daisyjanie

fruit bars and trail mix bars

Found these scrumptious fruit and granola bars online and thought you might like to know about them! I googled "natural fruit bars," and Kettle Valley came up 1st on the list. They had a super selection of 100% fruit bars - no artificial flavors or preservatives, no added sugar. They all looked and sounded so good - I was a little overwhelmed trying to decide which bar in which flavor! I clicked through to one of their suggested online retailers, everydayfruit.com and found sample packages!! Yay. I ordered the large sample package (21 items for $25.59). Their website also offers natural bars from other companies, and I picked some trail mix bars from HoneyBar that are fantastic!!! Nuts, raisins and honey. Period. 24 bars for $32.95. The HoneyBar website has many, many other yummy, natural bars, with online retailers listed.

We're always on the lookout for the most natural ingredients in our foods, minimizing processed, pre-fab, chemical-laden foods by default. Stick to the perimeter of the grocery store for the least processed foods....if you're in the middle, you're doomed. It really doesn't take much longer to prep a meal from scratch than from a box - try it!

a beautiful Sunday morning

An early morning hike doesn't get much better than this: gorgeous blue sky (my husband's favorite color), crisp, cold air, two dogs running, busy birds chirping, and the 3 musketeers bounding along a lakeside path. We've been doing Sunday morning hikes for about 5 years now - pretty much our version of church. We've never found ourselves more centered, more uplifted or more enlightened than after a walk in Mother Nature's woods. Truly, our hearts and souls are overflowing with a very conscious and contagious joy. Anyone can read from a book on a pulpit, but the awesome beauty and simple complexities of a forest burgeoning with life will re-align your sense of good and righteousness more than any word on a page. Give it a try. Let yourself be humbled by the wonder of it all, and let me know how clear-headed and energetic you feel afterward!

We topped off this hike with a 5-mile run afterward and another walk around the neighborhood later in the evening. It was a day for movin' and groovin'! Hooray for Spring!!!!!!

*This path we're on is a 27-mile loop that goes around the Blue Marsh Lake in Southeastern PA. This is where the Adventure Race was held last September - cannot wait to get out on my mountain bike again!!

moonshoe walk

You may remember that Peanut Man likes to jump, to put it mildly. He asked for a trampoline for Christmas - we opted for moon shoes and a pogo stick. What a great investment! Kids are not outside playing and romping as much as they should be - fun, simple outdoor options that get them moving are primo.

We were going for a brisk after-dinner walk tonight (yay daylight savings), and he exclaimed, "I'm wearin' my moon shoes!" He made it about 2/3 of a mile, bouncing, boinging and jumping down the sidewalk. Only one small spill. Even tho we knew we'd have to carry them later (when he got pooped), it was totally worth it to let him bound like kangaroo rather than squash his spark.

The expression on his face in the last pic says it all.

how to: best juice ever

I've been making juice this way since the Peanut Man was little. It's not an everyday thing b/c of the time and clean-up, but when I have a batch of grapes that's about to go south - into the blender it goes! It's waaaay better tasting than the store-bought-from-concentrate-artificially-colored-made-6-months-ago-sugar-water they call juice. And much better for you b/c the micronutrient and vitamin content is maintained - not to mention all the soluble fiber (which is why I don't use a juicer - too much lost).

1) To the blender, add rough cut fruits of choice. No concern here for peels (except oranges) or seeds or stems or cores - throw it all in! I always put grapes on the bottom b/c their water content gets everything going pretty quickly. Here, I added 2 C. grapes, 1 orange, 1 apple and 2 carrots.
2) Blend for a good bit. Maybe a minute.
3) Pour into a food mill and crank until the pulp is all that's left in the mill and all the yummy juice is in your bowl below.
4) Enjoy! This blenderful made about 24 oz. Sometimes Peanut Man will eat the pulp leftover - more power to ya kiddo!

you're up, you're down, you're up, you're down

Such is life, yes? Which is which has a lot to do with your perspective. This Bugger's up to 500+ jumps in a row. He doesn't count when the pogo hits the ground - he counts when he's in the air.

Does perspective matter?

Always.

got knots?

In my zeal to catapult, I somehow managed to take on too many things at once - as if! And of course, some of them happen to be not only extremely important to my business but also include deadlines - double as if! Couple that stress with a 30-ft. rope climb at my workout class, my doomed-to-suffer neck trigger points and one *powerful* sneeze...and you have a recipe for disaster. I feel like I have a hot poker stuck in my trapezoid that goes halfway down my back. Oy vey! I went to my chiropractor, and he was able to relieve a good bit of the pain so at least I can lift my arms and turn my head (to see that all this work lies before me).

**None of these pics are me...not the cartoon man, not the wooden "knot" egg, not the superball and not the lady leaning on the superball. (The cartoon man is close, what with all that bright red pain he's dealing with.) I am going to try the superball technique tho. I also deal with piriformis syndrome (a pain in my a$$, literally), and I'll never stop working out long enough to get complete relief so I use the tennis ball technique about once a week. You sit on a tennis ball - find the trouble spot and hold it there for about 15-20 seconds. It releases all the toxins, and it really, really works!! I read about it here.

Hopefully I'll be back with some more regular posting here and on Scoutie Girl soon enough!

bionic man

One of the many, many, many reasons why I'm madly in love with my husband. See tractor-tire-jumping video here. He's in phenomenal shape for a man of almost 38, and he continually pushes himself to the edge - an edge that is always being redefined! He's a super positive influence on us (me and Peanut Man), and we are all better for it! His zest for life is contagious! Thanks W.