Chinese Cultural Center

Sunday we took a mini adventure down to the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix (as mentioned here). I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was hoping it was something like Chinatown in SF or LA. When we got there, it looked more like a strip mall filled with Chinese shops. Slight disappointment.

Our mission was to visit this tiny little herb shop called Healthy Chinese Herbs (any Arrested Development fans, you might understand why I kept saying "Ancient Chinese Secret!" all day).

Ancient Chinese Secret!

The shop was small and a whole wall was just FILLED with drawers containing different types of herbs, bark, roots, flowers, and other various items. Apparently you tell them a little bit about yourself, then they make a special blend specifically for whatever ailments/results you want.

We waited our turn and then went in to see the "doctor". He asked about any prescriptions we were on, felt our pulse, looked at our tongue and then suddenly knew what we needed. It was uncanny how much he deduced with only asking us a few questions. We were given our ... uh, recipes? prescriptions? pieces of papers with our names and a bunch of Chinese symbols on it? and we headed back to the front counter where they would bundle up our personalized teas. She said it would be a 15 minute wait so we decided to wander around.

That's when we found this lovely jewel of a garden. Just around the corner. Yay!

A little boy informed me that the bridge was zig-zag because they believed that evil could only move in straight lines. I have yet to research the truth behind this, but I felt it was an interesting "fact". 

We strolled around the garden, took some pics, and said "hi!" to the fishies and the tadpoles. This was what I was hoping for. Something pretty to look at.

After (slightly) more than 15 minutes, we wandered back inside to get our teas. Tell me how cool these look:

Mine - to help increase blood flow and give me more energy. 

Boyfriend's - to help with his cold and allergies. 

We got five packs each (one picture shows one pack), you boil the whole thing with water, then strain it and drink it. Not gonna lie... I'm terrified to try this. It looks more like it should be decorating my bathroom than going into my belly... but I promised I would at least try it.

What's life with out a little adventure, eh?

Weekend Recap

What a weekend! 

I had Friday off, so I spent the day shopping and wining and dining myself. 

And by wine, I mean beer. 

And by dine, I mean pizza. 

Obviously.

spinach, artichoke, kalamata olives, feta cheese, onions, red peppers and pesto
aka heaven in my mouth

Then Friday night I met up with some friends that I hadn't seen in a few months at the grand opening of El Santo Cantina, a neat little cabana/cantina type bar that has a pool and a tiki hut sort of theme. All of their drinks were half off so I helped myself to a couple of skinny margaritas. You can probably tell I'm not a seasoned blogger yet, because I didn't take too many pictures during the night.

Thanks, sleeve, for making me look disfigured.

We only managed to take this picture because someone was trying to play cupid and wanted to have a picture of one of these fine ladies to show his friend at work. 

Saturday, was our big birthday celebrations and I started out the night with my boyfriend and his friends. We went to Geisha A Go Go for happy hour (Yes, I know. I had sushi on Cinco de Mayo... but the boyfriend isn't a big fan of Mexican food. I never claimed he was without fault.) It wasn't crowded at all and we tried some BOMB cucumber infused sake. 

Happy Birthday, Cooper!

Then, after dinner (but before meeting up with my roommate and her fiance for their birthday celebrations) we all decided to have a mini photo shoot... with weapons. 

Because, that's what you do on Cinco de Mayo, right? 

I'm totally chanelling Leonardo right now. 

 By the way, I may or may not have stuck this pose before.

Zach's little knife was no match for my swords... but uh, I probably should look out behind me.

And then there was the time that the boys said "hey, you should wear this hat in the pictures".
Fashion photo shoot.
Bam. I guess I am a blogger.

 Then we finally made it out to Old Town Scottsdale and bar hopped all over the place. We met up with like 15 other friends, took a million practically no pictures... but had a blast!

The ONE picture we did take out on Saturday night.

Sunday morning we headed on down to the Chinese Cultural Center for some individualized herbal teas, but I will tell you all about that adventure in a different post. 

After the Chinese Cultural Center we went to The Grind for lunch. This is technically where me and the boyfriend had our first date. Which was kind of fitting because our 8 month anniversary was just a few days earlier. I don't think we have ever officially celebrated our monthiversaries, but it was a nice coincidence.

