EATING GOOD (and I mean good)

I couldn’t imagine raising a picky eater. The bloke will eat anything put in front of him (there are occasions where he is just not hungry). I cannot blend a shake with out the Bloke running into the kitchen to get a taste. Above you can see the ring around the face results from the bloke indulging in a homemade shake. The ingredients were as follows;

2/3 cup (5.1 oz)Fruit, Fresh: Blackberries, raw, edible portion
8 cherry (0.2 oz)Fruit, Fresh: Cherries, sweet, raw, edible
4x Vegetables, Fresh: Carrots, baby, raw
3 leaf (0.4 oz)Vegetables, Fresh: Spinach, raw, edible portion
1 serving, 50 berries (2.4 oz)Fruit, Fresh: Blueberries, raw,
1tbs of bean sprouts and lentils

I watched the Katie Couric clip and was 100% in agreement with her views. Check out the maps below.

READING RAINBOWS

My wife should appreciate this post….
We were driving down the road when we came across a new Jeep Wrangler driven by a baseball hat and tank top clad surfer looking dude. Par for the course in Fairfax?
Not quite, dude had a medley of rainbow items throughout the interior and exterior of Jeep. He had everything from rainbow bumper stickers to a rainbow licenses plate holder to rainbow air fresheners.
Something tells me he wanted people to know he was GAY and PROUD!
The excessive display of rainbows prompted me to turned to my wife and ask , “What if you just like rainbows?”
What if someone just really grows up loving rainbows? I don’t think kids are taught the pop culture representation of rainbows in grade school. What if you go “back to school shopping” before you first day in high school and you buy a rainbow shirt or hat because you love rainbows so much….. Good luck on your first day in high school my friend.

Sedentary Sunday Swag

You know, I really wouldn’t mind working Sundays if my job didn’t involve sitting on my ass for countless hours. I’m not a sedentary person by nature. I would so love a job that involved some type of movement. We took a family trip to the national zoo and all I could think about is how cool it would be to make the $ I make and work there.
Since I live in the “real world” the best I could do was ask my boss to request a “standing desk” from facilities (my fingers are crossed).

UPDATE: I changed the pictures because my brother-in-law told me I looked pshyc0.
Can you see the smile on my face

Been a while!

It’s been awhile since my last blog, partially because my week was pretty busy, mostly because I was without my camera charger. My lack of picture taking left me un-blog-inspired.
In my last post I talked about my quest to spend 30 days eating nothing but whole foods. I thought it best to update the blog with one caveat to that plan; I do use the very unnatural pink sweetener. Since I refuse to use sugar, I have to settle for what I see as the best of the artificial sweeteners. I don’t say sweet and low is the best because of its taste, rather “MY” research indicates it is the lease harmful to ingest.
After one week on the whole food plan, I have regained my pre New York feeling of good health. I hope to improve on this feeling with healthy eating and daily exercise , even if that exercise consist of taking the bloke on an evening stroll.

Sidenote: I know all about Stevia and the other Natural sugar substitutes, but I have yet to find a good producer of these alternatives.

Healthy Choices

I have always prided myself on my strength of will and self-discipline. These are characteristics I developed in adult-hood and continually try to improve on.
I spent last week in New York and took in all the NY delicacies that I miss living in Virginia. By day two I felt very unhealthy, but the voices in my head told me to continue to satiate my taste buds. Those damn VOICES!!!! To make matters worst, I went the entire week without exercise for the first time in about a year. I came back from New York feeling atrocious. As a result, I have presented myself a challenge. Over the next 30 days I will harness my will-power to eat a totally “whole food” healthy diet. This is not a diet to loose weight; this is more of a cleansing, an exfoliation of the body and soul.
I am interested to see how a diet of completely whole foods will affect me. I hope to see improvement in overall health, mental focus and energy. I am typically a healthy eater, but like most Americans my diet contains a good sum of processed foods. I hope the elimination of these processed foods will yield a conspicuous result.
BTW- by “whole foods” I do not mean the store.
Main Entry:
whole food
Function:
noun
Date:
1970
: a natural food and especially an unprocessed one (as a vegetable or fruit)

Good movie characters are hard to find!

Toby Jones plays Ollie Weeks in "THE MIST". After watching the movie last night Ollie has become one of my favorite all time movie characters.

