She found the website Meetup.com. (did I tell you about the last one with the people who hate vegetarians? If I did, did I tell you about the nice lady who was at our table that I tried to get in contact with?) On the website meetup my sister also found a group for Vegetarians. We met them all for dinner tonight. 

I really enjoyed it! And the girl that I may or may not have told you from the last one came walking in.

How amazing. I am really looking forward to the next time we can all meet up for dinner. I think even my husband would enjoy this.  Not really any agenda except eating with people who for one reason or another all eat the same foods.

Of course the place we went served mostly vegetables, but I did enjoy some nice rice & tofu and sauce.

Yoga, acupunture and dinner with new people. All in all, a good day!

This is the route we will take on our tip in May.

We will fly into Los Angeles and then drive up the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) to Santa Barbara and stay the night there. The next day we will drive to Carmel for the night (Monterey on this map)

Then the next day onto San Francisco. We will stay in San Francisco for five days and then fly home from there. I am trying to remember all of the things my Facebook Friend has said over the years that I should not say or do while in San Francisco. For instance you are not, under any circumstances allowed to say San Fran. As if I would!

I have been on a cooking binge the last week. Cooking things that I can freeze up later for lunches. As you know my current diet is rather restricted (vegetarian & radiation damage) but recently I've been able to add a bunch more foods. YAY!

This first picture may not look very appetizing but it is so good!

It is cauliflower soup. Made with only, cauliflower, onion, olive oil, water, salt & pepper. It tastes like a good potato soup broth. Happy with it. Next time ( and there will be a next time) I will replace half of the water with coconut milk, and use more cauliflower. It wasn't as thick as I would have liked.

This is a crockpot soup. The main ingredients were cauliflower, red lentils and quinoa. There were a lot of ingredients in this. It came out quite nicely, except it's got a little bit of kick to it that I didn't want. I only used a 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne but it's too much for someone being gentle on their innards.

This was my breakfast yesterday. I cut up a banana and threw on a pack of hulled hemp seeds that I had been given. It was quite tasty, but that's not the reason you are seeing the picture. The camera on my phone has been acting funny for a week and it wasn't until this picture that I found the magic fix.

I cleaned the lens!! I must have gotten some coffee or tea on it.

Ah, this was the soup that started it all. I took all of these vegetables and chopped them up and tossed them with some olive oil and roasted them (30 minutes covered with parchment paper - 30 minutes without) 

Then I threw all the roasted vegetables in a blender with the mushroom broth.

The mushroom broth over powered everything else but it was still good. More importantly I had no problems eating it! Wasn't sick at all.

Today for the first time in at least 14 days I skipped my morning workout.  I got up late and had to make a choice. Be late to work for the THIRD day in a row or skip it, so I skipped it. I would have felt more guilty if I had been late. Monday I was late by 10 minutes and Tuesday by 25. Aggravating.

Off and running now.

Watched Three Movies;

The Awakening:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1687901/?ref_=sr_1

I liked this. Had a couple of things that I would have changed. Made it a little more subtle, added pictures on the wall of animated cats (hahahahah, that's a joke that you will only get under a certain set of circumstances if you see the movie)

The Pact:

http://www.imdb.com/rg/em_share/title_web/title/tt2040560

The Awakening got better ratings on IMDB but I would recommend this one instead. This one stuck in my head, I've had images of it pop into my brain ever since I watched it. I think that's a the sign of a good movie. Not great, but definitely my cup of tea! During one particular high stress point of the movie my big dog suddenly stood up and barked! I thought my heart stopped. Scared the bejeezus out of me. Glad I didn't watch this one late at night.

And OZ, the Great and Powerful

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1623205/

I liked Oz as well. Didn't love it. I really don't like watching James Franco. I don't know why. I think the movie would have been better with a different lead, and if it had swung a little harder into either fantasy or darkness. It was too split. I think they did a great job with the 3d Effects.

I have been drinking the hell out of this tea!

Not to strong, not too weak. Low caffeine.

I really do have a lot to say, but by the time I get a chance to sit down and type I've forgotten it all. My big plan for the weekend is to clean my sock drawer.

A picture showed up randomly on my computer background that I didn't recognize which caused me to go look through my saved pictures. So I will pick a few and share with you.

Mr. Murray in Vegas. Recognize this place Nina? 

Just Look at that crowd of people. Not a parade..just a normal day.

Another one from Sweden. Love those streets.

A little tiny one that I discovered on Facebook yesterday. My niece and I.

How does one get so many crumbs on the top of a refrigerator door? I do not know. This is at work.

This is also at work. I bought these containers at IKEA last weekend to hold our utensils. I have the same ones at home in green. Perfect. I would just like to point out to a certain person that if said person had made a bet with me regarding container number 4, I would have lost.

I forgot to bring my breakfast. Probably for the best.  I always have a ton of random assorted food that I bring into work and don't get around to eating so it's rarely a crisis when I forget food. Oh, and I'm surrounded by restaurants and grocery stores.