His food... of course I didn't think to take a picture of my own food.

Things I learned this weekend: 

1. I am not as graceful in heels as I thought I was. Let's just say I fought the curb... and the curb won. There was no face plant (thank god!) but I did manage to twist my ankle.

2. I need to remember to take more pictures. I get so distracted having fun, eating food and playing with swords, unless someone else grabs my camera, I'll have nothing to share. 

3. I am in desperate need for some Mexican food. It's been too long, my friend. Next time I wine and dine myself.... we're going burrito/cerveza style. 

What did you guys do this weekend? 

Did you have an awesome Cinco de Mayo?

Dear Robin..

... i love you.

thank you for being my friend.

thank you for the past ten or so years.

thank you for introducing me to double dream hands

and happy cinco de drinko!

Juice Day 3 & 4

My recap for the past two days is essentially the same as days 1 and 2. Juice, bootcamp, veggie dinner.

Day 3: Juice 1

2 granny smith apples, 4 carrots, 1 cucumber, 2 handfuls spinach, 3 leaves rainbow chard, 1 inch ginger

 Day 2: Juice 2

2 cups blackberries, 6 strawberries, 1 cucumber
one of my favorite juices
tastes like springtime in your mouth 

Day 4: Juice 1

5 carrots, inch of ginger, 4 leaves purple cabbage, 3 leaves rainbow chard, 1 cucumber
I ran out of apples... so extra carrots for sweetness. 

From the top, this juice looks groovy...

...from the side, not so much.

 Day 4: Juice 2

1 navel orange, 2 tangelos, 2 mangos, 1 cup coconut water (not pictured)
this was amazing as well!! sooooo yummy!!

I highly recommend a juice reboot or even just adding juice and/or smoothies to your daily routine... so much vitamins packed into that little glass! And by golly are they delicious.

Tomorrow I have the day off (um, woohoo!!!) ... and I will be taking myself out for a day on the town. Shopping, eating and the meeting up with a few girl friends for the grand opening of El Santo Cantina (if anyone else in the area wants to go, let me know! I'd love to meet some local blogger and, of course, the more the merrier!). My Saturday and Sunday have not been set in stone yet, but I know there will be lots of fun, food and fiesta-ing. I feel like its Christmas... but maybe its just Cinco de Mayo. And maybe I'm just having an awesome week.

Hope you are all having an awesome week as well!!  

Juice Day #2

Day two of "jucing". I'm not even sure I can call it that, because I'm not drinking only juice during these five days. But its still some sort of reboot, and I'm loving the results.

{Juice 1}

purple cabage, cameo apples, lemon, rainbow chard and carrots

After I juiced those, I realized it did not make enough juice... 

Only half full! But it IS colorful

So I added another batch of goodies to the same cup:

spinach, more rainbow chard, another cameo apple, the other half of the lemon

{Juice 2} 

3 navel oranges, handful of strawberries

best juice I've made so far

Lucky for me, there were no speed bumps today. Everything went as planned. I was not hungry and had no headaches all day :) 

Today was an off day from bootcamp so I headed over to the gym to do just a little but of running. The gym was so crowded today! I wonder if everyone else in Arizona is participating in Healthy May as well? Haha.

{Dinner}

After the gym I headed home and made my dinner - sauteed spinach with garlic on raw zucchini noodles. 

I'm currently obsessed with zucchini noodles. They are delicious and healthy! 

Until tomorrow - have a great (healthy) day!! 

Juice Day #1

May day! May day! May is finally here :)

[source]

It's now one month closer to my birthday, one month closer to the wedding, one month closer to being healthier. I already had personal goals set for myself, but now I am excited to be linking up with Here Comes the Sun for Healthy May (you can see the rules/guidelines/suggestions for Health May here). This is just one more way to keep me accountable and excited about my continuing journey towards health.

I will be tracking my food and exercise on SparkPeople (we could be Sparkfriends if you also use it), tweeting about progress (Twitter: @lebonk) about progress and taking pics of stuff along the way (Instagram: @lebonk).

Anyways - on to Healthy May and recapping my first day of "juicing"... Yesterday morning I woke up bright and early to get my juice on. I made two juices, one for breakfast and one for lunch. I was ready to hit the ground running! 

