Thursday, December 15, 2011

Recipe Thursday: Green Juice and my New Year's Resolution

I can't believe it's already Thursday! Actually, let me rephrase that: I can't believe this is the second to last Thursday before Christmas. Meaning the year is almost over. Holy smokes! Is everyone ready for the holidays? Aside from some tree decorating and non-stop listening to Christmas music (just while I'm in the car, really) I feel like I haven't done anything festive. No cookie baking, no hot chocolate drinking, no present wrapping- Carl and I didn't get each other gifts this year so all of the ones under the tree are for people who won't see that they're not yet wrapped!- and no holiday parties yet. Also, it's hard to get in a holiday mood with the weather being what it has. Singing "Baby it's Cold Outside" when it's 70 degrees out just feels wrong. Oh well, I guess it's coming no matter what. Here's our little tree:

This was taken before we received a beautiful new tree skirt from Mama Wonus. Although the white blanket sort of looks like snow, right?

Today's recipe involves no cooking- it's a juice! We're going to Columbia for the weekend so I'm trying to use up any produce we have that might not be in the best shape by the time we get back. Juicing can be expensive but I always remind myself how good it is for me when I get pouty about the grocery bill. These past few weeks I've been making a glass in the morning to have before my green smoothie, and that way my juicer doesn't get jealous of the new blender. Here's what went in tonight's batch:

2 stalks of celery, 2 green apples, a cucumber, a lemon, 2 big collard leaves, and 4 romaine leaves.

This is what the finished product looks like:

One for me and one for Carl. It got Carl's stamp of approval tonight!

Since we're on the topic of healthy stuff, I'll go ahead and tell y'all my New Year's resolution plans. I'm a notorious resolution abandoner if there ever was one. I think it's a no-brainer that we set ourselves up for failure when we expect to change over night and stay that way. The only resolution I have ever kept for good was to quit biting my nails, which was no small feat for me. Even though it was hard, I think what helped was that I wasn't simultaneously changing every other aspect about myself. And so, with baby steps as my inspiration I came up with my plan for next year: The ABC's of 2012. I've assigned each letter of the alphabet a word (for instance 'T' is for Totinos, 'F' is for fried food, 'L' is for liquor), and each week on Sunday I'll pick a letter and work on modifying my lifestyle or diet over the course of the next week, depending on the word. Here's where it gets interesting: the letter will be picked at random, so I won't know what I'm up against until the week starts. Some of them are really tricky... if you think that 'T,' 'F,' and 'L' are bad, just wait! I had also planned on rewarding myself by putting $20 into a savings account for each successful week and using the money to buy a new blender at the end of it all, but I guess I ruined that. A new rewards system is in the works and I'm definitely open to suggestions. Also, if anyone feels like they are up to the challenge and wants to participate please let me know! I'd be more than thrilled to have a resolution buddy. And don't be intimidated- I do plan on allowing myself to cheat a little bit in social situations, etc. What's life without some good-natured rule bending?


No comments:

Post a Comment