Day Thirteen

Today was fairly interesting. I managed to sleep until 6:20 which was a great accomplishment. I only hope to replicate that again tonight! I made myself my usual smoothie in the morning then did some blogging, cleaning and gluten free, vegan baking. I used the Babycakes cookbook for both of these loaves.


This is the apple-cinnamon toastie loaf. In it's entirety!

Freshly sliced. This was an amazing loaf. It was great, dense yet moist and it had pieces of roasted apples inside!

This was the banana chocolate chip loaf sliced. It had an almost fluffy texture with pieces of melty chocolate chip and chunks of banana :)

By the time I was done cleaning and baking I didn't have much time to eat before I had to run a couple of errands before my cousins arrived for a visit. So I just had some leftover fried rice and called it lunch. I also made two bottles of herbal iced tea -one raspberry and the other lemon.

Rachel and Rejeanne arrived for a really nice visit. I served the fruit loaves and they were loved by all. It seems that most people liked the banana one best but personally I preferred the apple.

Rachel's kids were a blast and just adorable. I hope I don't have to wait another 6 or 7 years (I can't remember how long it's been) before we get another visit!

Sorry for the blurry quality of the picture here. For dinner I steamed carrots and broccoli and mashed potatoes with garlic and kale (that was REALLY good). I served the boys of the house BBQ'd pork chops and did BBQ'd tempeh for Maddie and me. I didn't follow a recipe and had never cooked or eaten it before so I was kind of flying blind. I just plopped the big square in the pan and fried it, then slathered it with BBQ sauce and cooked a bit longer. It was...just close to okay. I will try it again though. This time I'll follow an actual recipe :)

I have a question for those of you trying to fit everything in. Cooking from scratch, exercise, meditation, being creative, blogging, working etc.. How do you fit it all in? I've worked out a schedule or rather a "rhythm" to my day and week and posted it on my other blog. It's at http://www.asfarashome.blogspot.com/. I'm going to try and follow it and see how it goes. But I'd love some idea of how others deal with organizing/scheduling everything.

In her cleanse book Kathy Freston asks us to make a list of seven things that you love to do and make you happy. Here's my list:

1. go to the movies

2. go out for lunch or dinner

3. mess around with art supplies

4. sing and dance around the house with my ipod

5. walk in the forest or by the water

6. see the sunset

7. read outside

Now I have to slot these things into each of the seven days of the week. It's a matter of lightening up and keeping our joi de vivre. Sounds good to me!