{Juice 1}

4 celery stalks, 4 carrots, 2 cameo apples, 2 kale leaves, large handful of spinach

Green!

Now I'm not claiming to be any kind of juice recipe expert... so if you copy these recipes and you hate them, don't blame me. I'm just sharing what I did.

sidebar: I gave samples of this juice to my boyfriend and his roommate... boyfriend always loves my green juice, roommate politely tried a sip and then, when I wasn't looking, let boyfriend finish the rest. Moral of the story: not everyone likes to drink a garden.

{Juice 2}

1 cucumber, handful of strawberries, handful of blackberries, handful of spinach, 1 granny smith apple, 1 cameo apple

Now this is where I hit my first speed bump. I had an off-site client meeting at 9:30am, and was supposed
to be back to the office around 11:30am, so I did not bring any juice with me. The meeting ran long... and I kept looking at the clock, hoping that we could wrap it up soon... but I didn't get back to the office until almost 3pm. I was STARVING and had a massive headache!

I chugged a boatload of water and downed my second juice but it wasn't helping. I had some cucumber slices and carrot sticks in the fridge from last week so I went ahead and ate those. The headache eventually subsided and I was ready to roll.

Then I went to bootcamp... start of week two - woohoo! 
Bootcamp was great, but when I got home I needed more than just juice to munch on. I knew this was going to be a possibility, so I went to my backup plan: I will be juicing during the day and then eating some healthy plant-based dinner after my workouts.

Monday's dinner ended up being kale chips (recipe to be posted at some future date) and some delicious coconut water. Coconut water is delicious and GREAT for after a workout. 

Do you guys have any health/diet/exercise plans for May? 

Anyone else interested in joining in Healthy May? 

Anyone have a good juice recipe for me to try this week?

Goodbye, Weekend.

Another weekend, come and gone. 

This weekend was lots of fun! 

Saturday I went shoping for bridesmaid dresses with my roommate... and I think we found a few that would work quite well! Just have to run them by the other bridesmaids. 

Then today I went grocery shopping and bought a TON of produce. 

Apples (gala and granny), oranges, tangerines, mangos, limes, lemons
(all the veggies are in the fridge)

For the next four days I am doing a mini juice fast/cleanse/feast/whatever you want to call it. I've done a few days before in the past and think its a great way to reboot your system and get back on track. Please feel free to ask me about it in the next five days and hold me accountable! (If you want to know more about juicing, you can always visit Ashley's blog where she documented her 30 Day Juice Fast.) 

After grocery shopping, my boyfriend and his friend came over for a friendly game of Monopoly City. 

Just so you know, I owned Riverside, and I built a stadium there. You're welcome, hometown.

It was all of our first time playing this version, so it was quite amusing trying to figure out the rules. 

After we got the hang of it, we played for a few hours and then tried not to pout too much when my boyfriend took all our money (Where'd you get the pink fifty's, grandma?!?). 

At least I got second place :) 

It's always a little sad when you have to say goodbye to the weekend,  

BUT - I'm almost more excited for this upcoming week!! 

In the next week, we have Cinco de Mayo to celebrate (Mexican food? Margaritas? Pinatas? YES PLEASE!) 

Also, I have three birthdays to celebrate (my roommate's, my roommate's man's and my man's roommate... did I confuse you with that? I found it amusing I could describe them all in such few terms). 

I wish I had a Cinco de Mayo birthday! 

In addition to all of these celebrations, I have bootcamp week #2. I'm loving this bootcamp and wish it was six days a week instead of three! 

How was your weekend?  Do you have anything exciting planned for this upcoming week? 

Will anyone be in Old Town Scottsdale on Saturday for Cinco De Mayo festivities?

1000 Gifts: Update

one thousand... a dime... un mil... a grand... a 'G'...

Yup, by the end of 2012, we are aiming to have 1000 gifts that we are thankful for. 

(source)

Since beginning this endeavor, our lists have grown. 

Budding and blooming everyday with things that make us smile. 

There's really so much to appreciate in this thing called life!

Please take a minute to read our updates...

1000 Gifts a la Robin 

1000 Gifts a la Ashley

....and then ponder, what are you grateful for today??

(source)

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Hump Day Quotables

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Happy Hump Day! 

Bootcamp Day #1

I did it! I survived the first day of boot camp!

