were kind of indecisive when it came to picking our snacks.. we spent fifteen minutes going up and down the aisles of Kroger, trying to choose the perfect feast of (red) snacks. In the end, we settled on cherry vanilla creme soda, a couple strips of fruit leather, and a box of iced oatmeal cookies (the box was red.. that totally counts!). I'm a little ashamed to admit that we ate the entire box of cookies while we watched Moneyball... Haha. But it sure was fun!

We really enjoy going out to paint the town red (harhar) as well as chilling at home, so Date 02/12 was a blast on both counts!

Linking up with Let's Go On a Date and 5 Days 5 Ways