What's your perfect day?

First, before I get into my thoughts I want to apologize for how long it's been since my last post... I could say I've been busy, which is the truth...but honestly I just didn't know what to write! It's not that I haven't been cooking (because I have!) or that I've fallen off the unprocessed band wagon (because in fact I'm more committed than ever!)... but I just didn't have the creative juices flowing! But needless to say they're back and I have much to share with you!

Now...before I get all deep into thought (with some recipes thrown in there as well)... I'd love to give you a quick glimpse of my summer!!  We've been beer/wine/liquor tasting in the fingerlakes with friends...

 Birthday bloody mary sipping and Taste NY sampling in Saratoga...

We had arts and crafts day at the house to finally hang my indoor herb garden (woot woot!)...











And canning canning canning... so as not to waste any of this years beautiful peppers...

 

And last but not least... our most recent trip was to Boston to take my future father-in-law to a Red Sox game... we had a very sentimental stop at the bench where Robin Williams sat during the filming of Good Will Hunting and a few more alcoholic beverages along the way. 

 I feel very lucky and fortunate to get to do all the things that I've done this summer. I also love that I've found freedom and peace of mind in my new lifestyle so I can go out and do all of these amazing things and make great memories without guilting myself over how many calories I consumed. Up until about a week ago... 8 days to be exact... I've been living my days about 70% unprocessed and working out rather regularly. The weekends though have always been my doom...until recently anyway. 

It all started when Nate and I decided to put together a bucket list... well it was more like I decided and bugged him while he was sprawled out on the couch watching TV ... haha but it sounds much better the other way. Anyway...as I sat there writing down our bucket list I started to take it rather serious... this was a list of things that I want to do with my life... MY LIFE... now without getting into religion and any other topic, I thought... I only get one life, in this body, with these exact people, facing these exact circumstances... what do I want to make of it, what do I want to get out of it, what is important to me??? Now that's a pretty heavy question that one could take several ways... but I've decided to do the opposite of what I normally do and just keep it simple... or in Nate's words K.I.S.S. ... keep it simple stupid! And that's just what I've done... every morning I wake up and ask myself, what would make today a perfect day? It doesn't need to be all crazy and elaborate, nor do I need to spend the entire day engaged in something, or figure out some way to conquer the world or cure cancer... but instead the question more reflects and requires me to determine, what is it that I need to accomplish today that will make me proud of myself and focused on the things I find most important. It's required me to ask myself what is truly most important in my life and I find my days to be much more simple, less complicated and more enjoyable. 

Now there are many things I've realized since this but since this is a mainly a food blog that's what I'll focus on. One of the things that I've found to be important to me is my health... I want to enjoy so many things in life and that's very hard to do if you're just not healthy. For me, being healthy means taking my game up a few notches when it comes to eating unprocessed (I'm currently on day 8 of completely unprocessed food) and putting in more of an effort when I'm working out. 

Well I think that's enough... I've babbled quite a bit today haha... so it's time for some recipes!! And boy do I have some good ones!!! You'll just have to wait until tomorrow though... I promise I'll be back to share!!