I have been working incredibly hard to get in 10,000 steps a day since Saturday and to be as active as possible. I'm exhausted!  I have missed on one day so far by 1500 steps. Did I just tell you this yesterday?  Last night I just gave up and hopped on the treadmill for a mile to finish off my steps. One of the other things I do is  step while watching tv. I have a childs step stool that I got at IKEA last year for like $4.00 and I just step up & step down. I average about 100 steps a minute so it's a pretty good workout. It's also very tiny & unstable so it adds a little drama occasionally.

I was reading back through the March blogs of the last six years. It's so fun to have a place to do that. So much food talk.

Remember this?

It was all the rage back in the 2006's.

I'm having one of those bad brain days. I keep typing and saying the completely wrong word.

April will be full of typo's as when I'm at work and start to type it out, it frequently become Aptilo.

Had lunch with my son & daughter today, it was nice. 

Birds have started bonding and they were touching their beaks together yesterday. It was very cute.

I have NOTHING planned after work. YAY!

I am intestinally challenged today. BOO. Ever since that bowl of Tomato soup at Panera last weekend. Just can't seem to get back on track. I really can't wait for the day I can eat anything I want. When I was in Texas I was talking to someone who's mother had radiation treatments a few months before I did and she's still in very very bad shape. 

Life is so strange.

10,000 steps is a freaking lot of steps!

I need to find a hot beverage to drink.

I like Coffee but I try not to drink too much. I drink coffee in the mornings and I have some very nice decaf for my Kuerig that I will drink occasionaly.

I do not drink black teas anymore. I do not like green tea. I do not like Fruit teas. I do not like teas with cinnamon in them. I do not drink anything with calories in it.

I like a specialty tea that I buy that is actually Cherry bark, but it is frightfully expensive and apparently can have some unwelcome side effects if you drink too much. I really just need like two or three more hot glasses of something a day to make me happy.

Any suggestions?

This is my coworker:  http://koriar.xanga.com/

He is new to the whole trying to lose weight, trying to get healthier Merry-Go-Round. He's not a good blogger, to inconsistent  but hopefully he'll find some encouragement here. I know him too well and am too mean to be a good encourager.

He bought a FitBit so my sister immediately challenged him to a one week step-off.

Tracy

Just a post to complain about things

I listen to NPR on my radio while I get ready for work. When I'm driving to work I listen to Sirius XM. I alternate between Music, Comedy, CNN & BBC. Just depends on the week.  The last couple of weeks I have been primarily switching back and forth between CNN & BBC I really enjoy listening to Global news as reported from another country. It just gives you a little perspective. I was unhappy with BBC last week. I don't know if it was just timing or what but every time I turned on the radio they were telling me what the new Pope was doing. I understand his importance as the leader of the Catholic church. I do not understand the importance of his daily schedule on the world news organizations.

I watched Survivor a few days ago. I have only seen a couple of episodes of this particular one. One woman on there was discussing how happy she was that the tribes had gotten mixed up because now she had "a gay" She went on about how she loved "the gays" and was so happy to have "a gay" with her now. When did this become acceptable?  I must assume that most of the world knows that "the gays" are actually individual people and not interchangeable. Just because you have a friend who is gay doesn't mean that all people who are gay will want to be your friend. Just because someone is gay also does not necessarily make them the fabulous nice person that you will want to hang around with!  We're not talking about an individual race of people, we are talking about people who are gay. Drives me crazy.

Last year I was lucky enough to be given a male canary. He was a tenant at my daughters PetSmart and couldn't be sold because of a medical problem. I've always wanted a canary so I was pretty happy about this. He's a beautiful yellow canary who sings and sings and everyone loves him. Last month my daughter told me about another canary that needed a home. She had been in the store for years and never bought because she was not a pretty yellow. She is all grays. Then she broke her leg and had to go through medical treatments, so she could not be sold. We brought her home yesterday and my male bird is not happy about sharing his cage! No real fights just some chasing and puffing up. She seems to be taking it in stride. Hopefully they'll become fast friends soon.

I'll take some better quality pictures later this week.

Oh! and this morning at Yoga I did a wide angle forward bend and touched the top of my head to the floor. Been trying to do that for years!

and I wanted to build a healthy happy organization I would buy everyone FitBits. Set it up like a friendly competition and perhaps occasional awards. No need to make it big.

So let's say you have 30 people in your company. It will cost you $3000.00 for the FitBits and then give away like $50.00 a month or something. That's nothing compared to the benefit you will get with people trying to be healthier and the bond people will get from participating in something all together. Of course you can't force people to participate, you need them to want to.

Even the currently active people will benefit from the camaraderie and the reminder to be active.

I have a whole plan in my head for doing monthly step competitions and prizes. You could buy little stepper machines and keep them in your conference rooms. You know the really small ones that are really only two little foot pedals that go up and down.

Some companies offer health incentives, like health clubs or such. I think the FitBit would be a great addition to that since they already have the website built and it allows you to add "friends".

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I wrote this as private on March 5. Today one of the guys at work bought a FitBit. It made me smile so i came over to update this to public and change the date.