My 30 days of vegan living

Ingredients for Thai "peanut" sauce vegetables from Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. Yum! Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

One of the gifts I'm giving to myself in 2012 is starting it off with a vegan cleanse. In other words, I'm going vegan for at least 30 days, and (though this isn't tied into veganism, per se). I'm also giving up refined sugars, processed foods and all meat, milk and animal products. I actually started two days ago in a pre-cleanse phase, where I'm still drinking coffee and soy creamer (which has sugar and is processed) but I have not totally decided whether I can handle giving coffee up altogether or not... I am a total addict. Which is, of course, all the more reason to give it up but you know, what can I say.

I often start a new year doing the Master Cleanse (the lemonade thing - I blogged in 2010: foodie blog one, in 2008: I give up, in 2006: weirdest place to put cayenne pepper, and visions of hamburgers dance in my head and sisterhood of the lemonheads) and I may well add a week of doing the master cleanse here at some point. But I found when doing it that I would lose some weight and then gain it right back. I don't want this to be about weight per se, but about a commitment to healthier eating. Don' get me wrong, I eat generally fairly healthy but I also have a major sweet tooth and I use food as comfort when I am upset, as a lot of people do - and the food I gravitate to when upset includes... ice cream, queso dip, chocolate, and other sweet stuff. I want to see how my body responds to really cutting out the dairy, and cutting way back on sweets (especially with sugar and corn syrup - apparently brown rice syrup and other more natural sugar sources affect our body differently). I also already use Stevia, which is an all-natural plant-based sweetener with no calories. I use it in coffee and when I drink tea, tea, but never in cooking.

I started a healthy eating/vegan cleanse email list of friends for support and recipe sharing (if you want to join, let me know) and plan to blog a recipe a day, maybe including my meal plan in case others want an idea of what to do. There are two main books that will be my staples to follow: Crazy Sexy Diet by the inspiring 30-something cancer-survivor Kris Carr (who has incurable liver cancer but was able to stop its growth by changing her diet), and The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone who is a vegan and also includes some macrobiotic/vegan recipes which she calls Superhero recipes. Crazy Sexy Diet actually has a 21-day follow-along guide, that includes not only meal and recipe ideas, but inspiring messages and things to do that day, which I may actually try to do. I tried to do this once before but never completed it. She also has a whole website dedicated to this - Crazy Sexy Life - including a forum of people who want to interact, share recipe and health tips. I may explore that - better than time-wasting on Huffington Post or Facebook!

I'll share tidbits of wisdom from the two books or other info I gather over the next few weeks. One thing that Kris says is that she covers like 2/3 of her plate with vegetables (rather than beans or grains), and I think she tends to eat that much raw. I am really trying to eat more raw, but I'm not going overboard with the raw recipes. I'm just trying to eat more greens... Alicia, on the other hand, is all about macrobiotic which is grains and beans and of course veggies. So I'll have a sort of mix of those two. I tend to love salad but be too lazy to make it, so inspired by my triathlete warrior woman friend Jen (who I saw in Miami recently but didn't include a pic, and in 2007, after my Galapagos trip), I made what she and her family call "a bowl of health" - just a giant salad with whatever they feel like tossing in - greens, of course, and then nuts, raisins, olives - whatever. Then it's already pre-made and you can just eat every day until it's gone. It probably helps if others in your household will eat it, but my kids hate a lot of the veggies I put in things (in fact, they call most of my food "unidentifiable vegetable mush"), so... I will have to ingest it all myself! This is the Bowl of Health I made yesterday:In it, I put spinach, romaine lettuce, chopped leek greens, pumpkin seeds, Kalamata olives, tomato, cucumber, green onions, capers, carrots, snow peas, and black & tan Gomasio (black and tan sesame seeds with sea salt). Oh that reminds me, I have some celery in the fridge I need to use. I'll have to add that in too. This doesn't have any salad dressing, so you just add that onto each bowl. I will probably be mostly using some vinegar and oil combo or homemade dressings to keep it vegan/healthy/natural, but do whatever you like!

I was on a kick last night, and also made Simple Mediterranean Salad with capers from the Crazy Sexy Diet book - and combining that with the 'bowl of health' - ZOMG - yum! The mix of apple cider vinegar, olive oil & I added a dash of lemon juice - was just scrump-deli-icious. The image is before I mixed it all up - not that pretty but soooo tasty!