Some of Ollie's great lines;

"[after David tries unsuccessfully to convince Brent of the danger outside] Leave it alone, David. You can't convince some people there's a fire even when their hair is burning. Denial is a powerful thing. "

"As a species, we're fundamentally insane. Put two of us in a room, we pick sides, and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. "

[Mrs. Carmody is preaching to her 'cult' and they're repeating expiation] "Welcome to Sesame Street, kids. Today's word is 'expiation'. "

"Those of you who aren't local should know that Mrs. Carmody is known in town for being unstable. "

WHAT THE CLAN IS UP TO NOW

do I really even need to comment on this?

Stoop Stare

Trips back home allow you to see your children in the environment you were raised in. I good portion of my life was spent on Colgate Ave in the south Bronx. Great Grandma still lives there and we went to visit her yesterday. The bloke climbed the stoop and tugged on Grandma’s gate as if he was familiar with the house. It was fun to watch the bloke run around and great to see all the family that we rarely get to visit.

Blue Moose HANGING LOOSE

Blue Moose is enjoying his stay in New York. The heat and humidity of New York is somewhat of a concern for Mr. Moose. Last night he took a break from keeping young Noah company and enjoyed a sink bath. After the sink bath, Blue Moose went hanging out and enjoyed the New York air until the wee hours of the morning.

Arrived

The Buddha mobile, aka Kermit, had a checkup before our trip to New York. After a few hours in the mechanics bay, Kermit got a clean bill of health. The Green Chariot carried us safely to New York, even negotiating a drop off in the pothole-ridden streets of Sound View.
We arrived at the parental units’ residence at 12:30am; Grandpop was waiting patiently downstairs. He carried the sleepy bloke upstairs where he somehow mustered up the energy to run around for three and a half hours before going down with a record setting bedtime of 4am.

CAKE LOVE

Do you remember what it was like to be young? Can you think back to how excited you were when you knew you were about to spend the day with that special relative or family friend that allowed you to get away with anything and spoiled you with every thing your parents forbade?
The bloke has been enjoying the presence of Uncle “Good time” and future Aunt Sally. Over the last 72 hours the bloke’s palate has experienced a medley of flavors that were previously alien. The bloke’s stomach has been the unfortunate sufferer as it has struggled to digest the likes of Cool Ranch Doritos and Remix Birthday Cake Cold Stone Shake. The list of non-Organic / Father condemned foods is too long to type. Lets just say, cheesecake chased hotdogs, a happy pamper does not make!

UNCLE ALEX IN THE HOUSE

The bloke celebrated the arrival of his Uncle Alex and soon to be Aunt Sally by breaking curfew and rolling around Harris Teeters with a farmer hat on!!!! This will be an interesting weekend as he tends to see his uncle as the gateway to rule breaking fun!

"WHO YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO" -Week 2 - Ayo

Nigerian father + Romanian Gypsy mother= Seductivly Soulful Music

NOAH NOAH NOAH the EXPLORER

My son likes nothing more than the great outdoors. Whether in the woods or on the balcony, the boy wears a smile ear from ear when he is allowed to roam free.
I’m going to find him a shirt that says FREE RANGE KID!
My boy’s love of running free does put in perspective some parents choice to use a “kiddy leash”. I couldn’t even imagine strapping my kid into one of those harnesses, but I find joy in chasing the bloke around. I see some parents get so frustrated when their child doesn’t stay in place like a well-trained puppy. Do we as a society go overboard, and as a result stunt our children’s natural extinct to explore?

THE FACE OF A BULLY?

Yesterday my wife blogged about her morning trip to the children’s section of Barnes and Nobles. She vented about the embarrassment caused by the Bloke behaving like a bully. She was mortified after seeing him push kids and snatch toys. This could not be! Noah? Buddha Bear?
I have been to the children’s section of B&N with the bloke before and he never behaved in such a manner. The Wife has taken him there numerous times and his previous behavior has always made her proud.
So what got into the bloke? What caused this bad behavior?

Here is my theory…. Noah is normally a very patient young man, but on the morning in question, as he walked up to B&N he realized , “Its about to storm!”. Noah knew his playtime would be cut short as mom would soon realize the change in weather and hence rush to leave in order to beat the storm home. Noah felt he had no time for politeness, grabbed Thomas the Engine, and tried to complete as many trips around the train track as possible.

Even if my theory is true, Noah’s behavior was unacceptable. I have already had a conversation with him about his behavior. Sadly, I think he only understood 70% of what I said.

To commemorate this unfortunate but educational event, I have created a new photoblog called “ABOUT TO STORM”. The url is abouttostorm.blogspot.com . The site is still under construction.
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