I’m torn this Wednesday on whether the week is flying by or not. Work is still full of busy work and I’m playing catchup from on all the chores I avoided while playing over the weekend, like laundry, grocery shopping and wondering if that bird dodo will ever come off my car since I’ve avoided washing it for so long. That’s one problem to living in an area that goes for months without rain. I hardly ever had to wash my car while living in Florida, the regular summer evening downpours took care of that. Here I get layers of bugs and dust until I throw in the towel and take it through the next gas station car wash. When I was younger, I used to obsess about keeping my car super clean, the dash nice and shiny and vacuumed. Now it’s the last thing I want to spend time on.

But something I have been spending more time on is finding a happy balance between feeling beautiful, natural and healthy, a hard balance to find today with so many mixed messages flying around. And it’s easy to get so focused on eating healthy, but not being healthy in other areas of life which this article nails.

While we may strive to embrace our ancestors’ diet, we still continue to mutilate our bodies in other ways in the interest of self-improvement.

And:

Adding more fruits and vegetables to our diet will improve our skin and our measurements. Trading heels for flats and tanner for a sunhat, however, will make us short, stumpy, and pale, so we are less likely to make the swaps

Gotta love beauty pressure. But I’d like to respectively disagree with the pale part because I’ve noticed a stronger golden glow to my skin because I eat so many fruits and vegetables that’s a healthier alternative to sun-damage. But this article makes some good points about the trade-offs of healthy living while trying to feel beautiful by today’s standards, we should be questioning the health affects of more than just food. I’m slowly making changes in other areas too like no longer using ammonia hair dye, foundation and trying more natural beauty products that won’t drain my account, which isn’t easy. Currently I’m looking to replace my face wash and moisturizer with more natural products. I suppose I could be like Any Phyo and use coconut oil on my skin, but I’m afraid I’ll turn into one giant zit.

Anyway, I tried and tried, but I just couldn’t make the wireless keyboard and mouse I bought last week work for me.

The scroll wheel only worked about 25% of the time which is really frustrating for blog reading, I kept getting low signal errors on the mouse even though it was inches from the receiver and there was a lag on the keyboard. Plus the sponginess of the keyboard started getting to me. I guess it was the cheapest mouse/keyboard combo for a reason, lesson learned with another trip to Best Buy to swap it for a swank new illuminated Logitech keyboard.

I considered this keyboard last week, but it was way too expensive for a wired keyboard. This week it went on sale for what I paid for cheap wireless set – it was a sign I guess. So far this keyboard is much better, the lit keys are nice for late-night or early, half-awake typing especially since I prefer more mood-lighting for my home office area. And because it’s wired, no signal problems or lag.

And while I was near Whole Foods on my lunch break, why not stop by for a quick lunch pickup?

I tried another flavor of Kevita Kefir Water – Lemon Ginger and it was much better than the last flavor I tried, no where near as bitter and a perfect mild balance of lemon and ginger, not being too sweet. This is a great alternative to the Gingerade Kombucha flavor we used to be able to get and it’s given me new inspiration for my next batch of homemade kefir water.

It’s been fun and cheap skipping large market trips over the last 2 weeks and improvising recipes with what I had, but I caved in and made another Whole Foods run after work yesterday because my list was getting too long.

I had a wonderfully relaxing and leisurely 45-minute stroll around the store stocking up on produce, more produce, tempeh, quick healthy eats for hubby’s busy work week, vegan cheese alternatives that were on sale and looked good (What was that about not shopping on an empty stomach?), and bulk foods. I also picked up dinner for hubby and I from the salad and hot bars ending up with a pretty stuffed cart.

And a pretty big shock at the $140 bill at checkout – eek! Usually my trips aren’t that high, but I haven’t been in awhile and was restocking. Plus I only go to Whole Foods about once a month lately to load up on items I can’t get anywhere else, everything else from farmer’s markets and Trader Joe’s.

My dinner salad was pretty typical.

I tried to add veggies that I haven’t had in awhile with bulgar and black beans, filling, but not too exciting.

For lunch today I went a little cheaper with a usual homemade salad.

Spinach, red pepper, carrots, and red cabbage with Ani’s Orange Ginger Dressing and hemp seeds. That dressing is one of my favorites that’s simple to toss in a blender and I love the fresh orange flavor and it  includes fresh ginger, which provides anti-inflammatory benefits and seems to help digestion for me.

After all the salads over the last few days, I was craving protein for dinner and opted for a cooked vegan dinner starting with these ingredients.

I spiralized the butternut squash into noodles to try sauteing them with the tempeh slices and used the carrots in the Vita-Mix as a base for a curry sauce. Then sliced up the zucchini and yellow quash to add to the skillet and poured the curry sauce over the top, stirred in and simmered for about 10 minutes for a curry tempeh meal skillet.

What I found is that butternut squash noodles basically break down into mush when you cook them, but that was fine for this dish because they absorbed the curry flavors nicely and the slight sweet flavor in the squash paired well with curry.