Day 35: Not a lot of juice today

Today will be an interesting post, because I technically did not drink any juice today.  Well, I guess I had one sip of what I made this morning, but I shouldn't really count that.  Although there is a good chance that after I finish writing this post I'll get hungry and end up drinking it.  Either way, you good readers, deserve to have the recipe, so I'll share it below.

While I didn't have juice (so far) today, I did have a protein shake that just consists of this delicious chocolate protein powder and water.  I used my Vitamix for the first time in over a month and it was a
long-awaited reunion.  I ended up chugging my protein shake, which makes over a liter of liquid, and headed off to an in-person informational interview at the Columbia Tower. 

If you have never been to the Starbucks at the Columbia Tower, I definitely recommend scheduling all of your downtown meetings there.  It's on the 40th floor, and it's awesome.  The views are absolutely terrific, which was nice on a day like today where you could clearly see the mountains.  The person I met was a professional at the Seattle King County Department of Public Health and she was incredibly nice and helpful.  In fact, she was one of three informational interviews I had today that were absolutely fantastic.  The other two were over the telephone, but just as wonderful.  They all were professional women in health, although the other two were in global health in DC and New York City.

It was such a nice way to have a productive morning and early afternoon. 

After rushing out the door to make it to my meeting downtown on time, I decided that once I finished my meeting I would enjoy a vegan dinner at Annapurna in Capitol Hill.  I know I tend to write this phrase a lot, but I really mean it with Annapurna: if you haven't gone here, definitely check it out.  I have dreams of their vegan spinach dishes.  All of them.  They are a dream come true in how to get your veggies in via a delicious meal.  I had the Saag chana, which is spinach with chickpeas.  Yummy!

I also got brown rice to go with the meal, which was wonderful.  They have the best steamed brown rice.  It's so good!  Anyway, I only ate half because I wanted to make sure I could enjoy the meal later this week when I wanted solids.

After eating the spinach and chickpeas, I was pretty stuffed.  So far, I haven't been hungry since.  I think it might be because I really haven't walked very much today, maybe a mile or two.  I will surely make that up tomorrow and get my appetite back.

After my trip to Capitol Hill I went to the Health Sciences Library to study for two interviews I have tomorrow with organizations in California.  Keep your fingers crossed that I impress the directors I'm speaking with on the phone. 

Alas, the library closed promptly at 9 tonight, even though I could have easily stayed another few hours to apply to more jobs and do more cover letters.  Oh well.

When I got home, I realized I hadn't drank the juice I made earlier today.  Blast!  I guess that means that if I don't have it tonight, I'll have it for tomorrow. Ha!  There could definitely be worse problems to have.  ;)

Cucumber Fuzz:*

• 2 peaches, pitted (I used nectarines)
• 2 stalks celery (I used three stalks)
• 1 cucumber

 The sip of the drink that I did have this evening was sweet, but not overly so.  It seemed like it could be a nice, refreshing drink.  In fact, thinking about it has kind of stirred my appetite, so I think I'll go to the kitchen and have the juice before I go to be tonight. 

I'll definitely have more juice recipes ready for you tomorrow!!

Until then, have a great night!


*Page 186, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," Pat Cocker
All the recipes in yesterday's post can also be found in the Juicing Bible.  I'm sorry I didn't reference them properly!

Days 33 & 34: Two days worth of juicing goodness in one post

Hi all,

Before I write anything about yesterday and today, I just wanted to take a moment to mention again that everyone in Boston is in my thoughts.  I loved living in Boston for six years and I think of it as a home, no matter where I live.  To see such tragedy befall the people of the city and its visitors is heart wrenching.  May peace, safety, and civility be restored soon to the city, the victims, and the families affected.

Onto to juice...

Well, as you all saw on Saturday, I ended up eating solids for the first time in 32 days.  I think my body needed additional calories with all the walking I've been doing.  I plan to continue the walking pace with a goal of walking at least 5-10 miles a day, so I have decided to do what I was planning to do when the cleanse was over: slowly incorporate solid foods back into my diet.  I will eat one solid meal per day and then increase that to two.  In addition to solid foods, which will for the most part be vegan (except sushi), I will also have 1-3 juices a day.  I definitely want to keep juicing as part of my everyday nutrition.

