This Moment is Your Life

I have this sign nailed to the fence right outside my front door.
'This Moment is Your Life.'

Over the years, it's always been there, reminding me. And depending what's going on in my life, I either see it or I don't... but it's always there.

I sometimes stare at this sign and feel its message, and breathe in the gratitude, for I have much to be grateful for.

There are days I rush past this sign and ignore it completely, but I honestly seem to have better days when I take the time to see it.

The whole thing kinda reminds me of raw food. There are times when I'm so grateful to be eating such an abundance of raw, living foods, and other times when I am in too big a rush and ignore things completely. And I always have better days when I eat raw. You know, one meal away from either good or bad health...This moment is your life...this food is your life. Anyway, just a Monday morning musing.

What a happy, promising weekend!

Our gig on Friday night was such a blast! We haven't played with the full band in a couple years, and this was such a gift!

And it was in a beautiful little venue! It's definitely a beach party atmosphere at this pub. There are these giant garage doors that were open to the patio, with every table filled. Across the street is a gorgeous beach with a boardwalk. It was the perfect evening, and the sunset was phenomenal.

Even though it was our debut here, the crowd seemed more than ready for a show, and they cheered even after our acoustic sound-check! :) I do love to feel welcome! When the drums and bass joined us, it made the place rise to their feet and dance and it was a wonderful party... for a couple sets. Middle of the last set, Officer No-Fun showed up! The pub has a license that doesn't include dancing, of all things. What the hell can dancing hurt? Unreal. It was kinda funny for me, as a singer, to be belting it out with one eye on the show and the other on the proceedings with the cop and his clipboard. And the band played on! We look forward to playing here again!

Saturday, I strummed a little guitar, picked a little banjo, and learned a couple new tunes, rode around on the Harley, and soaked more buckwheat, some sunflower seeds, and some chick peas. Gettin' braver in my soaking & sprouting. These are things I tried a couple years back and one moldy, stinky, ruined batch and I ran away from it like a little girl. I'm older and wiser now ;) and I'm determined! I ordered another sprouter from sproutpeople, called Easy Sprout.

Right now, I have my buckwheat in my Biosta, and my sunnies are in the dehydrator after soaking in a jar for several hours and my chickpeas are in a glass jar with a red nylon sock over the mouth, hanging upside down, at a 45 degree angle, draining into a bowl. (that does NOT sound like fun!) I got nylons from the thrift store, they sell old stock in packages. RED, so I figure they are from the 80s but the sprouts don't care about fashion. Oh yeah, and neither do I ;)

The sunflower seeds are for making Rawritos and the chick peas are for hummus, and the buckwheat's for the nut-free bread I've been threatening to make!

So I'm a Rawkin' Sprout Mama right now. We'll see how it goes...

I am freezing the hummus and nut-free bread for another time, and the rawritos are for a friend because my boyfriend and I are embarking on a no-fat week. Just a week.

When I was at the Victoria Boutenko retreat, she was saying that your body can reset itself to deep healing if you take the fat out for a week. That means no oils (olive, sesame, hemp, coconut, etc.) no avocados, no nuts - which as you know, I'm already there.
This means mostly smoothies, salads, fruits, vegetables. Just for a week. I don't know who I'm reassuring more... you or me ;)

Both my boyfriend and I are feeling inspired to do this. When I mentioned it to him, he thought for a moment and said, "I'm In!" And from that launching off point it's been kind of exciting talking about it this weekend.

We rode the bike over to the new Whole Foods location to prepare by getting a bunch of greens and fruit. Holy goat, it's huge in there. A GIANT warehouse, very Superstore/Costco...and with that weird boutique track lighting above the produce section. Damn, I miss the old location; it made sense to me. We both just sorta stood there staring at fruit and then walking a few steps and staring at vegetables. After a few go's of this, I said, "Shit, I dunno..." And he said, "Yeah, I know. I'm overwhelmed!"

Haha, couple 'o' old farts.

In the end, we realized we should come back Tuesday with the van and more money, lol, so we just picked up a couple bags' worth of produce and rode off on the bike. I try to balance it when we're riding, but one side was pretty ferkin' heavy this time, because we couldn't resist the 3 for $10 pineapples! ;)
Another way we prepped was keeping it very light yesterday. I made big double batches of smoothies and we filled up on those at three separate times yesterday. I love pineapple & frozen mixed berries in a smoothie, holy cow does it ever make it festive in your mouth, even when combined with hardcore leaves like chard and kale. Sweetest smoothies ever. I also threw apples and bananas in there. Now, even though ya shouldn't combine pineapple with a starchy fruit like banana, neither of us had the slightest digestive discomfort, so in they went, and in they will go unless and until something backs up, so to speak. But it was nothing but delicious.

We also enjoyed random fruit and salads, and we used up the avocado and the last of the dip we had so that these would not be in our face(s) this week.

So here we are, Day 1 of Rawkin's Fatless week. So far, I've enjoyed a tangelo and after this, I'll make a gorgeous and delicious smoothie, and even though it's just me...what the hell, a double batch.

Happy Monday, Rawkers!