Expelled

We finally got a 'date night' thanks to an awesome friend who was willing to watch Kaylee for awhile. So on our date we got to go see Expelled, and since I mentioned it before I figured I'd give you my post movie reaction. I still think everyone should see this movie! The saddest thing was that there were only about a dozen people in our theater, granted it was 5:30 on a week night, but still. It was awesome, the cinematography was fantastic as was the editing. I think they did a fantastic job at presenting the subject matter without any slants and presenting both sides of the issue. I love Ben Stein, he's amazing to have taken on such an issue and presented it to the world with no fear whatsoever. Great movie... go see it before it's gone, just like our freedom.

A lack of time?

I've had tons to say lately but it seems no time to share all of my thoughts. I think the most amazing thing is that the more you learn and in turn grow, the more you think, and if you apply it you can use your knowledge to teach others and continue enacting a ripple effect in your world. I feel like I keep learning so much each day and that the syncronicity in everything I come across is just amazing. I'm sure there is some scientific term for rapidly moving towards a particular state of mind or being, where knowledge is abundant, but I'm not sure what that is. However if there is such a term I see it not only applicable to my own life, but also to the world at large. It's beautiful!
There are many things inspiring me in my life right now; besides getting Big Mouth Foods off the ground and moving forward professionally; I've been growing a lot spiritually, and feel so blessed and grateful for those who are walking this journey with me. I feel like there are so many things going on right now in the world (not that I'm aware of the majority of them) there is no way you can not get fired up or be in some way passionate about one area or another. Here are some of the things rocking my world lately that I'm loving/passionately upset about.

• With Earth Day tomorrow and "green" living being such a hot topic lately I'm sure I am just one of the masses being bombarded with articles and advertisements about stuff that is somehow related (or sometimes not) to the environment. I feel like we're somehow ahead of the game or something since everything these articles keep saying that you should do are things we already do, but that's beside the point. I think because J works in the renewable energy industry people are always asking us about different energy sources and what we think of them etc. I find some of the things amusing that people think are "green" or helpful to the earth when in fact they don't make the slightest difference. I also find the discrepancy of people's behavior more than amusing. How in one area of their life they do something they see as good (using a cloth grocery bag) while in many others they don't even think about the damage they are doing to themselves or the planet (using paper cups for endless cups of coffee at Starbucks; pumping themselves full of drugs that will soon turn up in our water supply; or using chemical filled soap and cleaners to 'clean' themselves and their houses only further polluting our water.) Okay off the eco soap box.
  
• A movie I haven't even seen yet (but hope to as soon as I can find someone to watch the baby for a few hours) I believe is long overdue in coming out and am excited as anything to see: Expelled I'm not sure how people who are passionate about their beliefs, whatever they may be, wouldn't be outraged about such censorship of knowledge.
• King Corn - I also have not seen this yet, but am very excited to. Even though we've been avoiding corn for close to a year now the essence of this film still hits home very strongly for me. Along the same lines as The Future of Food and Supersize Me (both of which I strongly recommend seeing if you have not already), I think this will continue to open people's eyes to the greed and gluttony in this country and what we have done to a once reasonably healthy grain. Corn produced in Mexico can have as much as 13% fiber and so many more slow carbs than the yellow corn (dent) that is grown here to be processed into corn syrup etc. It's sad how we've (collective) modified and 'engineered' what was a beautiful healthy food into something that may serve the 'needs' of the populous but at the same time is killing us with every ounce of consumption. It's true too how extremely difficult it is to avoid corn as it's processed and added to nearly everything imaginable. I hope that people actually see this film and from it see that they, the consumer, need to choose wisely between whole grain products and overly processed or treated foods. If more people would choose the whole corn products, grass fed animals, and slower carb products that are made by more natural processes the rate of disease in this country would fall. This would give them so much less to complain about which leads me to my next point...
• A Complaint Free World - I'm almost done with the book but still find myself restarting the challenge every day. I was at a friend's house when her room mate came home and declared that she was on day five, and showed me her bracelet. I inquired about what she was doing and found myself leaving their house that night with a bracelet, book, and a mission to change my world. I'm very excited about the potential that this challenge holds and the amazing transformation that can come from it. It can impact every area of life and leave you seeing the world in a totally different light.
• This is pretty unrelated, but it's something that I am highly amused by. Individuals who become vegetarians because of the unethical treatment of animals yet continue to eat commercially produced eggs, and dairy products with out a second thought. Often they don't even buy the 'cage free' or organic varieties. This is something I really don't understand. Just one of those hmm things... I guess I have a lot of those though. I also find their argument about the environmental impact of the animals interesting while they turn to soy as their protein alternative which in itself brings on massive environmental destruction itself through rain forest clear cutting, pesticide usage, oil transport of the soy. Along with the fact that most soybeans are GMO at this point makes soy a difficult alternative to justify. (Side note, I support and agree with what they're doing by not eating beef/chicken/fish whatever in many aspects, the environmental and animal cruelty arguments are definitely well founded, but I wont be going veggie anytime soon. We buy only local free range grass fed animals and their products, so I feel justified in eating them and supporting local farmers. Essentially we're doing the 100 mile diet minus a few things that I deem essentials - rice, mangoes, coconut, wild caught salmon, etc.)
  