I have to admit that Sunday I was very tired, and I ended up sleeping a lot longer than usual.  This was made possible by two cancellations.  The first was a lunch I had scheduled with the fabulous women from Job Club 1.0.  Sadly, illness befell one of the lovely ladies, and we decided to reschedule for later in the week.  Afterward, I had another friend, who was scheduled to walk around Green Lake with me that afternoon, also cancel due to illness.  Yucky bugs!  I hope both Kelsey and Emilie get better very soon!

That being the case, I took my time and made my first juice of the day: Lemon Aid.

Lemon Aid:*

• 2 lemons (I would suggest using Meyer lemons if you'd like a sweeter, less tart juice)
• 2-inch slice watermelon (I used a bit more than that)
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1 tsp liquid honey, optional (I omitted this ingredient)

This was an extremely tart juice that really made my mouth pucker.  However, it did the job and woke me up pretty quickly.  I think next time I'll use Meyer lemons for a more mellow juice. 

Although my friend Kelsey was sick, I decided to go for a walk around Green Lake anyway.  The sunshine was just so nice (and most likely fleeting this week) that I couldn't waste it.  Late in the afternoon, I walked from Campus to Green Lake, did two loops around the lake, and then walked home.  All in all, I think I clocked in around 9 miles.  Yay!

I also ran into a friend from the Evans School, David and his wife Michelle.  It was so nice to see a familiar face as I walked!  Plus, I was also able to multi-task and have a phone conversation with a new friend, Lori.  She's very interested in the same professional opportunities I am, so it was nice to share ideas for finding jobs.  It was nice to walk around the lake, even if it was just with a phone buddy.

When I returned home, I had some water and started to feel a little sick to my stomach.  I tried to drink my second juice, but my tummy really objected.  That being the case, I decided to head to bed so that I didn't come down with anything.

When I woke up on Monday, I made a new juice that was delicious: Raspberry Juice.**

Raspberry Juice:

• 1 cup raspberries
• 1 apple
• 2 oranges (I used mandarins)

This is by far one of my new favorite juices.  It was sweet, mellow, and really nice.  I typically drink my juices slowly, but this one was so good I drank it rather quickly.

Which might explain why I was hungry so early in the afternoon.  My morning was pretty busy with appointments, but by 12:30pm, I was able to go for a walk down 45th, down Montlake, and then Pacific Ave (2.7 miles) to head toward the Health Sciences Library.  Once there, I sat with Jason and Angel to work on job hunting and downed my second juice of the day: The Chiller.***

The Chiller:
* 1 carrot
* 2 stalks celery
* 1 apple
* 1/2 cucumber
* 1/2 zucchini (I used the whole thing, since it was pretty small)
* 1/2 red bell pepper (I used 1/2 a green pepper, since I needed to use it pretty soon or else it would go bad)

I liked the way the juice turned out.  It was pretty refreshing and had a nice taste. I would definitely make this again, especially if I needed to incorporate more veggies into my diet.

The one thing that I'm finding with juice is that I'm not nearly full enough after finishing the juice to consider myself satisfied.  This is a really new development, since for the first 31 days I was very satisfied after drinking juice. Again, I think this increase in appetite is due to the increase in physical activity.

While I was disappointed I didn't make it 60 days on the cleanse, the purpose of the process was to get better at listening to my body and do what was best for it.  Well, on Saturday my body was screaming at me to get some solid food in my belly.  So I listened and obeyed.  Today was pretty much the same situation.  I drank my juice and my body let me know that it wasn't enough, so I have a gluten-free tofu and veggie sandwich from Chaco Canyon. 

If you haven't been to Chaco Canyon yet, I definitely suggest you check it out.  It's amazing!

To reward myself for being productive at the library and having some really yummy juices, I went for another walk.  This time, I walked from the Health Sciences building by the UW Medical Center to Green Lake (my new hangout, apparently) to walk with my friend Emily.  Unfortunately, within the first 5 minutes of our walk around the lake a storm blew in and some freezing cold rain started pelting us.  We decided we would escape from the path and walk from Green Lake to Wallingford.  Although that wasn't our original plan, it was still nice to hang out and catch up with Emily.  Overall, I think I walked 7.1 miles today.  Not too shabby.

I hope I'll be able to do as well tomorrow!

I have some interesting juices on the menu for tomorrow, so be sure to check those out!

