Challenges of Life

Life has been offering us many challenges. Some of which we wish we would not have been offered. One of those challenges occurred October 16th, 2011 when Martha’s mother passed away. Adelaide Rogers “Tad” Murphy was Martha’s best friend and biggest supporter. To say that Martha (we) miss Tad is an understatement. It is always hard to lose a parent and a friend. Tad taught all that knew her what it was like to be truly selfless. She always put others first and she always expected nothing in return. Never a bad word about anyone. This world is better because she was in it. And it would be much better if more people were like her. We miss and love you deeply Tad. Thank you God for sharing her with us.

With 2012 almost here life is about to change again. I have resigned my 11 year position so that I may pursue a vastly different job with Martha’s brother-in-law. This new job will allow me more time to focus on our own business by allowing me to work from home part of the time. In addition to the new job we are also doing our first wholesale show in Florida in January and then a second show in Vegas in June. Nerve racking but exciting.

Lastly, we are going back to our healthy raw vegan lifestyle. As you can imagine it has been hard to maintain raw vegan when your world has been turned upside down. These last few months have been very difficult to say the least. Things are finally leveling off to were we can get back in to the swing of raw. Both of us feel so good eating raw that we will succeed. We love life to much not to.

Namaste friends…

Mobile Blogging

Testing mobile blogging. So far so good. Works in a pinch.

Added photo of Martha to see how it attaches them.

(note: had to resize image via browser, was way to large)

And here we are…

Six months after going Raw Vegan (mostly) we are still super happy and feeling great! I personally have lost about 30 pounds and feel better than I have ever felt. Martha has chosen not to do the weigh in thing, but I am certain she has lost 20+ pounds. She is wearing cloths she has not wore in a long time and she to is feeling great!

Raw Vegan suits us both. Although we have the occasional cheat, we stay pretty much on track. We love our smoothies and salads! We look forward to both everyday and believe it or not, we do not grow tired at all eating this way. Our Vitamix and Cuisinart are our two best purchases in a long time. Both allow us to make some awesome food!

We have been getting some things from an organic store not far from us. Of course we don’t eat pure organic but we do what we can. Our garden was a huge success in providing for us and we look forward to next years garden! We plan to add at least one more raised bed for sure if not two. My goal is to get some hydroponics going over the winter so we can see what we can produce indoors. One can never learn to much

I continue to Meditate twice daily and Martha has started dabbling in meditation as well. We are both excising each day in some fashion or another and we are both adding some yoga stretching to our day. The above photo is my horse, Miakoda (koda). He decide to stretch the other day and I snagged this shot of him. In the words of my sister, he is doing “Downward facing horse”. Thanks sis!

Business keeps picking up and both of us remain busy busy.

Namaste…

Meditation

Meditation 5:30am in the midst of a thunderstorm. Silence and calm other than thunder/lighting and the pouring rain, what a wonderful back drop to a nice meditation. After which came a short yoga stretch session. A few minutes is all it takes to feel a nice burn and to realize just how long it has been since I was in shape. I will get there.

Then for the morning smoothie.... mangos, banana and orange. This smoothie, add pineapple or strawberries, is our favorite. It is so good. Today I will be picking at apples and bananas. Maybe a salad for lunch, we shall see. Snacking will be more apples and some nuts. Not many, just a few for the crunch factor.

Martha and I are working very hard. Our business has picked up and is getting down right crazy. In a good way mind you. The way the world is today it is good to have the work and income rather than not. Both of us continue to sneak exercise in to our day. That is a must in order to maintain our physical and mental health. We are both feeling great even though it is crazy.

Life is good.

Nice day for a bike ride…

We have both been working like crazy these last few weeks. Biking has become something we both really look forward to. This morning was no exception. We only did a little over 20 miles, but the first 10 miles was up hill. Not a steep grade, but up hill none the less.

We started in Confluence and biked to the Pinkerton tunnel. This section of the trail is almost all under canopy. Very pretty riding with some very cool bridges. To bad I forgot the dang camera! Here is the GPS data from this ride….

I am trying to get all the sections under my belt that I will ride in one day. I think I have 2 or so sections to go. And then my fall ride will be 80 miles in a day. Should work out good. And really be fairly easy. Famous last words. lol

46 Miles!! Are you insane!!

It would appear that way. Martha’s niece Emily is here for the weekend with us and we decided to go for a nice bike ride on the trail. We figured 24 miles, from Rockwood to Meyersdale and back.

