dusting these html pages off

what up fam!
omg...i'm so past due (like that's nothing new) on my blog entries; I have SOO much to talk about. For now since I have milliseconds of downtown let me just rock a freethought entry
I'm teleworking about to head into the office soon.
Enjoying a healthy breakfast. I've been on a whole grain kick as I realized that was lacking in my diet. I made Bob's Red Mill 6 Grain Hot Cereal with Flaxseed contains stone ground wheat, rye, corn, oats, spelt, Kamut® and flaxseed. I cook it with almond milk & add coconut & cinnamon - yumm-O!

Other than work I've been focusing on my health and utilizing the heck out of my bldg gym. I'm down about 15+lbs so far and inching closer to my 1st goal or reaching my high school weight.
I told myself that if I can eat a strict vegan diet and not work out - whats the point? might as well go back to eating meat. Now I see results from the marriage of good nutrition + exercise.

As a HUGE fan of android I"m very sad reading about google's change to the privacy policy. Its very scary and I'm upset to the point that I thinking about moving to the dreaded Iphone/Ipad combo.. hence I don't believe apple not looking at my data but at least they aren't a major hub of search engine data.

well my 5 mins are up and I must go.. more to come lata (me hope) :\

happy labor day

What up peeps.. up early moms in town and I took her to Eastern Market. Besides being addicted to yellow peaches I wanted her stamp on the produce & products I've been buying all summer. Granted nothing in the DC Area will compare to Eastern Shore she def said the quality was great and the prices ehh lol just a lil bit higher than back home.

I'm back on a Earthy Kick LOL...picked up 2 new plants - Parsley & Cilantro.
The parsley wilted like a mofo and I just re-potted the cilantro so I hope they both perk up.

My garden just about complete except I need 1 more plant thyme. Hopefully we get a few more weeks of warmth and sunshine than I will start transitioning everything inside.


Conducting a Milk off:
I know yall like uhh your vegan why are you drinking milk lol... well not to go into a long rant but I stated hate for soy milk however DR diagnosed me with vitamin D deficiency - so research says Soy helps with that issue. Well I finally understand why hardcore veggie folks avoid soy- bottom line its a Genetically Modified Object (GMO) even the organic. Its recommended that humans only consume fermented soy (miso, tempeh, seitan) OCCASIONALLY! I'm not gonna life I loves my tofu in my asian food and tempeh bacon :0 YUM! so its going to be hard but my goal is to try and put that healthiest +purest foods into my system so dueces to Soy.
So I'm researching alternative milks that are high in Vitamin D for my health condition and for something else that I'll explain in a bit.. now onto the contestants"

most of these "milks" I got the unsweetened version or if I was scared the taste would be "out there" I purchased the vanilla flavor


1. Rice Milk- I've always drank very sweet..
2. Almond Milk- I hated it in the past.. funky aftertaste still on the fence
3. Coconut Milk- yumm goes into my smoothies
4. Sunflower Milk- LOLOL haven't opened this yet - no idea what to expect
5. Hemp Milk- LOLOL ^^^^
6. Oat Milk - "same deal as ^^^"








Vitamix:

Dear QVC I hate you! Sike well I've heard about the VitaMix blender from watching youtubes on green smoothie. This blender is like the bently of blenders in the veggie/raw foods world.

To define a green smoothie: A regular fruit smoothie with some type of green- Kale, spinach, Collards etc. This culture stems from the book "Greens for Life" which I already blogged about here.

So this blender is supposed to the greatest bc it will blend anything (I've seen vids where folks throw whole avocados in there smoothie pit + all). If you blend things long enough it warms up the product, makes soups, ice cream so its pretty versatile. For the dough I'm like this joint better turn my kitchen into Smoothie King. I upgraded to kitchen aid blender but I will admit that berries & flax seeds still give me a grainy smoothie. I've made a few green smoothies w/ the vitamix while I'm not blown away, my smoothies def are SMOOTH.