Day 32: The Day My Body Demanded Solid Food

I woke up at 5:30am today.  I thought I was going to have a hard time with this, but I didn't.  In fact, I got up, got ready, and made my breakfast juice before the phone rang at 6:30am to begin my interview with Astellas Pharma.  I think it had something to do with the juice I had.  It was pretty good, tart, and refreshing. 


Blue Water:*

•  1 cup blueberries
• 1 2-inch slice watermelon (I used double that, which was not much)
• 1/4 whole cranberries (cranberries are out of season, so I used the same amount of blackberries)

While this did not yield a lot of juice (probably 6 or 8 ounces), it was pretty good.  I think it would have been better had it been really cold.  However, room temperature was pretty tasty.

I was feeling so good that I decided to walk to the Convention Center downtown to begin my 8-hour volunteer gig with the American Diabetes Association.  Today was the 2013 Diabetes EXPO, which was awesome!  I was there by 8:10am (I made great time) and headed over the bookstore where I ran around getting diabetes-related books for people who wanted to purchase them from our library. 

I had my lunch juice around 2pm, which was waaaay too late in the day, but I just forgot with all the running around.  Unfortunately, this was not a very enjoyable juice.  Carrot Apple.  I don't know if it was because it had been sitting in my bag for a while or if my taste buds are just tired of the carrot apple combination of juices, but I was definitely not feeling this juice.

Carrot Apple Juice:**

•  4 carrots
• 2 stalks of celery (I used about 5, because I like celery)
• 1 apple
• 4 sprigs fresh parsley (I think I added more than that, which made a difference in the taste)

I was definitely feeling the burn after hour 4, but then I was asked if I wanted to walk on the treadmills in the middle of the EXPO.  These treadmills were featured to raise awareness for the upcoming Diabetes Tou De Cur (in May) and Walk (in September).  I ended up walking for 70 minutes, which came to about 3.5 miles. 

Man, did I feel it then. I decided that I wouldn't walk home, since I had clocked in around 7 miles at that point.  Instead, I ran around for another two hours until the EXPO closed and we packed up all the supplies for the bookstore.  Overall, it was really fun!  I had a good time and loved working with Brenda, one of the nicest people I have had the pleasure to meet.  (She's an ADA staff member.)

I think we sold over 100 books and made somewhere in the $3,000-$4,000 range, which is stupendous!  Yay!  All that money goes to the ADA's services and programs.

Plus, the EXPO was able to provide free glucose and health screenings for thousands of Washingtonians.  That made me so happy!  It was a great event that went very smoothly.  I hope that the organization is happy with how everything went.  They should be proud of all their hard work!

By 4pm, I was definitely ready to sit down (for the first time in 10 hours) and relax. Happily, I had plans with some girlfriends I hadn't seen in a while at Palomino restaurant.  We sat, had happy hour, and just chatted.  Again, I'm reminded how lucky I am to know so many amazing people!!!

While they ate some delicious treats like mushroom and feta salad, crab and avocado dip with bread, and clams in white wine sauce, I had my dinner juice.  Sadly, like my lunch juice, it was not very good. 

C-Blitz:***

• 1 grapefruit (peeled and cut up into sections)
• 2 oranges (peeled; I used mandarins)
• 6 sprigs fresh parsley
• 3 kiwifruits

Upon further reflection, it might be the parsley that created an unappetizing flavor in this juice. Now that I think back on it, my throat was kind of itchy upon initial drink.  I might have a slight allergy to parsley.  I'm not sure.  Either way, I think my tummy was not happy with all the citrus,

because I felt like I was having a little bit of indigestion, kind of acid reflux.  It was probably the most discomfort I've felt while on the cleanse.  It was not very nice.

Whatever happened, my body was not satisfied.  For the first time in 32 days, I felt famished.  I needed more.  A lot more. And my body was pretty much yelling for solids.

And that's when I caved and had solids. 

Yep, I had my first solid food in 32 days.  I hope you don't think I'm a failure for not lasting until day 60, but I really needed to have more sustenance than juice could provide me. 

I had been wondering what solid food I would have when I ended the cleanse, and I thought it was going to be sushi.  However, I changed my mind last night and had three small pieces of gluten-free, vegan pizza at Pizza Pi.  If you live in Seattle and haven't had this pizza, I definitely suggest it.  Check them out at http://www.pizza-pi.net/. 