Simple Mediterranean Salad with Caper Berries (serves 2)

1 cucumber, sliced in thin rounds (peel if not organic)
3 roma tomatoes, sliced thin (or any kind, really...)
1/4 cup red onion, julienned/sliced thin
1/4 cup caper berries
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp fresh basil, chiffonade (OK I didn't know what this meant, so looked it up - it means cut into thin strips - you learn something new every day!)
1/2 tsp sea salt

I halved the recipe, basically, because I only had one (really a half!) tomato because I'd used the rest in my bowl of health. REALLY good! Oh I added a splash of lemon juice, also. I'll be making more of this fo' sho!

And though I teased you all with the totally amazing Thai peanut sauce veggie recipe experiment photo at the top of the post - you will have to come back tomorrow for that one! It even involves my first use of my dehydrator, which I got for my birthday this year.

Come out of the cave!

Merry Christmas Eve! I love my silly family. Sam had this moose hat which I got him in Yellowstone a couple years back and he brought it and decided he was going to wear it to church. I wish he would have - ha ha. He really wouldnt have... it would've been funny though!

"The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below..." Plato, The Allegory of the Cave in The Republic

Have you ever read Plato’s The Republic? Well I haven’t but at the Christmas Eve service at Christ (Anglican) Church in Plano, where I was visiting, the pastor said to the audience that something he said he hoped this evening something he said would speak to each of us, and that we would know what it was when we heard it. I've heard that before, and never really heard anything that particularly clear as a message to me. But this time, it happened.

He was talking about how Jesus was born in a cave, and I was like, say what? I thought he was born in some little shack next to an inn, in a manger. The pastor didn’t explain, but went on to talk about Jesus was born in a cave and was laid to rest in a cave, and then he also rose from the cave, and this is what we are called to do. At some point in the sermon I think he actually said, “Come out of the cave!” I don’t even remember exactly what it was in reference to, or how he said it, but when he said it, it was clear as lightning that was a Word direct to me.

It was a reference to the Resurrection, of course, and coming out of darkness into light. Having suffered a lot of low-level depression through my life, on and off really, and to differing degrees but having experienced some blues lately that I don’t totally understand, it was a message to my very heart - a positive and uplifting and encouraging one. I journaled about it and wrote about the message in my gratitude journal later that night. After the service and at Christmas Eve dinner, our family had a conversation about it too, and my daughter had learned from her church (she goes to a different one than I do now) that in the region where Jesus was born, there are a lot of caves and people would keep their animals in these caves - that was their animal holding facility so to speak, their "barns." And my aunt and uncle, who had recently visited the holy Land, concurred. I was fascinated that I’d never heard this detail about Jesus being born in a cave before - you learn something new every day, aye?

And I actually have found myself happier and more joyful the past couple of days, though loneliness and sorrow will occasionally strike like a knife, seemingly out of nowhere. It’s not that severe - not anything like the lead blanket depression I experienced after my divorce (or also about halfway through my relationship with Doug - probably when I realized it wasn't right but I stayed anyway...). Now it's more just some small pangs of sorrow and usually tears that come and pass quickly.

So tonight, I tweeted something about the message to me from the Christmas Eve sermon being “Come out of the Cave” and then on a whim, I decided to Google the phrase. The first thing that came up was Plato’s dialogue on “The Allegory of the Cave” and I was already blown away that someone as famous, so to speak, as Plato had written about a cave, and then was especially blown away when I realized the topic was spot on to what the sermon message actually had meant to me (come out of the depression into joy - the time is now), but then, it added a deeper dimension which blew my mind completely. The allegory of the cave is a dialogue from the utopian philosophical treatise, The Republic, which I actually haven’t read - but plan to now - and it refers to how humanity is often stuck in this worldview that is so limited (the cave - where people see only shadows of the reality), and when a person first comes out into the sunlight, they are blinded and confused and yet slowly they gain the full vision and realize the truth of not only the situation but the difficulty and challenge of convincing those still in the cave that they are even in a cave - living with a limited worldview. It has relevance to so many things... close-minded worldviews, the understanding of a deeper form of religion or spirituality, grasping who God really is (or, shall I say - we never really can - but we can have a truer understanding that God is love and grace, not judgment or condemnation or guilt), and in our own recovery from the painful circumstances of our childhoods and lives, and into a more beautiful philosophy of viewing the world and living in it with said grace and love and joy.

I can’t even express how much this whole thing means to me. I have felt for at least a decade that God has called me to speak on some deep topics to the world - something I have done only in bits and pieces. My book was to be a part of that, and after the issue that happened with that, I have sort of shrunk back from this calling. So now, in my time, it is time. Let it unfold as it should.