Given the 5 easy payments lol I don't feel the hurt of paying for this blender all at once so I will keep as it fits in with my goal of continuing to be a healthy mofo. I realized that I suck as a vegan.. lk in the last few weeks I've gone to more Yoga and exercised more bc I cannot keep eating so well and not exercise. I might as well go back to eating meat if I'm going to dogg my body out like that. So besides this blender, more exercise me and another homey in the city are splitting a CSA membership.

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture):

Some folks call these farm clubs but pretty much its a way to get local produced delivered.
We went with Washington Green Grocer subscription. Kinda nicked says small box 12-18 lbs LOL. Right now I'm all about hitting up the farmers market but this will be so handy come fall/winter. The first order should come tomorrow here's a sample listing of what should be delivered:

• Sweet Corn PA
• Eggplant PA
• Grape/Cherry Tomatoes PA
• Yellow Squash PA
• Red Leaf/Romaine Lettuce CA
• Delicata Squash PA
• White Mushrooms PA
• Golden Supreme Apples (IPM from PA)
• Peaches (IPM/Food Alliance Certified from PA)
• Red Seedless Grapes CA
• Ruby Red Grapefruit FL
• Bananas S.A.

Welp peeps I'm about to go a bike ride in.. forecast says more rain coming.

Enjoy the holiday folks :)

Earthquake & Part 2 + hurricanes - OH MY!

sERIOUSLY!
this week was not fun. I work in a community of high rise bldgs and the quake shook me up!
I liken the feeling to airplane turbulence except when one walking into an airplane you kinda know hey! this plane could go down so for a building to shake and sway when its assumed to be rigid is scary. As a east coaster my office didn't know what to do some hid under their desks.. others took to the doorway. Me I stood up holding my desk in disbelief that an earthquake was occurring while the building was swaying. Emergency preparedness education is key. Cell phone service was blocked.. couldn't get on-line it really makes you think about communication backup. Seriously after 3 hour drive home > I reallllly had to count my blessing and be thankful. Not that I ever took the Cali or Asia quakes & 9-11 lightly but experiencing a small disaster gives you perspective to how those in a major disaster had to cope.

I'm typing this as light rain has began to fall as we prepare for Hurrican Irene. Man I'm about to move to Seattle with my family because the Maryland/DC Area should not be exp this much weather turbulence - no way! I'm most concerned about my family on the Eastern Shore as they are going to get the brunt of the storm not to mention all the low lying streets and bay run-offs.. alot of evacuations planned.

Given the wind DC schedule to receive I bought my lil herbal garden inside
Its been fun this summer started w/ an eastern market box of Dill, Basil, Thyme, Marojam, Oregano Sage and Parsley...Growing up on the eastern shore we used to plant flowers. my great aunt had a small vege garden and my mom grew tomato plants upside our apt for years- so I felt my thumb was pretty green. Hmm well after I repotted everything.. the dill died, the thyme singed and burned during the heat wave.. the parsley went MIA.. I still can't tell the difference btw Marajam & Oregano but that is still growing along with the Sage. I just scanned through my recent blog posts and I see the one I started on my 1st basil plant never made it out of draft. To give you all some history I got that plant back in April from Mom's Organic Market. Basil just keep it outside (sunny) + water it grows like a weed. One of my coworkers took pity on my failed attempts and bought me in a pot of Sage, Thyme, and ohlala Purple Basil.

So just to bring ya'll to my current roster:


More Pics here

• 3 instances of Sage- wayyy too much and Sage is used w/ meats (ugh) trying find a way to get rid of
• Thyme- i spritz w/ water seems brown & dried again even though I did not keep outside :(
• Regular Basil- my all star plant
• Purple Basil- one instance died the other doing well so cannot wait to try
• Peppermint- growing well gonna use in my tea and rice paper wraps
• Rosemary- growing well
• Oregano - growing well

I'm actually gonna use the time barricaded in this APT to work on harvesting and drying herbs esp my basil plant is LEANING - lmao because the leaves are so heavy

I'm planning to continue my garden over the winter so I can make lots of fresh veggie stock so I'm researching how to transition the plants inside.