Getting the pizza was a bit of an issue though. We had hail last night.  In mid April! Crazy! And it caused a massive power outage in the U District and Fremont (and probably Wallingford but I didn't get confirmation).  I was so worried that Pizza Pi would be closed due to the outage, but luckily they were one of the only businesses on the Ave that still had power.  Thank you!!!  Then, they weren't sure if they had gluten-free crust (the only kind I can have).  Oh no!  Luckily, I got the second-to-last GF crust.  Thank you again!!!!!

I walked to the pizza place from 45th and the Ave and then from Pizza Pi home.  With 8 miles under my belt today, I definitely felt I definitely earned three pieces of pizza.  I went to sleep with my tummy pleasantly full and wondering what the next day would bring after eating solids.

Stay tuned to see what happened on Sunday...

*page 165, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," by Pat Crocker
**page 183, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," by Pat Crocker
***page 166, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," by Pat Crocker

Day 31: Are we there yet?!

This morning began a day of mourning.  I woke up with that sadness that sometimes comes over us when we realize what we no longer have.  For some of us it's a grandparent, or a pet, or a friend.  For me, it was not having a job, not having a sense of purpose, and not having a partner to share those feelings with. 

To be honest, today started off really horrible. 

But I finally got out of bed, got ready, and got outside. That seems to be the big change for me: the outdoors.  I feel like if I can make it outdoors, I'm okay.  If it's sunny, my mood immediately improves.  If it's rainy, I take a little longer to get happy, but I make it there; between the cold drops on my face or the wind swinging open my coat, I begin to feel alive again.

It turned out that my volunteer commitment with the American Diabetes Association fell through because they had the happy situation of having too many volunteers.  Lucky for me, that meant I got to go to the library and hang out with Angel and Jason while looking for jobs and sending out thank you notes for informational interviews.  I had one today, in fact. It was with a great guy who is working in NYC with the Department of Public Health.  He moved there from Oregon and gave me some very insightful comments about the change of pace.  It made me realize that I'm not ready for NYC yet.  Maybe one day, but not today.

Given that I wasn't feeling so great this morning, I ended up skipping breakfast.  Not good, Devra.
Not good.  But for the life of me, I wasn't hungry.  That definitely changed when I arrived at the library.  Luckily, I had a juice on me.  It was another Mean Green.  In case you don't recall the recipe for the Mean Green, I've listed again for you below. 

Mean Green:*

• 1 apple
• 1 bunch celery (I typically use 5-6 stalks)
• 1 cucumber
• 1 in ginger
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 lemon

 I decided that I really need to go to the grocery store and pick up my weekly allotment of fruits and veggies.  I figured that getting a whole new selection of fruits and veggies would make me feel good about juicing.  While I could drink 6 more servings of Mean Green or some sort of green drink with apples, lemons, kale, and spinach, I knew I would tire of that easily.  Getting some fresh produce would give me some options that I really wanted to try out.  And yes, I finally found fennel!!!! Hooray!  Let's hope it yields a yummy juice. 

Anyway, I left the library to head to the grocery store to stock up.  While on the bus, I got to speak with my friend Michele, which always makes my day.  I hung up with her just in time to head into the Wallingford QFC and see that berries were on sale.  Yippeee!  I kid you not, I gasped aloud, I was so happy.  I love berries!  And I needed quite a few varieties to make the juices on my weekly menu. 

So I went shopping and bought a cartload of goodies.  I was able to get everything but cranberries, so I settled for blackberries instead.  We'll see how they work as a substitute.  =)

My list was pretty impressive:

1. tomatoes (5)
2. limes (2)
3. cilantro (1 bunch)
4. jalapeno pepper (1)
5. apples (11)
6. pears (3)
7. blueberries (1 small package)
8. watermelon (1 small)
9. cranberries (ended up subbing blackberries here)
10. kiwi
11. celery (2)
12. green pepper (1)
13. grapefruit (1)
14. oranges (10)
15. parsley (1 bunch)
16. cucumbers (5)
17. carrots (1 bag)
18. raspberries (1 package)
19. rhubarb (2 stalks)
20. strawberries (1 package)
21. fennel bulb (1)
22. beets (3 tops)
23. spinach (2 bunches)
24. zucchini (1)
25. red pepper (1)
26. peaches (2, but I subbed nectarines)
27. kale (3 bunches)
28. asparagus (1 bunch)

My grand total for all this fresh goodness was $72.84.  Because of the berry sale, I ended up saving over 10% of my total cost.  Thank goodness, because if I had spent in the $80 range, I think I would have had a heart attack.  My fridge is now good and full.  So full, in fact, that the oranges, apples, and watermelon have to be out on the counter right now.