I love the ending line of Socrates (Plato’s teacher, who he uses in his dialogues to tell the story) - it is so beautiful and wise and profound. It speaks to “recovery” and enlightenment of the soul, and the personal growth that comes with that whole process.

“The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below…”

So with that, here are a few more photos from my Christmas with my family!

We went to spend Christmas with my mom and stepdad Skip in Frisco, outside Dallas and drove up on the 23rd. While Savi and I went out to Old Navy on Christmas Eve morn (does that even make sense?!) to use up my expiring Groupon, Sam and Skip worked on the gingerbread house construction. Skip working on the gingerbread brothel - ahem house - Sam decided that because I used tall, skinny pirouette cookies as poles outside the house, "what is this, a brothel?" I was like, say what? He was like, what kind of house has poles? Then I realized he was thinking of like pole dancing, I guess, though where that young innocent mind would come up with something like that I don't know! ;) The original plan, which we hatched while still in Houston, was that Sam was going to wear his Snuggie and his moose hat when aunt Linda and uncle Vance first arrived so he would seem like an eccentric and weird teenager. I haven't seen them since 1999 myself, so Sam was quite small and technically has never "met" them (though they've "met" him as a baby!) We laughed hysterically at the thought but he wouldn't do it once it came down to it. Darn!This is my mom, me, Savannah and Sam about ready to go to church. I'm not really taller than Savi but I had high heeled boots on - he he. My little secret for world, or, er parental, domination!
I love my girl so much!
Later we came back to the house and opened presents. This is Sam's gift to me, and I love the way he wrapped it! Looks like a hat, so I tried it on for size. It's actually a lid for my huge cast iron skillet.
Opening presents. :)
Savannah got me a ring that matches one she got too. Aww!
I had to laugh because I'm always making this face in photos - I call it the mommee face! I am always talking and Savannah is taking photos and she's like quit talking so I can take a photo already! Sam looks so handsome!
Uncle Vance and Aunt Linda! Linda is my mom's fraternal twin sister! Their daughter Holly (a medical doc) I have visited in Tacoma several times whenever I go to the Pacific Northwest! (see serendipity and snowed in from 2008)Linda and Vance got me this Jerusalem cross from Israel - I love it! And my daddy and Bev sent me this awesome long sleeve T from Wild Olive that I've been eyeing for some time. It says Transform your Mind. And on the back... It says Romans 12:2 - Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Occupy friendships... and Houston

For Daline's 40th birthday, she came up with idea to light a candle and eat something sweet to celebrate in our mind something sweet we have in our lives "right now" - not something we hope for, not something in our past. The thing I had at that time isn't in my life anymore though. Just when I think I am so strong and confident and happy, my emotions fail me. But just like winter is a rebirth, may this time be so for me.

God, winter is so beautiful and the wintry portions of my life are those which often give birth to a deeper understanding of who you created me to be, O God. Give me time to explore, to reach out, to find that ripple of hope within my soul. Amen.
- Penny Tressler

