Vital Juice Cleanse - Day 2

I'm hungry.

My stomach is not growling and I am not experiencing physical hunger pangs so it is possible that I am not actually hungry and that I just think I am hungry because I haven't eaten any solid food in over 24 hours. After all, I am an eater. I love cooking and I enjoy trying new foods so this liquid only diet is mentally hard for me. Thank god I only have to do it for 3 days. I don't think I could last much longer than that no matter what the results were. On the upside, I haven't experienced any of the side effects that the internet warned me about and I woke up this morning not feeling groggy for the first time in.... well, I can't even remember a time when I didn't feel groggy after being jarred awake by the alarm clock. The side effects I was the most worried about were increased body odor and bad breath because that is just gross, but I smell and feel fine so on to day 3 we go!

Vital Juice Cleanse/Bikini Body Challenge - Day 1

I have been wanting to try a cleanse for a couple of years now and couldn't find one that seemed feasible or seemed to even teeter on the brink of healthy. The most common cleanse people know about is the Lemonade Master Cleanse, its the diet Beyoncé did to lose weight for Dreamgirls. Almost every person on the internet that has tried it swears by it and loves it, but I just can't wrap my head around the idea of not eating and not exercising for 30 days. I've done the math associated with this cleanse and if followed with exact measurements you should be consuming ~1200 calories a day. It seems to me that you can lose weight eating 1200 calories of anything for 30 days, but I am not a dietician so what do I know?

I am not doing this as a crash diet, I am doing it to flush my system with a bunch of good nutrients and minerals in an attempt to jump start a real diet program. I'll be honest. For the past few months I have been lazy. I have been eating poorly and not working out on a regular basis and I have gotten fat. It pains me to revisit this post from August because I am now up an additional 10 pounds. TEN. My clothes don't fit. Ugh!

I have no idea if what I am doing will have any added health benefits that changing up my regular diet wouldn't, but everything I have read about raw food and juicing claims that you will have an increased energy and better sleep. I do know that there is a very pretty array of mason jars in my fridge and the workout schedule that accompanies the juice cleanse looks great. I haven't done weights in awhile so I am looking forward to being sore over the next 6 weeks and see what kind of results this gives me.

If anyone is interested in joining me in this challenge, the cleanse can be found here and the workout plan can be downloaded here. Happy juicing!

Digital Photography 101

Eight years ago I graduated with a technical diploma in Film & Television from Orange Coast College. For a community college, OCC has a superior film program boasting a state-of-the-art TV studio that is sure to rival many of the more expensive art schools in the southern California area. I bring up the fact that I graduated eight years because eight years feels like yesterday (to me). However; in the day and age of advancing digital arts, I may as well have studied film, television, and photography in the Roaring 20's. I assembled my first film by cutting and taping it back together using a flatbed editor, and I used a linear editing system (VCR to VCR) to piece together my video projects. It's hard to believe this was state-of-the-art technology eight years ago, huh? This sounds like film school from the 40's and 60's not the early 2000's.

More recently, there have been increasing opportunities for me to put my film and television background to use with some projects at work. My department recently invested in a fancy pants digital SLR camera and agreed to send me to a photography class so that I could learn how to use it.  This camera is seriously amazing, it takes such beautiful photographs; however, it also comes equipped with a serious learning curve. The most frustrating part is that I know how to fix problem images, I just do not know how to tell the camera to do it. If a photo comes out too dark, I know I have to up the ISO or increase the aperture. I know if a photo comes out blurry, I need a faster shutter speed or more light. Yet, for every good photograph I take, I have taken about 20 bad ones and adjusted the settings numerous times. I know it is just a matter of practice and that eventually I will get used to it, but I wish I could take photos like this every time:

or this:

or this:

The photograph of the jellyfish was taken in almost complete darkness. The only light was the light from the tank and it is not Photoshopped at all. I wish my everyday digital camera were as nice as this one. Do you think is is possible for technology to advance to that level quickly? I'll have to check back on this post in another 8 years :)

Attempt at Boycotting Christmas

I tried to boycott Christmas this year, but my mother said I couldn't so that was the end of that. It's not that I am not feeling the Christmas spirit or that I do not want to partake in holiday activities. It's just that I got a little overwhelmed with the consumerism surrounding Christmas this year. I was annoyed to see Christmas decorations for sale in August (seriously? August!) and I got frustrated when I went into a craft store on October 9 looking for some spider stickers and cheesy Halloween jewelry to complete my costume and couldn't find anything because the entire store was already devoted to Christmas. It feels like Thanksgiving is skipped over too because as soon as November rolls around so does all of the Black Friday hysteria.

Despite all of this, there is one thing that always gets me in the Christmas spirit. Cookies!

Honestly, is there anything more tasty looking than butter and sugar? That picture makes me want to lick my computer screen and makes me long for the invention of smell-a-screen. 

This weekend my boyfriend and I busted out the cookie press. My only complaint about the cookie press is that it makes really tiny cookies, but other than that it is a really fun way to make some holiday goodies. One batch of dough yielded over 100 individual cookies. Jesse took on the roll of head cookie presser while I took on the roll of decorator and we went through the entire batch of dough in a little under 2 hours. 