Easter

Here are a few pictures from Kaylee's first Easter adventures.


She's not so sure about this "Easter Bunny" character. But is a huge fan of Jesus, the baskets, and plastic colored eggs!

A Tooth Cometh

Yes, it's true, Kaylee's first tooth has broken through. We weren't expecting it to be this one, but I guess that the ominous 'they' are right in predicting the center bottom ones to come in first. It is the right one that has won the race and poked it's little toothy head out from her gums to greet the world. We expected it to be one a little farther back as that's where there was more of a bump in her gums and where she tended to concentrate her chewing, I'm sure that one will be soon to follow though. Now though, I live in fear of being bitten with something that will actually bring about real pain. I guess it was only a matter of time. Surprisingly enough though, the whole ordeal wasn't as bad as I figured it would be.
I'm pretty sure I have our little miracle on a string to thank for that though. A few weeks ago, after reading more about teething I bought Kaylee an amber teething necklace that she has worn pretty much nonstop. We took it off at one point because we were paranoid about her sleeping in it, and forgot to put it on the next day and wow, big difference. She was insanely irritable and unhappy. So she wears it and it seems to work. As a bonus she looks super cute in it, like a little surfer baby.

Muffins

If you know me lately you know I have a serious muffin/cupcake addiction. I'm not sure how to get over this one, so I just keep playing with it and discovering lots of yummy treats to keep me from starving throughout the day when food is just beyond my ability to make because of baby, housework, etc. keep me too well occupied to think about cooking. So I keep a muffin supply and I get by alright. So here I am finally joining the ranks of those sharing quality cooking information in the virtual world of the internet. Like most things I make, unless I'm cooking specifically for someone else, this one is gluten free. I know there's a lot of controversy about whether or not oats qualify as GF or not, but I tend to lean towards the they're alright side because I buy the certified GF Oats and make my own flour. Plus I figure I'm the only one who is really going to suffer if there is contamination, so I risk it. If corn were the ingredient in question I'd probably not risk it. This recipe was adapted from the Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook by Cybele Pascal of which I am not a fan, but I got it from the library so I figured I'd try a few things from it and see what I could do with it.


1 1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
1 cup rice milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp sunflower oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown rice flour
3/4 cup oat flour
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts

bake at 400 for 20 min
11 muffins - I am incapable of making 12 ever!

These were a rotation food, can't always have sweet potatoes, but when I can this is a good way to have them. They didn't last very long.

What Constitutes as "Lisa Safe"?

Since I am constantly being asked what I can and can't have, I decided the easiest thing for me is to just post a list that people can read through if they are really interested. I struggle deciding whether to write up the safe list or the not safe list... They are both pretty close in length at this point. I'll go with the not safe, so anything that is NOT on this list is safe, providing that it doesn't contain some sort of contamination from something on the list (ie: corn, wheat, dairy etc.). These are the things that we are currently avoiding.

• Corn - all varieties, in every form
  
• Soy - only lecithin is OK, and sometimes oil
  
• Dairy -all forms
  
• Gluten grains : wheat, barley, rye and related grains here is a helpful site about things that contain gluten.
• Millet
  
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
  
• Peppers - all types
  
• Shellfish
• Nuts -Pecans, peanuts, almonds
• Fruits - Papaya, bananas, strawberry, orange (all types), tangerine, grapefruit, lemon, lime, kiwifruit
  
• Chocolate
• Meats - lamb, pork, turkey
• Anything with caffeine or artificial sweeteners
• Sugar - trying to limit, and if possible no refined sugars
  

I think that's all, but I will probably be editing this as I tend to forget things.

conglomeration of thoughts

• Struggling to blog.... I'm still a a loss as to how people who blog find the time to write so much? I'm lucky to return emails within the same week much less find time to type up novels about everything that happens in my day or runs through my head. Much less recipes, there are lots that I'd love to share, but I really suck at blogging!
• The people who make the majority of baby clothes never had a baby!
• Enlightened once again to the battle going on constantly for our minds and our attention. Satan has quite the influence in this world and sometimes it is really hard to take every thought captive. This hit me again the other day when I was on a walk and saw a bumper sticker that read "One man can make a difference... Jesus did" and my immediate response was 'well He was God' and I had to stop to again realize that he was also fully human. Why is it my tenancy to have this view?
  
• Cooking/baking with real vanilla beans is so worth it.
• No matter how many times you try to discipline a cat, and different strategies you employ, you will always lose the battle to keep her off the table. At least this is how it goes in my life thus far. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
• Sleep is not so over rated anymore... I think I will always be tired. I'm resigning to not responding that I am tired when people ask how I'm doing, from this point forward if they don't know that already it's not worth me bringing up, it's just a fact of life that I need to grow to see past and find something new to *complain* about
  
• Being sick sucks!
• My house will never be clean... or stay clean for more than an hour after I've finished scrubbing, dusting, vacuuming, etc.
• We have too much stuff.
• People although all very similar are all quite different and unique.
  
• There will never be enough time to do all of the things I want to do. I don't know how anyone could ever be bored in this life.