Everyone on eastcoast be safe this weekend!!

what have i been doing all summer?

working . traveling . gardening. enjoying life & shopping

LOL - hello! can you all believe we are looking at Fall my my time is rollin!

Let me pick up where I left off... so the DC move again my commute is wonderful but I tell ya what (king of the hill voice) lol not having my 495 has been killer.. meaning getting to places has been difficult. I must keep at it learning the DC streets. I've been enjoying taking the bike out to explore when I can get home by 6 and we don't have the kaboom thunder activity afterwork.

Now my bldg; granted I am not the friendliest person upon first glance but jeezus first of all everyone is import (new trend of DC) cars in the garage downstairs from Cali to Connecticut (alot of NYC of course).. these folks in here are not friendly I'm not going to play the race card but even when I try to put on a smile and 'ish *cold stares*. I swear I'm going to kirk out one good time on somebody next time they ask "do you live in the bldg?" Reminds me of Higher Learning "b1tch show me yo lease before u check me" LLS seriously .. big turn off!

ugh sprint service.. of course no way comparable to Verizon but I'll smile off the strength of my cheaper bill. I finally rooted my Android Phone to CyanogenMod (CM7) that def bought some stability to my phone and can I say i LOVE android.. while I have a macbook on my wishlist and respect iOS.. 'I LOVE ANDROID" The multi-desktops and widgets sold me.. now the security and stability - give it time and more on that later.

my current obsession:
i couldn't resist any longer and so glad i waited and did not hop on the IPAD bandwagon.
Got a tablet pc Android based (honeycomb) Motorola Xoom. My coworker put me onto woot.com so trust I did not pay full retail but OMG love love love my tablet.



Of course at work the Ipad mtg crew be going in... "why don't you carry your xoom to meetings" "why are you still using your paper agenda" I just realized as techy as I am LOL I'm a paper chick. Stickies, pen, pencils I write on paper - so I'm weaning myself off this habit. My beef with putting your life in a phone/tablet is security. I don't like clouds dont sync MY DATA.. I need everything password protected, encrypted - I need time to figure out how to secure my 'ish than I'm all for it. I tested Google 2 step password verification, in short summary send your device a code after you sign in with password. Gosh props to google joint worked so good I kept locking myself out but that's the type of 'ish I need. I'm such a private person I will be sad if my devices where lost but I'd die if my data was viewable by outside eyes.
my travels

Chicago


My job sent me here for 4 days for Auditing Oracle Application Course. Uhhh class blew my mind lol but OMG Chicago is a beautiful city. We stayed in downtown Chicago and did most of our exploring via foot lol. My coworker and I visited the Willard/Sears tower, Millennium Park and we ate well. Of course being a Vegan I didn't have time to find a place where I could get deep dish pizza but none the less the variety was on point.
I checked out the local tea scene which was dry... but Argo Teas was the local spot. I bought

Las Vegas

Embarrassing but this was my 1st time visiting "Sin City" My job sent me here in support of attending Black Hat (technical security conference). The conference no words was just blessing to be amongst so many smart individuals and learn about my field. Ok forget the slots forget the gourmet food options - the freaking shops :0 :0
I was just done with the lux brands being connected to my hotel
Shops as Pallazo kilt me..
I can't go back to Vegas alone... cuz nope I need a baby sister for my wallet LOL

& what happens in vegas... got shipped to DC
(badgirl)















Seattle

My family lives out here and since I was more than halfway across the country decided to spend the weekend in the Pacific NorthWest. The timing was perfect because although I've been to Seattle 4 times now my cousin was getting married so it was also a slight family reunion.
The usual coolness and clouds but I was able to get a peak at Mt. Rainer.
My cuzin took me to a fabulous tea shop in Tacoma - Mad Hat Tea. Overwhelmed I was...
picked up 2006 puerh tea cake, some black tea and ginger rooibos for my friend.
The owner was so sweet gave me a cup of ti kin yuan to go and man started my trip off on a bang!



my herbal garden

I'm going to make this a 2 part blog update To be continued....