This is when I get some perspective and realize how 1st world my problems are.  Man, I am so lucky. I'm no longer mourning, I'm just basking in how lucky I am.

While I relax and enjoy all the good fortune I have: a great apartment, good friends, you, my health and food, etc., etc., I will have my dinner juice: Carrot Mango Juice.**

Carrot Mango Juice:

• 8 carrots (I used four, because I thought 8 sounded like too many)
• 1 mango pitted
• 1 navel orange (I bought mandarins this time around, so that's what I used)

Okay, so this juice did not yield very much juice.  However, what it did yield was the most delicious drink I have made thus far.  Oh my goodness, was it good!  I recommend this for anyone who loves mango and would like to incorporate some veggies into their drink.  Yummy!

Given that I have only walked about a mile today, I think it makes a lot of sense that I wasn't very hungry today. Nevertheless, I'm going to be excited for tomorrow's juices, while I work up an appetite walking to the Convention Center.  I'll be volunteering with the American Diabetes Association at their annual EXPO, so feel free to come check out this wonderful and FREE event from 9am until 3pm tomorrow!

In the meantime, I'm going to head to bed, read little bit and then try to fall asleep as early as I can.  I have a phone interview tomorrow at 6:30am, and I need to be in tip-top shape. 

Wish me luck and enjoy your Friday evening!

 




* Found via the web at  http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/mean-green-juice/
** Found via the web at http://www.marthastewart.com/317161/carrot-mango-juice

Day 30: Halfway There!!!!!

30 days done.  Yep, done!  Can you believe it?

Well, now that I'm halfway through the 60-day reboot, I've got some stats to share with you:

30 days of cleansing =

• Approximately 87 juices made 
• 28.5 lbs lost
• 31 different fruits and veggies used
• 7.8 miles walked today

Today was a great day!  I was able to finish the 3PO this morning, which provided me with the energy needed to walk down Eastlake to meet my friend for lunch at Fred Hutch (2.2 miles).  It was a nice morning, even with the rain.  Lunch was wonderful, because I got to catch up with a lovely person I hadn't seen in a few months.  She ate tacos and I had to stop myself from drooling all over the table.

I love soft-shell tacos and can't wait until I can eat solids again so I can have the fish tacos at Mexico.  Yummy!

I do have to admit that I've been thinking a lot about solid foods lately. And while I can't wait to eat my first solid meal (it's going to be sushi), I'm excited to continue rebooting my body with the juice cleanse.

Anyway...

For lunch I had a great juice: Spinach Apple Carrot Detox.  The greatest thing about this drink was that I could make it with the few things left in my fridge.

Spinach Apple Carrot Detox*

• 4-5 carrots
• 2 apples
• 2 cups spinach 

I finished catching up with Blythe and headed over the Health Science Library at UW's campus (another 2.3miles) to begin looking for jobs.  I know I've said this over and over, but I find it so much more enjoyable to look for jobs with friends, and lucky for me Angel and Jason were there today.  =)

We worked for a few hours before I had to leave to go meet another friend. I was so excited to see Rene, an amazing friend who had been traveling the world, so I headed out to join her at Joe's Bar.  I ended up walking through Capitol Hill to get some more miles in and see the neighborhood (.7 miles).

Rene and I spent some time over a beer (her) and juice (guess who?) talking and catching up.  It was terrific!  We then went over to the Harvard Exit Theater and watched The Place Beyond the Pines. It was okay.  Interesting, but not a movie I'd recommend beyond Netflix.

Regardless, we had a good time.  We even braved the haunted bathrooms in the theater.  If you haven't heard this story, let me know and I'll send it to you offline.  It's pretty spooky...if you're easily spooked. ;)

Afterward, we ended up going our separate ways and I walked home.  (Another 2.6 miles.)  Once home, I finished up my last juice: Mean Green.**

Sorry, I only remembered to take a picture once I poured it into the water bottle.