Here is a picture of Jesse working the machine. He has very good spatial relations (unlike me) so with him running the press we were able to fit the maximum amount of cookies per sheet. Each sheet fit around 30 cookies depending on which shape we had inside the press. The press I use is an older version of this one from Crate and Barrel, but I am sure you can find ones in any home store. In my opinion, the important thing you need to look for when buying a cookie press are the designs that come with it. You do not want to have 12 designs on hand and then only use 4 of them because the other 8 are ugly.

See how perfectly uniform they are? No way a non-type A personality like myself could have achieved that. He and I make a good team. We used the Classic Spritz Recipe from Wilton that came with the instructions to the cookie press. The recipe claims to yield 7-8 dozen cookies, but like I said above the cookies are tiny so it really makes about 10 dozen. 

Ta da! Over 100 neatly packed cookies in my holiday cookie jar. It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas.

17 Pounds!

This is a joke right? 152 pounds!? That means I have gained 17 pounds in less than a full calendar year. Seventeen! I can't pretend to wonder how that happened because I know exactly how it happened. I got lazy and stopped working out on a regular basis. I don't know why I stopped working out, but I did, and now I am paying the price for it. It has been nearly 6 months since I have seen the inside of a gym. So bad.

I invested in P90X in April when I noticed my jeans were beginning to fit slightly tighter. To date, I have completed about a 2 weeks of it. Massive fail. I have also done a lot of blaming. My desk job causes me to be too inactive during the day, I am exhausted from having to fight traffic on 90/94 for over an hour to go 12 miles, I forgot my iPod, I need to do laundry, etc., etc., etc. The bottom line is that I haven't been this heavy in over 10 years, and I do not intend to stay this heavy for even 10 days. 

So... so long baked mostaccioli, bacon, and (gulp) alcohol. Hello steamed veggies, egg whites, and the treadmill.

From The Garden To My Kitchen

I go through tubs of hummus like it's nobody's business. Party-sized? Ha! You ain't got nothing on me. Especially when I am armed with a bag of carrots. I keep a well-stocked pantry and typically have most of the ingredients for hummus on hand. However, something else inspired me to make hummus the other night.

It all started with this:

Images like that make me wish I had a scratch-and-sniff computer screen. How beautiful is that basil? When I saw that basil in my garden, I knew I immediately had to make something. We were in the middle of a heat-wave and the idea of pesto was unbearable at the time. I needed something cool, refreshing, and quick because I was starving and hot and starting to get cranky.

The recipe is at the end of this post, but before we get there I have two quick things to comment on. 

1. The recipe I was referencing called for 3 tablespoons of tahini paste. In my opinion, this made the end result a little heavy on the tahini. Tahini is quite strong and I think 3 tablespoons masked the taste of the fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes. I will definitely only use 2 tablespoons from now on.

2. I have the olive oil quantity listed as 1/2 cup(ish). This is because you may use more than 1/2 cup or less than 1/2 cup. It all depends on how you want the consistency to turn out. 

Sneak peek:

The best part about making hummus is that there is barely any clean-up. You don't have to dirty any knives or cutting boards or counter tops. You literally throw everything into your food processor and turn it on. It really couldn't be easier.

Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Hummus

Prep time: 5 minutes
Time until you are eating: 2 minutes
Yields: 4 cups of hummus
Warning: This is a lot more hummus than most people can eat. If you don't down hummus the way I do, you may want to cut this recipe in half.

Ingredients 

• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons tahini paste
• juice from 1/2 of a lemon
• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained
• 1/2 cup(ish) olive oil
• 1 8 ounce package sun-dried tomatoes (Mine were not packed in oil, but you could certainly use the oil packed kind.)
• Fresh basil (I just grabbed a fistful from my garden so I can't provide an accurate measurement. The recipe I was referencing said 1/4 cup, but I used more than that. If I had to guess, I would say I used about 1 cup of fresh basil.)

Directions:

1. Place everything in your food processor.
2. Let her rip!
3. Wait 30 seconds to a minute.
4. Stream in olive oil until hummus reaches desired consistency.

That's it! Had I known hummus was this quick and easy to make, I would have been making it years ago. I don't think I will ever eat store-bought hummus again. I have been enjoying this with veggies and pita, but it would be delicious on sandwiches as well. Next up, roasted red pepper hummus.

June Dress, July Coming Soon!

Ugh! I have had little free time lately due to something I can't blog about just yet, but let's just say that it is very time consuming, involves a lot of writing, and is not in the form of a novel. I have to keep this post short because I am under a tight deadline and since it is Friday (yay!), I do not want to have to stay late at the office.

I know this isn't the best view of this dress since I am sitting down at my desk, but it is the best I can do under the circumstances. Due to my "Month Without Credit Cards" experiment, I had to wait until June 30th (payday) in order to purchase this dress. Yes, I was literally down to my last few dollars by the end of June. I think this dress would look adorable with a string of pearls. It has a tie in the back which helps create a waistline and hits me just above my knee making it appropriate for work.

The specs for this dress are below. The link will lead you to a full-length image of the dress.

Dress #2: Jane Doe Dress
Condition: New
Purchased at: Francesca's Collections
Cost: $38