When we arrived at Meyersdale and had a little rest, and some water, it was determined that we all felt pretty good! So hey, let’s show Em the Big Savage tunnel. It’s only 9.6 miles further.

When we got to Big Savage we figured it would be dumb not to ride through it to the other side. So through the tunnel we rode.

Once on the other side I remembered that the Maryland state line was only another mile, or so.

So there we were, Maryland! And need I say, 23 miles from the truck! Yikes!

Here is the trip data. Not bad considering we were pretty kicked in the butt when we got back to Rockwood. We figured we spent about an hour total in stops. So actual biking time was about 5 hours.

Feeling Tired While Eating Raw Foods?

I have been feeling pretty wiped out in the afternoons lately and think I have a solution to the issue.  (at first I thought napping was the answer:)......however, I am now supplementing with B12 and I noticed when I start to feel tired I am also feeling hungry.  So, I am adding in another smoothie in the afternoon and when I feel super tired, I am going to either walk a little or ride my bike.

Today for lunch I am having frozen wild strawberries, fresh picked blueberries and banana as a smoothie.  I also picked up 5 bags of ripe bananas that I will peel, slice and freeze this afternoon.  All in all I am having a really good day and feel very energetic, even after mowing our lawn that was like mowing a field!

Summer time foods

Although it is discouraging to see that the summer light is changing and it is getting darker earlier, we are still having summer!  Our garden is like a jungle and slow to ripen tomatoes because of the recent rains.  However, we have new snow peas coming in, some tomatoes, beans, peppers, cukes and eggplant.  I am hoping that the butternut squash that is taking over the lawn will actually produce. 

Tonight dinner is mixed greens with red grapes, walnuts, peppers, yellow tomatoes, celery and cucumber.  I have also made some sun dried tomato hummus as a side.  Rick forgot his smoothie this am so it will be our beverage with dinner.

I hope to borrow Rick's truck tomorrow as I am headed to the bike trail on my own.  The weather is finally changing again so it looks like I will be working in metal, riding horses and bikes!

Cycling more of the trail.

This past weekend we cycled another section of the Great Allegheny Passage. This time it is the section from Meyersdale to the Big Savage tunnel. 9.6 miles to the tunnel, and .6 miles through. So in total 20.4 miles round trip give or take .5 miles.


This is the south side of the tunnel. Was amazing the air pumping from the tunnel. Being over 3000 feet long it acts like a cave, it pumps or sucks air as the tunnel tries to equailize with the outside air. Was pumping huge volumes of cold air.

Here we are just inside the entrance on the north end. You can see it is lighted the whole way. Super nice ride as well!

Wow look at the white legs on that guy! I must say that cycling and kayaking is really helping both of us become more fit.

 Now this is either an underpass or a tunnel. Guess it depends on how you look at it. This one is super nice and sports some nice murals.

Last 5 miles was in the rain. And I do mean a  torrential down pour! We has a blast even with the rain. Can not wait to get out there again!

Keep on eating RAW!

Exercise and the RAW lifestyle continues

We have been doing a lot of exercising in the last few weeks. Our weapons of choice, cycling and flat water kayaking. Both are great workouts and we have great local locations to do both. For cycling we have the Great Allegheny Passage. 141 miles of trail from Cumberland, MD to Pittsburgh, PA. Check out their website for more details.

For kayaking we have many lake options. One of the best local lakes is the Quemahoning Dam. There are many other nearby lakes for us to paddle. And Martha has started to use a sup paddle board (stand up paddling). Great workout! Plus our dog Foxxy loves to sail on that ship. Check her out...

We continue to eat mostly RAW. I am guessing 85-90% and we both continue to feel great. The other 10% (cheat times) have proven interesting. One of those “other” times we had chocolate covered pretzels. Ah so what you say… well, eat RAW the better part of four or five months and then eat them. They put you in a coma. We were both so freaking tired it was amazing. Anyway, RAW is the way for us. Funny thing is we are actually having fun eating this way.

Recipe nailed down

We have been working on our breakfast smoothie recipe and I think it is done. There are actually two of them, one is green and one is orange.