Mean Green

• 1 apple
• 1 celery bunch
• 1 cucumber (I only had half, so I used that)
• 1/2 inch ginger root
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 lemon

Overall, today was wonderful.  Great friends, tasty juice, and a few nice walks.  I hope I can the same thing on day 60! 

Here's to another 30 days of good juicing!

Devra

*Found online via http://www.fitnessblender.com/v/article-detail/Spinach-Apple-Carrot-Juice-Detoxifying-Juice-Recipe/6c/
**Found online via http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/mean-green-juice/

Day 29: A little walkin', a little juicin', a little job huntin'

Getting up some mornings is a monumental effort.  Today was one of those days.  I ended up sleeping in well past my normal 7:30am wake up goal.  But I figured my body must have needed the sleep, so I tried to listen.  Plus, today was one of those rare days where I didn't have a meeting or volunteer commitment scheduled.  So I took advantage of the extra time and was lazy.

When I did finally get up, I found I some of the Cucumber Cooler left (the recipe yielded two servings) for breakfast.  Also, I realized that I didn't include any pictures with the recipe in last night's blog.  Sorry about that!  Here's one, along with the recipe again:

Cucumber Cooler:*

• 1 cucumber
• 2 cups green grapes
• 1 handful fresh borage leaves (I didn't have these, so I used a handful of spinach)
• 1 handful of fresh mint
• 2 apples
• 1/2 lemon (I used one whole, small lemon)

I loved it just as much today as yesterday.  It was light, refreshing, and sweet.  Yummy!

After my breakfast, I went for a walk on 45th through campus and down by the U Village mall.  Then I walked down Montlake by the IMA and to the Health Science Library to look for jobs.  I mapped my walk and found it was 2.16 miles.

I spent the afternoon with my two awesome friends Angel and Jason looking for jobs, scheduling informational interviews, and writing cover letters for applications.  All in all, it was a pretty productive day.

Around 4pm, I became hungry, so I had my lunch juice: Jim's Drink.  This is one of those random recipes I found on the internet and wanted to try.  For the life of me, I cannot seem to find it again.  I apologize to the creator of this delicious juice, because I'm not giving you your fair credit. 

Jim's Drink:

     * 4 carrots
     *  2 apples
     * 1 orange
     * 1 in. ginger root

 Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not the biggest fan of ginger.  However, I have come to like it a lot in my juices.  It definitely adds flavor.  In this juice, it was fantastic!  I have to say that this juice ranks really highly on my list of juices so far.  

It gave me the pep I needed to finish up my work at the library and walk with Angel to Job Club 3.0 in Wallingford.  We made awesome time and clocked in another 2.19 miles.  

I was definitely hungry when we arrived, so I broke out my dinner juice: 3PO.  From the very first sip, I felt like I was drinking the sauce that covers the fried chicken bits in Sweet & Sour Chicken.  Man was it sweet!  Cloyingly so.  But the red pepper flavor really did a number on my taste buds too.  It was just a really weird experience to drink something that tastes like that sauce.  

3PO:** 

*1/3 pineapple cut into spears (I defrosted mine after yesterday's debacle) 
* 1 red bell pepper, trimmed
* 2 black plums, pitted
* 1 orange, peeled   

Regardless of the taste, it kept me hydrated and energized throughout the meeting.  We had some great conversations about job hunting and welcomed a new member to the group.  It was a fun time.  I'm so glad I have Job Club to keep me positive about the entire search experience.

Also, I had a nice conversation with a former co-worker who is currently finishing her master's program at Johns Hopkins.  I have found connecting with people from my past to be a great experience, and my conversation today was no exception.  Besides being a nice person with a lot to offer the world, she's very smart too.  I'm so proud of her accomplishment in earning an MPH.  Way to go, Lauren!

Well, here I am at home after Job Club 3.0 finishing up my blog and 3PO.  I don't know if I'm going to make this juice again any time soon.  Even if I wanted to, I don't have the ingredients for it.  It's going to be grocery shopping day either tomorrow night or Friday.  Until I do go shopping it's going to be green drinks for me, since I basically have spinach, apples, carrots, and lemons.  

That's okay, because I love the basic green drink.  =)

So if we're keeping track, 3 different juices of which 2 were winners.  The jury is still out on 3PO.  And I got to walk about 5.6 miles with no rain!  Yay! All in all, a very good day!