Today is turning out to be a very crappy day! I woke up so excited to spend the afternoon and evening with my daughter. We had scheduled to do two massages at the same time at this place downtown (I used a Groupon type deal) - it was for her birthday present. Then we were going to return to Ruggles since we had that restaurant fail last time we went, and they gave us our food free, and so I still had the voucher for there too. But so I called to confirm the appointments, and thank God I did because not only did they have the time wrong, they only had one not two scheduled. And the other masseuse was on vacation. Nice. Also, all this other stupid crap is happening. I have this one story I'm trying to get published and I got all these questions from an editor but no real idea what I'm really supposed to be doing with it and none of my sources can be reached because of the holidays. My cell phone isn't charging properly and it's annoying (Fortunately they're mailing me a new one tomorrow). And me and my daughter decided we're just going to do our outing another day. Sometimes I just hate being a single mom... I love being a mom, I love it more than anything. But I hate being broke, I hate struggling and I hate being alone. I never used to, but I do now. It sucks. Sorry if that's a little too real. But that's the way it goes. I have known Daline since about 1990 when we were in college - at Texas A&M - Whoop! We met when we drove together to a beach cleanup on Matagorda Island, and have been friends since. She knew me before I had met my now exhusband (and father of my 2 children), and she held my baby girl Savannah when she was little before I had moved away from College Station. After our respective divorces, we went to the Bahamas together near Christmas (2004 or 05) to "skip" it altogether and later traveled to the Peruvian Amazon together (memories of Peru and photo gallery). I visited her when she was anointed a lay Buddhist monk (boddhisattva) at Green Gulch Zen Center, and we have gotten together many other times. Over the years, near or far, we have shared so many conversations, and I love so much about her. She has introduced me to so very many concepts that have stimulated my personal development and spiritual and emotional growth such as codependency and the Work of Byron Katie - and I have such deep admiration with the bravery with which Daline approaches life, the loyalty she has to friends and family, and her beautiful soulful singing voice and her desire to follow her dreams, wherever they may lead. I spent her 40th with her, and here are some shots from the day.
She had some friends come to the park near the Menil, and we munched and some played drums and we just hung out for a while. Artist Sharon Engelstein and her daughter, Daline, and me.
Next we went to Occupy Houston to give FREE HUGS and do "random acts of dance" (I have to admit I didn't really do the dance thing, except for one song...). This is Capital Tatts wearing his Guy Fawkes face mask. This is Jamin - he showed me around. I was surprised at how few people there were there (a lot of people come and go, and it was a Sunday), but also surprised at how organized they were. They had a permanent camp set up, they were serving food to protestors and they had beds (no tents, because that would be "illegal"), and they had signs with upcoming protests. Every night at 7pm they have a meeting to discuss things - participatory democracy. Everyone was super nice and I thought it was great. Perhaps I will come up with a story idea about it - not totally in my domain, but you never know. They even publish a newspaper! This is where they sleep. A lot of homeless people come here to sleep also, and they feed them too.Declaration of Occupation: Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone. Signs with upcoming events, information, etc. Bill of Rights: We are not camping. We are assembling peaceably to petition our Government for a redress of grievances. This is our permit.
Afterwards we headed to Bohemeo's cafe where they had an open mic night and Daline got up and sang a couple songs. It was the first time I have seen her perform! I have heard her play for me, and love her music. It was so cool to see her play, especially knowing that when I started this blog, she went out and did an open mic night for the first time ever, and she was so scared she almost threw up she says!Oh my GOD they stole my idea!!!! This was painted in the bathroom. Where else would they have gotten this idea from - really? I asked when they opened and they said 2006 I think, which was after I started my blog but maybe before I changed the layout. Anyway, who knows when they put this up... but I seriously think they stole the idea from me after searching bohemian on the internet... I know my blog comes up high in search rankings... It's slightly different of course but has a LOT of the same definitions, which I found randomly all over the internets (It is right under my header on my blog...go look and compare!)Ivan, Daline, Mary, I can't remember the other dude's name but he came with Mary, and me in the back. And after hearing her play, I went home because I didn't want to be out late. Lame right! But hey I'm not a party animal anymore! Rawr!

Vegan truffles and the Christmas spirit

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay a while, make footprints on our heart, and we are never, ever the same. Snowglobe I bought at Target.
Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

Hi sweet potatoes! It has been a busy month so far. I have another blog post coming soon on my visit to Occupy Houston at Tranquility Park but I haven't had time to upload the photos. I have been finishing a big feature on obesogens (chemicals that make you fat) that will be published very soon! Meanwhile another story I wrote is in limbo and I am going nuts...so say an extra prayer to clear the pipeline because I really want that one to see the light of day (not to mention, get the money in my bank account...). I have been working on a couple of shorter articles and have another big one due in early January but - knock on wood - I'm hoping that is far enough out that I don't totally freak out and panic when it comes time to write! With Christmas coming up I'm not so sure!

I spent the first half of this month not really feeling in the spirit of the holidays, but I've finally started to get excited about Christmas! I've done almost all of my shopping (not a lot, mind you) and am making some gifts - like the truffle recipe below. I've been listening to some Christmas music even! The kids are now off school and this year they will be with me for the holiday so I'm excited to have them home every day and to celebrate the birth of Jesus!

Tonight me and the kiddos finally decorated the tree (a Douglas fir from Oregon --which I bought earlier this week - I spent a lot of time around Oregon Douglas firs as a kid!!), and we put out Christmas decorations around the house. Then we watched a movie. Savi and I had gone to Blockbuster and she wanted to see something funny so we got It's Kind of a Funny Story but as soon as we popped it in, Sam and I realized we had already seen it. Doh! I am known to do that, totally forget that I've already seen a movie!! So fortunately I happened to have another movie here, Larry Crowne. I didn't have high hopes for it, but it was actually really good! And Savi laughed a lot so that is good. I love to see my girl happy. Poor girl has been stressed over school and life and you know being a teenager isn't easy! She's an amazing girl and has no idea what a gem she is...
One of the things I'm giving out for Christmas is home made vegan truffles! The people who are getting them do not read my blog - so I can say this! I have made 3 different recipes so far, and have one more to make that has 3 different flavors (rum, mocha, and peanut butter) but I wanted to share this one because it's sooooo divinely decadent and delicious! And here's the recipe, which I modified from The Culinary Life to make them vegan:

8 ounces Baker's German chocolate, chopped fine (two bars)
2 ounces Baker's bittersweet chocolate (2 chunks within 1 package)
3/4 cup So Delicious coconut creamer (you could also try coconut milk...)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (this reads one and a half teaspoons!)
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon

Put chopped chocolate on top of a double boiler, already filled with water, and boil. If you don't have a double boiler, you can create one by putting a bowl of the chocolate over a saucepan of boiling water. The point is not to let the chocolate burn.

In another saucepan, bring the coconut creamer just to a boil, then pour it over chocolate. Gently mix the two and set them over the heat, stirring until the chocolate is melted. Stir in vanilla and cayenne, then cover and refrigerate until set(~four hours).

Rolling Truffles
After your truffle mixture has set, it's time to make balls! Get out either wax or parchment paper. This bit is tricky because even though chilled, this particular truffle mix gets really melty when you ball it. So you have to wipe off your hands regularly while making the balls. But take a teaspoon or melon baller and scoop out a bit, plop several bits on the parchment, and then roll each bit one by one between your palms to make a ball. They will be sticky. Then wipe your hands and do it again....

Next mix 1 tsp cardamom, 1 tsp ginger and 1 tsp cinnamon together, maybe with a little whisk - you want the spices mixed together. Then drop the balls one by one, coating each and then putting it back onto the parchment paper (or in these cute little cups like below). Chill in fridge. They are sooooo good! Enjoy the season pumpkins!
This last photo is actually from a different recipe - this very simple one from Vegetarian Times magazine - this chocolate was a little bit firmer and easier to ball. I rolled it in cocoa. I also added a smidgen of instant coffee and vanilla since the recipe seemed a bit simple. I used regular soy milk not chocolate soy milk. They are also very good!

Celebrating my amazing daughter!

My amazing daughter turns 17 today (it's after midnight, so it is technically her birthday!) Words can't even begin to describe how proud I am of this girl... Everyone is proud of their daughter, but she is truly a gem. At her age I was quite the wild child, and she is so opposite of what I was back then! She is such a good student, a good friend, an outstanding leader in her school and on her soccer team and she just has such a compassionate heart for orphans around the world, for those (especially children) with medical conditions, and for those less fortunate. She's fiercely intelligent, wise, funny, brave and responsible. I could not have asked for a better daughter. I'm not even kidding - she makes parenting easy!! Oh yes, we have our moments, and she can be a "teenager" but I am frequently in shock that she is such a good, well-rounded child, err, young lady. I give all the credit to God - no kidding - she is my gift from God, and she is His! Solo Gloria Deo!
On Saturday, me and Savi had a mommee-daughter day, and we first went to pick up a dozen cupcakes we ordered from this place in The Heights district called What's Up Cupcake. We got gingerbread, salted caramel, wedding cake, red velvet, brownie, and Bavarian cream. I LOVED the salted caramel - yummo! Of course I love anything salted caramel.... Before we even left the shop with the dozen, we had a cupcake each (well technically, we split the brownie cupcake and the salted caramel so we each had half of those two, a very good combination by the way). While waiting for them to get our cupcakes together, we took some self-portraits. I love this one even though it's out of focus a bit.This one's cute too even though half my face is cut off - ha ha.