Green Smoothie

• Kale, 3-5 leafs (and or your favorite greens)
• 1 celery stick
• 2 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 whole orange
• flax (fresh ground, 2 teaspoon)
• ice

Orange Smoothie

• carrot, 3-4 large
• 1 celery stick
• 1 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 whole orange
• flax (fresh ground, 2 teaspoon)

 

We have been having these every day. We do a few days green, then a few days orange. We are using a Vitamix to make our smoothies.

Enjoy!

Day 30 of our Green Challenge

We have both lost track of how many days we have been making and consuming the smoothies.  Much to our delight, it is day 30!  Initially we had talked about rewarding ourselves on the last night with dinner at our favorite restaurant.  Ironically, we both agreed that this does not sound appealing to us at this point. 

I am thrilled to say that this experience is going to continue in our lives for an indefinite amount of time.  For me the significant changes have not been about the weight loss (although I have lost about 8 pounds this month:)....In fact, my energy level has increased so much and I am actually sleeping much better at night.  I have not taken any of my acid reflux medicine for over two months and some of the allergy symptoms that bothered me before have all but vanished.

For both of us, our lives have begun to change from this diet change.  I am not bored with a good salad and our goals now for as long as we can see are to stay at about 80-85% raw and vegan.  The simple facts are we are spending less money and time and putting much better foods into our bodies!

Bon Appetit!

On the trail again...

Here we are at day 26. We spent the afternoon riding on the Great Allegheny Passage (rails to trails) with our friends, Sheryl and Jerry. The trail comes within a mile of their house so it is very easy access. And it is on the Pittsburgh section (still 15 miles from the city) which is an area we never rode in. Total we only did 8 miles but it was super riding and physically we handled it with ease. Jerry and I are planning a trip from their place to Meyersdale in the fall. I think we figured it is something like 70 miles. So I will need to get some biking in and get some conditioning. Nice day!

Day 25

We are on day 25 of our 30 day raw food challenge. It actually has been pretty easy. I guess mainly because we have both seen results early on. We have experienced:

 

• better sleep
• more alert 
• no afternoon blues (sleepiness) 
• weight loss 
• clear thoughts

 

The weight loss for me has been nice. I have lost 10 pounds over these last 25 days. And 24 pounds over the last 3.5 months since going high raw(80%). My sister-in-law who is an avid runner claims that for every pound you lose that is 4 pounds of pressure off your knees.

We have already decided that when we are done with the 30 days we are going to stay high raw. The benefits are well worth it. And we both feel great.

 

Eat your greens!

Momma always said “eat your greens”. I just don’t think this is what she had in mind. Nice hand full of fresh kale from my co-workers garden. Thanks Brandon! One banana and two oranges to flavor it up. Tasted fantastic! And good for you!

Liquid Gold

This morning we put the sun in a glass. Banana, carrots, oranges and lemon. This one is very good. And a lot more filling than you would think.

Hi ho hi ho it’s off to work we go.

Must watch documentary

if you have or know someone who has type 2 diabetes you need to watch this video, or have them watch it. there are 7 parts in all and worth every minute in my opinion.

Cherry of a Breakfast

This mornings smoothie consisted of 25 bing cherries, 1 apple and 4 leafs romaine lettuce. Add 3 cups water and blend. Made 2 servings. Nice way to start the day.

We get our recipe stats here.... Recipe Calculator

Amount Per Serving
Calories		118.9
Total Fat		0.6 g
	Saturated Fat	0.1 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.2 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	0.1 g
Cholesterol		0.0 mg
Sodium		6.3 mg
Potassium		368.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate		30.2 g
	Dietary Fiber	5.0 g
	Sugars	10.9 g
Protein		1.4

Vitamin A	12.6 %
Vitamin B-12	0.0 %
Vitamin B-6	5.1 %
Vitamin C	28.0 %
Vitamin D	0.0 %
Vitamin E	2.7 %
Calcium	3.0 %
Copper	5.9 %
Folate	8.4 %
Iron	4.0 %
Magnesium	4.6 %
Manganese	11.7 %
Niacin	1.6 %
Pantothenic Acid	2.7 %
Phosphorus	3.4 %
Riboflavin	3.7 %
Selenium	0.5 %
Thiamin	4.1 %
Zinc	1.0 %