Sweet Tomatoes

I don't know if many people have Sweet Tomatoes near them.

If you do not I am sorry and you should move near one.

It's one of my favorite restaurants and it's basically an all you can eat salad bar. I adore this place. Plus it is great for people watching because it has other things than salad and it is amazing what people eat at this place and call it "healthy."

As in an entire plate of croutons is "healthy" cause it's from a salad bar.

o_o

Anyway, I went there with my brother the other day and I was asked a amazing question (an amazing question to me at least) and that was if I wanted to purchase a bigger cup for 50 cents more.

Now mind you, this is a place that you can just GET UP AND GET MORE when your cup is empty. It's not one cup full and you have to pay for refills or wait for someone to come and refill you. You just get off your bum and get some more to drink.

I asked the girl why I would want to pay 50 cents extra and her reply was for the convenience factor. I wouldn't have to get up as much.

...

To me this does not perpetuate a healthy lifestyle. I dunno, what do you think?

Would you pay more to not get up as much?

Life Styles A-changin'

When my job started up again, I got into a huge funk.

I couldn't get anything done. My weight was going back up. I was super stressed. There was too much to do and no time to do it.

Last week I went to my Geek Girl Goal Setting (nearly late and rushed) and said I wanted a schedule, to catch up on things, and to calm down.

I am starting this goal this week. There has been lots of things going on around here and I wanted to address some of them.

Goal #1
Catching up on the house.
It's almost there. Evan and made more work for ourselves and bought a bunch of things from IKEA and we've been putting them together throughout the weekend. I now own a king sized bed, two nightstands, and two tall dressers from the MALIM collection of IKEA.
The Kitchen is clean. The living room is clean. The bathroom (thank god) is clean. We moved out office into the bigger extra bedroom, which still needs to be cleaned and the former office needs to be cleaned out along with the closet. Our bedroom is a work in progress from all of the new IKEA stuff and moving out my old set. Which now needs to be craigslisted.
The house is almost there, and that actually takes a lot of stress out. I can come home and relax a bit now.
Still need to clean that car though.

Goal #2 MI reception stuff
Invites are mailed. My ring issue is being resolved (via a new ring, that is almost like my other one just more expensive) as is Evan's ring issue. Surgical grade steel ring = no allergic reaction. I also have a nice shiny plain band too. I bought plane tickets as well. The only few things left are to do the photo books and print photos from the wedding and honey moon. I will also have to get my dress altered since I have lost enough weight where it is sagging a bit. I'm going to call an alteration place this week.

Goal #3 Art
oooh boy. I've been THINKING about art. Not much doing. I owe a friend a prize picture, still need to do my next creative grab bag, Evan wants some help with a game, and my friend Connie wants to talk to me about a webcomic. I am hoping to sketch out the prize pic this week along with the sketch for my grab bag. Evan will be next week and Connie whenever I talk to her.

Goal #4 A schedule.
It will be done this week. I am a cheer coach now and have to use time wisely after school and during. I want to schedule in art time, cleaning time, relaxing time, and evan time.

Goal #5 Dietary Changes
I'm on a pretty restrictive diet right now, but it's working. I'm being creative with cooking and spices and am not bored at all. I'm over the halfway mark (if I do it for the 30 days, I may go the full 45...currently on day 20) and have been working out how I'm going to do this when I'm allowed other foods. I have good ideas and need to start writing them down somewhere so I don't forget how to do this. Also: tea and stevia are my new best friends. I have finally fallen in love with tea and drink it ALL the time.

Lots of things to do, not enough time to do it...but I'm getting there and enjoying it finally. I've reached some sort of inner peace I guess.

I'll just keep going.

Salad!

So not lately but for the month of May basically (monday-friday) Evan and I decided to eat salad every night. We wanted something healthy and easy because quite frankly by the end of school we were both just absolutely sick of cooking. So we decided on uber salads, because we started going to Sweet Tomotoes and we were basically paying 20 bucks for salad.

So, our salads are so delicious I thought I would share the how-to process of making them. Mind you there is no dairy, soy, or tree nuts because of Evan's allergies.




First we have the basic salad mix. Get actual lettuce and spinach. They have actual vitamins. No iceberg lettuce allowed.




Then I add sliced baby sweet peppers, found at Walmart.



Then open up a can of beets and chop 'em up.



Then a little bit of broccoli. I try to chop near the head because the stalk is just gross.



Then we have super yummy hard-boiled eggs.



Then let us not forget the fungus among us with some mushrooms.



CUCUMBER.



Then I dice up some pickles too. I think dill relish would work fine too, or the pickle chips.



Then some kidney beans or chick peas, either one is suitable.



Then some canned chicken.



Toppings! Salt, Pepper, and some olive oil and vinegar (balsamic, raspberry, red wine, whatever) No ranch dressing here!



Then we have our finished delicious product.

Now, you probably have some toppings that you are wondering where they are at. It's fine to add or substitute ingredients. I personally hate tomatoes, so poor Evan never gets them on his stuff cause I just don't buy them.

If you hate chopping things, a lot of stuff you can buy pre-chopped or take a day like Sunday and chop everything and put it in some tupperware, then you can just quite literally throw it all into a bowl!

Enjoy!

Are you proud of your cart?

I must admit something.

I am a bit of a voyeur. Not the pervy kind but the kind that likes to people watch in public. The kind that likes to look at what you eat and what you buy and how your clothing looks.

It's how I learn. How I have always learned really. Do what the seemingly successful people are doing and don't do what the rest are doing.

Well, I am sad to admit that I have become a bit of a Walmart shopper on a regular basis. It's out of budgeting and necessity! I swear. I didn't use to shop there because they didn't have anything Evan could eat but as the world becomes more health conscious the more food Evan can actually eat.

So we shop very carefully and buy things we actually have on the list. Lots of fresh fruits and veggies (I'm amazed at Walmart's veggies, honestly, super cheap super fresh and it's not all pre-packaged you can buy it by the pound) and non-processed foods. We like to cook and shopping helps that...we don't shop to not cook.

By the end of our shopping experience we have a cart full of veggies, fruits, 100% juices, water, and a bevy of other ingredients that are healthful. I love our cart. Evan and I always look at are cart and say what a good job we did and how awesome our cart is (we truly do this and congratulate each other on such a nice cart...I never said I wasn't an absolute dork). Then if we found something we wanted that we couldn't get at Walmart we head to Whole Foods.

So now we get to the other carts in the store. Now I know Walmart on the whole is not the best example of where you can buy the best food. But I swear to you looking at the other carts out there. These people have NO CLUE. Frozen pizzas, two liters of pop, gallons of ice cream, and boxes upon boxes of macaroni and cheese.

It's enough to make one a bit sick, really.

So it makes me ask these couple questions.

Are you proud of your cart?

and...

Would you show your mother your cart?