Let's hope for another good one tomorrow.

Until then, good night!    






















*Page 185, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," Pat Cocker.
** Page 178, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," Pat Cocker.

Day 28: One thing can totally change your day

I woke up this morning very nervous for my phone interview at 1pm.  After spending about four hours researching the Alzheimer's Association, I felt I had an okay grasp on what their policy priorities were, but I had no idea what questions would be asked of me.

Luckily, the Evans School has the most wonderful Career advisory staff.  I am one of the fortunate alumni to know and have worked with Tamara (current), Barry (past), and Heather (past) in Career Services.  Seriously, these three people are some of  the most professional, passionate, skilled, and generous career counselors around!  I was able to practice my interview with Tamara and really identify ways in which I could be comfortable with discussing my experience and how I could add value to the Association's Policy Department. 

I was so nervous that I couldn't drink anything but water.  So it wasn't until after my interview that I decided to tackle my first juice.  And let me tell you, it did not go well.

This was a surprise, because a couple of the recipes in my Juice Bible actually talk about juicing with frozen fruit, which I believe is where the problem lay with my earlier attempt.  I decided to bag the menu I had planned for today, because the first recipe called for both onion and garlic, and I think it would be better for anyone with olfactory senses that I make that juice at the end of the day when I'm by myself.  =)

Going down the list, I also nixed making the second juice because it called for broccoli, and I used up my supply yesterday.  Doh!  Third time's the charm, right?  I had all the ingredients, it would make me smell like strawberries and mint, and it sounded really yummy.  My tummy was signaling that we definitely had a winner! 

The only issue was that I had frozen my pineapple to keep it fresh for use...but I hadn't defrosted the pieces I would need for the recipe.  In  my mind I reasoned that this would be no problem, because the Juicing Bible had indicated that frozen fruit (strawberries) could be used when making juice.  So off I went to make some Strawberry Mint Juice.*


Strawberry Mint Juice

• 1/2 large pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into cubes or slices (I used 1/3)
• 1 cup strawberries
• 1 pear (cut into quarters)
• 30 mint leaves *Adapted from Reboot Your Life.™

The strawberries were juicing nicely and the mint was adding a wonderful aroma to the kitchen, but the pineapple was not cooperating.  In fact, my Breville did not enjoy the frozen pineapple at all.  It made shaved pineapple ice in the container, but no juice was spit out.  In fact, there were a couple of times I thought that I might have broken my juicer from the noises it made.  I once hear that if you have a lot of wet pulp in your juicer you can try running it through again to extract more juice.  I tried this, unsuccessfully, with the pineapple shaved ice.  Nothing was yielded. And finally, I gave up. 

Needless to say, I was pretty frustrated.  I had essentially wasted almost 1/3 of a pineapple on nothing.  I, did, however, have some lovely juice that came out. So it was not an entirely wasted endeavor, which is nice.

Regardless, at the time I wasn't seeing the good stuff.  I was in a funk.  I felt like I hadn't done a good job on my juice and quite possibly my interview, and I was not pleased.  Then came the change...

I heard a knock on my door and saw that a deliver person was holding a box of flowers.  I seriously thought he had the wrong house until I looked at the label. Inside were the most gorgeous orchids I
had seen in years.  In fact, the last time I had seen these particular orchids were at my Grad School graduation.  But there was something else familiar about them.  I just couldn't put my finger on it.

I took out the flowers and accompanying note and read the sweetest message from my friend Chi.  She was hoping to bring a little spring time into my home, like she used to do with her own office when we worked together at The Brattle Group.  And that's when the light bulb went off: Of course!  These were the types of flowers Chi used to have in her office in the spring! 

I used to love visiting Chi's office to chat, drink tea, and look at the gorgeous flowers she had. 

Now I have the gorgeous flowers to share with visitors!

From then on, I felt more relaxed, optimistic, and happy.  My next juice was a nice, light juice to keep those feelings up: Cucumber Cooler.**

Cucumber Cooler

• 1 cucumber
• 2 cups green grapes
• 1 handful fresh borage leaves (I didn't have these or know what they were, so I used spinach)
• 1 handful fresh mint
• 2 apples
• 1/2 lemon

I hope you all enjoy these juices too!


*http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/30-days-of-juicing/
**Page 185, "The Juicing Bible: Second Edition," Pat Crocker