Next we went to Naked Body & Bath in Rice Village, because I had gotten Savi a Groupon for some make-your-own natural body products (after reading and learning more about how phthalates are in so many fragrances, and are so bad for you, I was especially thankful I got this for her!) I've loved this place since Daline got ME a Groupon for Christmas a couple years back (we went there in March 2010 & did FREE HUGS in Rice Village)! I also took my mom there when she and my stepdad Skip came to visit us and we went to the Menil and elsewhere this summer (though I didn't take any pics of Naked B&B then). Anyway Savi got a thing of perfume made of her very own combination of fragrance oils and we each got a thing of body lotion. A cool thing about this store is you get a free foot soak in these giant copper tubs. They put a "bath bomb" in it, you soak for a while, then the lady gives you a sugar scrub that you rub into each foot, then rinse, then the Happy Feet minty lotion, and then Happy Foot spray. It's pretty cool!While in Rice Village, we went to Urban Outfitters where Savi tried on these lovely glasses.... It's a good look for her no?Savi noticed this sign, and thought it was perfect for me... Yes! I love it! It says, No Whining, No Complaining, Absolutely No Frowning. Only Hugs, Smiles, and Warm Fuzzy Feelings. Thank you. Then we poked around in Rice Village a bit (Half Price Books and some other places) and then went to dinner at Ruggles Grill, a restaurant I had been to several times and loved but had not been to in years (it's a bit pricey but I got a Groupon type thing - I love those!!) We had the weirdest experience! So we got there around 545pm, sat down, ordered, got our soup and focacia bread. Then this 18-year old kid Andrew, one of the wait staff but not our waiter, came by to tell us that the entire restaurant's wait staff had quit, so there was no one to serve our food and the restaurant would be closing. I think the entire restaurant was looking at each other like is this a joke?! So I called him back over to ask what was the dealio and he told us that the owner (chef Bruce Molzan) hadn't paid anyone at the restaurant in months. He said he was just 18 and couldn't pay his bills and he shouldn't have to be dealing with this... Poor kid! I verified the story by asking one of the managers who did remain there (he hadn't been in on the deal - the wait staff obviously planned the walk-out in advance, since it was the busiest night) & the manager also had not been paid, and a new hostess lady who had worked for 5 weeks only but also had not been paid. What the heck! We ended up staying and getting our food even after the entire restaurant was closed down because I went into the kitchen to ask some questions and our food was there so they gave it to us. Yay! Savannah's chicken was not fully cooked though... so she just ate the vegetables (Ruggles is famous for the totally delicious vegetable sides that come with every meal). I just got the veggie platter! They're SO good! No one in the whole restaurant paid for anything, including us, due to the crazy turn of events (we tried to give them the Groupon since we did actually get our full meal, but they said no). Only a handful of staff remained. So there ya go - strange but true. I want to know why this yo-yo isn't paying his wait staff. I asked around and apparently he's known for his antics and is always hated by his staff... I guess perhaps I should find another restaurant to patronize. I reported the issue to some journalists so I hope someone does an investigation!We had tacos tonight - one of everyone's favorite meals! Notice the ginormous bottle of Lizano salsa (from Costa Rica, which I recently visited) - mmmm good! And of course there's Cholula - the best hot sauce on the planet!
Savi was tired after spending like all day with her friends in the rain at Sonic! Well not all day, but you know. Some of the day.
It's very hard to get Sam to smile for photos!
Aha! Proof that he does actually smile!! I think Sam went a little overboard on the whipping cream... want some berries with that whipping cream?!
I have a tradition of sorts that on each of the kids' birthdays they wake up and I have a bunch of balloons and flowers out along with their gifts. Though Savi's birthday is technically tomorrow, since she was with me today but is with her dad tomorrow after school, we had her little gift opening and such this evening. I got her the cutest dinosaur balloon - she named him Pete.
This is the card Sam made for Savi - the Ninja Potato... it's from some silly Youtube video he made me watch in exchange for me making him watch the LMFAO video for Sexy and I Know It... though he ran out of the room in horror the second they started shaking their weiners in speedos... ha ha ha! It is such a freaking hilarious video!
I think Savi wants to stab me with a pencil. Petey looks frightened.
She found an old Polaroid camera at her Mema's (her dad's mom) and so my mom got her some film for it. While out and about on Saturday, we stopped at a camera shop too and found another old Polaroid and bought it for $5 in case the other one didn't work. The one from Mema's is at her dad's so we tried out the other one and it worked! The photo didn't process super good but we weren't sure if it wasn't light enough in the room or the camera is out of whack. But it works, so that's a good thing!

Anyway... it's been raining on and off all day, which Houston desperately needs, but it's kind of a downer... I need the sunshine! I am just finishing up a feature story, which is due Tuesday, and then will be starting up another due in early January. I was hoping to get my Christmas tree today but didn't because of the rain. So I hope to get it Tuesday and then me and the kiddos can decorate for Christmas! I need to write my holiday letter too... so many things to do! As soon as I can, I'll post some photos from the day I spent last weekend with Daline on her birthday! We went to check out Occupy Houston - interesting stuff. I don't have any travel planned at the moment, though I am feeling the itch... I really desperately want to go somewhere in the Caribbean... my soul is craving that gorgeous aquamarine water... I love the ocean.