It was much better than I was expecting :)

 To be honest, I was really apprehensive about starting boot camp, 

as I said earlier, my fitness level is not what it used to be 

and I tend to over think everything; I was being a big scaredy cat.

Worried that I would be the slowest one,

Worried that I would be the weakest one,

Worried that I would be the whiniest one

(ok, I guess I have control over that one)

(source) 

But it was great!

It was a good workout, the leader was super encouraging

and the other participants were also really friendly.

Yesterday was a mix of a little bit of everything.

We ran some laps, did a cardio circuit (high knees, jumping jacks, zigzags, pushups, repeat), 

squats, lunges, more push ups and some moves targeting shoulders, triceps, biceps and core 
(presses, curls and dips.. oh my!) 

Little. Bit. Of. Everything.

(source)


 The leader wants us to set a goal for the next month. Most girls said something like 
“to tone up” or “to not quit”, but I want something more substantial and SMART

I thought about saying "I want to lose ___ pounds",
but let's be honest here (and we can be honest, right??) 
 I'm gonna get super buff... like bench-pressing-a-rhino-while-yogging-uphill kinda buff

(Ashley, you with me on this? Let's find some rhinos...)

And we all know muscle weighs more than fat, 

so judging my progress purely on my gravitational pull isn't sufficient for me.
So I'm gonna go for a loss of __% body fat.
I have a number in my head, but don't want to say it aloud until I do a little more research.

  My bathroom scale is AMAZING and tracks everything, so it should be easy to judge.

(source)

Have you ever done a boot camp? 
Do you have any pre-summer-slash-bathing-suit workout plans?

What % body fat do you think is realistic to loose in 4 weeks? 

I tried to find sources online for a good "one month goal" but couldn't find much. 
I'd love to hear your opinion!

4 truths...

1. im exhausted from a weekend of bachelorette and baby showers...

2.... which means i dont feel like blogging.

3. pissed and jealous i didn't buy a vegetable spiralizer

4. happy to find other people who think SVU is by far the BEST law and order

"That's Nonsense, I Invented Electricity. Ben Franklin Is The Devil!"

-Ash

Healthy Curly Fries

before you read the title/ingredients below and decide it sounds "gross", 

take a sneak peek at the end product 

Mmmmm... so delish!

ok, so now for the secret ingredient

this was another experiment with yet another random vegetable 

that arrived in my weekly box o' organic goodies...

....

turnips!! 

they don't look yummy yet, but they will, just wait

to be honest, i don't think i have ever had turnips before this

and i had no idea what they would taste like 

or how to cook them 

and they sounded gross to me at first 

i mean, just say the word aloud.... turnips... tuuurnippss (see?)

but i feel bad wasting food, and i already had them in my fridge 

so i started trying to brainstorm how i would cook em

then my handy dandy veggie spiralizer arrived on my doorstep

and i just had to use it on something

oh the possibilities! 

soooo spiral somethings?

curly somethings? turnip somethings?

curly fries? turnip fries? 

sure, lets go with all of the above

OVEN BAKED TURNIP FRIES

Ingredients

• 3 turnips
• 1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp onion salt 
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• parsley (to make it look pretty at the end)

 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray (makes for easy clean up - i use organic olive oil spray).

2. Wash and peel the turnips. Cut into fry-size sticks (the thinner you cut them, the crispier they will be - so you choose between steak fries or shoestring fries). If you are lucky enough to own a spiralizer... spiralize those bad boys.

seriously, i love this thing
wheeeeee!

 3. In a large ziploc bag, combine cheese and seasoning. Add turnips and shake to coat (you may dance while shaking if you want, i've found it adds to the flavor as well as the experience).

4. Place turnips on baking sheet and back for 15-20 minutes (or until turnips are tender and golden).

 

before the cookin'

 after!

 5. Enjoy!

taa daaa!

if any of you are curious about what turnips taste like, because i know i was

i found them to taste similar to radishes (when raw) 

and kinda like a potato-onion hybrid (when cooked) 

they have a slight sweet flavor (like cooked onion)

but the overall dish was tasty

and apparently turnips are one of "The 150 Most Healthiest Foods on Earth"

win-win, eh?

have you ever tried turnips? how do you like to cook turnips?